this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2023
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The "open source movement" splintered from Free Software specifically to circumvent the ethical ramifications that those "pages and pages of dense philosophical essays" are about. That movement has never been an "ally" to Free Software. It was an antagonistic relationship from the start.
That's not an accident. And it's not because people don't know about the GPL or copyleft. It's because the vast majority of programmers earn their (substantial) bread and butter from companies that want nothing to do with copyleft. Programmers don't get paid to write copyleft code, and any code that they do write off-the-clock, they also want to be able to use on-the-clock, leaving only "open source" licenses for that code too.
This isn't something that the FSF can "fix." This is something that boils down to each and every individual programmer deciding whether or not to prioritize Freedom over money.
"Open Source" is the exploitative "growing movement." Never forget: Open Source Misses the Point. This was always the point of "open source," and the FSF has been clear about that forever. Drew is complaining about the exploitation as if it's a bug. It's not! It's the killer feature! The call is coming from inside the house. The FSF and the OSI cannot "stand together" because they are built upon mutually exclusive ideologies and priorities.
The FSF knows its place perfectly well. It is the bulwark against the so-called "progress" of "open source." The FSF may be on the losing side currently. But it's not on the wrong one. "Open source" isn't "pushing the cause forward." It is the principle driver of the cause's decline, leeching energy from Free Software in the name of placating industry.
We've had 20+ years of that arrangement. And it's gone about as well as the FSF said it would.