I figured this conversation would come up some day, and the Free Software Force is pushing the topic along. They think we need a revision of the Four Freedoms.

I don't think we need to change that at all, and I strongly feel that it's difficult to amend those without subtracting from them. What I do think is possible is to have a "second tier" of things that were intrinsic to free software before, which we are suffering without these days.

Talking to others, we've come up with different ideas of what these things could be. I am discounting "promises" and "guarantees" because I don't think these are things we can promise or guarantee without weakening the Four Freedoms. They idea of a second tier is that the Four Freedoms have to take priority. But these are things we can do to support them.

I thought of "four advantages" because they are things that give freedom an advantage. Someone thought "advantages" was ok but maybe weak. I thought of "four favours" because they constitute things where we are doing both ourselves and others a favour. Someone suggested "Reinforcers." I already mentioned the idea of support-- so "Four Pillars" seems like it could work.

As to what they should be, I want to take a good while to think about that. At least a few days, but no more than 163 days (half a year.)

Some suggestions that were made:

0: Buildable with reasonable effort.
1. Modular design
2: Cross-platform compatability
3. Smallest possible footprint



Perhaps:

A way to address with a principle, that free software should not generally be used to erode user control. This has to be allowed sometimes, or nothing can be simplified. But there are threats like:

Tivoisation | Appliance-like Distributions | The Cloud

Which take advantage of freely licensed software to reduce control by the user, to make it harder for owners to change software in their devices. Or they use Free software to "simulate or act as a non-free platform"

Healthy scepticism towards such freedom sinks is a virtue. Platforms that are more locked down than traditional GNU/Linux distro, including Android, ought to be re-liberated.

But when it proves impossible, perhaps we should just move on. Not a requirement-- any individual is free to tinker, but the community should never be expected to rely on such garbage.



Then there are designs that attack developers and make it harder for them to liberate the user:

Software being co-opted and changed so that it is less modular, less reliable, things that disrupt stability compatibility (especially POSIX) existing projects and organistions.

Nothing wrong with coming up with ways to enable people to chase fads, provided that the stability and freedom GNU/Linux is known for is a priority.

Deprecating stable frameworks for less stable ones can disrupt a project from the inside.

Upstream can hijack things that loads of downstream developers rely on.

Favouring compatibility on the compatibility/fad scale has to be a virtue for someone, or it will be lost to garbage.



Debian-like quality control policies (welcome in many contexts) tend to be brutally unhelpful to anybody working to maintain compatibility amidst great changes.

Some way to bifurcate quality control policies so that there are some exceptions or mitigations that let people work on compatibility do their job would help. If we could figure out what that looks like, it could be a principle.



We have seen Codes of Conduct, as well as Bigotry, stifle, intimidate and silence contributors.

when Debian makes a major change, anybody working to maintain compatibility is treated more like a troll than a valuable contributor. This is deeply unfair.

If only we had an anti-mob policy, something that lets people escape or evade a mob of people attacking them. Or perhaps that's a stupid idea, and there is a better way to ensure Codes of Conduct don't simply become a Hammer of Nerds.

Rather than leaping to exclude people in the name of “inclusion,” we can do far better to resolve issues that were hijacked to kick important people out of Free software.

A Free software federation is one effort to make the movement more resilient against such attacks.



I want a way to deal with corporate dishonesty and corporate bullies, who first lend a hand, then they take what’s ours with both hands. Then they say they’re the ones who really made it anyway.

We should somehow support the freedom to fork, even while a company tries to glue all our free projects together into a giant corporate-designed mess.

We should somehow be free to participate and regroup, even after mobs kick out people that are loved by the community.



Loosely, these are things that address:

1. Tactics that hurt user freedom (simulated non-free software, or free in license only-- cloud, tivo, reduced choice)

2. Tactics that hurt the ability for developers to make the user more free (project disruption, compatibility attacks, designs that favour corporations over smaller groups)

3. Organisational weaknesses (mob tactics, cancel culture, corporate co-opting)



I suspect if we try to come up with "virtues" or "pillars" that support the 4 freedoms, we will end up with a list with many redundancies.

That's a great place to start. From there, we can figure out what really matters, what will really support freedom.

These pillars won't be perfect. Modularity for example, is only a virtue for so many things. It is vital in some instances, but only within reason. But if we utterly abandon it, if we pull it out from under ourselves, things topple.

So four supporting virtues-- I wonder if we can find those.

I'm looking for suggestions everywhere. This is where LQ can contribute their ideas. You don't have to make a list, one or several suggestions are welcome.



I already realise that any item on this list could interfere with existing freedoms. That's why the Four Freedoms have to be considered a more important rule than these pillars.

