namark @namark@qoto.org

@Phairnix Here are some direct quotes from the article that essentially go "logic tells me we must go full commie, there is no other way":

"If you take the core tenets of free software to their logical conclusion, you end up with a desire to reverse all kinds of commodification by transforming property rights in their entirety",

"The only way to set information “free” is to restructure the economy such that information production can be free, with contributors no longer needing to get paid for their work because crucial goods like housing, transport and food are available as free public services"

and there are many more.

In my eyes IP law in general is secondary to IP law as it applies to computer technology, because in general it's unenforceable. You can't prevent an average person from telling something they know to their peers, or copying/modifying a writing or images or sounds they own, it's just impossible, hence in practice the law only applies to big monopolistic publishers who can be realistically targeted, and in that context (of no computer technology existing) serves to protect the rights of authors to an extent. Even if it's all digital, you still can't prevent people from doing those thing on their own machines, unless they are infected by your proprietary software/firmware that utilizes obfuscation or cryptography to enforce IP rights. It is in this context that the law turns into a tool for exploitation of general public and where the problem lies in practice. Does that mean that the law is theoretically flawed? Sure, but I'm not particularly interested in that. I can philosophize here and there, but I'm not a lawyer. All laws are theoretically flawed, how they manifest in practice is what matters. For instance if copyright law simply did not exist, the practical implementation of it in the form of DRM could still freely exist and be used to exploit people.

@Phairnix "Everything is a bit political" vs "everything must be solved through a all encompassing political revolution"... hmmm... notice a difference?

Regarding peer production license, first time hearing of it. A copy of cc-nc-by-sa that tries to excludes the "evil corporations"? Sounds like a band-aid to me that doesn't solve the core issue. They already happily throw breadcrumbs at various permissively licensed projects(MIT, BSD) to keep the devs happy and compliant (sticking with permissive license), defining yet another pathological goal for up and comers - "oh yes I wish big corpo funds mah open sauce, that would be the best, money solves everythiiing" - no it wouldn't be, make a proper business, and don't try to ride on the success of the very thing you are trying to abolish. Of course it also disallows warranty, excluding the possibility of alternative fair business as I described, thus having to stick with "software is a product" nonsense, and various pathological business practices it spawns, such as "you could just download it for free, but why won't you just pay me cause I'm so awesome and made it for you, while I sit on my ass and do nothing and continue to manipulate you through marketing hype, since after all it's an actual thing that your are getting and you are getting that actual thing for free only cause I'm so nice".
Not to mention CC licenses are inadequate for software in general, since they don't properly cover binary distribution, but I guess they lacked the legal oomph to copy GPL.

@Phairnix Literal local plumbers don't work for megacorps, not yet at least (freakin uber, though cars are cancer anyway). If you teach young programmers in universities and colleges that they can start their own honest businesses they, instead of instilling working for a international monopoly as the highest aspiration in them, if you teach kids in school to accept such businesses, instead of accepting some proprietary software as natural law, maybe they wouldn't end up in such situations. Otherwise people just do what they do regardless of what the law says.

But of course, you do you, and solve all your problems they way you want, political reform and all, just don't go around claiming that all other alternatives have been exhausted, and that you arrives at your conclusions by pure logic from principles of FOSS, and not your own inherent biases(I mean the article author in this case I guess). It's obvious that the politics is the premise and the ultimate focus, and FOSS is just an excuse in this case, another fad to peddle on.

@Phairnix yes, GPL prevents proprietary redistribution (and distribution of derivative work) and demands same terms for those, except for warranty (that is if you copy free software you got under some warranty to give to your friend, the warranty would not apply to that copy, only to the original). There are several versions of the license with different definitions of redistribution and derivative work (GPL, LGPL, AGPL). There are also old and new version, notably version 2 and 3 in context of linux, which refused to upgrade to 3, publicly admiring that they did not understand what free software movement was before, and now that they do, they are against it.

What I mean about competing is that you can not just substitute FOSS for proprietary software. New markets need to be defined that will replace old markets. Instead of buying and software from a international megacorp with barely any tech support, you would buy a warranty on particular installation of FOSS software from a local business that can be held accountable. Instead of "sorry algorithm did a woopsie, it happens, deal with it", your community can fund an actual moderators of a locally run network to hold accountable. These kind of businesses will then themselves support the necessary programming R&D, just like mechanics support machinists, construction workers and organizers support architects.

