[RFD 1] Pragmatic Use of Nonfree Software

[Andrew Yu via libreplanet-discuss <libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>]

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Free Software is undoubtably a good thing for society.  However,
modern computer users are stuck in the proprietary "ecosystem" for
historical reasons.  This document describes the justification and
best current practices of using proprietary platforms to spread
the ideas of Free Software.

An article has been written on this subject, Request for Discussions 1.
It has been published at >https://rfd.andrewyu.org/rfd1/rfd1.txt>, with
alternative formats at <https://rfd.andrewyu.org/rfd1/>.

The plain text version has been attached.

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Free Software Community                                            A. Yu
RFD 1                                         The 2nd School Aff. to FDU
                                                           18 April 2022


                   Pragmatic Use of Nonfree Software
                       Request for Discussions: 1

Abstract

   Free Software is undoubtably a good thing for society.  However,
   modern computer users are stuck in the proprietary "ecosystem" for
   historical reasons.  This document describes the justification and
   best current practices of using proprietary platforms to spread the
   ideas of Free Software.

Status of This Memo

   This document describes the author's viewpoint.  This does not
   represent the ideas of the Free Software Foundation or any other
   entity.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1
   2.  Justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Current Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Technical Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Reputation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   7.  FSF Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   8.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   Readers of this memo probably understand the ideals of the Free
   Software Movement, and avoid proprietary software when possible.
   However, as most outsiders are unaware and are deeply buried inside
   the proprietary dystopia created by mostly multibillion-dollar
   technology corporations, our methods of communicating with the masses
   are ineffective.






Yu                            Informational                     [Page 1]
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RFD 1               Pragmatic Use of Nonfree Software         April 2022


   In February 2022, the author decided to permit limited usage of
   nonfree chat platforms to hopefully spread our ideas to the general
   public.  This was attempted by registering a Discord account,
   creating a Guild called "Free Software Introductions", and setting up
   a basic Discord-to-IRC relay to #fsi on both irc.andrewyu.org and
   irc.libera.chat.

   One of the communities that he knows about, the VF-Technic Minetest
   community, primarily uses Discord as a means of communication by
   players not in-game.  As the users inside are Minetest players, a
   Free Software voxel sandbox game, similar to but much more flexible
   and freedom-respecting than Minecraft, it is believed that the users
   have some contact with Free Software, although they might not
   understand the freedom part of the issue, i.e. they might be thinking
   in terms of "open source" instead, and do not understand the harms of
   nonfree JavaScript and services like Discord.  After sharing the
   invite link in the VF-Technic Guild, some people joined, and we've
   partially converted two users.

2.  Justification

   There are numerous free replacements to proprietary services such as
   Discord, such as Internet Relay Chat, the Extensible Messaging and
   Presense Protocol, the Matrix protocol, and email.  As Free Software
   activists, we generally prefer these protocols over nonfree services.
   This section explains the reasons to consider nonfree services and
   protocols.

   Generally, users on IRC and XMPP have a fair understanding of the
   Free Software Movement, and it is quick and easy to inform them what
   we mean by "free", "the four freedoms", and similar ideas.  For users
   on the Libera Chat IRC network, which by far has the most users of
   any network, it is exceptionally easy to introduce a user into the
   #fsf channel for discussions with people supporting Free Software.
   Introducing ignorant users on these protocols and platforms are a
   day-to-day simple task.  Furthermore, the amount of users we can
   reach on these protocols are rather limiting.  Libera has around
   forty thousand users according to the LUSERS command, and considering
   the fact that around 90% of these people aren't ignorant, there isn't
   much we can do.











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   Matrix users, in particular users of the matrix.org homeserver,
   typically know but don't completely understand Free Software.  Rather
   than using Matrix IDs to identify users, the Matrix specification
   specifies that third-party platform identities, such as email and
   GitHub, are how users should be referenced both internally by servers
   and shown to other users.  This is obviously an increadibly foolish
   idea, especially considering the use of centralized identity servers
   (similar to X509 certificate authorities) for 3PIDs.  These are our
   first targets, but these should also be easy to get the idea across.

   It is true that Libera Chat and similar IRC networks, though multi-
   centered in a technical way (i.e. multiple IRC servers form an IRC
   network), the network is politically centralized, controlled by one
   entity, Libera.  The Internet Relay Chat server-to-server protocol
   implies that servers fully trust each other and are expected to not
   send damaging commands, which in turn implies full trust between
   server operators, no federation, and political centralization.  The
   privacy policy and network policy of Libera Chat are non-intrusive,
   therefore the use of which is acceptable and is promoted by the FSF.
   (Obviously, most methods of using IRC do not involve nonfree
   software.)

   We currently find it hard to continue spreading basic knowledge among
   the masses through free communication protocols.

   Those that have never touched Free Software are often on giant
   proprietary platforms, and take these as universal methods of
   communication.  Many people go months before checking their mailbox
   (physical or electronic), refuse to use XMPP or IRC for its age.

