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Update FLOSS-related terminology
New terminology (with a footnote for more background) reduces confusion and clarifies the difference between different viewpoints in this space. Thanks to RMS for providing feedback.
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Rohan Kumar
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This article is the second entry of series of posts exploring situations in which FOSS alone isn’t enough to secure user freedom.
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This article is the second entry of series of posts exploring situations in which FLOSS alone isn’t enough to secure user freedom.
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My previous article, Whatsapp and the domestication of users, got more attention than I was expecting. Some responses gave me a lot to think about,¹ especially regarding *actions* we can take. I suggest reading that article first; it explained what "user domestication" is and why it's a problem. It enumerated three countermeasures: FOSS, simplicity, and open platforms.
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My previous article, Whatsapp and the domestication of users, got more attention than I was expecting. Some responses gave me a lot to think about,¹ especially regarding *actions* we can take. I suggest reading that article first; it explained what "user domestication" is and why it's a problem. It enumerated three countermeasures: FLOSS, simplicity, and open platforms.
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=> ../../../2021/01/27/whatsapp-and-the-domestication-of-users.html WhatsApp and the domestication of users
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Hard problems, by definition, lack easy solutions. Simply choosing (or creating) a platform that avoids user domestication isn't enough if that platform can change. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; in addition to settling on the right platform, we must ensure that it honors its users in both the present *and the future*. Keeping a platform FOSS and simple is more straightforward² than keeping a platform "open".
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Hard problems, by definition, lack easy solutions. Simply choosing (or creating) a platform that avoids user domestication isn't enough if that platform can change. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; in addition to settling on the right platform, we must ensure that it honors its users in both the present *and the future*. Keeping a platform FLOSS and simple is more straightforward² than keeping a platform "open".
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How do we keep an open platform from becoming a closed platform in the future?
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@ -11,11 +11,11 @@ tags:
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- user domestication
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title: Keeping platforms open
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---
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This article is the second entry of series of posts exploring situations in which <abbr title="free and open-source software">FOSS</abbr> alone isn't enough to secure user freedom.
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This article is the second entry of series of posts exploring situations in which <abbr title="free, libre, and open-source software">FLOSS</abbr> alone isn't enough to secure user freedom.
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My previous article, [Whatsapp and the domestication of users](../../../2021/01/27/whatsapp-and-the-domestication-of-users.html), got more attention than I was expecting. Some responses gave me a lot to think about,[^1] especially regarding _actions_ we can take. I suggest reading that article first; it explained what "user domestication" is and why it's a problem. It enumerated three countermeasures: FOSS, simplicity, and open platforms.
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My previous article, [Whatsapp and the domestication of users](../../../2021/01/27/whatsapp-and-the-domestication-of-users.html), got more attention than I was expecting. Some responses gave me a lot to think about,[^1] especially regarding _actions_ we can take. I suggest reading that article first; it explained what "user domestication" is and why it's a problem. It enumerated three countermeasures: FLOSS, simplicity, and open platforms.
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Hard problems, by definition, lack easy solutions. Simply choosing (or creating) a platform that avoids user domestication isn't enough if that platform can change. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; in addition to settling on the right platform, we must ensure that it honors its users in both the present _and the future_. Keeping a platform FOSS and simple is more straightforward[^2] than keeping a platform "open".
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Hard problems, by definition, lack easy solutions. Simply choosing (or creating) a platform that avoids user domestication isn't enough if that platform can change. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; in addition to settling on the right platform, we must ensure that it honors its users in both the present _and the future_. Keeping a platform FLOSS and simple is more straightforward[^2] than keeping a platform "open".
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How do we keep an open platform from becoming a closed platform in the future?
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@ -64,13 +64,16 @@ A stroll through WhatsApp's actual privacy policy at the time reveals that they
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With user domestication, providing useful software to users is a means to the end of exploiting them. The alternative is simple: make serving users the end in and of itself.