Software is not a product to be a gift. It's nothing without your machine running it, and your machine is the only real thing. You can pretend it's a product and do everything in your power to maintain that illusion (such as DRM and obfuscation), but that would be just that, snake oil. The proprietary software business can not provide maintenance and warranty, as the system is no auditable. If I can't see what you did how can I tell you even did anything? The car runs when you pour some gasoline in it, but does it mean it runs on gasoline, or something else and burns gasoline for no reason. If I can't open the hood I can't tell. In such environment no quality standards can form for anyone to even adherer to. So these services that FOSS business can provide a proprietary software business simply can not. What today maybe called warranty or service on proprietary software is just pretence by any reasonable metric.

I'm not discouraging politics out of blue, it's in direct response to the article that claims that everything else has been tried and there is no other way other than major political reform. There is a way, the one that was suggested from the very start by introduction of GPL, the one barely anyone tried, and that does not require any major political or economic reform. It just requires some honest plumbers work, something software professions of today are not only incapable of, but also apparently oblivious to.

@AmpBenzScientist I wouldn't know, but in general I blame proprietary software for death of new interesting hardware architectures. I blame proprietary software for everything come to think of it.

@Phairnix I prefer to express myself freely in this obscure corner of the internet thought something as disruptive as text message in FOSS software, that said I am indeed abrasive, and if it's too much feel free to ignore me.

I don't think they recognize the merit of GCC by calling dead in favor of LLVM. This is a "FOSS has been tried and failed" mentality that is very prevalent, while in reality it has barely been tried. GCC an example of the project that actually follows the principles (unlike Linux which is openly against them) and does everything to remain viable as FOSS and to this day it's doing well. It is one of the few projects that is actually trying.

FOSS can not compete in markets established by proprietary software by definition. Those are snake oil markets that rely on exploitation, if you can't imagine a different market that you fail to understand the concept of FOSS. Simply compare it to similar engineering markets. Ask yourself why do you have local mechanics, machinists, plumbers, electricians, construction workers etc. that offer affordable service to general public, while nothing like it for software. Most programmers are working for a some company that holds a monopoly on a virtual "product" or is aiming for one. The avarage programmer is not selling their code, that's total nonsense, they work for salary doing R&D, their work has very little to do with the nature of the business that fuels it.

Now all these engineering industries are not fundamentally different, they are just subtly different. The subtle difference in software industry is that there is no product, there is no production cost, and the distribution cost is negligible. A viable business models for FOSS thus remain the installation/configuration/maintenance services and warranty (again explicitly mentioned in GPL), the same thing your local mechanics, plumbers and electricians do. This is what is needed and yet very few people in my experience seem to realize that. No you should make the next big thing that will replace some piece of proprietary software and make you famous, no you should not start a political revolution, none of those things will help, you should knock on your neighbours door, ask them what they do on their computer, and try to make FOSS operating system work for them, Do it once or twice, do it well and you can start an honest business, the kind that FOSS needs throughout. A common complaint is that an average user lacks the technical knowledge to use a FOSS operating system, and that's where you come in, brave sysadmin. Help them, tune the system to their needs, maintain the system for them, haggle and argue regarding what your warranty covers and what it doesn't, operate at a loss and go bankrupt, then dare to say that you tried a FOSS business model and it didn't work.

Your final question is also confusing to me, the article seems to dunk on GPL, while GPL is actually the answer to your question. If you don't want FOSS to lag behind proprietary - use GPL (not like linux, but like GCC). GCC was never behind proprietary compilers, it was always ahead, and it is still ahead. It is on par with LLVM and it remains to be seen who comes out on top in the long term. GNU userland is also still holding strong, even though not as notable, and again Linux is by no means an example of FOSS being tried, it's an example of what happens when you back down, and there are plenty of such examples.

@Phairnix the facepalm and the main point was in the other reply, where I addressed a specific part of the first article. I can give you an exact quote if the paraphrased one doesn't ring a bell. The second article I didn't continue to read because the whole premise was wrong, and I addressed that.