   There is one special case where using some nonfree software, and even
   urging others to use it, can be a positive thing.  That's when the
   use of the nonfree software aims directly at putting an end to the
   use of that very same nonfree software.[RMSGP] The author believes
   that the following fall within this scope:

   *  Developing a free project that requires nonfree environments to
      bootstrap;
   *  To spread awareness of software freedom issues to users in nonfree
      environments.

   As almost all types of development can be done on most types of BSD
   and GNU operating systems, the author hasn't found any software that
   fit this category.  Extending the interpretation allows for using
   nonfree software's behavior as a reference in Free Software
   development, though an arguable programming practice, may help the
   community to progress by understanding common features that users of
   nonfree services use.



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   The latter is more interesting, as explained above our methods of
   spreading awareness is limited.  Conservative usage of nonfree
   platforms may bring us more users, and chances for more of the
   general public to be enlightened.

3.  Current Practices

   Activists MUST NOT list such nonfree services in "Contact
   Information" pages on their website or similar sources, unless
   followed by a explanation that the purpose of the nonfree platform is
   to introduce users thereof onto free protocols and to eventually
   exterminate the nonfree platform.  Whenever these references to
   nonfree platforms appear, the author MUST present free methods of
   communication.  Activists SHOULD pragmatically use as many of the
   popular free protocols as possible, to ensure that oppurtunities of
   introductions are not lost.  In cases involving competition between
   free and nonfree protocols and platforms, ethical concerns (i.e.
   enabling talking to a new user on any ethical platform) MUST take
   precedence over technical concerns (such as disliking the XMPP
   protocol for its inefficent use of XML).

   Communities for introducing users to Free Software on nonfree
   platforms MUST be bridged to a free protocol in some obvious way, in
   order to minimize the usage of nonfree platforms even for the purpose
   of communicating ideology to new users and allow members of the Free
   Software community refusing to use nonfree platforms in any way to
   participate.  Usages of nonfree platforms, besides part of the user-
   introduction process that must happen on the nonfree platform, SHOULD
   be avoided.  Free clients, if available, SHOULD be used, although
   many times usage is technically cumbersome.

   When both (all) sides of the communication are happy using a free
   protocol, proprietary platforms MUST NOT be used.

   During communications with users of nonfree platforms, activists
   SHOULD ask them what features of the nonfree platforms are attractive
   to the user, besides having more users.  This allows the community to
   take usage by the general population into account when developing new
   software or specifications.

   For example, the author created a Discord Guild called Free Software
   Introductions, which is one-way-puppeted to #fsi on irc.andrewyu.org,
   which is then one-way-puppeted to Libera.  The relay system is sort-
   of messed up, but it's working.  Inviting new users to it via
   https://discord.gg/7CYp7ntww7 (https://discord.gg/7CYp7ntww7) is
   good, but as the author has made his own sacrifice already, there
   exists no need for other existing Free Software activists to join and
   use it instead of IRC.



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4.  Technical Limitations

   The old and centralized nature of IRC, the insane 3PID recommendation
   of Matrix, the bad routing and efficency of XMPP, and the lack of
   documentation on PSYC, has led us to develop a new protocol, Internet
   Delay Chat[IDC], which aims to be free, modern (i.e. support for
   channel groups and shared permission sets, non-text data with MIME
   types), sane (i.e.  TCP, UDP and SCTP-based, instead of HTTP POST
   APIs) and simple.

5.  Reputation

   Outsiders may point at these actions as cringeworthy because we are
   depending on things we are against to achieve our goals.  In this
   situation, showing them this RFD should suffice.

6.  Conclusion

   The Free Software Community is constantly evolving; the majority of
   computer users haven't heard of us.  While we improve our software,
   it is important that our ideology and philosophy is sent out of our
   internal circle.  This demonstrates the neccessity for momentarily
   sacrificing our own principle for the greater good while minimizing
   the harms of such pragmatic usage of nonfree software.

7.  FSF Considerations

   It is RECOMMENDED that the FSF understands the use of nonfree
   software in these situations and acknowledge its pragmatic use.

8.  Normative References

   [RMSGP]    Stallman, R., "Is It Ever a Good Thing to Use a Nonfree
              Program?", September 2013, <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
              is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program.en.html>.

9.  Informative References

   [IDC]      Yu, A., "Internet Delay Chat", April 2022,
              <https://git.andrewyu.org/internet-delay-chat>.

Acknowledgements

   iShareFreedom's absolute standpoint in #fsf that we can spread
   awareness effectively through free methods exclusively has led to
   this RFD.





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Contributors

   Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this document by
   supplying ideas, correcting typos or spreading the word, including
   but not limited to DiffieHellman, Leah Rowe, Noisytoot and
   fluxionary.

Author's Address

   Andrew Yu
   The 2nd School Aff. to FDU
   Email: andrew@andrewyu.org
   URI:   https://www.andrewyu.org/






































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