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[...] not everything has to be blessed by Stallmann to be acceptable

Regarding this point, Stallman certainly does endorse Free Software. And so much of what is in OpenBSD is Free Software—software that respects a user's software freedom—and the same goes for OpenSSL. Stallman (and his organization, the Free Software Foundation(FSF)) are known for standing up for a user's software freedom. Non-copylefted Free Software is Free Software. Furthermore, in 2004 the FSF gave Theo de Raadt an award for the Advancement of Free Software, "[f]or recognition as founder and project leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects, Theo de Raadt's work has also led to significant contributions to other BSD distributions and GNU/Linux. Of particular note is Theo's work on OpenSSH". A free system need not include GNU software or be licensed under a GNU license (such as the GPL) to respect a user's software freedom.

The FSF is quite clear why it doesn't list OpenBSD (or the other BSD distributions) in their list of Free system distributions:

FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD all include instructions for obtaining nonfree programs in their ports system. In addition, their kernels include nonfree firmware blobs.

Nonfree firmware programs used with Linux, the kernel, are called "blobs", and that's how we use the term. In BSD parlance, the term "blob" means something else: a nonfree driver. OpenBSD and perhaps other BSD distributions (called "projects" by BSD developers) have the policy of not including those. That is the right policy, as regards drivers; but when the developers say these distributions âoecontain no blobsâ, it causes a misunderstanding. They are not talking about firmware blobs.

No BSD distribution has policies against proprietary binary-only firmware that might be loaded even by free drivers.

Including nonfree software and pointing users to nonfree software is quite common among those who endorse the open source philosophy, as the FSF has long pointed out (older essay, newer essay). The open source movement's philosophy is a development methodology built to toss aside software freedom for practical convenience in an attempt to be "more acceptable to business". So this philosophical difference sets up a radically different reaction in the face of reliable, powerful proprietary software. Quoting the newer essay:

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

They have to use "Vrije" because it was discovered that not only is the name of "Free University Compiler Kit" obscene, but it's also misleading: the software is non-free.

So, abolish copyright, and you won't complain when people copy every creative work you've ever made and get money delivering it to other people while you get nothing from it? It must be nice to be independently wealthy.

I'm for a *short* copyright period. Really short. A decade or so, but it's negotiable. Not zero. A short term of copyright has nothing to do with powerful industries and long-entrenched cartels, it has to do with an individual putting food on the table. I suppose it would be sufficient for a musical performer to perform their work and get compensated for that skill, but it would be nice if a musician could also record their own work and sell copies for a little while, or a programmer (for example) could have the *choice* to either distribute their work freely or have some exclusive rights for a little while, or have the ability to limit the terms under which the code is used (e.g., the GNU GPL *depends* on the existence of copyright. If copyright didn't exist, none of those terms could be stipulated unless you had a signed contract with every user). Copyright empowers the little guy as much as the big companies, if it is properly constructed.

In case it's not clear, I don't consider the current laws properly constructed. They're obscenely distorted and weight things far to heavily for the creator rather than the user/public. But I still don't think that justifies abolishing copyright completely. It deserves fixing.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.

And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.

Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (Ten percent of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)

Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.

There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.

Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.

Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.

It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.

Dan conclud

Over a decade ago, there was a GNU project for internet voting. With no financial incentive, the driving force was a belief that there would be a benefit in making voting easier. The project was abandoned after they realized how difficult creating a secure, reliable and anonymous internet voting system actually is.

The founder of the project quotes Bruce Schneier as saying, "a secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers."

Of course, if someone here wants to show their credentials and explain why Schneier is wrong, I'm sure many of us would love to hear their reasoning.

Where did you learn about that?

In the manual of any argument parser.

Mozilla should abstain temptations and prefer the standard editor.

The particular issue had nothing to do with undefined behavior. Check the issue again. The compiler elided a well defined explicit and non-conditional call to memset before returning from the function. It is no longer executing the program as written.

A sane spec would allow it to issue a warning that the code appears to have no effect (it would be wrong, but at least no harm done). So long as an override is made available, it could fail the compilation if -Werror is set.

One might expect a high level language, especially a functional language, to take liberties like that, but C is a mid-level imperative language (or at least it's supposed to be). Of course a high level and/or functional language would never allow reading uninitialized memory so it wouldn't be a problem.

The case of i = i++ is somewhat ambiguous at the syntactic/semantic level. You are effectively asking it to alter the value of i twice. since the ++ postfix implies an immediate increment after access, arguably it is always ineffective (fetch, immediate increment, store). However, (and also arguably) It could be interpreted as fetch, store, increment before the next fetch which would be quite a mess in a more complex case like i = 25 + i++ where potentially the 25 could disappear.

