NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/gnu/misc/discuss/4211

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Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
From: [e-mail] (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 5 Jan 93 02:29:55 EST
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal
Nntp-Posting-Host: husc10.harvard.edu
Lines: 341

In order to save time, I shall no longer attempt to address the most
egregious fools purporting to find a flaw in my words.  Consequently,
if I ignore your responses, you may consider yourself offended; if I
choose to answer them, feel free to regard yourself as somewhat
complimented.

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] writes:

>In <[e-mail]>
>[e-mail] (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>>In article <[e-mail]>
>>[e-mail] (Bill Johnston) writes:

>[ ... and so on, back and forth ... ]

MZ:
>>>>>>The way I see it, the use of GNU places me under a legal obligation to
>>>>>>the FSF [...]

>[ ... ]

BJ:
>>>You could have saved time by making it clear that what you meant
>>>in repeated assertions about the "use" of GNU software is really
>>>"proprietary use of the source code".  Most computer folk employ
>>>the term "use" in the same sense as "user", namely, someone who
>>>"uses" the software tools.  Similarly, a driver is more apt to be
>>>thought of as the "user" of a car than is the mechanic.

MZ:
>>The use of any text encompasses quotation and paraphrase, as well as
>>any other form of consumption; programs are no exception.

ME:
>I believe the CopyLeft places no restrictions on "paraphrasing" -- so
>feel free to go ahead to your heart's content.

Correct.  What about quotation?

BJ:
>>>If you are complaining that the GPL does not grant you the right
>>>to "proprietary use of the source code", well, that's tough.

MZ:
>>Tough or not, that is what makes it non-free.

ME:
>So, what you're basically saying is that since you are not free to
>make it non-free, it is not "free" (as has already been mentioned in
>this thread, all these "free"s are not referring to cost, but rather
>to freedom of use).

Nonsense.  What I am saying is that I am not free to use GNU in any way
I see fit; more importantly, nor am I free of legal obligation implicit
in, and specific to its use.  Consequently, it is not free.  Is this so
hard to understand?

ME:
>This comment comes up from time to time in the GNU newsgroups, and it
>is really indicative of a catch-22 situation involved with making
>software free: if people were free to use the software proprietarily,
>then this might ultimately lead to software that is not free.  Since
>freedom of all software is the FSF's goal, they impose a limitation on
>using their software in proprietary products -- while this places an
>immediate restriction on the freedom of their product, it helps their
>larger goal of freedom of all software.

Well I hope you excuse me for not giving a diddly fuck for the FSF's
goal, -- what you describe as freedom of all software, may be more
felicitously described as FSF's *ownership* of all software under the
terms of the GPL (read it).  My own personal goal is much more modest,
being freedom for all men.  And until such time as thy wise up and
abolish the shackles of private property, this goal includes their
freedom to appropriate.  This is a freedom they are explicitly denied
by the terms of the GPL.

As a programmer, I see no way to regard a program as free, unless I am
at liberty to dispose of it as I see fit, whether by donating a copy
to my batty uncle, or by turning it into a super-secret encryption
routine.  By this standard, GNU is at least as proprietary as System V.

ME:
>Your objection that this makes the GNU products not "free" is not
>compelling.  For example, analogies have been made in this thread to
>people's freedom; however, people's freedom is not without
>restrictions -- consider stealing and killing, for example.

Please do not be offended if I tell you that my intention is not to
compel the masses, but merely to persuade those intelligent enough to
understand my argument.  As always, the responsibility to demonstrate
sufficient intelligence belongs to the recipient.  In this particular
instance, you are not doing terribly well, as is evidenced by your
remarkably unenlightening parallel between freedom of agents on one
hand, and freedom of goods or information on the other.  I put it this
way and leave it at that, so that you can vindicate yourself by figuring
out the salient differences.

BJ:
>>>The only sense of the word "proprietary" that is applicable here
>>>would be "made and marketed by by one having the exclusive right
>>>to manufacture and sell" (Webster's 7th Collegiate).

MZ:
>>Not so.  Read the GPL.  Any inclusion of GNU code into a piece of
>>software legally causes the latter to fall under the provision of the
>>former's licensing.  In other words, it's the Foundation's way of
>>saying "use me in what you make, and it becomes mine".

ME:
>"..., and it becomes everybody's" would be more accurate.  You make it
>sound like they are interested in having possession of every
>modification made to their products, and using it to their benefit --
>very unlikely propositions.

How silly.  A sufficient condition for owning intellectual property, is
to have it licensed in one's name.  Need I explain further?

BJ:
>>>So how can you complain that you cannot assert an exclusive right to
>>>manufacture and sell copyrighted work that has been "made" by others?

MZ:
>>Listen, nitwit, try to get it straight: I am not complaining on my own
>>behalf, but on behalf of the sorely abused English language.  There's
>>free and there's proprietary; some programs, like TeX, get close
>>enough to the former for all intents and purposes, without trumpeting
>>the moral superiority of their creators.