Well, the reasons why the FSF had to get rid of RMS is becoming more clear.

Nice post by the way. One that immediately came to mind is a way to prevent "Tyranny of the Majority". This is possible by not having things like systemd be a hard dependency. init and other segments should be loosely coupled not a tight grip, users should have the freedom to swap in or out what they want, you are free to break or fix your own system. Also, no new segment should break established norms/conventions. Similar to systemd again, if something worked before and your new program breaks things the problem is your program not the broken things. This is Linus' famous "don't break userspace....".

Then there is preventing "Tyranny of the Minority" this is caused when a small but vocal group aggressively usurps positions, influence, power etc... This is a common SJW tactic. Tyranny of the Minority usually attempts to masquerade as Tyranny of the Majority.

and from Thomas Jefferson

I'm completely with you on that of course, but I'm still trying to think of the best principle to make that work. "Modularity" is how you do that with one word. Doing it with more than one word is tricky.

There will almost certainly be more than a nod to modularity in here somewhere. It's the one that keeps coming up.

Those are good. So far I think we are talking about the same first principle, which is alright. You're giving me ideas for wording and I appreciate it. Note that when I've put together my own version of this, I suspect it will compete with other versions. Depending on how they fare, I may go with something else. But principles are not much without adoption.

They're also not going to be adopted if they don't get written, so there's that.

Yes! And though I'm really not a Linus fan, I definitely think this is one of his very best qualities. When he finally steps down, this will be the thing about Linus I miss the most. I don't think GKH will be better.

You have a gift for summary that I lack. I feel like you've read and synthesised a lot of what I tried to say, and I appreciate it.

Well said. Thanks again.

Perhaps something about Freedom to seek perfection in code quality: smaller code is better, code should become leaner and more efficient over time not larger-more complicated and bloated.....

Freedom to remain unique/different: don't chase after other systems and copy them just because they are doing something new/different etc... Remember the users could have used (or still use) those other systems and instead chose *nix.

Freedom to remain hacker friendly: avoid vendor lock in, even from "open source" companies.

I agree, but are you sure you aren't asking to violate the laws of physics? Also I think we already have this. It's not always easy to write these in a way that demonstrate that something needs to be preserved.

For example, if you have the source code and a free licenses, what exactly is stopping you from this thing I've just quoted of yours? That's what I want to highlight.

I am toying with an idea like FILO "Free In License Only" or what some people (not me) call OSPS "Open Source Proprietary Software" but although those are catchy and describe the almost oxymoronic problem that we keep finding, they don't help us describe a principle, only a problem. Ideally I'd like to find the principle. Your work with that in your previous post has already exceeded my expectations for this thread.

"Diversity of ideas" is one I agree with also. Tricky to say "we want diversity of ideas" and also "compatibility is important." They're not really a contradiction if we've already enjoyed plenty of both, but that's not easy to demonstrate.

Like I said, some of these things are traditionally intrinsic to free software already, but as they are gradually abandoned, there has to be a way to reinforce them.

Freedom from vendor lock-in is good.

We (mostly) want to avoid monopolistic designs, not just monopolistic licenses. We certainly want all monopolistic designs to remain optional. That means that (as far as general advice goes) to adopt something monopolistic, it first has to be "liberated" or "finessed" in some way. "Naturalised," if you like. But this only applies to community adoption. Obviously you can write any software you well please. This is about how other people get subjected to it.

Do you have any references for the fsf talks about the 4 freedoms?

The link to the Free Software Definition is here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

That's the official reference.

Yes, that much is obvious, what I was asking about is a reference to the revision of the four freedoms you are talking about.

Modularity and simplicity are two fundamental properties for me.

Modularity rejects tight integration (if you want to run A, you also have to have B and C). Programs should be dependent only on libraries and not on each other. For example what desktop to use and what init system to use should be separate choices. It should even be possible to use a different kernel or libc if you want to.

Simplicity means that the internal structure should be comprehensible to any reasonably intelligent person who is interested to know it. Extra layers to cushion the workings for newbies are permissible but they should sit on top of the basically simple structure. Things like dbus that complicate everything should be optional.

I thought it was obvious, but I didn't realise what you were asking for. At the moment, there is no proposed revision in place-- there is only a proposal to try to convince the FSF to revise.

It isn't linked to because it exists on a mailing list. I don't know of an archive for this one. The only public reporting of it is on Techrights, but since I'm the author of it I can vouch for the quality and relevance of what I've said here, over what I've said there. I've had more time. If you're still curious I'll provide a link to it, but I really don't think it will help.

Do you know where the source of this proposal is coming from?

