why should software be free?

Can't into Subject

>>59038614
Why shouldn't it?

>>59038614
Because otherwise Skynet, Matrix 'n' shiiieeet.

It shouldn't. Freetards can't into economy. Proprietary software allows people to profit from their labor, which incentivizes innovation and further development of software. FOSS doesn't, at best it's powered by donations and volunteers. Because their resources are so limited, 99% of the time they're just playing catch up to what proprietary software developers are doing. There's a reason Apple and Microsoft dominate the consumer desktop OS market.

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Because everything should be free.

>>59038714
You're making the mistake of assuming that "intellectual property" is not an oxymoron. Something that is not economically scarce can't be property, since my taking a copy doesn't deprive you of the use of it. When the marginal cost of making a copy approaches zero, the natural market price for the item approaches zero.

Copyright and patents are nothing more than crony capitalism - """content producers""" persuading the government to give them an entirely artificial, unnatural, and unnecessary monopoly.

Because property is theft.

I don't even care about free software

I just want dat money

>>59038862
Proudhon is pretty cool.

>>59038854
Pure sophistry. It takes thousands of hours and millions of dollars to develop and OS. Those people deserve the right to their property as much as any other engineers creating something.

>muh crony capitalism
No, crony capitalism arises when the government colludes with corporations to maintain their power and lock out competitors.

>>59039002
>It takes thousands of hours and millions of dollars to develop and OS. Those people deserve the right to their property as much as any other engineers creating something.
So why do free (speech and beer) operating systems exist then?

>>59039018
Because autistic people are willing to spend their free time developing things without profiting from them.

>>59039028
>autistic people are willing to spend their free time developing things without profiting from them.
More than 80% of kernel devs are employed by companies who use Linux in one capacity or another. Companies literally pay then very good money to work on free software.

Why would they do that, if you're correct? They wouldn't.

>>59038714
>FOSS doesn't allow people to profit from their labor

Learn some more before the next time you make an argument. There are lots of ways to make a profit by writing free software.

The reason that software should be free is that people should be able to depend on the tools they use, rather than the tools being controlled by someone else.

>>59039046
I know there exists organizations that pay their employees to write free software. what I'm curious about is how do those organizations make money?

>>59039046
And none of that software is sold in the consumer space.

>>59039094
Literally "the means of production should be controlled by the people that use them, not the owners" tier.

>>59039201
>How does Intel make money?
>How does AMD make money?
>How does Red Hat make money?
>How does Google make money?
>How does Facebook make money?
gee I don't know

Free as in gratis? It shouldn't.

>>59039256
...what? they make money buy selling their products. how the fuck does an organization creating free software make money? advertising? telemetry? botnet?

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>>59038614
Software should be what the free market wants it to be.
You can use Microsoft a a case study, 10 years ago they hated open source, now they push for it.
Same as all the major tech companies.
>inb4 loony ancap
Pic related

For the most part, software is a service industry, not a product-based one.

it already is unless you're a pleb

free software is not practical by any means, but as having a computer could even be considered a necessity today (try applying for a job without an email), this ensures certain freedoms

assuming we are talking about actual free software rather than free beer

of course i see torvalds as the more rational and practical of the two, but i also have respect for stallman, despite him being an actual commie, as he is the one of the very few who is working for actual freedom, rather than just convenient software

>>59038614
It's to fight the CIA

>>59039201
By using said software to run their infrastructure, i.e. to help them do the thing that actually makes them money. Being partial contributors to an open source project is cheaper than developing everything in-house, and it gives them more control than buying a solution from a separate vendor that may screw them over later.

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>>59039256
> Intel: CPU's, Business contracts
> AMD, GPU's, CPU's, Business contracts
> Red Hat, Customers are, Adobe, Avianca, booz/Allen/Hamilton, Casio, E*Trade, FICO, Intuit, Sprint and 2 other companies, Plus donations,
> Google, Targeted advertising (Selling your info, you are the product)
> Facebook (See google)
sorry can't tell if genuine question but there you go.

>>59038718

 
If 
 Free from retards 
then
 yes

>>59038614
Because 0's and 1's are not scarce.

>>59039002
Monetise the labour, not the non-scarce-once-produced product.

>>59039992
Alright, you have removed the incentive to develop desired tools. GG.

>>59039464
MS currently pushes free programs with data collection, or subscription programs (also with data collection :^))

>>59039239
>>Literally "the means of production should be controlled by the people that use them, not the owners" tier.
Except the means of productions are computers, which non-free software vendors neither own nor use, but sure as fuck want to control.

>>59040136
>WAAHHHHHH CORPORATIONS PRIVATELY OWNING THINGS THAT I USE IS OPPRESSHUN
kys commie

>>59040227
>people's computers are owned by corporations
>wanting control over your own property is communism
Tell your mother not to drink brake fluid during pregnancy ever again.