ME:
>Gee, a little namecalling never hurt an argument, eh?  And you seem to
>be expending a lot of effort arguing on behalf of the poor English
>language.  (Don't you think it can stand up for itself?  I have a
>feeling it will be around a lot longer than either you or I.)  Tell
>us, if you were walking down the street and heard someone "abuse" some
>English, would you stop and correct them?  In any case, it sounds like
>you do have something personal involved in this thread (if it wasn't
>clear previously, that last sentence above certainly makes it so).

No shit, Sherlock.  This thread started with my caustic response to an
apologetic diatribe by RMS on the subject of the virtues of the FSF
distribution fees.  From its inception, it has been meant to settle
personal differences; however it so happens that these differences stem
from a philosophical disagreement.

To recapitulate the story so far: having been entranced by the siren
song of the original GNU Manifesto, published in Dr Dobb's Journal in
December of 1984, I had become involved as a volunteer with the creation
of the FSF long before its official inauguration, dropping my work as a
software consultant in LA to come to Cambridge.  However, after five
months, it became abundantly clear that the participants' respective
conceptions of software freedom differed rather drastically.  Another
contributor, Chuck Wegrzyn, had his fill of arguing with Stallman, and
dropped out.  I persevered, habitually voicing certain disagreements
over the copyright conditions, but still emphasizing my absolute
willingness to abide by the majority rule.  Nevertheless, his MIT
backers Abelson and Sussman persuaded Stallman to break his original
promise to give me a seat on the board of directors.  (At least that was
the story I was able to reconstruct from the accounts of the
principals.)  The company was chartered without notifying me.

Experience had taught me to expect this sort of treatment from
businessmen, but to be shafted by a soi-disant Kantian anarchist was
quite a shock.  However, despite my great resentment of this underhanded
and spineless action, I decided against pursuing this matter any
further.  So for seven and a half years, I have been silently sparing
Stallman's tender sensibilities, perhaps giving him a chance to
apologize or change his ways.  After all, for all I knew, his associates
were right in claiming that his mental health needed protection from
anyone not willing to support his particular vision.  Of course, that
consideration was offset by the need to repair the damage incurred by
myself and my parents, who supported me financially throughout my little
idealistic adventure; but then they were strong, grown-up people, who
needed no nurturing to pull through; as for me, I just had to learn that
beautiful words were not a guarantee of forthright actions.  And, after
all, Stallman's foundation appeared successful, and who could argue with
success?  But then I started having second thoughts.  If double-dealing
and self-serving bullshitting could be vindicated by success, then the
commercial software companies, with their unabashed, unmitigated greed,
were infinitely preferable to the hypocritical willfulness of the GNU
crew, presumably determined to make all software in the world free, --
by placing it into the bondage of the General Public License!  After
all, both had similar agenda of expansion for its own sake; yet the
latter were further distinguished by their counterfactual claims to
moral entitlement.  At least Microsoft and AT&T made no secret about
their motives.

With many of my original points borne out by the success of TeX and X, I
felt even stronger in my convictions; moreover, I got insulted by the
high moral ground assumed by RMS and his employees in the presence of
truly free software.  Their current attempt to justify their fundraising
policies just happened to get my goat.  As a student of philosophy and
language, and a man of definite convictions, I felt appalled by the
petty attempts at semantic legerdemain, perpetrated under the slogan of
"we shall force you to be free".  I maintain now, as I did then, that
true freedom is absolutely incompatible with any sort of coersion.  The
sloganeering of the "Free Software Foundation" (a name that I deeply
regret having suggested), deeply offends my sensibilities.

Witness this little gem:

    To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
    anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the
    rights.

The GPL, so it is said, is intended to protect the rights of me, the
user of GNU.  It should not come as a surprise that it does so by
making restrictions of these very rights.  Why does it strike this
blow against my rights? because the FSF needs to do it in order to
protect my rights.  (If you are old enough, you may recall the classic
beatnik song by the Fugs, "Kill For Peace"; the idea is essentially
the same.  But let us proceed.)  The FSF forbids anyone, presumably
including yourself, to deny you these rights, _ipso facto_ itsef
denying you your rights.  But wait, -- does not the scope of "anyone"
include the FSF itself?  So we have that, in denying your rights in
order to protect them, the FSF forbids itself to deny you your rights;
and, _mutatis mutandis_, forbids itself to ask you to surrender your
rights, while explicitly demanding that you surrender them.  To hell
with logic; this is more fun than Russell's paradox.