If you have any relevant links or information in the future please share, I would be interested in seeing if this goes anywhere or not.

It is coming from the Free Software Force mailing list. There is no archive. Here is an excerpt:

Seeking feedback on LQ and several other places has yielded good feedback from nearly everywhere it was sought-- including LQ.

This article was written (by me) as a response to this request: http://techrights.org/2019/11/25/four-more-freedoms/

However, since that time I have grown convinced that this is increasingly important. And it isn't just the Free Software Force. Two Devuan developers are also interested-- one has said we need a "Fifth Freedom" (you would note from the article linked, I don't think adding a "Freedom" on the same tier as the Four is the best way.)

Instead I argue for "four more" things, which I call pillars. These take lower priority to the Four Freedoms, so they can't cancel them out.

The purpose of this thread was to ask what they should be. And from everywhere, it is very clear that Modularity is one of the pillars, and Simplicity is another pillar.

But the existing Four Freedoms are 12+29+10+37... 22 words each on average. So I feel the pillars ought to be more than 4 words. You can summarise the Four Freedoms loosely as the freedom to Use, Study, Change and Share the software without restriction. So we ought to be able to shorten the Four Pillars as Simplicity, Modularity, and whatever else is as important as those.

But it's ok if modularity isn't something we can guarantee without cancelling out one of the Four Freedoms. The pillars aren't promises-- they're supporting ideas that we can't afford to abandon, or freedom suffers.

These qualities were implicit givens in most instances-- they were present enough of the time. Now that we have lost too much of them, we are suffering. That's the thesis anyway.

From that excerpt my understanding is the proposal is not so much to change the existing freedoms, but to add to them in response to the changing software ecosystem and new ways some programs abuse their users?

I gathered from the previous post this was from the mailing list, but more specifically who is pushing for this? Is it a large group of people or only a few individuals?

I'm surprised you have any faith left in them after what happened to RMS...

In any case, why not write them a letter in you feel that strongly about it? I don't see what anyone here can do about it. Unless you expect everyone here to band together and lobby them - and like that's going to happen anyway. I can see pigs flying before that happens...

If possible. I think at this point it's nearly impossible to add a fifth freedom without it risking partially cancelling out one of the existing four. I say nearly, as freedom 0 was actually added at one point. They aren't numbered 0 to 3 just to be computer-geeky, as many assume. Freedom 0 is 0 because they considered it so fundamental.

It's a small group, but since I work with that small group I'm trying to get them to do this right-- in a way that it doesn't weaken the existing definition.

Also this is an idea I had a while ago, and left it alone because it didn't need to be pushed if nobody else was on board. Once other people start talking about it, it's probably worth throwing my two cents in as
I've given it loads of thought already.

Plus, there are Devuan developers who are somewhat on board, or at least interested. As with Free Software Force, they seem inclined to modify the Four Freedoms directly-- I'm trying to get them to partition this, to keep the FSD itself the same.

I don't, actually. I pronounced the "FSF" dead this week. I've kept a very close watch, and I think this is a realistic (definitely early) assessment. I have no authority to make this pronouncement, and I'm happy if they prove me wrong. I also predicted the Red Hat purchase and (with help) the Stallman cancellation, 29 days before it happened (I didn't think either would happen so soon.)

The future of "FSF" is RYF and GNU. Incidentally, CMU is diluting the GNU trademark, but as it's owned by the foundation (registered July 25, 2011 I think) I don't think they're going to defend it. Which means the GNU brand is under attack (I'm comfortable making these sorts of statements, I would LIKE to be wrong more often and I welcome them to fix this.) and I think rms should sue for the GNU trademark so that he can have it defended, or sell it to an org that will defend it.

I'm not big on trademarks or patents, but if they don't defend GNU it could end up diluted and genericised like "open source" and that would be tragic. Carnegie Mellon works with Microsoft on Edge computing, and Edge is also a big thing for Red Hat, so there is possibly a smoking gun there.

With regards to the foundation formerly run by Richard Stallman, I think there is plenty to salvage, just not the organisation itself. I think they're liquidating their own standing. I hope they don't do the same with their non-material assets-- those are substantial.

But they're a zombie organisation now, semi-owned by IBM.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunds..."

Come back in a year and tell me I'm wrong. I seriously, sincerely hope that's possible. I've looked desperately for a way to be wrong about this. I'm getting really tired of calling it right-- and I'm sure I sond like a know-it-all or I'm tooting my own horn, though I wish you'd take me more literally than that. I really genuinely want to be mistaken. Only I keep saying these things and far too many of them turn out to be (more or less) true. It's pissing me off, to be honest. I'd rather have something worth celebrating.