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To prevent being controlled by software, users must be in control. Software that allows users to be in control is called free software. The word "free" in this context refers to freedom rather than price. Software freedom is similar to the concept of open-source, but the latter is focused on practical benefits rather than ethics. A less ambiguous term that neutrally refers to both free and open-source software is FOSS.
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To avoid being controlled by software, users must be in control. Software that allows users to be in control is called "free software" or "libre software":
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=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software Free software (Wikipedia)
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Others have explained the concepts underpinning free software better than I can, so I won't go into detail.
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The word "free" in this context refers to freedom rather than price. Software freedom is similar to the concept of open-source; the latter is an offshoot of the former focused on more business-friendly practical benefits rather than ethics. A less ambiguous term that neutrally refers to free, libre, and open-source software is "FLOSS".²
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Others have explained the fundamental concepts underpinning free software and its importance better than I can, so I won't go into detail.
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=> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html What is free software? (GNU Project)
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=> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html Free Software Is Even More Important Now (GNU Project)
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It comes down to four essential freedoms:
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@ -79,11 +82,11 @@ It comes down to four essential freedoms:
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* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others
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* The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others
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### Making money with FOSS
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### Making money with FLOSS
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The most common objection I hear is that FOSS makes it harder to make money.
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The most common objection I hear is that FLOSS makes it harder to make money.
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The key to making money with FOSS is to make software a commoditized complement of other, more profitable services.
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The key to making money with FLOSS is to make software a commoditized complement of other, more profitable services.
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=> https://www.gwern.net/Complement Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement
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@ -91,7 +94,7 @@ Examples of such services include selling support, customization, consulting, tr
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Managed hosting isn't a basket worth all your eggs if giants like AWS can do the same at a lower price. Being the developer can give an edge in areas like customization, support, and training; it doesn't offer as obvious an advantage when it comes to hosting.
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## FOSS isn't always enough
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## FLOSS isn't always enough
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Free software is a necessary but sometimes insufficient requirement to build domestication immunity. Two more measures include *simplicity* and *open platforms.*
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@ -122,7 +125,7 @@ It's nigh-impossible to start a new browser from scratch and catch up with behem
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To summarize: the complexity of the Web platform forced Mozilla, the only browser engine developer claiming to serve "people, not profit", to implement user-hostile features in its browser. The Web's complexity has left users with limited choice between three big players with conflicts of interest whose positions grow more entrenched with time.
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For the record, *I don't think Mozilla is a bad organization;* rather, I think it's surprising that they're able to do so much without further compromise in a system that practically requires it. Their core product is still FOSS, and very lightly patched third-party builds remove antifeatures.
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For the record, *I don't think Mozilla is a bad organization;* rather, I think it's surprising that they're able to do so much without further compromise in a system that practically requires it. Their core product is still FLOSS, and very lightly patched third-party builds remove antifeatures.
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### Open platforms
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@ -130,9 +133,9 @@ To prevent a network effect from turning into vendor lock-in, software that natu
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#### Case study: Signal
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Ever since a certain car salesman tweeted "Use Signal", large numbers of users have been obediently switching. At the time of writing, the Signal clients and servers are FOSS and use some of the best E2EE out there; however, I'm not a fan.
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Ever since a certain car salesman tweeted "Use Signal", large numbers of users have been obediently switching. At the time of writing, the Signal clients and servers are FLOSS and use some of the best E2EE out there; however, I'm not a fan.
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Although Signal's clients and servers are FOSS, Signal is still a closed platform. Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike is quite critical of open and federated platforms, describing his rationale for keeping Signal a closed platform in a blog post.³
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Although Signal's clients and servers are FLOSS, Signal is still a closed platform. Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike is quite critical of open and federated platforms, describing his rationale for keeping Signal a closed platform in a blog post.⁴
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=> https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ Reflections: The ecosystem is moving (Signal blog)
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@ -203,11 +206,18 @@ David Jimenez translated this article to Spanish:
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¹ Pierotti, R.; Fogg, B. (2017). The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Coevolved. Yale University Press.
