🚀 go-pugleaf

There have been so many cross-posts and cross-arguments, I have lost track.

Apparently my posts have helped several people understand better the LPF
position (at least as I see it -- I'm hardly an active member, nor do I
know the ins and outs of LPF decisions).  Thank you all for your supportive
email!

But there have been legitimate issues raised as well.  I'll try and point
these out (sorry I cannot credit the authors; see previous posts for that
info, but I'm not that proficient with using this news-reader!) and
address them.

1)  If the LPF/FSF dropped the Apple boycott and made sure Mac users got
    their hands on lots of free software, maybe more Mac people would
    understand the benefits of free software, understand the threats Apple
    is posing to it, and put pressure on Apple "from inside" to stop their
    litigous approach to things.

    My response: I agree, this is a major reason I don't personally support
    boycotts.  That is to say, this reasoning applies to every boycott I
    can think of ever hearing about, and I hope anyone supporting this
    reasoning also supports my reasoning about why I did not support the
    boycotts of: businesses operating in South Africa; Shell Oil; Nestle's;
    AT&T stock (or whoever it was that stopped donating to Planned
    Parenthood); and so on.  If you have supported boycotts in the past,
    is adopting this line of reasoning a sign that you will no longer support
    such boycotts in the future?  My point here is: you have touched on
    my personal philosophy, with which I have been pretty much entirely
    consistent all my life -- can you say the same (or be able to with
    regards to your future decisions regarding boycotts), or is this simply
    another argument so you can have your cake and eat it too?

    Understand that this means I could conceivably accept a job at Apple if
    I were offered one (highly doubtful both things would actually happen,
    but the point is that I don't have a philosophical objection to such
    a situation), but while I might still say, in that circumstance, "I
    support the notion of Free Software as put forward by the Free Software
    Foundation", I could and would no longer say "I support the Free Software
    Foundation" or "I am a member of the League for Programming Freedom",
    because those latter two statements would not really be true, even though
    I still supported their goals, because I would no longer be supporting
    the general means they are pursuing to achieve them.  I for one do not
    support the notion of "If you're not for us, you're against us", which
    perhaps explains why I seem to be in a minority as a GNU person who does
    not insult/flame people working at Apple or with Macs.

    On the other hand, I didn't withdraw my LPF membership when I finally
    had to buy another 4MB for my Mac to continue GNU Fortran development
    a year ago, because I saw it as a very minor, personal need, not in
    conflict with my stance of not personally supporting boycotts but being
    supportive of the LPF and FSF, and certainly the lesser of two evils
    (whether not continuing GNU Fortran development is an evil will, of
    course, be left up to historians to decide :-).

2)  The LPF/FSF boycott of Apple is having no effect.  People are porting
    software to Macs anyway.

    My response: so what, people are buying Nestle products, doing business
    in South Africa, and so on, anyway.  Boycotts are, to me, questionable
    as effective tactics.  But given the situation at hand, I don't see this
    as a good reason to withdraw the boycotts of Lotus and Apple.  Examples
    of why the boycotts may well be effective: they stimulate debate over
    the issues (would Apple employees even be bothering to read and discuss
    whether Apple's litigous tendencies are good or bad if it were not for
    the LPF/FSF boycotts?); as the LPF/FSF gain stature in the industry
    (remember they started out _very_ small when the boycotts were begun),
    the fact that these boycotts are already in place will highlight the
    issues better.

3)  The LPF/FSF should be boycotting NeXT, IBM, and other companies that
    claim to own interface copyrights.

    My response: then everyone who ever has boycotted South Africa should
    boycott the U.S. and every other country that has: 1) anything like
    racial inequities in the law (quotas for example); 2) anything like
    racial inequities in political representation; 3) a large military
    or police force; 3) clearly indicated that they are willing to use #2
    to ensure "order".  Point being that South Africa has gone beyond those
    elements for a good long time in a very clear way.  (Even if you add
    "Has laws preventing people of certain races from having certain
    rights", you'd still be including, from what I understand, a majority
    of nations, especially on the African continent, that are not the
    subjects of any boycotts.)