The author by no means thinks that the programming industry specifically needs to change in contrast to other industries, they clearly imply that political all encompassing change is necessary, because they seem to be oblivious to what most programmers actually do and get paid for.

Now care to address any of my points or continue to completely ignore what I wrote and grasp at straws by hyper focusing on wording.

GPU - glue programmer's utopia

if you can't write an optimal algorithm, write a suboptimal one that runs in GPU, problem solved

@Phairnix I only skimmed over this cause i couldn't read past the "the flagship FOSS project is Linux'. It's not, Linux is confused Torvalds thinking GPL means only he gets to make money on it. If Linux upgraded to GPL 3 (or even wanted to) android would have been an open platform now.

The flagship FOSS project is GCC and it is the reason why we have any free software today at all and why the monopolist had to settle for LLVM, which was claiming superiority for decades now, and it still hasn't achieved it, I'll gladly watch it go down trying to support the proprietary forks galore it has spawned along with every fad it could use to market itself, but if it actually supersedes GCC, that would be the first major loss for FOSS so far, in any market that they actually had a real fight in.

@Phairnix Ginormous face palm on that article. The moment they went "But how does the programmer make money? How do they sell their product? There is no way to solve this dilemma, the programmer simply can't make money" it became apparent they are completely out of touch with reality, perhaps a victim of established marketing. There is no software product to sell, it's not that it exists and it's unethical to sell, it does not exist and that's why it's unethical to sell. Programmers are R&D engineers, and they should be (and mostly are) paid a salary like any other R&D engineers for work they do, it's just that the industry that is backing up their salaries needs to change from a snake oil marketing industry to a real one, where people sell real things like distribution/configuration/maintenance service and warranty (yes that thing that software people's lives or livelioods depend on today often doesn't have, and the flagship license of FSF explicitly mentions).

If you really want to help free software, just stop the political BS, like free software = communism, and open a local business of sysadmining gnu/linux for your direct neighbours. Nobody wants to do that though cause it's actual hard and thankless labour.

gee, am unoox, everutin ees uh foile, hurr durr

@iron_bug woosh, as they say... maybe read that last sentence in the most sarcastically disgusting voice you can, that's how it was meant to be.
@lucifargundam

@lucifargundam what you have experienced is a well known pathology of proprietary software industry called region locking. Since the software objectively costs nothing, the price is set on a "how much have you got" basis, as a result you are likely to find the same products sold for half the price or less in some countries like russia, where people are less inclined to pay for them, since pirvacy is more prevalent and certain pirate websites offer better user experience and tech support for local community that something like steam. And of course we can't have you buy games in russia for half the price and send them to your friends in less fortunate countries like USA, that would mean that our enormous returns on miniscule investments will be slightly diminished.

opinion on vector/container type deduction
https://git.sr.ht/~namark/cpp_musings/tree/master/item/vector_of_vector.cpp
#cpp

galaxy brain move
https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/commit/69b70cda542c631c5413ae1c1fb799ed9b604a6b
I thought you can't be this smart and code in c++, but guess that's what Qt does to you.

@jmw150 look I don't want comment too much on the size of your coq, let's just say it's sufficiently impressive, but last time my pals Godel and Turing checked the god machine was still theoretically impossible. I get it as a mathematician you hate them, but at least as a philosopher you have to admit it would be pointless for it to exist. You should not believe in something pointless that does not even exist. It's not just some ephemeral sense of valuing each other, I literally listed several things that I think are important, and make people objectively superior to machines.

At all times through your intuition try to understand your peers, through your ingenuity help them, be accountable for what you do, and when things go south be empathetic. Then you will win. Treat people like cattle, product or numbers? Well obviosly machines can do that too.

@jmw150 oh yes! shove your coq in ma face smarty-pants!!!

@iron_bug servicing an object is mechanical work, servicing a human isn't. Unless it's a dystopia where one's life is basically on a conveyor belt, which would be an equivalent of death in my eyes.

@jmw150 if robots can do it for 1/10th of the cost then it involves no ingenuity, accountability, intuition or empathy. If you have an argument it should be why those tings have no value to you or in general.

@jmw150 for me it would, I would value a service from a human who employs those qualities above a service from any machine.