Re:Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement
by oefrha on Sunday April 17, 2022 @11:25PM
(#31067021)
Okay, honest question, other than this impossible-to-quantify symbolic value, did FSF make any meaningful contribution/impact over the past two decades? They kept preaching their maximalist philosophy which seems increasingly convincing almost no one; their old flagships kept chugging along, some (or the majority) of them gradually losing relevance, thanks in part to GPLv3; no new hotness is joining the GNU umbrella AFAIK; Savannah is completely irrelevant outside some GNU projects and is less usable than phpBB. Ironically, I guess the hostility of GPLv3 spurred the development and adoption of many permissive replacements, which is arguably an unintended contribution. And on the opposite end of people and companies wanting to be less permissive, they find even the least permissive GNU license inadequate, since they usually give zero shit about “freedom”, it’s financial contributions that they seek; so they’re moving to source available instead of copyleft.
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Re:Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement
by PaulDavisThe1st on Sunday April 17, 2022 @11:35PM
(#31067095)
Not really a counter to anything you've said, but just wanted to note that after two decades of fighting open source licensing for their widely popular VST audio plugin API, Steinberg finally did release under the GPLv3.
Re:Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement
by KennyBlanken on Sunday April 17, 2022 @11:39PM
(#31067117)
And what did Stallman or FSF have to do with that? The FSF won't even defend GPL violations in court. Others have had to organize efforts to do so.