To contrast both, a case where optimizing is always permissible (except in the case of volatile). i = ++i+j. In that case, we end up with fetch i, increment the register, store back, add immediate 25, store to i. The store back instruction can be elided every time and the final store can be delayed if further operations on i will take place.

The very fact that a business process can be patented means the system is broken, and even the SCOTUS should be able to understand that part.

Precisely

I'm going with old news from decades ago.

Pretty much every app I try to install wants access to everything to function. I try to install a simple game, it wants access to my phone history, contacts, email, google accounts, and fuck knows what else.

Android phones were sold in some countries before Google Checkout (now Google Wallet). In countries without Google Checkout, Android Market (now Google Play Store) showed only freeware apps. In order to derive revenue from users in those countries, developers had to put ads in their apps. And in order to compete for users with developers that had embraced adware, other developers had to make their apps free as well. Google Wallet has since expanded to far more countries, but the expectation of a freeware price point in Google Play Store has continued. And the push for ad revenue has led to more targeted ad delivery systems, which need to see more of your PII. See also tlhIngan's comment.

It's not as widespread on iOS because Apple introduces the iTunes Store in each country before selling iProducts there. This means a payment system always precedes the App Store, preserving an international market for paywalled apps.

In any case, if you want to limit your exposure to Android adware that needs to see your PII, turn on "Unknown sources" and install F-Droid, which allows only applications distributed under a free software license. If you're worried about the security implications of turning on "Unknown sources", then turn on "Unknown sources" only when using F-Droid and turn it off when done. There's not nearly as much selection, especially because free and games mix like oil and water, but what you do get has fewer annoyances.

I've never gotten an Android app anywhere but F-Droid. I don't know why anyone would.

Because F-Droid carries only free software, and there are several categories of application that aren't going to be free any time soon. These include (for example) games, applications to view rented movies, and applications to prepare a tax return. What's the free alternative to, say, Sonic the Hedgehog or the Netflix or H&R Block app?

My sites free. I pay to host it. Anyones free to go there, download my content. I've no intention of ever applying ANY license to any of it. You can even use it for commercial purposes if you like. I don't care. If you want to be nice you should throw in an attribution though.

If you don't apply an explicit license, standard copyright applies, and that is "all rights reserved, no copying allowed beyond fair use." I'd recommend applying the CC-BY license or the GNU All-Permissive License to your pages.

To quote the FSF:

If you choose to provide source through a written offer, then anybody who requests the source from you is entitled to receive it.

The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gp...

You're simply wrong.

What does “written offer valid for any third party” mean in GPLv2? Does that mean everyone in the world can get the source to any GPL'ed program no matter what? (#WhatDoesWrittenOfferValid)
If you choose to provide source through a written offer, then anybody who requests the source from you is entitled to receive it.

If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.

The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gp...

Read the italicized portion until it sinks in.

Hint: outside of Hello World, bugs will happen.

See also http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hello/2013-12/msg00004.html, which adds a BUGS section to the GNU Hello man page. Not even Hello World is free of bugs. true(1), on the other hand... ;-)

We appear to slowly lose our formerly-well-established pre-digital rights at every turn; with every small victory such as your own DMCA exemption, we suffer another huge loss such as ACTA. Given that, what do you see as the best attainable outcome for our current struggle to preserve privacy and fair use rights for the general public? I don't expect us to reach "GNU/Utopia", of course, but do we have any real hope of avoiding Stallman's Right to Read as the only possible long-term outcome?

Taxes are a way of getting other to pay for services they do not use.

No they are a way for everybody to contribute to building the society in which we all live. If you want to live in a bubble somewhere then go right ahead and move somewhere were there is no society.

YOU might have been overwarned, but most people have never heard of The Right to Read, and don't understand why DRM could be problematic.

And that's a good thing because that essay is moronic, something that is clear, plain and simple from the first paragraph that you would have to be a monumental mental defective to miss:

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.

When you share a physical book you share your copy of that book, you don't make another copy of it. Now while it may be illegal to share an additional copy of a copyrighted work, be that physical or digital, the method of sharing laid out in the scenario in the essay is not illegal at all. The essay attempts to make a reductio ad absurdum argument extrapolating a change that does not exist, the fact is you were never allowed to make an additional copy of a copyrighted work and share that, anybody with even a fundamental understand of the concept of copyright knows that.

The essay makes the critical and obvious mistake of not differentiating between sharing a single copy of the text and making an additional copy of the text to share as an attempt to fool the reader.

