Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/29/VMware.html

[ This blog was crossposted
on Software Freedom Conservancy’s website. ]

On last Thursday, Christoph Hellwig and his legal counsel attended a
hearing in
Hellwig’s VMware
case that Conservancy currently funds. Harald Welte, world famous for
his GPL enforcement work in the early 2000s, also attended as an
observer and wrote
an excellent
summary. I’d like to highlight a few parts of his summary, in the
context of Conservancy’s past litigation experience regarding the GPL.

First of all, in great contrast to the cases here in the USA, the Court
acknowledged fully the level of public interest and importance of the case.
Judges who have presided over Conservancy’s GPL enforcement cases USA
federal court take all matters before them quite seriously. However, in
our hearings, the federal judges preferred to ignore entirely the public
policy implications regarding copyleft; they focused only on the copyright
infringement and claims related to it. Usually, appeals courts in the USA
are the first to broadly consider larger policy questions. There are
definitely some advantages to the first Court showing interest in the
public policy concerns.

However, beyond this initial point, I was struck that Harald’s summary
sounded so much like the many hearings I attended in the late 2000’s and
early 2010’s regarding Conservancy’s BusyBox cases. From his description,
it sounds to me like judges around the world aren’t all that different:
they like to ask leading questions and speculate from the bench. It’s
their job to dig deep into an issue, separate away irrelevancies, and
assure that the stark truth of the matter presents itself before the Court
for consideration. In an adversarial process like this one, that means
impartially asking both sides plenty of tough questions.

That process can be a rollercoaster for anyone who feels, as we do, that
the Court will rule on the specific legal issues around which we have built
our community. We should of course not fear the hard questions of judges;
it’s their job to ask us the hard questions, and it’s our job to answer
them as best we can. So often, here in the USA, we’ve listened to Supreme
Court arguments (for which the audio is released publicly), and every
pundit has speculated incorrectly about how the justices would rule based
on their questions. Sometimes, a judge asks a clarification question
regarding a matter they already understand to support a specific opinion
and help their colleagues on the bench see the same issue. Other times,
judges asks a questions for the usual reasons: because the judges
themselves are truly confused and unsure. Sometimes, particularly in our
past BusyBox cases, I’ve seen the judge ask the opposing counsel a question
to expose some bit of bluster that counsel sought to pass off as settled
law. You never know really why a judge asked a specific question until you
see the ruling. At this point in the VMware case, nothing has been
decided; this is just the next step forward in a long process. We enforced
here in the USA for almost five years, we’ve been in litigation in Germany
for about one year, and the earliest the Germany case can possibly resolve
is this May.

Kierkegaard wrote that it is perfectly true, as the philosophers say,
that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other
proposition, that it must be lived forwards. Court cases are a prime
example of this phenomenon. We know it is gut-wrenching for our
Supporters to watch every twist and turn in the case. It has taken so
long for us to reach the point where the question of a combined work of
software under the GPL is before a Court; now that it is we all want this
part to finish quickly. We remain very grateful to all our Supporters
who stick with us, and the new ones who will join
today. That
funding makes it possible for Conservancy to pursue this and other
matters to ensure strong copyleft for our future, and handle every other
detail that our member projects need. The one certainty is that our best
chance of success is working hard for plenty of hours, and we appreciate
that all of you continue to donate so that the hard work can continue.
We also thank the Linux developers in Germany, like Harald, who are
supporting us locally and able to attend in person and report back.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/29/VMware.html

[ This blog was crossposted
on Software Freedom Conservancy’s website. ]

On last Thursday, Christoph Hellwig and his legal counsel attended a
hearing in
Hellwig’s VMware
case that Conservancy currently funds. Harald Welte, world famous for
his GPL enforcement work in the early 2000s, also attended as an
observer and wrote
an excellent
summary. I’d like to highlight a few parts of his summary, in the
context of Conservancy’s past litigation experience regarding the GPL.