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² See Defective by Design (linked below). DRM is another classic example of user domestication. For the record, Mozilla opposed making DRM a Web standard. It implemented DRM support after it lost to the other W3C members. This doesn't excuse putting DRM in a browser, but at least there wasn't malicious intent. The same can't be said for the pro-DRM members of the W3C.
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² Many within the free software movement dislike the term "open source" for a number of reasons; others use the terms "free" and "open source" interchangeably:
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=> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software (GNU Project)
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=> https://drewdevault.com/2019/09/17/The-wrong-words-but-the-right-ideas.html Don't sacrifice the right ideas to win the right words (Drew Devault's blog)
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Finally, many vendors use the word "free" to refer to price rather than freedom, prompting some free software supporters to adopt the term "libre" instead. All this can be quite confusing, which is why I prefer acronyms like FLOSS to describe these terms' intersection.
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³ See Defective by Design (linked below). DRM is another classic example of user domestication. For the record, Mozilla opposed making DRM a Web standard. It implemented DRM support after it lost to the other W3C members. This doesn't excuse putting DRM in a browser, but at least there wasn't malicious intent. The same can't be said for the pro-DRM members of the W3C.
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=> https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ Defective by Design
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³ Moxie's blog post generated many responses. Two good follow-ups are on Linux Weekly News and a blog post by Matrix.org:
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⁴ Moxie's blog post generated many responses. Two good follow-ups are on Linux Weekly News and a blog post by Matrix.org:
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=> https://lwn.net/Articles/687294/ The perils of federated protocols (Linux Weekly News)
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=> https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom On Privacy versus Freedom (Matrix.org blog)
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- rant
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title: WhatsApp and the domestication of users
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---
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I have never used WhatsApp, and never will. Despite this, I still feel the need to write an article about WhatsApp since it's the perfect case study to help understand a class of businesses models I call "user domestication". The domestication of users is high on my list of problems plaguing the human race, and is worth a detailed explanation.
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WhatsApp wasn't the first instant messenger of its kind, and probably won't be the last. I simply chose to focus on WhatsApp since its recent privacy issues have made it a hot topic.
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@ -78,25 +77,25 @@ Software freedom
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With user domestication, providing useful software to users is a means to the end of exploiting them. The alternative is simple: make serving users the end in and of itself.
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To prevent being controlled by software, users must be in control. Software that allows users to be in control is called [free software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software). The word "free" in this context refers to freedom rather than price. Software freedom is similar to the concept of open-source, but the latter is focused on practical benefits rather than ethics. A less ambiguous term that neutrally refers to both free and open-source software is **<abbr title="free and open-source software">FOSS</abbr>**.
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To avoid being controlled by software, users must be in control. Software that allows users to be in control is called [free software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software) or libre software. The word "free" in this context refers to freedom rather than price. Software freedom is similar to the concept of open-source; the latter is an offshoot of the former focused on more business-friendly practical benefits rather than ethics. A less ambiguous term that neutrally refers to free, libre, and open-source software is **<abbr title="free, libre, and open-source software">FLOSS</abbr>**.[^2]
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Others have [explained](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html) the concepts underpinning free software better than I can, so I won't go into detail. It comes down to four essential freedoms:
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Others have explained the [fundamental concepts](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html) underpinning free software and [its importance](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html) better than I can, so I won't go into detail. It comes down to four essential freedoms:
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- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose
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- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish
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- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others
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- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others
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### Making money with FOSS
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### Making money with FLOSS
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The most common objection I hear is that FOSS makes it harder to make money.
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The most common objection I hear is that FLOSS makes it harder to make money.
