Freedom 0: the utilitarian vs. the deontologist

[Nomen Nescio]

This is a bunk argument. If, for example, a server is set up to
deny you access to files because you don't have an account and,
thus, you cannot download them with wget, the server is not denying
freedom 0 to you.

GNU wget is equipped with httppost capability and cookie management,
so a login wall is non-blocking for wget users. And for that reason,
there would be no freedom 0 compromise. While in the case at hand,
GNU Radio Foundation, Inc. *is* blocking wget users.

Is GNU denying you freedom 0 because we don't let you use wget to
download files from our private servers without an account? Of
course not.

As mentioned above, the false analogy makes this question moot.

You're still using wget however you want (to download files that,
for any given reason, are not available to you). You're just not
getting the results that you want.

Not delivering results is in fact the means by which GNU Radio
Foundation, Inc. "stops" wget users, and hence freedom 0 (search for
the word "stopped").

Or, to be more absurd,

Try not being absurd, you're less likely to produce false analogies
that way.

the fact that reality won't allow me to use wget to download 10 kg
of gold doesn't mean that reality is denying me freedom 0 in my
usage of wget.

The first problem is that because "reality" is not a person or
organization, it has no duty to conform to any principle whatsoever.
It is principles that are based on reality, not the other way around.

It's also a false analogy, because "stopping" implies that in the
absence of stopping there is a possiblity. If the possibility doesn't
exist in the first place, then no one weilds the power to stop it. To
impose on freedom 0 requires first having the power to do so.

I'm free to try using wget for such a silly purpose, but I might as
well prepare myself for disappointment.

Disappointment can manifest from many different events. It's
disappointment as a result of freedom 0 obstruction that is at issue.

Whether gnuradio.org is actively blocking Tor users can be discussed
(and discussed and discussed, going around in circles apparently),
but the discussion is completely unrelated to freedom 0.

That's incorrect. You need to reread freedom 0, paying particular
attention to the words "or stopped", which inherently includes
"blocking" among other ways of /stopping/ someone's use of a tool.

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[Nomen Nescio]

Post by Nomen Nescio

This is a bunk argument. If, for example, a server is set up to
deny you access to files because you don't have an account and,
thus, you cannot download them with wget, the server is not
denying freedom 0 to you.

GNU wget is equipped with httppost capability and cookie
management, so a login wall is non-blocking for wget users. And
for that reason, there would be no freedom 0 compromise. While in
the case at hand, GNU Radio Foundation, Inc. *is* blocking wget
users.

Regardless of whether it's due to not having an account, due to your
proxy being blocked or due to user incompetence, your ability to
access the data had nothing to do with your freedom to use the
software.

Of course it does. It's already been established that "stopping"
someone using wget in the manner they want suppresses freedom 0. Here
you're just stating the contrary position without actually countering
what you've quoted.

Post by Nomen Nescio
Not delivering results is in fact the means by which GNU Radio
Foundation, Inc. "stops" wget users, and hence freedom 0 (search
for the word "stopped").

Nothing stopped you from running the program. You ran the program,
you got negative results.

Freedom 0 is not limited to simply the right to use the program.
That's only the trivial benefit. Freedom 0 also includes the right to
use the program *how the user wants to*.

By the way, you should search for "stopped" and then read the next
sentence: "It has nothing to do with what functionality the program
has, or whether it is useful for what you want to do."

Indeed I read that line. It reasonably limits freedom 0 to exclude
two sitations that (in the absense of that line) would trigger a
freedom 0 issue, neither of which I'm making use of. GNU wget was
already equipped for the job and also fit for purpose *before being
stopped by the access denial*. Tor-using wget users are not relying
on the exempted criteria to claim a freedom 0 problem.

You want to download from gnuradio.org using wget.

Not just that. I want to download from gnuradio.org using wget to
proxy over Tor.

No one stopped you from running the program; it ran just fine.
Unfortunately, it wasn't functional for your purpose and it wasn't
useful. Freedom 0 retained.

You're just repeating yourself here. Your assumption is that if the
program executes, "freedom 0 is retained". That's very insufficent,
and defeated above.

Post by Nomen Nescio
That's incorrect. You need to reread freedom 0, paying particular
attention to the words "or stopped", which inherently includes
"blocking" among other ways of /stopping/ someone's use of a tool.

Did the gnuradio.org admins put code in wget or your operating
system to prevent wget from running?

This is a /begging the question/ fallacy. Your assumption is first
that preventing execution outright is the sole way to violate freedom
0. The assumption is disputed, so it cannot logically form the
premise of a new argument. It makes no difference whether
gnuradio.org did a code injection on wget or the OS when the disputed
assumption is then used to build an argument that's inherently flawed
by the premise.


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[Nomen Nescio]

In the early days of GNU, you'd request a physical copy via mail.

That wasn't discriminatory. They didn't say liberals had to go
through those hoops, while registered republicans could download
it, for example.

