451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction when it comes to consumer devices?
Matthew Aslett, January 20, 2010 @ 5:17 am ETThere has been a fair bit of hand-ringing recently about free and open source software’s impact on mobile phones and other consumer devices. Lysandra Ohrstrom of the SFLC last week celebrated the increased use of FOSS on devices available at the Consumer Electronics Show, but lamented the fact that often the user does not get to “share, tinker, and adapt the devices”. Meanwhile Bradley M Kuhn recently warned that “we are in a very precarious time with regard to the freedom of mobile devices” while Glyn Moody questioned whether it is healthy that most Android applications are closed-source.
They all make strong, cogent arguments about the positive benefits of software freedom with regards to mobile phones and other consumer devices but which, to my mind, overlook one important factor: most consumers don’t care about software freedom.
Before we go on I should state that I am not questioning whether consumers *should* care about software freedom. There are plenty of good arguments why they should. I am also not suggesting that device manufacturers shouldn’t be required to meet their obligations related to the use of FOSS licenses. What concerns me is that the focus on the right/ability to “share, tinker, and adapt the devices” distracts attention from issues related to open formats, access to services and the freedom to move data between devices.
If we take a look at the benefits of FOSS to end users in the enterprise sector we routinely see lower cost, increased flexibility and reduced vendor lock-in as the primary benefits. The first of those is already being delivered to consumer users, indirectly, via the use of FOSS by device manufacturers to lower development costs. The latter two are less relevant when it comes to consumer devices. Or at least, software freedom is less relevant compared to data freedom when it comes to consumer devices which are, at the end of the day, appliances.
Faced with a variety of potential devices to purchase, I would argue that most consumers do not worry about what license the software is distributed with, or about their rights to modify that device. They worry about whether it works as advertised. If it doesn’t the last thing most consumers want to do is modify it themselves, because that is not what you pay for when you buy a consumer device – you pay for a device that, to borrow a phrase, “just works”.
Of course FOSS advocates clearly do care about those issues, and they care about their right to modify their consumer devices and have a wide choice of FOSS applications to deploy on them. That is their right and I am not criticizing anyone for exercising it. I do wonder whether the focus on software licensing and promoting software freedom to consumer users distracts attention from issues such as data freedom, however.
Ohrstrom also talks about issues related to access to content in formats that enable it to run on any device and be moved between devices. These are important issues – the previously identified issues related to flexibility and freedom from vendor lock-in – but they relate to the use of open formats, and the freedom to move data between devices. Those are quite distinct from the license used for the software on the device on which that content runs. Having a device that runs a free software platform does not guarantee either, even with the right to make modifications.
Update – thanks to Josh Chalifour and his comment for providing me with a better conclusion than I could muster – which is that while the right to tinker is vital to those who believe in software freedom, the issue doesn’t have immediately obvious impacts on regular consumers, and is in my view potentially distracting. The concept of data freedom, and access to content regardless of the device, are more likely to resonate with consumer users, and may in turn get them thinking about software freedom.
Comments (14) Categories: Software
[...] 451 CAOS Theory » Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction when it comes to consumer device… blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2010/01/20/is-software-freedom-a-necessity-or-a-distraction-when-it-comes-to-consumer-devices – view page – cached An open source blog by The 451 Group. [...]
Freedom is not a distraction. It’s the user that should not be distracted by freedom. You are right that running Free Software platform is no [absolute] guarantee of interchangeability and interoperability. But the fact that somebody else can make good use of software freedom in the device is IMHO a very strong starting point, even though I probably will never look into a line of source code. It’s no magic, it’s just games theory.
The consumer wants stuff to work. The Prosumer wants to tinker, hack and break. The prosumer is a small percentage of the consumer group, agreed. But the “freedom to tinker” sets free creativity. Limiting this freedom is OK for consumers, so let them buy their stuff and be happy. I however select my gadgets and devices based upon freedom to tinker. Because it opens up to a world of possibilities that someone might use to create something unexpected.
Innovation happens everywhere and access to innovation should not be limited. That is why the freedom to tinker is so natural for us prosumers.
I agree – I never said the freedom to tinker should be limited. But I think the focus on the freedom to tinker the software distracts from wider issues relating to the freedom to move data and access content.
[...] here to see the original: 451 CAOS Theory » Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction … Get 100$ easily on FaceBOOK!!!!!! View admin’s Profile Subscribe via [...]
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by caostheory: New post: Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction when it comes to consumer devices? http://bit.ly/59LyK3…
[...] rest is here: 451 CAOS Theory » Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction … Рубрика: Разные рубрики | Метки: a-fair-bit, [...]
I like how you’ve framed this increasingly tricky issue. Although the various licensing concerns and freedoms are important, I think that to the majority of consumers, these issues usually come off as arcane and rather difficult to understand. The issue doesn’t have immediately obvious impacts on the person using a device, so it’s often difficult to explain the importance or relevance to the regular consumer. However, approaching it from the perspective of “data freedom” may be a more direct way of tieing things together.
Yes, that’s what I was trying to get at
[...] this link: 451 CAOS Theory » Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction … Share and [...]
Software is a technical means to an end-user good. End users care about the result, but most don’t care about the means. We do, because we have to use those means to achieve that good.
[...] View post: 451 CAOS Theory » Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction … [...]
Agree entirely that standard interfaces/data interoperability are far more important than open ‘application’ code — the latter can be easily rewritten. This fact is all too frequently ignored by the proponents of copyleft licenses: it is the more permissive licenses that better promote open standards, as code under them is more readily incorporated into other software — propriety as well as ‘open’. The BSD TCP/IP stack being the classic example.
[...] Is software freedom a necessity or a distraction when it comes to consumer devices? There has been a fair bit of hand-ringing recently about free and open source software’s impact on mobile phones and other consumer devices. Lysandra Ohrstrom of the SFLC last week celebrated the increased use of FOSS on devices available at the Consumer Electronics Show, but lamented the fact that often the user does not get to “share, tinker, and adapt the devices”. Meanwhile Bradley M Kuhn recently warned that “we are in a very precarious time with regard to the freedom of mobile devices” while Glyn Moody questioned whether it is healthy that most Android applications are closed-source. [...]