Most people don't know the risks of DRM, a lot of people don't even know what DRM is. YOU might have been overwarned, but most people have never heard of The Right to Read, and don't understand why DRM could be problematic.

The thing is...we don't have "the right to read". If I write something, you don't get the right to read it. I might give you my permission to read it, but I don't have to.

In his story, RMS was conflating "first sale rights" into "I should be able to do anything with any book, any time I want, regardless of the author's wishes". Basically, he took his free software opinions and twisted them to apply to books as well. I do agree that DRM can remove some of your first sale rights, and that's a real pain. You should be able to loan, sell, rent, etc., a book that you purchased. But, if you merely rent a book/movie/car/whatever, then you don't get all those same rights, and the story RMS wrote was about rental of books, not sale.

And, yes, I do think it's OK for a company that rents you a physical book/movie/car/whatever to put in a provision that you can't loan it to anybody else. If you don't like that provision, then do business with some other company.

Uh, most people understand why taxes are a good thing. There are people who feel that we are being taxed too much, but there aren't many people who want to get rid of taxes. Some form of taxation is necessary for the operation of the government.

Taxes are a way of getting other to pay for services they do not use. Usage fees are ways to get users to pay for services they use. There are a few exceptions like national defense, but I think we can agree that we are WAY beyond that now.

Most people don't know the risks of DRM, a lot of people don't even know what DRM is. YOU might have been overwarned, but most people have never heard of The Right to Read, and don't understand why DRM could be problematic. As long as it doesn't get in the way, they are fine with it.

Beating people over the head will not educate them. And over the last few year we have "taught" people to click OK without reading through warning popups and 500 page EULAs. If you want to educate people tell them about Zune users.

No one is forcing you to use the DRM in Firefox. They are simply allowing it as an option.

The government doesn't take away your privacy by running the NSA. They are simply adding surveilance as an option.

The mafia doesn't force you to pay protection money. They are simply allowing you to continue running your business.

That mugger doesn't force you to hand over your wallet. He is simply offering you to give him your money, you know, as an option...

It's all whitewashing. DRM is evil and there is no good side to it. Allowing it allows it to spread and grow. If you want to know why RMS disapproves, read The Right To Read.

At least the man has a spine. Something we can't say about the Mozilla Foundation anymore, unfortunately.

1) DRM is bad.

Yep. So are taxes,

Uh, most people understand why taxes are a good thing. There are people who feel that we are being taxed too much, but there aren't many people who want to get rid of taxes. Some form of taxation is necessary for the operation of the government.

Oh, God no! We are already way too overwarned.

Most people don't know the risks of DRM, a lot of people don't even know what DRM is. YOU might have been overwarned, but most people have never heard of The Right to Read, and don't understand why DRM could be problematic. As long as it doesn't get in the way, they are fine with it.

Let's not also forget two other particularly powerful points made in the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) essay:

• "We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points out that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made any effort to study the situation."
• "More importantly, popularity is not an end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with an ethical mission. In the past, Mozilla has distinguished itself and achieved success by protecting the freedom of its users and explaining the importance of that freedom: including publishing Firefox's source code, allowing others to make modifications to it, and sticking to Web standards in the face of attempts to impose proprietary extensions."

Brad Kuhn builds on these points in his essay discussing Mozilla's announcement: "Theoretically speaking, though, the Mozilla Foundation is supposed to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity which told the IRS its charitable purpose was: to "keep the Internet a universal platform that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and ... develop open-source Internet applications". Baker fails to explain how switching Firefox to include proprietary software fits that mission. In fact, with a bit of revisionist history, she says that open source was merely an "approach" that Mozilla Foundation was using, not their mission."

Speaking of how people criticize the FSF without reading what they say, the FSF is not an "open source advocate" despite /.'s insistence to the contrary such as is stated in this story's headline. The FSF and the free software movement predate the developmental methodology known as open source, and the FSF fights for values the open source movement sets out to deny, namely software freedom. The FSF has published more than one essay on this topic (1, 2) and RMS includes a clear and cogent explanation of this point in virtually every talk you'll hear him give. Archives of these talks are readily available online in formats that favor free software. Mozilla's choice here is another example of reaching radically different conclusions given different philosophies: Mozilla's open source choice versus a free software activist's choice to reject DRM for many valid reasons the FSF points out.

Let's not also forget two other particularly powerful points made in the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) essay:

• "We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points out that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made any effort to study the situation."
• "More importantly, popularity is not an end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with an ethical mission. In the past, Mozilla has distinguished itself and achieved success by protecting the freedom of its users and explaining the importance of that freedom: including publishing Firefox's source code, allowing others to make modifications to it, and sticking to Web standards in the face of attempts to impose proprietary extensions."

