Hear me out on this. The very concept of Libre, in abstract and in software, includes the free ability to distribute, copy, modify, etc. This is true of Libre 3D models, FLOSS hardware, and the like. This implies that it’s only Libre if it’s also gratis, otherwise you create an economy of inequity, with one person paying for it, and the rest getting it from them for free.
It’s generally OK to charge someone for labor, but the FSF and GNU project actively encouraging users to sell Libre products at as high a markup as they can get away with (“Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can.” From the GNU project https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html) is just shilling for capitalism in a broken world.
Obviously this is in the context of currency, the economies of effort, thought, and exchange are more complex.
I have that completely backwards… it is impossible to sell Free Software unless the person buying it wants to pay for it (it is more like a donation in a sense). This is the only thing what the FSF etc. is saying… don’t give software away for free if you have customers that actually want to pay for it.
How is that selling and not requesting donation? Encouraging the sale of a product inherently puts limits on the product, even if it’s also offered for free.
For instance: having a product that claims to be FLOSS, and then releasing code that is difficult to compile without proprietary libraries or impossible to compile on certain platforms, and then selling the precompiled binary at a markup. How is that OK? How is that not seen as gatekeeping the product? How is that not putting a barrier to the product that is antithetical to the Libre manifesto? (Specifically the taking of creative work and turning the work over to profiteers)?
What you describe is not FOSS and also strongly opposed to by the FSF and GNU Project. Especially the FSF has a long history of calling out projects (and designing copy-left licenses against) that pretend to be FOSS and then put such artificial limitations in place.
The FSF endorses Fritzing, which does exactly what I was saying, as an example.
You got some source to back that claim up?
Edit: in case you mean that it is difficult to compile on Windows… well honestly that is a Windows and not a FSF or FOSS problem and if this company charges extra for Windows binaries that is more then justified due to the difficulties & costs of making them.
I agree with you fully @[email protected] . Free Software is essentially incompatible with capitalism. I work as a dev at Hyperbola OS and I’ve raised this issue several times.
My solution to this issue is like this:
- Have an institution like FSF which sells binary with open source code (copyright still belongs to dev) till adequate cost is recovered. (Say first 1000 copies of software binary for $50). After selling 1000 copies, source code’s license would be changed to free say AGPLv3 and gradually, software price would come down till zero.
- Curtail the freedom of distributing copies. This would enable you to fiddle as much as you want on your computer but not distribute free copies.
These solutions enable free software devs to survive in capitalistic world! They’re compatible with capitalism.
The point is to make a system that’s better than capitalism… not reduce to that level. Because, what you just described sounds like shareware with extra steps.
I’d love that. The issue is just that you might need to become one of the most powerful men in your country. It’s harder than above solution implementation. Much harder!
In fact designing a system better than capitalism is hard too. I’ve dwelled much on this problem too.
When I first saw the title of the post I was like “Oh, boy.” But when I read your post I completely agree with it.
I disagree with the other commentators here. There is a difference between asking for a donation and saying to a person “If you give me this amount of money I’ll give it to. Otherwise, no.” This difference is clearly seen in people distributing LibreOffice. On the Microsoft Windows Store LibreOffice is sold here (Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/p/libreoffice-vanilla-71/9mwjq9tx63f9#activetab=pivot:overviewtab) by allotropia software GmbH (Link: https://www.allotropia.de/). It is pretty expensive, not nearly as expensive as MS office but definitely more than zero. Apparently allotropia software GmbH does work on LibreOffice but the software is freely distributed on libreoffice.org yet that information is not present.
I fully agree with the opinion of “Free Software” being “Free as in free access not free as in free beer” rather than “Free as in free speech not free as in free beer”.
FSF and GNU is very American and Propertarian of this. It’s part of their ideology and is something I think needs be rethought about. It’s something a more internationalist focus can bring attention towards.
