Comment by ThrowawayR2
2 months ago
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
2 months ago
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
But it's frankly not true, despite your desire to appear sardonic
For instance, does Richard Stallman fit this mold?
RMS' vision depended on as much adoption of Free Software as possible to both starve proprietary software producers and to get contributions of copyleft source code rolling back in to the FOSS ecosystem to make it unstoppable and he knew full well that most software is produced and consumed by businesses. So, yes, RMS fits the mold; he needed capitalists to adopt Free Software wholesale but failed to foresee how one-sidedly exploitative the relationship would eventually be.
If you disagree, please explain how RMS and/or Perens do not fit the mold.
I think your analysis is too simplistic.
Stallman cared / cares mostly about user freedom, but was canny enough to understand that businesses would also been to be able to engage with this freedom too.
Copyleft licensing was put in place _because_ commercial exploitation was expected. It was designed to preserve user freedoms.
Compromise was built in the model.
But the unexpected twist was cloud; which broke the safety mechanism.
This is the reason I feel it's unfair to say that proponents of the movement are naive. Exploitation was predicted from the outset. A complex turn of events drew the shape of the current landscape.
And if blame is to be apportioned anywhere, it should be firmly at the feet of the corporations profiting.
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