Brad Kuhn builds on these points in his essay discussing Mozilla's announcement: "Theoretically speaking, though, the Mozilla Foundation is supposed to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity which told the IRS its charitable purpose was: to "keep the Internet a universal platform that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and ... develop open-source Internet applications". Baker fails to explain how switching Firefox to include proprietary software fits that mission. In fact, with a bit of revisionist history, she says that open source was merely an "approach" that Mozilla Foundation was using, not their mission."

Speaking of how people criticize the FSF without reading what they say, the FSF is not an "open source advocate" despite /.'s insistence to the contrary such as is stated in this story's headline. The FSF and the free software movement predate the developmental methodology known as open source, and the FSF fights for values the open source movement sets out to deny, namely software freedom. The FSF has published more than one essay on this topic (1, 2) and RMS includes a clear and cogent explanation of this point in virtually every talk you'll hear him give. Archives of these talks are readily available online in formats that favor free software. Mozilla's choice here is another example of reaching radically different conclusions given different philosophies: Mozilla's open source choice versus a free software activist's choice to reject DRM for many valid reasons the FSF points out.

Let's not also forget two other particularly powerful points made in the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) essay:

• "We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points out that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made any effort to study the situation."
• "More importantly, popularity is not an end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with an ethical mission. In the past, Mozilla has distinguished itself and achieved success by protecting the freedom of its users and explaining the importance of that freedom: including publishing Firefox's source code, allowing others to make modifications to it, and sticking to Web standards in the face of attempts to impose proprietary extensions."

Brad Kuhn builds on these points in his essay discussing Mozilla's announcement: "Theoretically speaking, though, the Mozilla Foundation is supposed to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity which told the IRS its charitable purpose was: to "keep the Internet a universal platform that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and ... develop open-source Internet applications". Baker fails to explain how switching Firefox to include proprietary software fits that mission. In fact, with a bit of revisionist history, she says that open source was merely an "approach" that Mozilla Foundation was using, not their mission."

Speaking of how people criticize the FSF without reading what they say, the FSF is not an "open source advocate" despite /.'s insistence to the contrary such as is stated in this story's headline. The FSF and the free software movement predate the developmental methodology known as open source, and the FSF fights for values the open source movement sets out to deny, namely software freedom. The FSF has published more than one essay on this topic (1, 2) and RMS includes a clear and cogent explanation of this point in virtually every talk you'll hear him give. Archives of these talks are readily available online in formats that favor free software. Mozilla's choice here is another example of reaching radically different conclusions given different philosophies: Mozilla's open source choice versus a free software activist's choice to reject DRM for many valid reasons the FSF points out.

Need to explicitly add -Wunreachable-code. Annoyingly, "-Wall" doesn't catch this particular error (at least on the versions of gcc I've used).

Not only that: "later" versions of gcc (like 4.5.2 & 4.7.3) have removed support for -Wunreachable-code without warning that the flag isn't supported. http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-help/2011-05/msg00360.html

GNOME is indeed a part of the GNU project, which means they have two web browsers (GNOME Web, which is written from scratch and WebKit-based and GNU IceCat, which is based on Mozilla Firefox).

To my knowledge, the developers of IceCat have nothing to do with GNOME Web, and I guess they probably have different priorities for their respective web browsers. Also, I understand that Firefox was chosen as the base for IceCat because of its powerful add-on capabilities, which is important for the developers because they use add-ons for most of the added functionality of IceCat.

No, RMS does not want alternatives to exist.

I have taken measures to prevent proprietary extended versions of GCC from existing. If they don't exist, people don't fall prey to them.

Citation: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/h...

(It applies to all projects, not just GCC, the thread is about emacs)

YRMS isn't even all that involved in the day to day running of the organization.

Then why is he still personally holding up emacs development?

Not to mention GnuZilla.

Perhaps you should read the right to read: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/...

This idea has been around a long long time, and there are even people trying to protect you from that particular distopian future.

Addressing both your comment and the grandparent comment: this distinction of allowing non-free software is part of what distinguishes the older free software movement from the younger open source movement. RMS has been talking and writing about this critical distinction for years.

Consider the following from "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software":

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

In other words, open source won't endorse software freedom for its own sake. That movement was designed to never raise the issue of software freedom in order to promote a developmental methodology thought to lead to more reliable, more powerful programs. That methodology is fine as far as it goes (everyone likes powerful robust programs) but as we're seeing with the Snowden revelations, that methodology doesn't go far enough. RMS realized this very early on and has been providing ethical counterarguments since the open source movement began (older essay, newer essay).