>>59040504
kek wincucc
#reqt

>>59038862
directly after that he said property is freedom
he was not a communist, he was a free market mutualist (not a capitalist either)

>>59040504
>you should be entitled to other people's intellectual property simply because you agreed to install it on your computer

>>59038614
Because no software is a non-trivial "new" creation. Everything you can make with existing programming languages and for that matter any existing computer hardware is glued-together existing stuff. You cannot copyright a for loop, you cannot copyright a for loop and a conditional, you cannot copyright a for loop, conditional and switch statement, ad infinitum. At which point does code become copyrightable? You don't own reality, you don't own the ability of a cpu to do work, how would a set of instructions for a cpu be copyrightable?

You can charge through the nose for services accompanying the software, including the staff wages, that's all fine... But code itself as a bunch of text cannot.

Literary works for example are different because they entail an underlying story, they create extra value.

>>59040584
intellectual property doesn't exist, that is propaganda, property is property and nobody gets to dictate what you do with it, with intellectual property you don't actually own shit, the company owns it with the help of the government

>>59038614

Free in which way?

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>>59040647
>a dissembled car is worth the same as an assembled car

>>59038614
knowledge should be a basic service like water, not "free", but paid and subsidized by the government through taxes

>>59040714
Actually disassembled cars are often worth more. There's a reason professional car thieves strip cars for parts.

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>>59040714
>using a material property for your metaphor
the cognitive dissonance is strong

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>>59040736
thieves strip cars so they dont get traced back, not because there is more profit

not sure if stupid or just ignorant but ill be nice enough to assume latter.

>>59040714
a car takes skill to put together and carries risks

if burgerstan with its "bootcamps" are any indication, programming can be done by any fucking idiot and is thus worthless

>>59040584
>when buying a book, you must sign a license agreement preventing you from scribbling on it, rearraning the pages, skipping boring chapters, citing it, lending it or reselling it. Also, the book should be able to move your bookshelf around the house. That's because "you're not entitled to other people's intellectual property", you see.
That's how proprietary software industry works.

>I'm entitled to other people's work
Freetards, everywhere.

>>59040895
>a car takes skill to put together and carries risks
>literally code that is executed via robotics
stop shilling so hard

>>59040726
I think a better way to put it is "protected but easily accessible if you want it, not locked inside fort knox behind drm"

I think a lot of the anti-copyright feelings these days stem from its overuse. When you can patent hotdog-shaped hamburger buns and a silicone outcrop on earpieces under the name "EarClick technology", people get pissed. The happy birthday song is copyrighted, companies think we have a duty to watch ads and we should be thankful for it, etc. How do you not expect backfire?

>>59040668
>M-muh corporate propaganda
I bet you're some freetard SJW that complains about GitHub being sexist.

>>59040919
>my shitty metaphor means that I'm entitled to other people's work
LOL!

>>59040714
It's the same in medicine, they create synthetic because you cant patent the real thing.
Generics, are often just other synthetic designs.

>>59040934
precisely anon, exclusivity is as dangerous to progress and to creators as the lack of profit

What if someone made a good libre program, but released it only if kickstarter reached some goal? Then it would be released for everybody, the people that paid would finance the hosting of the project, donations to libre middleware used for this project etc.

>>59040957
>compering intellectual property to intellectual property is a "metaphor"
>book owners are "entitled" to their author's work
Brake fluid. Not even once.

>>59041027
Krita does this, Krita is good.
They mostly work on what gets money rather than just holding it hostage.

>>59041093
Your metaphor is shit. If someone tried copying a book and selling it, they'd be violating the author's IP rights and would rightly get shot. Yet, you are arguing that people should be allowed to redistribute software in a way that is illegal with books.

>>59041096
I played with Krita a bit and was surprised how nice this program is, even though I don't work with graphics.
I was thinking about financing libre software and the kickstarted idea seems to be the best I had so far, because embedding advertisement in a program, that can have it's source code changed easily wouldn't convince any companies to invest.

>>59039002
>No, crony capitalism arises when the government colludes with corporations to maintain their power and lock out competitors.

Copyright and Patents are literally made up monopolies enforced by the state. Granted, they might incentivize innovation, but calling it property is a farce.

>>59041180
Ideas are just electrical charges and/or atoms in your head/on a computer. Regular matter is just energy that has mass. I don't see why we should make a distinction with regards to property rights.

>>59041128
As a painter, Krita is what most of us were looking for and everyone kept screaming "GIMP USE GIMP"... gimp is still godawful.

It's like telling programmers "Hey, notepad exists, no need for anything else!"
Tools have to be designed for the target audience ESPECIALLY when it comes to things that already have a substantial foothold.
From our standpoint "Sure, Photoshop is expensive, but how much money do I make using it?"

Right now allot of us are wanting to switch to Linux because of what windows has been doing, but it doesn't have everything needed, so it's like do I save time/money or do I still loose money?
1 day downtime due to a shit update still isn't equivalent to the slowdown that happens, that equates to roughly 1 week (Or more) downtime after a year passes.

