Re: Emacs vista build failures

[Thomas Lord]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Richard M Stallman writes:
>  >      > There is no such thing as the "the open source community".
>  > 
>  >     Of course, there is.  I feel sorry for you that you feel a need to
>  >     deny it.
>  > 
>  > I am sorry that you seek to rename the free software commnuity
>  > so as to deny that the free software movement built it.
>
> OK, Richard, I concede; you rule here.  So I'll take my leave.  I
> gather you have no need of my opinions about why large portions of the
> soi-disant free software community could care less about "GNU
> standards", and what you might want to do about that.  I'm certain I'm
> no longer interested in having that conversation with you.
>   

I hope, Stephen, that you will please stick around for (off-list) 
discussion of
build / configure / install / audit / package / validate tools.   Your
earlier comments on the topic were very helpful.   You seem to have
a broad perspective on the matter.


On the disagreement about naming the "community":

I think the original error is to try to use the word "community" in
any but the vaguest sense of the word and, when used that way,
there is hardly any point to either qualifier ("free software" or
"open source").

The problem is that "community", used other than vaguely, is a
highly contentious and loaded word.   To some, it implies little more
than a set of people with some common interest (e.g., the radio-controlled
airplane community).   To others, it implies a group bound together by a
set of social norms and expectations which create systems of mutual support
and social cohesion (e.g., the immigrant community in Little OldWorldistan
District of the city).

In many contexts, a more precise noun clause is available.   Sometimes
one means "the free software movement," other times, "programmers
who develop free software."   Sometimes one means "people enthusiastic
about OSI-approved licenses".   Sometimes one means "people enthusiastic
about the commercial impact of the Open Source Definition".

Those more precise phrases are also (relatively more) objective, so
there is less to argue over.   A person decides to join the free software
movement or doesn't.   A person develops free software or doesn't.
A person is or is not enthusiastic about the OSI license list.   One
person can be any two out of three of those or all three. 

There is no "ownership" of the crowd to be contended - no branded
"community" - and no (wishful thinking) positing of a shared set of
norms and expectations.

The issue of "credit where credit is due" is unaffected by those
vocabulary recommendations, except that with those other words,
the credit debate is easier to speak of more precisely.

For example, what do we make of a hypothetical programmer (though
I'm certain many real examples of this exist) who writes a new
C program, announces it to his GNU hacker friends, but also who
chooses a BSD license and explains that, ethically, he feels it is right
to permit proprietary derivatives of the new program.   It goes without
saying what GNU hackers might say *to* that hacker but that isn't
the question -- the question is how we *describe* this hacker in terms
of "credit" for the conditions that gave rise to that choice.

The free software movement probably gets credit for creating a general
level of interest in libre licensing.   The free software movement gets
credit for having produced most of the development tools that programmer
will use.   The Regents of the University of California and their agents get
credit for the introduction of the BSD license.   The Open Source Iniative
and its allies get credit for spreading that idea (right or wrong, it's 
not the
question here) that going out of ones way to permit proprietary derivatives
of a program might be ethically good, or at least neutral.

In contrast, if we're forced to debate whether or not that programmer is
part of the "free software community" or the "open source community" or
both or neither I guess I'd want to start asking questions like "Who will
he help in a barn raising?    Whose celebrations will he participate in?
Whose defeats will he make sacrifices to mitigate?" -- that kind of thing.
The most accurate answer might turn out to be "He is not part of either
community.   As a programmer, he is mainly part of the hobbyist
community at Springfield High School, a group which is quite agnostic
about software freedom."

-t




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