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The key to making money with FOSS is to make software a [commoditized complement](https://www.gwern.net/Complement) of other, more profitable services. Examples of such services include selling support, customization, consulting, training, managed hosting, hardware, and certifications. Plenty of companies use this approach instead of building proprietary software: Red Hat, Collabora, System76, Purism, Canonical, SUSE, Hashicorp, Databricks, and Gradle are some names that come to mind.
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The key to making money with FLOSS is to make software a [commoditized complement](https://www.gwern.net/Complement) of other, more profitable services. Examples of such services include selling support, customization, consulting, training, managed hosting, hardware, and certifications. Plenty of companies use this approach instead of building proprietary software: Red Hat, Collabora, System76, Purism, Canonical, SUSE, Hashicorp, Databricks, and Gradle are some names that come to mind.
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Managed hosting isn't a basket worth all your eggs if giants like AWS can do the same at a lower price. Being the developer can give an edge in areas like customization, support, and training; it doesn't offer as obvious an advantage when it comes to hosting.
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FOSS isn't always enough
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------------------------
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FLOSS isn't always enough
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-------------------------
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Free software is a necessary but sometimes insufficient requirement to build domestication immunity. Two more measures include **simplicity** and **open platforms.**
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@ -108,7 +107,7 @@ Complex software that can't be developed by a different group of people creates
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#### Case study: Mozilla and the Web
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Mozilla was a ray of hope in the browser wars, a space dominated by adtech, surveillance, and vendor lock-in. Unfortunately, developing a browser engine is a monumental task difficult enough for Opera and Microsoft to give up and re-skin Chromium. Browsers are more than the document readers they were meant to be: they've evolved into application runtimes with their own stacks for GPU acceleration, Bluetooth, permissions, device enumeration, bundled media codecs, <abbr title="digital rights management">DRM</abbr>[^2], extension APIs, developer tools...the list goes on. It takes billions of dollars a year to respond to vulnerabilities in such a massive attack surface and keep up with a standard that grows at such a worrying rate. Those billions have to come from somewhere.
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Mozilla was a ray of hope in the browser wars, a space dominated by adtech, surveillance, and vendor lock-in. Unfortunately, developing a browser engine is a monumental task difficult enough for Opera and Microsoft to give up and re-skin Chromium. Browsers are more than the document readers they were meant to be: they've evolved into application runtimes with their own stacks for GPU acceleration, Bluetooth, permissions, device enumeration, bundled media codecs, <abbr title="digital rights management">DRM</abbr>[^3], extension APIs, developer tools...the list goes on. It takes billions of dollars a year to respond to vulnerabilities in such a massive attack surface and keep up with a standard that grows at such a worrying rate. Those billions have to come from somewhere.
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Mozilla ended up having to make major compromises to stay afloat. It cut search deals with blatantly user-hostile companies, and bundled the browser with [ads](https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/) and bloatware such as a partially ad-funded proprietary bookmarking SaaS called [Pocket](https://dustri.org/b/firefox-youre-supposed-to-be-in-my-pocket-not-the-other-way-around.html). Since acquiring Pocket (to diversify its sources of income), Mozilla hasn't yet delivered on its [earlier statements](https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/27/mozilla-pockets-pocket-in-first-acquisition/) saying it would open-source its code: while the clients have been open-sourced, the server code remains proprietary. Open-sourcing this and re-writing portions if necessary would understandably be a large task due in part to Pocket's complexity.
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To summarize: the complexity of the Web platform forced Mozilla, the only browser engine developer claiming to serve "people, not profit", to implement user-hostile features in its browser. The Web's complexity has left users with limited choice between three big players with conflicts of interest whose positions grow more entrenched with time.
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For the record, **I don't think Mozilla is a bad organization;** rather, I think it's surprising that they're able to do so much without further compromise in a system that practically requires it. Their core product is still FOSS, and very lightly patched third-party builds remove antifeatures.
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For the record, **I don't think Mozilla is a bad organization;** rather, I think it's surprising that they're able to do so much without further compromise in a system that practically requires it. Their core product is still FLOSS, and very lightly patched third-party builds remove antifeatures.