>>59041114
>you are arguing that people should be allowed to redistribute software

No, you idiot. I'm arguing they should be allowed to view and modify the code they run on their computers, just like they're allowed to scribble in books and rip the pages they don't like. I don't give a fuck about software being free to redistribute or free as in beer, as long as _my_ computer stays under my control.

I'm also arguing that you don't need 200-page long EULAs where you "license the right to read a book" and agree for publishing company representatives to come and fuck you in the ass whenever they please, and yet -- as you so brilliantly pointed out -- books stay protected by plain old copyright.

>>59041479
I'm not convinced. People aren't allowed to get ahold of the coca cola recipe and modify it. Idk why software should be any different.

>>59040942
nah i'm an ancap who hates SJWs
get mad faggot

>>59039002
How about you pay programmers while they write software, which produces profit because software increases productivity.

>>59038614
software is information
the only way to prevent information from spreading is to keep it secret

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>>59038614
>wanting to be used by his software

>>59040135
>using the smiley with a carat nose

>>59041897
Reverse-engineering is completely different from copying.You can't hide the inner workings of software.

>>59040647
When it accomplishes something that takes actual fucking work to do. Most software is complex enough that it accomplishes a real task and fills a need. At that point, it becomes useful and innovative, and thus subject to copyright by its creators

Are you one of those morons who think that a fictional novel that somebody thought about for years and slaved over does not deserve copyright status to protect his work while he profits, because the book is made up of words?

>>59042186
Who is going to get the money to pay the developers?

>>59041897
Apples and oranges.

Closed source software can, has, and still is being used everyday to monitor (spyware), steal computer resources (uTorrent's bitcoin mining), and otherwise cause harm or unwanted behavior to one's system. Having the right to read and modify software has therefore become necessary.

Soft drinks don't suffer from the same problem, and researchers are free and invited to make chemical analyses of Coca Cola's composition to try and find out about unwanted effects on the body or break the formula. That is also where it differs from most proprietary software licenses nowadays which prohibit the end user from tampering and even trying to reverse engineer the source code.

>>59042408
Just knowing coca cola's recipe isn't illegal. Using it to sell copies of coke without paying royalties to Coke is illegal.

Knowing how software works isn't illegal, copying it without the owners consent is.

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>>59042408
>Soft drinks don't suffer from the same problem
implying soft drinks dont harm you

Because human beings aren't extremely intelligent animals that follow the same natural law that every other living organism follows. We're so beyond competition for resources and finding the most suitable mate above our own standards to propagate our DNA to create even more competitive, resource hungry animals so they can do it all over again. People will definitely not abuse free things if given the choice as seen in all social welfare programs in the United States. No, we will only take what we need. We're better than that.

>>59042662
This. Food products are required to follow FDA certifications and have FDA labeling for a reason.

>>59042578
>Knowing how software works isn't illegal
It is, in most licenses, though.

>>59038862
This tbqhwy senpaimalam.

>>59040743
>Implying material property matters when it is not scarce

>>59038614
Free as in freedom or freeware?
Because you can sell products with GNU

>>59050166
yes, that was my point

>>59038614
>why should software be free?

Free as in freedom?
For the same reason food should have ingredients lists.

Free as in free beer?
It shouldn't necessarily.

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Free means Free as in freedom not purchase without cost.

In other words, >>>/v/

>>59038614
proprietary software is shit.

it's impossible to know for sure whether proprietary software is secure or not, or if it respects your privacy.

it's harder to repackage and redistribute due to restrictive licenses and the nature of binary self-extracting blobs, which makes users more susceptible to malware in the end.

most of the time it requires us to rely on a single vendor for any improvements, which inevitably fucks all users over once the software is no longer supported.

it leads to broken and bloated programs as the focus is permanently set on developing shiny new features for the marketing department to hawk and never on improving the existing code base.

it constantly holds the user hostage by allowing the vendor to strong arm them into accepting harmful anti-user behaviour, by discontinuing support for their software and leaving them no choice but to migrate. see windows 7 -> 10.

proprietary software is exactly like copyright law, in that it's perpetuated by clueless, money-hungry imbeciles. there is no benefit to it. there is no justification for it. all software should be libre.

>>59050399
the dissembled vs assembled cars metaphor works fine because we are not scarce for the material property to build cars with

>>59050494
any analogy that tries to compare physical matter with digital content is automatically fallacious.

if you could reproduce matter in the same way you can reproduce digital content, then "scarcity", "wealth" and "property" would cease to exist as notions.

Some should
Some should not

>>59050541
>compare physical matter with digital content is automatically fallacious

it is only fallacious when the material property itself is scarce.

>>59038614
>why should software be free?
Dumb question, because the premise is not true in all cases.

Software should be free or non-free, depending on what the creator of said software wants it to be.

No one should be forced to make their software closed-source.

No one should be forced to make their software open-source.

The free market will decide who to reward based on the merit of the software.