First of all, in great contrast to the cases here in the USA, the Court
acknowledged fully the level of public interest and importance of the case.
Judges who have presided over Conservancy’s GPL enforcement cases USA
federal court take all matters before them quite seriously. However, in
our hearings, the federal judges preferred to ignore entirely the public
policy implications regarding copyleft; they focused only on the copyright
infringement and claims related to it. Usually, appeals courts in the USA
are the first to broadly consider larger policy questions. There are
definitely some advantages to the first Court showing interest in the
public policy concerns.

However, beyond this initial point, I was struck that Harald’s summary
sounded so much like the many hearings I attended in the late 2000’s and
early 2010’s regarding Conservancy’s BusyBox cases. From his description,
it sounds to me like judges around the world aren’t all that different:
they like to ask leading questions and speculate from the bench. It’s
their job to dig deep into an issue, separate away irrelevancies, and
assure that the stark truth of the matter presents itself before the Court
for consideration. In an adversarial process like this one, that means
impartially asking both sides plenty of tough questions.

That process can be a rollercoaster for anyone who feels, as we do, that
the Court will rule on the specific legal issues around which we have built
our community. We should of course not fear the hard questions of judges;
it’s their job to ask us the hard questions, and it’s our job to answer
them as best we can. So often, here in the USA, we’ve listened to Supreme
Court arguments (for which the audio is released publicly), and every
pundit has speculated incorrectly about how the justices would rule based
on their questions. Sometimes, a judge asks a clarification question
regarding a matter they already understand to support a specific opinion
and help their colleagues on the bench see the same issue. Other times,
judges asks a questions for the usual reasons: because the judges
themselves are truly confused and unsure. Sometimes, particularly in our
past BusyBox cases, I’ve seen the judge ask the opposing counsel a question
to expose some bit of bluster that counsel sought to pass off as settled
law. You never know really why a judge asked a specific question until you
see the ruling. At this point in the VMware case, nothing has been
decided; this is just the next step forward in a long process. We enforced
here in the USA for almost five years, we’ve been in litigation in Germany
for about one year, and the earliest the Germany case can possibly resolve
is this May.

Kierkegaard wrote that it is perfectly true, as the philosophers say,
that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other
proposition, that it must be lived forwards. Court cases are a prime
example of this phenomenon. We know it is gut-wrenching for our
Supporters to watch every twist and turn in the case. It has taken so
long for us to reach the point where the question of a combined work of
software under the GPL is before a Court; now that it is we all want this
part to finish quickly. We remain very grateful to all our Supporters
who stick with us, and the new ones who will join
today. That
funding makes it possible for Conservancy to pursue this and other
matters to ensure strong copyleft for our future, and handle every other
detail that our member projects need. The one certainty is that our best
chance of success is working hard for plenty of hours, and we appreciate
that all of you continue to donate so that the hard work can continue.
We also thank the Linux developers in Germany, like Harald, who are
supporting us locally and able to attend in person and report back.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/29/VMware.html

[ This blog was crossposted
on Software Freedom Conservancy’s website. ]

On last Thursday, Christoph Hellwig and his legal counsel attended a
hearing in
Hellwig’s VMware
case that Conservancy currently funds. Harald Welte, world famous for
his GPL enforcement work in the early 2000s, also attended as an
observer and wrote
an excellent
summary. I’d like to highlight a few parts of his summary, in the
context of Conservancy’s past litigation experience regarding the GPL.

First of all, in great contrast to the cases here in the USA, the Court
acknowledged fully the level of public interest and importance of the case.
Judges who have presided over Conservancy’s GPL enforcement cases USA
federal court take all matters before them quite seriously. However, in
our hearings, the federal judges preferred to ignore entirely the public
policy implications regarding copyleft; they focused only on the copyright
infringement and claims related to it. Usually, appeals courts in the USA
are the first to broadly consider larger policy questions. There are
definitely some advantages to the first Court showing interest in the
public policy concerns.

However, beyond this initial point, I was struck that Harald’s summary
sounded so much like the many hearings I attended in the late 2000’s and
early 2010’s regarding Conservancy’s BusyBox cases. From his description,
it sounds to me like judges around the world aren’t all that different:
they like to ask leading questions and speculate from the bench. It’s
their job to dig deep into an issue, separate away irrelevancies, and
assure that the stark truth of the matter presents itself before the Court
for consideration. In an adversarial process like this one, that means
impartially asking both sides plenty of tough questions.

