The FSF: Pull Trigger, Blow Off Foot (Again)

This is an old post from my previous Joomla!-powered site; sorry for the retread.

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A few days ago, the people over at DefectiveByDesign decided to barf onto the Internet another brilliantly stupid idea. Brilliantly stupid ideas are of course not the Free Software Foundation’s only export; I hear that some days they actually write code instead of just telling other people what they should be able to do with theirs, and since I hear that from some fairly reliable sources I’ll believe it for the moment. But this moronic concept really, truly takes the cake, and while I’m not exactly much of a blogger I feel a need to get this one off my chest.

FSF: Go, minions, and hit the Apple Stores with a meatspace DDoS!

Go give that a read. When you once again have the presence of mind to pick your jaw up off the floor, c’mon back and click that “read more” link. Go on, I’ll wait patiently.

Back already? Wonderful. Look, the FSF has done the occasional good deed in the past. (I say that with tongue in cheek; they’ve done more than most.) But it is becoming more and more apparent that they are absolutely out of their heads! They just don’t understand that their tactics are more likely to alienate their “base,” the people who think open source software is a good idea, and seriously torque those who don’t have an opinion one way or the other on the topic. I don’t know who this blogger, Matt Lee, is, aside from a quick Google search–he’s the Chief Webmaster for the GNU Project and Campaigns Manager for the FSF. Which means he’s already bought into the RMS kool-aid, presumably enough to fill a swimming pool. But anybody in an advertising type of position for a major organization has to understand that the first rule is to not piss off people who aren’t causing you harm, right? Right? Right?

Apparently not. In the blog post, he writes:

Print out our handy questionnaire and information about how iPhone 3G restricts your freedom.

Excuse me, sir? My freedoms are being restricted by a gadget I don’t own? That’s very interesting, really. I didn’t know my freedoms could be restricted by something I don’t own, have no interest in owning, and will in all likelihood never buy. That goes for pretty much any of the FSF hangers-on who are stupid enough to think that this is a good idea–they almost certainly don’t own iPhones, so why the hell does it restrict their freedoms? They’re perfectly free to exercise their rights in a (somewhat) free market and not give money to the company that makes the stupid gizmo, aren’t they?

Or am I wrong? Are my freedoms being restricted because I simply allow a device like the iPhone to exist? Are my freedoms being restricted because Richard Stallman doesn’t like something and I don’t rally to his bearded, Emacs-loving cause?

Of course not. This insistence that everyone’s rights  (if they’re rights at all, which is pretty damned debatable, but I’ll let it slide and continue use their terminology against my better judgement) are being restricted because somebody sells a device that incorporates restrictions is one of the FSF’s favorite tactics, and it’s a really tiresome talking point from a group formed mostly to whine about being excluded because nobody wants to deal with their crap. If somebody buys an iPhone, they are agreeing to let their rights be curtailed. It’s like me going into a movie theater. I agree that I can’t run around screaming during the film, even though it’s my legal right to run around screaming under other circumstances. If I don’t like that the theater doesn’t want me running around screaming during the film? Tough! I can go elsewhere.

The people working at these Genius Bars are customer service representatives of the company. They don’t set policy. They’re told exactly what they can and can’t discuss with customers. They can say “we don’t support that, sorry” and very little else. Asking them to start commenting on politics is unreasonable and entirely rude. It’s not their job to talk politics when on the clock. It’s their job to help customers–which these FSF zealots are not; they are just pains in the ass. I’d love to see these exchanges between the douchebags the FSF is fielding and the people working the Genius Bars to go something like this:

Genius Bar Dude(ette): “Hi, can I help you?”
Troublemaking FSF Monkey: “I’m from the DRM elimination crew at DefectiveByDesign.org — I’d like to ask you a few questions about the defects Apple has designed into the iPhone 3G.”
Genius Bar Dude(ette): “Security will escort you out; please don’t return. Next!”

It shouldn’t surprise me that the FSF thinks this sort of thing is a good idea. It really shouldn’t. But it does. I guess I just expect that people actually take into account the effects of their actions upon other people. I guess I just expect that the FSF would go “hey, this isn’t a good idea, because while we might get attention, it will be entirely negative,” but I think it’s obvious I’m naive.

The organization that wants to “lead” free software forward should not be endorsing immature garbage like this campaign. This isn’t about “working their way up the ladder to the decision-makers.” The decision-makers can be reached directly. This isn’t about “opening a dialogue”; they wouldn’t be advocating clogging the operation of a commercial establishment if that was the case. This is about grandstanding. This is about some moronic idea somebody put together with their socially-incompetent friends, the circle of hurf-durfing propelling them to think that this was actually a good idea.

On my worst day I could come up with better ways to raise awareness about DRM. Hell, passing out pamphlets to people standing outside would have more concrete value (and they suggest doing that, once you’ve done your best to make a grunt-level employee’s life just a little worse). This campaign is designed above all else to simply harrass people who are just trying to make a living. It’s sickening. I would think that people interested in “freedom” would understand that people have the freedom to disagree and purchase what they want to, but the FSF (rather like the ACLU, in a different field) only believes in the freedoms they like.

Remember how I said that people are welcome to choose whether they want to buy an iPhone or not? Well, given the FSF’s actions, I’m free to not support them. So I won’t. I’ve already taken down all of my previously GPL-licensed code; I won’t write another line of it. No contributions, ever, to any projects that use the GPL. No donations, ever, to any projects that use the GPL. (I’d include the LGPL, but the FSF hates that, so I’ll give it a pass.) I’ll use GPL-licensed code when it’s the best tool for the job, but I’ll donate to projects I don’t even use if I think they have a good chance of supplanting the GPL garbage.

I realize that it’s more than a little silly, but just the same–I’ll confess to being honestly tempted to write a license for my own code, now, that affords all the freedoms of the BSD license except the freedom to relicense the code under the GPL or link with code released under the GPL. Extreme? Sure, probably more extreme than would be warranted if this was a single isolated incident. But it’s not a single isolated incident, it’s a continuing, regular sort of thing out of the FSF. They want to say “share all your code with us or we won’t share any with you,” huh? What if I want to say “you want everyone else to share all their code with you, so I’ll share mine with everybody but you”? I have to think that’d be a hoot.

Sit down and shut up, Mr. Lee. You do more damage than you could ever do good.

Aren’t zealots just so awesome?

Update, 8/4/08: They turned off comments for that article not long after I posted this. Funny, huh?