free services (was: Re: Translation of manuals (was: SES manual French translation))

[Emanuel Berg]

Richard Stallman wrote:

> That name issue is superficial, not hard to fix. But I don't
> see how it makes sense to describe a service as a kind
> of software.

The service itself is not software, it is the result of the
work of software that runs on a server. The user interacts
with it with an interface and maybe there is an interface for
the result as well, depending on what service we are
talking about.

If all that software, including the interface(s), are free,
I don't see why not the whole thing is free as well.

> The deeper problem here is that defining what it means for
> services that to users ethically is the same problem as
> defining what it means for services to treat
> users unethically.

Indeed, it doesn't say anything about that.

But if anyone is displeased how users are treated that is
solvable, because the service is free, the whole thing can be
forked and setup on another server. Part of or all software
can be forked and modified and users can still use what is
basically the same service, only now whatever they were
displeased with can be fixed. (At least initially at least it
is basically the same. But of course it can grow from there to
what is ultimately more like two different things.)

Isn't it the same situation for any piece of free software?
Say it does something bad, it erases your disk. Instead of
having a long list what free software isn't allowed to do -
1. erase disk, 2. send spam e-mails, 3. ugh ... - we are
content the software is free. So those mistakes can be fixed,
however way they got there and for whatever reason.

So instead of having a long list of what a free service cannot
do - 1. treat the users unethically, 2. send spam e-mails,
3. ugh ... - we say if it runs entirely on free software, it
is a free service. Because everything unethically or otherwise
poorly-performing can be removed from it, just like a bug from
ordinary software.

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