That process can be a rollercoaster for anyone who feels, as we do, that
the Court will rule on the specific legal issues around which we have built
our community. We should of course not fear the hard questions of judges;
it’s their job to ask us the hard questions, and it’s our job to answer
them as best we can. So often, here in the USA, we’ve listened to Supreme
Court arguments (for which the audio is released publicly), and every
pundit has speculated incorrectly about how the justices would rule based
on their questions. Sometimes, a judge asks a clarification question
regarding a matter they already understand to support a specific opinion
and help their colleagues on the bench see the same issue. Other times,
judges asks a questions for the usual reasons: because the judges
themselves are truly confused and unsure. Sometimes, particularly in our
past BusyBox cases, I’ve seen the judge ask the opposing counsel a question
to expose some bit of bluster that counsel sought to pass off as settled
law. You never know really why a judge asked a specific question until you
see the ruling. At this point in the VMware case, nothing has been
decided; this is just the next step forward in a long process. We enforced
here in the USA for almost five years, we’ve been in litigation in Germany
for about one year, and the earliest the Germany case can possibly resolve
is this May.

Kierkegaard wrote that it is perfectly true, as the philosophers say,
that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other
proposition, that it must be lived forwards. Court cases are a prime
example of this phenomenon. We know it is gut-wrenching for our
Supporters to watch every twist and turn in the case. It has taken so
long for us to reach the point where the question of a combined work of
software under the GPL is before a Court; now that it is we all want this
part to finish quickly. We remain very grateful to all our Supporters
who stick with us, and the new ones who will join
today. That
funding makes it possible for Conservancy to pursue this and other
matters to ensure strong copyleft for our future, and handle every other
detail that our member projects need. The one certainty is that our best
chance of success is working hard for plenty of hours, and we appreciate
that all of you continue to donate so that the hard work can continue.
We also thank the Linux developers in Germany, like Harald, who are
supporting us locally and able to attend in person and report back.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/29/VMware.html

[ This blog was crossposted
on Software Freedom Conservancy’s website. ]

On last Thursday, Christoph Hellwig and his legal counsel attended a
hearing in
Hellwig’s VMware
case that Conservancy currently funds. Harald Welte, world famous for
his GPL enforcement work in the early 2000s, also attended as an
observer and wrote
an excellent
summary. I’d like to highlight a few parts of his summary, in the
context of Conservancy’s past litigation experience regarding the GPL.

First of all, in great contrast to the cases here in the USA, the Court
acknowledged fully the level of public interest and importance of the case.
Judges who have presided over Conservancy’s GPL enforcement cases USA
federal court take all matters before them quite seriously. However, in
our hearings, the federal judges preferred to ignore entirely the public
policy implications regarding copyleft; they focused only on the copyright
infringement and claims related to it. Usually, appeals courts in the USA
are the first to broadly consider larger policy questions. There are
definitely some advantages to the first Court showing interest in the
public policy concerns.

However, beyond this initial point, I was struck that Harald’s summary
sounded so much like the many hearings I attended in the late 2000’s and
early 2010’s regarding Conservancy’s BusyBox cases. From his description,
it sounds to me like judges around the world aren’t all that different:
they like to ask leading questions and speculate from the bench. It’s
their job to dig deep into an issue, separate away irrelevancies, and
assure that the stark truth of the matter presents itself before the Court
for consideration. In an adversarial process like this one, that means
impartially asking both sides plenty of tough questions.

That process can be a rollercoaster for anyone who feels, as we do, that
the Court will rule on the specific legal issues around which we have built
our community. We should of course not fear the hard questions of judges;
it’s their job to ask us the hard questions, and it’s our job to answer
them as best we can. So often, here in the USA, we’ve listened to Supreme
Court arguments (for which the audio is released publicly), and every
pundit has speculated incorrectly about how the justices would rule based
on their questions. Sometimes, a judge asks a clarification question
regarding a matter they already understand to support a specific opinion
and help their colleagues on the bench see the same issue. Other times,
judges asks a questions for the usual reasons: because the judges
themselves are truly confused and unsure. Sometimes, particularly in our
past BusyBox cases, I’ve seen the judge ask the opposing counsel a question
to expose some bit of bluster that counsel sought to pass off as settled
law. You never know really why a judge asked a specific question until you
see the ruling. At this point in the VMware case, nothing has been
decided; this is just the next step forward in a long process. We enforced
here in the USA for almost five years, we’ve been in litigation in Germany
for about one year, and the earliest the Germany case can possibly resolve
is this May.