But to return to "the personality issue", I believe that my past history
with RMS and FSF gives me a right to insist on making myself heard.  At
the moment, my argument has the structure of that classic game, "Are you
a man or a mouse?"  Assuming that RMS decides to act like a man, he has
several options.  Though I would not wish to compete with the Lubavicher
Rebbe for the current messianic honors, the easiest way to classify them
is along the classic Evangelical varieties of guilt and remorse:
Stallman could perjure himself by renouncing me, like St Peter, kill
himself from unbearable shame, like Judas Iscariot, or tearfully repent,
like Mary Magdalen.  I confess that I still harbor some fugitive hopes
for an apology, and a change of mind.  There is nothing I would like to
see more than GNU being released into the public domain, to lead by
example hundreds of thousands of programmers harassed by nondisclosure
agreements and proprietary pacts.  In a world chock full of twitching
marionettes, what could be more liberating than a gift with no strings
attached?  The most likely manly outcome, however, is the Party gambit:
to boldly denounce me as a traitor of the Cause, in the manner of Joe
Stalin.  But what I am really betting on, is that our hero will choose
the way of a mouse.  Mice are charming and gregarious creatures, but as
every schoolboy knows, they have no concept of honor, shame, or
responsibility.  Even that would be personally satisfying: I shall have
gone on record with my statement, and the pregnant silence of my
interlocutor will bear most eloquent witness to the truth of my words.
Unfortunately, he will continue his Indian giver act unimpeded by
competition.

But must he?  Could I not pass the GNU code through a sufficiently
sophisticated filter, deriving a program isomorphic to the original, but
different in every literal detail of implementation?  Could I not then
copyright the result and release it into the public domain?  Would the
Free Software Foundation file a "look and feel" lawsuit to stop my
mischief?  Would Stallman, in his capacity of the head honcho of the
League for Programming Freedom, be compelled to picket himself in his
avatar of the FSF big cheese?  Come to think of it, why is he not doing
so right now?  Wait for the future installments of our serial; we now
return you to the regularly scheduled flame war.

MZ:
>>With the GNU programs, in
>>many important ways, it's just the opposite: not only are they
>>proprietary by any reasonable standard, but they also have the effect
>>of appropriating any program they participate in, regardless of the
>>extent or ratio of such participation.

ME:
>Using the sense of "proprietary" offered up above, GNU products would
>certainly not seem proprietary.  What other sense(s) are you thinking
>of?  And it's interesting how you say "... they paticipate in" -- as
>if it was up to them!  Hey, anyone is free to not use the GNU
>products, you know.  Besides, the CopyLeft only restricts the
>licensing that resulting programs can be distributed with -- it
>doesn't affect the ownership (unless you are using a pretty broad
>definition of ownership).

As I remarked above, ownership of intellectual property is conditioned
by licensing it one's name.  No other sense of ownership is relevant
here.  Also, I believe that my use of language is perfectly unambiguous;
however if you insist, I'll paraphrase it by stating that the GPL has
the effect of automatically extending its scope to encompass any program
which includes a fragment of code licensed under it, regardless of the
size or ratio of such inclusion.  Consequently, its legal terms are
characteristic of FSF's declared utopian intention to liberate, i.e.
appropriate, all software in the world.  Lest I be corrected by legions
of GNU afficionados, this appropriation is said to be intended for my
own good.  But regardless of the merits of Stallman's intention, his
humanitarian program manifests every property of voracious, expansive,
arrogant paternalism.

In my equally arrogant opinion, the only way to attain freedom, is to
treat people as fully deserving and capable of responsibility.  Any
scheme which depends on the assumption that the general public is
inherently incapable of sustaining a standard of responsible behavior,
ought to be discouraged, rather than rewarded.

BJ:
>>>Who grants such rights to their own intellectual property?  Not those
>>>who publish public domain software;  one cannot claim an "exclusive"
>>>rights to sell PD software.  It is true that one can incorporate
>>>PD source code in a proprietary work and claim an exclusive right
>>>to distribute a particular executable, or the portions of its source
>>>that you have written.  Still, you cannot prevent others from doing
>>>the same thing with the public domain source code, therefore the use
>>>of the PD code is not "exclusive".

MZ:
>>What I would like to see, is programs like GNU distributed with a
>>copyright notice containing a supererogatory (look it up) *request*
>>that their proprietory employment not exceed the conventional limits
>>of "fair use".  Anything else is coersion, and as such, does not
>>deserve to be called free.  I invite you to meditate on the meaning of
>>this word, before you continue with the content-free blather you
>>evidently intend as a rebuttal.

ME:
>As I see it, the FSF is more concerned with freedom of all software in
>general, not with releasing software totally without restrictions.
>Unfortunately, these conflct, as I explained above, and the
>restrictions in the CopyLeft make sense when looked at this way.
>Further, the issue of "fair use" doesn't arise.

And as I see it, they ought to be more concerned with the freedom of all
men in general, which is countervailed by such restrictions.

ME:
>(Now, whether the FSF's goal is a good goal is a totally separate
>issue.  Here the issue seems to be the FSF's policies in the light of
>their use of the word "free".)

I see the issues as inseparable.

>--
>Milt Epstein
>Department of Computer Science
>University of Illinois
>[e-mail]

cordially,
mikhail [e-mail]
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."