[Open-graphics] Discussions with Richard Stallman

[Lourens Veen]

On Sunday 07 January 2007 23:43, Timothy Miller wrote:
>
> Richard Stallman wrote:
> > We encourage the idea of free hardware designs, but we don't think
> > it is ethically required that all hardware designs be free, because
> > most users are not in a position to turn a hardware design into
> > hardware.
>
> In general, he feels that it's not necessary for the OGP hardware
> designs to be "Free" (libre), and the FSF would be willing to
> cooperate with us regardless, as long as we support Free Software. 
> He suggests that we may want to keep the design closed for a year or
> two and then make it Free after that.
>
[...]
>
> Another request is to change the name of the Open Graphics Project to
> something that contains the name "Free."  I suspect that our name is
> too entrenched for that to cause anything but irreparable harm, but
> it's open for discussion.  I think this project strives to embody all
> of the principles behind Free Software.  But I also believe we do
> precisely the same with respect to Open Source.  That is, we're both
> ethical AND practical.

In my opinion, these two should be mutually exclusive. Either we make 
Free Hardware, and then all the HDL is available under a licence that 
supports the four freedoms, or it is something else, and then the 
licence can be proprietary. Naming it "Free" and then keeping the 
source a secret will dilute the "Free" brand. After all, if hardware 
without source available is "Free", then why isn't a software library 
with a published interface but with secret source also "Free"? There's 
enough confusion about this already: let's not make it even worse.

> Finally, and this is a request we can really do something with, is to
> come up with terminology to describe the nature of the hardware
> designs we're producing, using the word "Free".

That I very much agree with, and I think that this is a very important 
thing. But I suppose that that was already obvious :-).

> There's been some 
> discussion here about this already, covering various levels of
> openness or freeness.  We've discussed terms like "Free-spec
> Hardware," "Free Design Hardware," "Free Hardware Design," etc.  When
> the design is completely libre, we should use a term that describes
> it this way.

Yes.

> Pertaining to designs that simply open up their 
> interfaces, the FSF would like "Free Software" to me mentioned,
> pointing out that Free Software is supported by the hardware. 

"Free Software Compatible"?

> Finally, and this is my opinion, I think the term "Open Architecture"
> is perfectly fine since that's a well-understood term, despite the
> fact that it contains the word "Open".  I suspect Mr. Stallman would
> disagree with me on that, however.

Open Source is about developers. Free Software is about users. Open 
Standards (which I'll take Open Architecture to be a subset of, or at 
least something similar) are philosophically closer to Free Software I 
think.

They decouple different software, and software and data, which gives 
their users the freedom to change their software without losing data or 
functionality. Of course, they also help smaller developers who can 
then compete with a single piece of a big vendor's infrastructure at a 
time. But then again the consequence of that is that the user gets more 
choice.

Lourens
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.duskglow.com/open-graphics/attachments/20070108/8b1acf17/attachment.bin