Kierkegaard wrote that it is perfectly true, as the philosophers say,
that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other
proposition, that it must be lived forwards. Court cases are a prime
example of this phenomenon. We know it is gut-wrenching for our
Supporters to watch every twist and turn in the case. It has taken so
long for us to reach the point where the question of a combined work of
software under the GPL is before a Court; now that it is we all want this
part to finish quickly. We remain very grateful to all our Supporters
who stick with us, and the new ones who will join
today. That
funding makes it possible for Conservancy to pursue this and other
matters to ensure strong copyleft for our future, and handle every other
detail that our member projects need. The one certainty is that our best
chance of success is working hard for plenty of hours, and we appreciate
that all of you continue to donate so that the hard work can continue.
We also thank the Linux developers in Germany, like Harald, who are
supporting us locally and able to attend in person and report back.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/29/VMware.html

[ This blog was crossposted
on Software Freedom Conservancy’s website. ]

On last Thursday, Christoph Hellwig and his legal counsel attended a
hearing in
Hellwig’s VMware
case that Conservancy currently funds. Harald Welte, world famous for
his GPL enforcement work in the early 2000s, also attended as an
observer and wrote
an excellent
summary. I’d like to highlight a few parts of his summary, in the
context of Conservancy’s past litigation experience regarding the GPL.

First of all, in great contrast to the cases here in the USA, the Court
acknowledged fully the level of public interest and importance of the case.
Judges who have presided over Conservancy’s GPL enforcement cases USA
federal court take all matters before them quite seriously. However, in
our hearings, the federal judges preferred to ignore entirely the public
policy implications regarding copyleft; they focused only on the copyright
infringement and claims related to it. Usually, appeals courts in the USA
are the first to broadly consider larger policy questions. There are
definitely some advantages to the first Court showing interest in the
public policy concerns.

However, beyond this initial point, I was struck that Harald’s summary
sounded so much like the many hearings I attended in the late 2000’s and
early 2010’s regarding Conservancy’s BusyBox cases. From his description,
it sounds to me like judges around the world aren’t all that different:
they like to ask leading questions and speculate from the bench. It’s
their job to dig deep into an issue, separate away irrelevancies, and
assure that the stark truth of the matter presents itself before the Court
for consideration. In an adversarial process like this one, that means
impartially asking both sides plenty of tough questions.

That process can be a rollercoaster for anyone who feels, as we do, that
the Court will rule on the specific legal issues around which we have built
our community. We should of course not fear the hard questions of judges;
it’s their job to ask us the hard questions, and it’s our job to answer
them as best we can. So often, here in the USA, we’ve listened to Supreme
Court arguments (for which the audio is released publicly), and every
pundit has speculated incorrectly about how the justices would rule based
on their questions. Sometimes, a judge asks a clarification question
regarding a matter they already understand to support a specific opinion
and help their colleagues on the bench see the same issue. Other times,
judges asks a questions for the usual reasons: because the judges
themselves are truly confused and unsure. Sometimes, particularly in our
past BusyBox cases, I’ve seen the judge ask the opposing counsel a question
to expose some bit of bluster that counsel sought to pass off as settled
law. You never know really why a judge asked a specific question until you
see the ruling. At this point in the VMware case, nothing has been
decided; this is just the next step forward in a long process. We enforced
here in the USA for almost five years, we’ve been in litigation in Germany
for about one year, and the earliest the Germany case can possibly resolve
is this May.

