Free Software Directory talk:Antifeatures

Categories that the FSF don't have a policy on yet

• Adware (0 listed) – any software package that automatically renders advertisements in order to generate revenue for its author.
• Crippleware (0 listed) – A freely licensed version and a proprietary version of the same software, but the free version is inferior to the proprietary one.

Stallman says: Whether the term "crippleware" is appropriate depends on what is missing from the free version of the program, on how painful that is for users. If this is not very painful then "cripple" is an exaggeration. We need to think about these cases more.  The main issue with each of these programs is, is the free version useful, or is it mainly a promotion of the nonfree version?"
Stallman again: No, the term "Crippleware" is NOT appropriate for all cases where the
free version is "inferior to the proprietary one".

If the free version is so bad that it deserves the term "crippled",
then the term "crippleware" is fitting.  But that is not always the
case.  The free version can be less capable than the proprietary one
but still be very useful.

For cases where the free version is truly cripped, I suggest we treat
the program as proprietary.  That means we don't list it, and searching for it
would find free replacements.

When the free version does not deserve the term "crippled", I suggest
we list the free version and ignore the proprietary version.

What do you two think?

Want to discuss this question on IRC to get feedback?

Donald: We had discussed this previously and came up with the name 'bait and surrender'; which more accurately depicts the situation (that it is primarily a promotional tool for 
proprietary software, and not a free software package in its own right), and avoids a loaded term. -Donaldr3

Stallman:
  > Instead, the
  > term that volunteers came up with is 'Bait and Surrender', a play on
  > 'Bait and switch' where the proprietary developer baits the user with
  > free software then tries to get them to surrender their freedom by
  > switching to the proprietary version.

That term seems good, for such programs.

  > I think that it might be worthwhile to alert users to these issues even
  > where the difference between the free and proprietary version is not so
  > great, because those issues still exist even where the free software
  > version is only missing a few features.

That makes sense.

But I think we still need to distinguish between these two cases:

* A free program that is just an ad for the proprietary program.

* A free program that is quite useful, even though it doesn't
have all the features of the proprietary program.

The difference is important and we need to recognize it.

• Tethered - Program depends on communication with a particular server, and is not very useful without that.
  • Stallman says: But maybe such programs should not be in the directory at all. Is there any reason to include them? Could you describe the examples?
  • If the front end is free back the back end isn't, and isn't otherwise useful, then we probably shouldn't include it - Donaldr3

Refine terms

• Software known to have grave flaws (0 listed) – Software that fails to fully do the job that it says it does.

Excluded

• Some categories in https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Antifeatures is excluded - see https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/issues/ for details:
  • "Nonfree Network Services": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html.
    • "The term is not clearly defined. I think we most of the time were actually talking about the code aspect of it: Does an app rely on a networking service that is not (by our knowledge) run or easy to reproduce with free software. Sigh.. don't think that makes it any better. Maybe some examples help: Telegram requires interacting with a server which source code has not been released, so its NonFreeNet. On the other hand, serving html files from an MS IIS http server is not affected, because you can easily replace it with your favored one. -- Krt (talk) 08:56, 24 November 2016 (UTC) " - https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Antifeature:NonFreeNet
  • Tracking
  • Non free Addons
  • Non free Dependencies
  • Upstream Non-free
  • Non-Free Assets

Bait and surrender, MySQL examples

Non-free software profit models

• Crippleware: The term "crippleware" is sometimes used to describe software products whose functions have been limited (or "crippled") with the sole purpose of encouraging or requiring the user to pay for those functions (either by paying a one-time fee or an ongoing subscription fee). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware
  • From an Open Source software providers perspective, there is the model of open core which includes a feature-limited version of the product and an open core version. The feature-limited version can be used widely; this approach is used by products like MySQL and Eucalyptus. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware#Computer_software
• Freemium is a pricing strategy by which a product or service (typically a digital offering or application such as software, media, games or web services) is provided free of charge, but money (premium) is charged for proprietary features, functionality, or virtual goods. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium
  • MySQL and a company’s market relevance in the light of “free” and “freemium” revenue models - https://guests.blogactiv.eu/2009/11/25/mysql-and-a-companys-market-relevance-in-the-light-of-free-and-freemium-revenue-models/
• Open core is a business model (as pointed out by Ian K) for the monetization of commercially produced open source software. Coined by Andrew Lampitt in 2008,[1] the open core model primarily involves offering a "core" or feature-limited version of a software product as free and open-source software, while offering "commercial" versions or add-ons as proprietary software. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_core
  • Oracle's MySQL database software is dual-licensed under a proprietary license, and the GNU GPL; proprietary versions offer additional features and enterprise support plans - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_core#Examples

Proposal: "Crippleware" and society's essential freedoms

During Kuhn's talk on LibrePlanet 2016, in the beginning of the talk, I could briefly listen to him talking about a case of dual licensing, where the "community"/"open source" edition of a software is under a free software license, and the "premium"/"commercial" edition may be under a non-free software license. So, I was thinking on this case, and here I'm suggesting for us to require a project, to be approved here, to meet at least one of these situations:

• The "premium"/"commercial" edition is also proven to be free software.
• The "community"/"open source" edition is proven to be as better as the counterpart, or even better.

If this proposal is accepted, we need to solve the associated problems in the following entries (either by simply disapproving them, or by contacting them, or both):

• Nginx: Comparison between Nginx and Nginx Plus. Note: The websites are different, but the Nginx project's actually links to the Nginx Plus edition whenever there is a new release of the Plus edition.
• NOLA: This proof requires non-free JavaScript in order to be seen. Go to the project's page, to "Download" and to any "Compare" button.
• Odoo/OpenERP: Comparison of the various editions.
• OrangeHRM: Comparison of OrangeHRM editions.
• VtigerCRM: Needs more investigation and clarification. This page evidences the availability of an "open source" edition. There is also this other page that, despite not evidencing the "open source" edition, shows differences between some of the currently available editions.

--Adfeno (talk) 16:32, 15 May 2016 (EDT)

I think this is an important criteria to consider because when these "premium"/"commercial" editions are better than the "open source"/"community" editions, or when they aren't free/libre, they still allow the proprietors to exercise unjust/unfair power over society.

We must also investigate ProcessMaker, because this page's HTML source evidences the existence of different editions.

There might be other entries to be investigated.

Besides, if you don't mind, I would like to apologize for making the Odoo entry. I created it because someone from Brazil blindly told me that it was free/libre software, and so I had to create the entry to see if that was true, then I saw Odoo being approved, and since the approval, I have recommended it at least two times (always referencing to the approved entry).

--Adfeno (talk) 10:27, 16 May 2016 (EDT)

Just for the record, for those wanting to change the requirements according to what is taken as consideration with this proposal: I spoke with contributors of the directory and some organizers of the meetings (Jgay participated on the debate), and we consider that these crippleware are somehow useful free/libre software (specially because a free software activist can make a parent project out of it), and so we came up with two alternatives that can be used instead of removing the entries. At least one of the following is recommended:

• Insert a message telling the viewer that the entry is about the free/libre edition of the software, and not about the non-free one, and that the free software movement doesn't recommend the non-free one. I, personally, suggest that this message is displayed with emphasis (like red boxes, with warning symbol and so on), but it's OK to have a simple text message (similar but longer than what the entry about Krita has).
• Instead of linking to the projects official page, resources, documentation, source code and so on: Link to a page from a free system distribution that provides such software. This avoids attracting people to the non-free functional data.

--Adfeno (talk) 09:23, 18 June 2016 (EDT)