    Remember that corporate politics extends way beyond the internals of
    a company.  NeXT saying "anybody ripping off the NeXTStep interface
    will get slapped with a look-and-feel lawsuit by us" (assuming they
    said it; I've only heard of this from pro-Apple anti-LPF-boycott
    people, by the way) is a bit terroristic at least, in that they are
    threatening action, but until they take that action, it is merely a
    means for keeping potential competitors "in line".

    In the currently hazy world of software patents and look-and-feel
    copyright, there are several shades of gray (and, yes, it does seem
    even GNU people need to learn about more than just black and white
    sometimes).  There are companies like Apple and Lotus (and Ashton-Tate
    until Borland ate 'em up) that clearly have launched out-and-out
    attacks on businesses big _and_ small (Lotus has attacked its much
    smaller competitors; no reason to believe Apple wouldn't do so as
    well).  Then there are companies like AT&T and IBM that use their
    software patents to try and keep competitors off-balance but, to my
    knowledge, haven't actually launched wars -- just made sure they show
    up as very big blips on the enemy radar screens often enough.  Then
    there are companies like NeXT and HP (again assuming the statements made
    on this newsgroup are true) that simply don't want to publically give up
    their rights to something the courts may or may not decide _anyone_
    has rights to -- this is kind of like small countries doing their
    own chemical weapons development (not Iraq, which uses them), where
    they hope they never have to use them and do not intend to, but if
    it comes to all-out war and everybody else has them, they want them
    too simply to assure their own survival.  Then there are companies that
    don't even believe in applying for software patents or look-and-feel
    copyright in the first place, and these are indeed few and far between
    -- kind of the Ben and Jerry's of the computer industry.

    Now if the anti-LPF-boycott people feel we should boycott everyone who
    even pays lip service to the idea of look-and-feel copyright or
    software patents, then, indeed, that's a huge number of companies to
    keep track of, because only those clearly in the very last category
    would be immune.  It is the nature of the beast to pick what we see as
    the worst offenders and go after them.

    But if NeXT ever did decide to actually sue someone for selling a
    software package that looked a little bit like NeXTStep, do you think
    the LPF/FSF would boycott it?  I sure do!  Do you think NeXT, knowing
    that, and knowing the extent to which they were dependent on goodwill
    from the FSF (and vice versa, of course), would go through with such
    a lawsuit?  Probably not, _especially_ because the boycott of Apple
    is _already in place_.  Had the FSF existed for several years earlier,
    gotten tight with Steve Jobs back _then_, and developed some key free
    software for the Mac, and if Apple had expected to continue to get
    support from the FSF for the Mac, would Apple have started the
    Microsoft lawsuit?  Perhaps, but _only_ if they didn't believe the LPF
    and FSF would turn around and boycott them -- and that would _only_
    be the case if the LPF and FSF had never boycotted anyone else for
    doing the same in the first place (like Lotus).

    So why get upset at an LPF/FSF boycott of Apple when it might well turn
    out to be a critical reason why _more_ look-and-feel lawsuits aren't
    started?  Especially when it appears that so many anti-boycott people
    do feel that Apple's policies in trying to litigate away the competition
    are bad for the industry?

4)  Some computer companies support worse things than look-and-feel
    interfaces or software patents.

    My response: Yes, some companies are willing for their machines to be
    used for nuclear weapons research, et cetera, while Apple isn't.  Some
    are willing for them to be used for DoD stuff (I don't know Apple's
    stance on this).

    But thankfully the LPF/FSF have decided to stay focused on their areas
    of concern rather than get into other political arenas.  If the LPF/FSF
    decided to boycott companies because of their stances on abortion,
    our nation's defense, and so on, I couldn't support them anymore, because
    I've already given up on supporting organizations that explicitly are
    concerned about those issues.  What I care about right now is doing
    stuff to help the FSF and supporting the LPF, and, thankfully, their
    policies are sane in this regard -- they address the issues they really
    care about (as organizations, not as individuals), which means they are
    useful to me as organizations.  I'd have as much use for an LPF that
    boycotted the military-industrial complex as I have for a church that
    supports "Operation Rescue" or some such thing -- and my church _does
    not_ support such things, since it has a pretty good idea of what it is
    trying to accomplish (like the LPF and FSF seem to).

