Free Software, Free Designers
2005.09.10
Today, September 10th, is the Software Freedom Day. It’s a day when FOSS geeks celebrate the glory of Free Software, and in a broader sense, Freedom. Although a designer at heart, and more consumer than producer when it comes to software tools, I’m compelled to throw my 0.02 rupees in, because one man on the other side of the world managed to convert me into a faithful admirer of the Church of St.IGNUcius some time back.
If not for RMS, worshipped by many, hated by even more, and feared by all, it would be frightening to imagine what the software landscape would be today. In a world increasingly defined by code, as Prof. Lessig says, his words, works, and indeed, life, is an inspiration for all of us to think beyond the corporate rhetoric. I need not say much here; visit the GNU project philosophy section, and read. It changed the way I see things, and it will change yours.
However, Free Software has had its difficult times. Like when Open Source became the “in” thing (I guess it still is). RMS’s no-bullshit, uncompromising, probably-hurting-big.co attitude irked some of the masters in the hacker community, who forked the Free Software movement to create the Open Source Initiative. It resulted in him being pushed to the sidelines as the next generation of easy-going hackers like Linus and the rest of the Open Source camp became the idols of geeks around the world. Open Source was the new kid on the block, and Free Software was going to be history: something that served it’s purpose during it’s time, and has gone to inevitable retirement to make room for better, sexier things.
May be I’m blowing things out of proportion here. May be I’m idolizing RMS too much. But then I see how often the GNU part is dropped from Linux, and I can’t help blaming the Open Source folk for not giving credit where it’s due. As Andrew Leonard mentioned in the Salon magazine, “If the pragmatists of the open source cause sacrifice him to make free software safe for business, it seems to me, they risk losing their movement’s soul.”.
I like to believe that the Open Source community understood their mistake, learnt from it, and are trying to fix it. For example, it’s not an Open Source Software week we have here in Sri Lanka these days; it’s a Free and Open Source Software week. More people are learning to talk FOSS instead of Open Source, and that’s great.
Web Standards Project, on the other hand, has incorporated the best of both worlds in their mission. Infact, it seems they are more like free software advocates than open source advocates in their thinking. Their challenge was not as daunting as changing the way people deciphered “software”, but it was tough nontheless. And just like RMS did with the GNU project, WaSP had the guts to put ethics first.
The reasons to adopt web standards were never purely business oriented: it had more to do with making the web free (as in freedom) for all. Of course, using web standards makes a lot of business sense, but that was never the primary argument. Using standards compliant code results in faster, elegant sites that are yummy for search engines, but that was a result, not the cause.
Tim Berners-Lee’s dream for his invention, the World Wide Web, is a common space where users can share information to work together, to play, and to socialize (The World Wide Web, A very short personal history). As web developers, creating business, social, and educational sites, we turn this dream into reality.
Thus starts the WaSP FAQ, and even in that document, they put “ensure that everyone has access to the information we are providing” before other reasons.
Fellow web standards freaks will agree that our primary reason for keeping code clean is never the “business benefits”. They are the carrot for the client. We love web standards mostly because it’s the right thing to do: sensible use of the power we have of delivering content over http. WaSP has done a good job in convincing the masses with an argument based on ethics.
But has this “morals first” stance affected WaSP negatively? It was never easy, but more big companies are listening to them now than ever before. Microsoft is working with them on making a better IE. That says it all (Of course, here they get in to the “open source” mode and preach pragmatism. That’s good marketing, as long as they don’t compromise their stand on ethics to lure businesses, like OSI does).
Therefore it’s only right that standards compliant web designers use the term Free and Open Source Software instead of just Open Source Software (I can’t emphasize this enough: Free Software is not free as in free lunch, it’s free as in free speech, or free labour. Free Software is about Freedom). The correct phrase would be “FOSS Web Professional”, not “Open Source Web Professional”.
If you’re thinking “wtf, both are the same no?”, read this again.