That's not a proper comparison.

It's not a comparison. If the whole public is given the same
mechanism and same access, it's not discrimination. How is this
unclear?

If you divide the community, and give different (and unequal)
treatment to different groups, how is that not discrimination,
particularly when none of of the groups are wholly malicious?

If I were flooded with requests from some address beacuse they were
proxying them from around the world, I might very well request that
the post office return them to the sender rather than deliver them
to me.

Without more detail it cannot be judged whether your hypothetical case
above is discrimination (which has at least 3 different definitions).
If I give you the benefit of saying you're not trying to exploit
equivocation, then the claim above may or may not be similar to the
discrimination against Tor users by GNU Radio Foundation, Inc. If you
were needlessly refusing legitimate mail based on some foolish
criteria like whether it passed through a particular post office (one
that is not itself malicious), then your analogy would resemble the
problem.

If the mail is proxied by the classic postal junk mailer (pre-Internet
mailing lists of the 1970s) service, then it really is 100% malicious,
in which case blocking them is not discrimination by the same
definition of "discrimination" (which is /to discern/). That variety
of discrimination does not resemble what GNU Radio Foundation, Inc. is
doing.

As you try to tune your hopeless analogy, the closer it gets to
malicious discrimination with needless collateral damage that impacts
legit users, the more it resembles what GRFI is doing. The more
removed it gets from that, the more of a false analogy it becomes.

You can send me an e-mail and I'll send you a copy. You can mail
me some writable media with postage and I'll mail it back with a
copy, and maybe throw in some other GNU software as a bonus.

Are you willing to repackage the website-hosted documentation that
is excluded from the git-downloadable package? Would you mind
doing that periodically, since the web-published content changes?
If someone wants to edit the gnuradio wiki, can they send you
update instructions?

None of that is relevant.

Of course it is. Quite simply, if you're not going to solve the
problem, your offer is empty and the problem remains.

Your freedoms apply only to the software you receive. It provides
no guarantee that you'll ever get an up to date version of the
software.

You're talking about the rights inherent in gnuradio as a free
software package. That's actually irrelevant to the claim of GNU
Radio Foundation, Inc. violating the freedom 0 principle, exclusively.
No one has said "the gnuradio software is non-free", yet this is what
you're addressing.

More precisely, you've just used a fallacy of composition. That is,
freedom 0 is a criteria for determining whether an application gets
the "free software" badge of approval. You're trying to reverse that,
and take criteria outside of the text of freedom 0 (the application
thereof) and inject it into freedom 0 (so as to limit it). That is a
fallacy of composition.

It's also immediately evident that you're not understanding the
problem I've described when you start with "Your freedoms apply..."
The word /apply/ signals that you think the discussion is over
freedoms that are guaranteed in some way (e.g. by a license).

When a company goes against a philosophical principle, it's not
necessarily legally actionable. It can be simply nothing more than a
failure to embrace a philosophical principle. And this is the case
here. The freedom 0 *principle* that GNU Radio Foundation,
Inc. undermines is *not* license non-compliance. (if it were, I would
have titled it as such).

Whether you realize it or not, your comments attempt to support a
precedent that will make it easy for more GNU projects to become
exclusive clubs in walled-gardens, while at the same time
accepting charitable contributions of code and money from the
public relies on them.

I explicitly stated otherwise.

If you mean your statement claiming to have a reverse bias, that was
fallacious and without impact. Your arguments have the opposite
effect.

RMS has clarified *his stance*. It's important to realize that he is
not defending user freedom, but rather the GNU project that has become
freedom-hostile, for which FSF is responsible.

This thread has been quoting the free software definition---the four
freedoms---that he himself wrote. "His stance" _is_ the definition.

That's nonsense. Freedom 0 was written decades ago. His statements
today are his stance today, inspired by the sudden motivation to
defend GRFI. Your appeal to authority fallacy has been called out.

Clarity on the status quo is only useful to the extent that we
realize what must change to restore and retain the public trust
amid new threats that control people who (quite rightly) don't
want to be controlled. What is clear is that we've not yet
reached that level of clarity on the problem as a whole.

Yes, but let's not misattribute.

You can obviously scroll up to see who is talking about the legally
binding aspect of freedom 0 to see where clarity is missing. It's not
legal application or obligations that's at issue with freedom 0, and
you've muddied the waters by bringing it up.

If the disagreement is the use of CloudFlare, talk about CloudFlare.
It isn't a software freedom issue.

CloudFlare is the instrument by which software freedom 0 and a long
list of civil liberties are being denied. It's also the instrument by
which security is compromised.

I don't feel at this point that anyone here is going to convince you
that Freedom 0 cannot possibly be violated in this circumstance.

This is because you've limited yourself strictly to the legal
application of freedom 0, and skipped the high-level philosophical
principle. This viewpoint neglects to see the forest for the trees.

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