    Note also that, indeed, the issue of whether software patent protection
    is even worse for the industry than look-and-feel copyright _has already
    been raised_ by LPF and FSF literature, including "GNU News" or whatever
    that publication is called.  If you thought the FSF and LPF felt Apple's
    policies were worse than, say, AT&Ts if they actually sought to restrict
    X distribution due to backing-store, think again -- and try and keep up
    on LPF/FSF position papers and other publications better, or at least
    don't make such assumptions.  It is indeed true that look-and-feel
    copyright makes it difficult for us to write useful, compatible, free
    software, but that software patents makes it essentially impossible.

    On the other hand, there haven't yet been quite the same levels of
    blatant all-out-war (litigation) in the software patent arena as there
    has been in the look-and-feel arena (thanks to Apple, Lotus, and
    Ashton-Tate).  Note that the LPF/FSF did not and does not appear to
    have a problem with things like the licensing agreement between Apple and
    Microsoft -- there is a difference between covering your rear end and
    trying to stick something large and explosive up someone else's, if
    you'll pardon the explicitness of the image.

5)  There's nothing wrong with Apple trying to protect all their hard work
    they've put into the design of their interface.

    My response: this is an attack on the entire basis for the LPF and the
    FSF, not just on the boycott, so it doesn't really belong in this post.
    If it is ok for Apple to sue Microsoft as they have, then if the Free
    Software Foundation released a free Mac-like OS that ran on 386s, it'd
    be ok to sue the FSF out of existence.  It is hard therefore for me to
    be even remotely persuaded that what Apple is doing isn't a Bad Thing,
    and I note that most of the anti-boycott people who are very
    pro-Macintosh are nevertheless staunch opposers of the Apple lawsuit.
    But I won't waste yet more space on why look-and-feel copyright is a
    bad idea, especially since I am not particularly eloquent on the
    subject compared to the other widely published articles and position
    papers on the topic.

In summary, please note that I haven't tried to say that people who object
to the LPF boycott are _wrong_ or that the LPF boycott is _right_.  I'm
only trying to point out what I believe are good reasons for the boycotts
to stay in place as they exist given that boycotts are a useful tool,
something I personally doubt.  Perhaps the reason I don't get as hot and
bothered over this issue as other GNU supporters is simply that I can't
take it personally, because of my own stance on boycotts -- it isn't really
_my_ boycott.  I'm just respecting the general direction taken by
organizations with which I'm associated (LPF and FSF) just as I'm doing so
with regards to the company for which I'm currently contracting, which is
why I don't take all the source code for their products and ship it out
to The Net without their prior approval!

On the other hand, it seems the pro-Apple/anti-boycott people can be every
bit as vicious in their attacks on those of us "fighting the good fight"
for free software.  It is easy to attack people working as volunteers for
a cause they believe in by using half-truths, ignoring their freely
available publications, distorting their statements, and trumpeting their
occasional individual misstatements as their official "positions" so as
to characterize them as extremists.  I've seen clear evidence in the last
few days that the pro-Apple people have used _all_ of these techniques,
so while I agree that GNU people sometimes go overboard, I hardly agree
they're the only ones doing that.

If you really believe writing/porting GNU and other free software to the
Mac is good for the industry and might well help change Apple's litigous
ways, go for it -- I hope you succeed.  But really _go for it_ -- don't
just port the one or two things you personally need, but port lots of
stuff, maybe even become a volunteer/contractor doing such things, and
make sure they are all GPL-protected so we can make sure we all have access
to changes Apple makes to them to release them on the Mac.

And if you really believe the LPF and FSF should be boycotting NeXT and
other companies too, then join the LPF and vote.  Voting closes soon --
December 15, I think -- so hurry up and join!  If every Apple employee
who claimed to oppose the Apple lawsuit but felt the LPF should boycott
NeXT and other companies as well would join and support the LPF, not only
would a boycott of NeXT be a possibility, but very likely the sheer size
of the LPF at that point might serve to turn Apple away from its lawsuits
(once they realized how many of their employees were LPF members)!
--

James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson    burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu