Zero Freedom vs Freedom Zero

[MyndFyre]

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001044.html

This is an AWESOME article about Freedom Zero (the right to run any software on any hardware for any purpose).  It also criticizes open source.  Yay :)

[Blaze]

I love that blog, and it's pretty much the only non-company blog I read.  :)

[iago]

I actually read that blog a couple days ago (I forget who sent it to me, but it could have been Blaze...). Maybe I missed something (I read it quickly), but I don't recall him criticizing opensource, only Apple and closed-source programs (like MovableType, one of my greatest enemies at Symantec)..

[MyndFyre]

I actually read that blog a couple days ago (I forget who sent it to me, but it could have been Blaze...). Maybe I missed something (I read it quickly), but I don't recall him criticizing opensource, only Apple and closed-source programs (like MovableType, one of my greatest enemies at Symantec)..

Why are so many of the more sophisticated examples of code in the online world-- like the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines or like Adobe's Flash-- the results of proprietary development? Why did the adored iPhone come out of what many regard as the most closed, tyrannically managed software-development shop on Earth? An honest empiricist must conclude that while the open approach has been able to create lovely, polished copies, it hasn't been so good at creating notable originals. Even though the open-source movement has a stinging countercultural rhetoric, it has in practice been a conservative force.

[nslay]

Why do you dislike open source?  I think its GNU and FSF you should criticize...not open source.
It's so ironic too...posting hate for open source on the back of Windows' BSD-derived network stack...And oh God, how unoriginal BSD's network stack is.
Why can't you see the good in anything besides Microsoft?

[iago]

*gets out 10 ft pole*

Hmm.. nah, still not gonna touch this. :D

[nslay]

*gets out 10 ft pole*

Hmm.. nah, still not gonna touch this. :D

Yeah, I'm thinking it was a bad idea...

[iago]

Heh. :)

Let's just focus on what the article's main point is, which is that Apple sucks. :D

[MyndFyre]

Why do you dislike open source?  I think its GNU and FSF you should criticize...not open source.
It's so ironic too...posting hate for open source on the back of Windows' BSD-derived network stack...And oh God, how unoriginal BSD's network stack is.
Why can't you see the good in anything besides Microsoft?

Hahahaha.  I don't dislike open source actually....  I regularly open-source (BSD or public domain) most of the software that I write on my own.  GNU and FSF are in fact the ones I really like to pick on.  But when I think of the "open-source" community, those are the ones that I think of.  Copyleft licenses are almost universally so restrictive that I worry about incorporating anything I've learned looking at code into my projects (personal or business) for fear that what happened to Linksys will happen to me one day.

BUT - I also see the value that closed-source development provides to the software community that it seems most open-source advocates cannot.  I think the quote at the end of the blog post says it succinctly:

Some of the youngest, brightest minds have been trapped in a 1970s intellectual framework because they are hypnotized into accepting old software designs as if they were facts of nature.

No, I don't dislike open-source.  In fact, I've been given permission from my boss to open-source some ASP.NET validation controls I wrote for use on Facebook (since the intrinsic ones don't work), and I'm working on polishing them up for release.  Yes - I'm pushing my business to do it.  The community software project that I'm working on is going to be open-source (if I ever get something worthwhile done with it).  I just open-sourced my .NET PropertyGrid extensions and regularly contribute code and insight to the development community.  I don't think that knowledge necessarily belongs trapped in the brains of a few, but I don't look down on people who retain their knowledge privately for reasons of personal gain.  And I've got issue with people who think that all knowledge should belong to everyone, which seems to comprise the majority of the open-source community.

As to the "it also criticizes open-source" comment - I was referring to the FSF/GNU community.

[nslay]

Why do you dislike open source?  I think its GNU and FSF you should criticize...not open source.
It's so ironic too...posting hate for open source on the back of Windows' BSD-derived network stack...And oh God, how unoriginal BSD's network stack is.
Why can't you see the good in anything besides Microsoft?

Hahahaha.  I don't dislike open source actually....  I regularly open-source (BSD or public domain) most of the software that I write on my own.  GNU and FSF are in fact the ones I really like to pick on.  But when I think of the "open-source" community, those are the ones that I think of.  Copyleft licenses are almost universally so restrictive that I worry about incorporating anything I've learned looking at code into my projects (personal or business) for fear that what happened to Linksys will happen to me one day.

BUT - I also see the value that closed-source development provides to the software community that it seems most open-source advocates cannot.  I think the quote at the end of the blog post says it succinctly:

Some of the youngest, brightest minds have been trapped in a 1970s intellectual framework because they are hypnotized into accepting old software designs as if they were facts of nature.

No, I don't dislike open-source.  In fact, I've been given permission from my boss to open-source some ASP.NET validation controls I wrote for use on Facebook (since the intrinsic ones don't work), and I'm working on polishing them up for release.  Yes - I'm pushing my business to do it.  The community software project that I'm working on is going to be open-source (if I ever get something worthwhile done with it).  I just open-sourced my .NET PropertyGrid extensions and regularly contribute code and insight to the development community.  I don't think that knowledge necessarily belongs trapped in the brains of a few, but I don't look down on people who retain their knowledge privately for reasons of personal gain.  And I've got issue with people who think that all knowledge should belong to everyone, which seems to comprise the majority of the open-source community.

As to the "it also criticizes open-source" comment - I was referring to the FSF/GNU community.

Wow, I'm quite impressed and touched by your response.  I apologize for misreading your post as some sort of zealotry.
I'm not quite sure what is meant by "1970s intellectual framework" or "old software designs"...aside of hardware, nothing seems to have changed.

Btw, I recommend you read "The Rise of Worse is Better"...its a great personification of most open source software.  It appeared in the UNIX-Hater's handbook...  You should get a laugh out of it.
http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

I don't agree with branding, some of what is mentioned, as "bad" though...open source is a bicycle without training wheels and a helmet.

P.S. It doesn't specifically mention open source...but the design philosophy around a lot Unix software.