Doesn't change the fact that all code you release under an Apache license is free software in the sense of the four freedoms as defined by the FSF. Whether you like their ways or not.
As a software engineer myself, I find that sort of demagoguery a bit tiring, and consider a license with less mandatory stipulations as more "free" (admittedly under a different definition than the FSF) than one that has required stipulations. As a result of this, there are many people like the parent, and myself, who could really care less about Free Software but find open source development as one of the most effective software development methodologies. Is all OSS I release also Free Software? Sure! Can someone relicense something I publish with a MIT/Apache license as proprietary software without releasing the code? Sure! My definition is more free = less restrictions, and more restrictions = less free. By that definition, the GPL is a less free (as in freedom for the users / consumers) than the MIT / Apache / BSD.
RMS has said a lot over the years, including that the dual licensing business model (e.g. GPL + proprietary) is a valid business model (i.e. whatever it takes to keep development of the GPL version going). And his opinions don't necessarily reflect the official position of the FSF.
That's still irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about what Free Software is and how it compares with Open Source.
No, no it does not and rms has very specifically said that free software doesn't need to be copyleft. They even have a diagram which explicitly includes permissive licenses in the free category:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.en.html
Your definition of freedom isn't different than the FSF's. You perhaps just disagree on what is necessary to safeguard that freedom and you disagree that proprietary software is unethical.
Frankly he is more concerned with who actually control the computing hardware and software being in use on a daily basis.
Keep in mind that one of the issues that got him on his quest was the loss of the ability to modify a printer driver to message those with a print job in the queue that the printer was out of paper.
It may seem frivolous, but it made life that much nicer at MIT. Because once the printer down the hall was out, any number of people may converge on it to fix it once they got the message. Without it, any number of print jobs may be sitting in wait because nobody had checked if there were still paper ready before adding another job to the queue.
> GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution.
The phrasing is a bit different (it's from a point of view of freedom of distribution), but essentially he's pointing out the copyleft idea; that the code can never go back to a model that doesn't provide the same guarantees.
So, there's the freedom of distribution, versus the freedom of someone to restrict the distribution. Both cannot exist at the same time. He's quite clear that the benefits of freedom of distribution outweigh (any potential) benefits of restriction, so he's happy to deny others that "freedom". It gets phrased in many ways, but right or wrong, that's what it is. In that sense, I agree with the poster I responded to; to the person doing the coding themselves, an MIT license leaves more doors open, and hence feels more free.
Freedom 1 and 3 apply specifically to users who are or will become developers. I believe what we actually want to talk about is publisher vs user/consumer instead of developer vs user.
The FSF people really like their ambiguous terminology, unfortunately.
It seems more like one that has grown in into being in more recent years, particularly with the rise of mobile and web.
Yep, this is pretty much what I referred to. It is not just about code being given away, it is about making closed code illegal which is something I disagree with.
I also disagree with less strong but still demagoguery claims about closed code being somehow unethical. Or chest thumping with no data to confirm it about how all open source programmers are the most skilled programmers in the world, how open source is by definition all clean and well done and closed source programmers are all totally incapable. (Tho, people usually stop to drum this one the moment they find first job. Which tends to be closed source.) Or chest thumping about how all open source communities are totally awesome meritocratic places with no bullshit politics going on ever and how all companies are surely political hell holes.
I mean sure, old Microsoft claims about how open source is all amateurs doing bad quality work is equal bullshit, but that does not cancel out sheer ego and overstatements so often coming out of free/open ideologues. RMS totally did the work of 11 people alone, back then, right?
Case in point, overwhelming majority of open source, especially big projects, is written by employed people, which is imo, actually cool. That includes linux and that data is easily googleable. But the free software ideologists will still run about hobbyist magically developing large projects in their spare time (while they are also working overtime in companies they are employed in no less, cause they are passionate and because who would ever add two numbers together).
Another case in point, RMS boasted about there surely being more women in open source, cause it is so much better environment, until data came out and turned out women are more likely to work on close source. (The difference does not say anything wrong nor good about either group imo, just that the claim was confident bullshit based on ego thinking alone. There are enough differences that have nothing to do with how good either environment is.)
As far as I am concerned, there is no open source community as single entity. There are comunities around concrete projects, some better then others. Anyone pretending to represent whole open source is usually doing it for politics and ego.
Please don't judge the whole open source community by ESR.
You mean like rewriting entire projects, just because they have the wrong open source defined license? Tell me, which operative systems welcome all software that the Open source initiative define as open source, and which operative systems do only allow a very narrow list of licenses that match a specific ideology?
Diversity in licenses is a sign of cooperation.
You cant just mix licenses, because licenses disallow/allow activities.
You can't have both a no-ideological community and "no gpl welcome". Either you welcome everyone and focus on getting code to work, or you exclude based on licenses and reinvent the wheel. The question you need to ask is what is important for you. If the most important thing for the project is the license choice, then be upfront about the ideological choice that such goal is. If the goal is to get working code that will use any software you can legally use, then a more pragmatic approach is more suitable.
I personally don't run operative system which focus more on the license rather than getting things done. My work also don't pay me for license choices, but they do for code that works and create value for the customers. I could put agpl code on the servers and you know what, no one would object.
You can legaly include apache in GPL software.
Following your theory, one would either have to break GPL and risk legal problems or exclude close source users of his work.
But I digress. There is a clear bright line between writing code to solve a problem, and rewriting code because the license don't let you create property in the form of closed code. One is about pragmatic problem solving, and one is about ideology. One allows for code reuse, one is limited to my-way-is-the-only-way.
If you live in an ideology that demand that everything you do must be made into property owned by the company and only secondary solves problem for a customer, you will be slower than a companies which more pragmatically focused on fixing problems for customers. Don't blame others if you are self-imposing such restrictions on yourself.
It absolutely does. It fixes problem of people who work on close source or otherwise something incompatible is gpl. You either dont count them as people or as problems and neither makes sense. I used open source inside closed source. So yep, if I am going to five away, I will give to the same pool. Generous people gave me something, so I am giving back.
A library that I can not use does not solve any problem. That is not pragmatic, just something with limited use. Which is fine, if you feel strongly about your work use being restricted to some people only. I don't.
The moment when your logic twists gpl into literally "the only pragmatic license" is the moment when I wonder whether you are even honest in your arguments.
I disagree with free software peoples opinions often and don't want much contact with that community (prefer less ideological communities and less my-way-is-the-only-way and if-you-want-something-different-then-me-you-are-stupid communities).