Free Software: An idea whose time has passed?

Re:Free Software: An idea whose time has passed? by denton-scratch on Thursday March 25, 2021 @06:52AM (#26578591)

Actually the FSF (in the form of the FSFE) have achieved rather a lot. Governments in Germany, for example (federal government general and the governments of the states) have been successfullly lobbied to use free software to create public documents, and to adopt the use of free software in general by their staff.

And why does the free software movement need a legislative agenda? I've never seen legislation concerning software that wasn't horribly flawed. Legislation is the product of lobbying and the ignorance of legislators. If the FSF promoted a "legislative agenda", then I for one would have much diminished confidence in it.

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Re:Free Software: An idea whose time has passed? by galgalesh on Thursday March 25, 2021 @09:59AM (#26580343)

A bunch of the people involved in creating the fsfe have publicly stated that is was founded because of disagreements with the FSF and it's leadership. If I recall correctly, the about page of fsfe stated this for a long time.

The fsfe now also officially cut their ties to FSF because of RMS' reapportionment.

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Re:Free Software: An idea whose time has passed? by vharuck on Thursday March 25, 2021 @02:14PM (#26583517)

>And why does the free software movement need a legislative agenda? I've never seen legislation concerning software that wasn't horribly flawed. Legislation is the product of lobbying and the ignorance of legislators.

That's a good reason to have a legislative agenda. Laws will be written, and some will likely impact the FSF's interests. If they send lobbyists and lawyers to argue for specific wording, the laws might not suck so much.

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Re:Free Software: An idea whose time has passed? by fao_ on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:56AM (#26579101)

> the FSF (in the form of the FSFE)

As of right now, they are separate organizations.

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Re:Free Software: An idea whose time has passed? by denton-scratch on Saturday March 27, 2021 @09:32AM (#26602169)

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

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Re:Free Software: An idea whose time has passed? by PaulHoule on Thursday March 25, 2021 @08:08AM (#26579194)

Unions in Germany have fought to get Microsoft Office back.

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Re:Free Software: An idea whose time has passed? by bildung on Thursday March 25, 2021 @08:36AM (#26579445)

I find that hard to believe - the opposite, resistance against the employee surveillance Office 365 enables, is a hot topic in most German unions right now.

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