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### Open platforms
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@ -124,9 +123,9 @@ To prevent a network effect from turning into vendor lock-in, software that natu
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#### Case study: Signal
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Ever since a certain car salesman [tweeted](https://web.archive.org/web/20210108024414/https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1347165127036977153) "Use Signal", large numbers of users have been obediently switching. At the time of writing, the Signal clients and servers are FOSS and use some of the best <abbr title="end-to-end encryption">E2EE</abbr> out there; however, I'm not a fan.
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Ever since a certain car salesman [tweeted](https://web.archive.org/web/20210108024414/https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1347165127036977153) "Use Signal", large numbers of users have been obediently switching. At the time of writing, the Signal clients and servers are FLOSS and use some of the best <abbr title="end-to-end encryption">E2EE</abbr> out there; however, I'm not a fan.
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Although Signal's clients and servers are FOSS, Signal is still a closed platform. Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike is quite critical of open and federated platforms, describing his rationale for keeping Signal a closed platform in [a blog post](https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/).[^3] This means that there's no supported way to develop an alternative server that's supported by Signal clients, or an alternative client that supports Signal servers. Step one to user domestication is nearly complete.
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Although Signal's clients and servers are FLOSS, Signal is still a closed platform. Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike is quite critical of open and federated platforms, describing his rationale for keeping Signal a closed platform in [a blog post](https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/).[^4] This means that there's no supported way to develop an alternative server that's supported by Signal clients, or an alternative client that supports Signal servers. Step one to user domestication is nearly complete.
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In addition to there being a single client and server implementation, there's only one Signal server provider: Signal Messenger LLC. Users' dependence on this central server provider blew up in their faces when Signal's recent growth caused downtime for over a day, rendering every Signal user unable to send messages until the single vendor fixed the issue.
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<span class="h-card vcard"><a class="p-name url fn n" href="https://sgfault.com"><span class="p-given-name given-name">David</span> <span class="p-family-name family-name">Jimenez</span></a></span> translated this article to Spanish: <a lang="es" hreflang="es" rel="alternate" href="https://sgfault.com/2021/02/21/whatsapp-y-la-domesticacion-de-usuarios.html">WhatsApp y la domesticación de usuarios</a>.
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[^1]: Pierotti, R.; Fogg, B. (2017). The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Coevolved. Yale University Press.
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[^2]: See [Defective by Design](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/). DRM is another classic example of user domestication. For the record, Mozilla opposed making DRM a Web standard. It implemented DRM support after it lost to the other W3C members. This doesn't excuse putting DRM in a browser, but at least there wasn't malicious intent. The same can't be said for the pro-DRM members of the W3C.
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[^2]: Many within the free software movement dislike the term "open source" for a [number of reasons](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html); others use the terms "free" and "open source" [interchangeably](https://drewdevault.com/2019/09/17/The-wrong-words-but-the-right-ideas.html). Finally, many vendors use the word "free" to refer to price rather than freedom, prompting some free software supporters to adopt the term "libre" instead. All this can be quite confusing, which is why I prefer acronyms like FLOSS to describe these terms' intersection.
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[^3]: Moxie's blog post generated many responses. Two good follow-ups are on [Linux Weekly News](https://lwn.net/Articles/687294/) and a [blog post](https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom) by Matrix.org
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[^3]: See [Defective by Design](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/). DRM is another classic example of user domestication. For the record, Mozilla opposed making DRM a Web standard. It implemented DRM support after it lost to the other W3C members. This doesn't excuse putting DRM in a browser, but at least there wasn't malicious intent. The same can't be said for the pro-DRM members of the W3C.
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[^4]: Moxie's blog post generated many responses. Two good follow-ups are on [Linux Weekly News](https://lwn.net/Articles/687294/) and a [blog post](https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom) by Matrix.org
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