:: Re: [DNG] fifth freedom
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Author: Arnt Karlsen
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] fifth freedom
On Thu, 12 Dec 2019 19:45:01 -0500, Steve wrote in message
<20191212194501.08756803@???>:

> On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 05:29:21 +0100 (CET)
> freemedia via Dng <dng@???> wrote:
>
> > The freedom to NOT run the software, to be free to avoid vendor
> > lock-in through appropriate modularization/encapsulation and
> > minimized dependencies; meaning any free software can be replaced
> > with a user’s preferred alternatives (freedom 4).
>
> This is an excellent idea. The devil is in the details.
>
> How much entanglement, and with what, renders a software unremoveable?
>
> KDE is just as much of a black box of monolithic entanglement as
> systemd, but getting rid of it is a simple matter of weening oneself
> off its applications, and removing all its libraries and programs.
>
> Systemd would have been the same were it not for Redhat's extreme
> expenditures on both lobbying and maintaining a crew of six to keep it
> somewhat usable. Actually, systemd would be nothing but a geek
> experimentation thing, something like hurd, if it weren't for Redhat
> bucks.
>
> How does one specify by license how much should be spent on lobbying,
> how much lobbying should go on, and how much corporate money should be
> spent on development? What would that fifth clause look like?
>
> We all know, as a practical matter, that few living humans can
> compile, configure and install systemd. Few living humans can modify
> it in any meaningful way. And the fact that it's so useless
> de-incentivises even geniuses from modifying it. So as a practical
> matter, it isn't free software, but how the heck do you put that into
> words when anybody can download its source?


..call it what it is, subversive software.

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.