Kierkegaard wrote that it is perfectly true, as the philosophers say,
that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other
proposition, that it must be lived forwards. Court cases are a prime
example of this phenomenon. We know it is gut-wrenching for our
Supporters to watch every twist and turn in the case. It has taken so
long for us to reach the point where the question of a combined work of
software under the GPL is before a Court; now that it is we all want this
part to finish quickly. We remain very grateful to all our Supporters
who stick with us, and the new ones who will join
today. That
funding makes it possible for Conservancy to pursue this and other
matters to ensure strong copyleft for our future, and handle every other
detail that our member projects need. The one certainty is that our best
chance of success is working hard for plenty of hours, and we appreciate
that all of you continue to donate so that the hard work can continue.
We also thank the Linux developers in Germany, like Harald, who are
supporting us locally and able to attend in person and report back.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html

I’ve been making the following social observation frequently in my talks
and presentations for the last two years. While I suppose it’s rather
forward of me to do so, I’ve decide to name this principle:

Kuhn’s Paradox

For some time now, this paradoxical principle appears to hold: each
day, more lines of freely licensed code exist than ever before in human
history; yet, it also becomes increasingly more difficult each day
for users to successfully avoid proprietary software while completing their
necessary work on a computer.

Kuhn’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

I believe this paradox is primarily driven by the cooption of software
freedom by companies that ostensibly support Open Source, but have the (now
extremely
popular) open
source almost everything philosophy.

For certain areas of software endeavor, companies dedicate enormous
resources toward the authorship of new Free Software for particular narrow
tasks. Often, these core systems provide underpinnings and fuel the growth
of proprietary systems built on top of them. An obvious example here is
OpenStack: a fully Free Software platform, but most deployments of
OpenStack add proprietary features not available from a pure upstream
OpenStack installation.

Meanwhile, in other areas, projects struggle for meager resources to
compete with the largest proprietary behemoths. Large user-facing,
server-based applications of
the Service
as a Software Substitute variety, along with massive social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook that actively work against federated social
network systems, are the two classes of most difficult culprits on this
point. Even worse, most traditional web sites have now become a mix of
mundane content (i.e., HTML) and proprietary Javascript programs, which are
installed on-demand into the users’ browser all day long, even while most
of those servers run a primarily Free Software operating system.

Finally, much (possibly a majority of) computer use in industrialized
society is via hand-held mobile devices
(usually inaccurately
described as “mobile phones”). While some of these devices
have Free Software operating systems (i.e., Android/Linux), nearly all the
applications for all of these devices are proprietary software.

The explosion of for-profit interest in “Open Source” over the
last decade has led us to this paradoxical problem, which increases daily
— because the gap between “software under a license respects my
rights to copy, share, and modify” and “software that’s
essential for my daily activities” grows linearly wider with each
sunset.

I propose herein no panacea; I wish I had one to offer. However, I
believe the problem is exacerbated by our community’s tendency to ignore
this paradox, and its pace even accelerates due to many developers’ belief
that having a job writing any old Free Software replaces the need for
volunteer labor to author more strategic code that advances software
freedom.

Linksvayer’s View On Motivations & Causes of Kuhn’s Paradox

Linksvayer agrees the paradox is observable, but disagrees with me
regarding the primary motivations and causes. Linksvayer claims the
following are the primary motivations and causes of Kuhn’s paradox:

1. Software is becoming harder to avoid.
2. Proprietary vendors outcompete relatively decentralized free
   software efforts to put software in hands of people.

The latter may be increasing or decreasing. But even if the latter is
decreasing, the former trumps it.

Note the competition includes competition to control policy,
particularly public policy. Unfortunately most Free Software activists
appear to be focused on individual (thus dwarfish) heroism and insider
politics rather than collective action.

I rewrote Linksvayer’s text slightly from a comment made to this blog post
to include it in the main text, as I find his arguments regarding causes as
equally plausible as mine.

As an Apologia for
the possibility that Linksvayer means me spending too much time
on insider politics, I believe that the cooption I discussed above means
that the seemingly broad base of support we could use for the collective
action Linksvayer recommends is actually tiny. In other words, most
people involved with Free Software development now are not Free Software
activists. (Compare it to 20 years ago, when rarely did you find a Free
Software developer who wasn’t also a Free Software activist.) Therefore,
one central part of my insider politics work is to recruit moderate Open
Source enthusiasts to become radical Free Software activists.