human bits

ESR: ‘We Don’t Need the GPL Anymore’ is the title of an article over at lwn.net. The article in turn points to O’ReillyNet for the interview with Eric Raymond, but its worth checking the lwn article for the insight shown in the replies, including some comments by Bruce Perens.

If you don’t see the issues here, then please take some time to make sure you do. Its very important. For the Free Software movement and Richard Stallman the core issue is ethical. For Eric Raymond and the Open Source movement the issue is purely utilitarian – what will work to produce better software. Eric’s role in bringing the strengths of the Free Software movement to the rescue – and that is what it will prove to be in the long term – of large commercial software enterprises has been valuable to both sides. But a lot of people have felt uneasy about Eric’s efforts. He has been a bit like someone leading by finding a procession to march in front of. If he marches off in another direction will the crowd follow?

Eric has never hidden where he is coming from. His ‘freedom’ is libertarianism bourne out of neo-paganism.

Let my software go
A self-described neo-pagan libertarian who enjoys shooting semi-automatic weapons, Raymond fits the classic stereotype of the hacker almost too well. Hackers tend to think they know better; free software libertarian hackers tend to think they know best of all. As Raymond told me with pride: “I’m an arrogant son of a bitch.”

But what about intellectual property rights?

“This is 180 degrees removed from any ideology about whether intellectual property rights are good or not. I don’t care about that. I’m not interested in having that argument anymore. If your source is open, you get peer review, you get reliability. If your source is not open, you don’t get peer review and you don’t get reliability, end of story. “

Eric Raymond — Shut Up And Show Them The Code

“The real disagreement between OSI and FSF, the real axis of discord between those who speak of “open source” and “free software”, is not over principles. It’s over tactics and rhetoric. The open-source movement is largely composed not of people who reject RMS’s ideals, but rather of people who reject his *rhetoric*.”

neopaganism-faq (Eric S. Raymond)

Neopagan religions are religions of practice, pragmatism and immediate experience. The emphasis is always on what they can help the individuals in them to *do* and *experience*; theology and metaphysics take a back seat, and very little `faith’ or `belief’ is required or expected. In fact many neopagans (including yours truly) are actively hostile to `faith’ and all the related ideas of religious authority, `divine revelation’ and the like.

I think the most acute generalization made about pagans as a whole is Margot Adler’s observation that they are mostly self-made people, supreme individualists not necessarily in the assertive or egoist sense but because they have felt the need to construct their own culture, their own definitions, their own religious paths, out of whatever came to hand rather than accepting the ones that the mainstream offers.

The ‘freedom’ of the Free Software Movement on the other hand is about making specific choices that ensure the freedom of others. In everything I do I can make a moral choice that others are not prevented from benefiting from my hard work. The intent of the GPL is basically to ensure that you benefit most when you make choices that will let others benefit most.That is a moral choice, and it should come as no surprise that is works – very well indeed.

The Free Software vs Open Source issue seems to be tougher to sort out in the US than in other parts of the world. It seems to me that there is something in the mind-set of many Americans that makes it hard for them see freedom in a big enough picture. I suspect that it is because they are used to understanding freedom mainly in terms of their own history and culture. The American story is that they are the greatest example of freedom seen thus far. I’m speaking very loosely I know, but the ideals of libertarianism grew mostly out of the philosophies that fired the French and American revolutions. To really understand what freedom means – and to ensure the health of Free Software – we have to reach back to something much deeper and bigger and older.