This difference explains what we're seeing in the very different approaches taken in Linus Torvalds' fork of the Linux kernel versus the GNU Linux-libre fork of the Linux kernel. Linux-libre's distinction is that this fork removes the blobs that come with the Torvalds fork of the Linux kernel. Torvalds includes nonfree code meant to make the kernel run on more hardware which places a high value on convenience at the cost of software freedom. Linux-libre values software freedom instead. As a result, Linux-libre doesn't run on as much hardware and might not take advantage of everything modern hardware can do, but one gains a system they are allowed to fully inspect, share, and modify—software freedom. Linux-libre lets users make sure the software does only what that user wants that program to do. RMS, as recently as his recent responses to /. questions, encouraged readers to reverse engineer hardware in order to fully document hardware ("The parts of Linux we need to replace are the nonfree parts, the "binary blobs". [...] The main work necessary to replace the blobs is reverse engineering to determine the specs of the peripherals those blobs are used in. That's a tremendously important job -- please join in if you can."). This work leads to increased support for fully free operating systems, including fully free support in Linux-libre.

Increased security is one of the things you get with the pursuit of software freedom for its own sake. I think RMS very much recognizes the security enhancements that come along with Linux-libre and why his org

Addressing both your comment and the grandparent comment: this distinction of allowing non-free software is part of what distinguishes the older free software movement from the younger open source movement. RMS has been talking and writing about this critical distinction for years.

Consider the following from "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software":

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

In other words, open source won't endorse software freedom for its own sake. That movement was designed to never raise the issue of software freedom in order to promote a developmental methodology thought to lead to more reliable, more powerful programs. That methodology is fine as far as it goes (everyone likes powerful robust programs) but as we're seeing with the Snowden revelations, that methodology doesn't go far enough. RMS realized this very early on and has been providing ethical counterarguments since the open source movement began (older essay, newer essay).

This difference explains what we're seeing in the very different approaches taken in Linus Torvalds' fork of the Linux kernel versus the GNU Linux-libre fork of the Linux kernel. Linux-libre's distinction is that this fork removes the blobs that come with the Torvalds fork of the Linux kernel. Torvalds includes nonfree code meant to make the kernel run on more hardware which places a high value on convenience at the cost of software freedom. Linux-libre values software freedom instead. As a result, Linux-libre doesn't run on as much hardware and might not take advantage of everything modern hardware can do, but one gains a system they are allowed to fully inspect, share, and modify—software freedom. Linux-libre lets users make sure the software does only what that user wants that program to do. RMS, as recently as his recent responses to /. questions, encouraged readers to reverse engineer hardware in order to fully document hardware ("The parts of Linux we need to replace are the nonfree parts, the "binary blobs". [...] The main work necessary to replace the blobs is reverse engineering to determine the specs of the peripherals those blobs are used in. That's a tremendously important job -- please join in if you can."). This work leads to increased support for fully free operating systems, including fully free support in Linux-libre.

Increased security is one of the things you get with the pursuit of software freedom for its own sake. I think RMS very much recognizes the security enhancements that come along with Linux-libre and why his org

Addressing both your comment and the grandparent comment: this distinction of allowing non-free software is part of what distinguishes the older free software movement from the younger open source movement. RMS has been talking and writing about this critical distinction for years.

Consider the following from "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software":

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

In other words, open source won't endorse software freedom for its own sake. That movement was designed to never raise the issue of software freedom in order to promote a developmental methodology thought to lead to more reliable, more powerful programs. That methodology is fine as far as it goes (everyone likes powerful robust programs) but as we're seeing with the Snowden revelations, that methodology doesn't go far enough. RMS realized this very early on and has been providing ethical counterarguments since the open source movement began (older essay, newer essay).

This difference explains what we're seeing in the very different approaches taken in Linus Torvalds' fork of the Linux kernel versus the GNU Linux-libre fork of the Linux kernel. Linux-libre's distinction is that this fork removes the blobs that come with the Torvalds fork of the Linux kernel. Torvalds includes nonfree code meant to make the kernel run on more hardware which places a high value on convenience at the cost of software freedom. Linux-libre values software freedom instead. As a result, Linux-libre doesn't run on as much hardware and might not take advantage of everything modern hardware can do, but one gains a system they are allowed to fully inspect, share, and modify—software freedom. Linux-libre lets users make sure the software does only what that user wants that program to do. RMS, as recently as his recent responses to /. questions, encouraged readers to reverse engineer hardware in order to fully document hardware ("The parts of Linux we need to replace are the nonfree parts, the "binary blobs". [...] The main work necessary to replace the blobs is reverse engineering to determine the specs of the peripherals those blobs are used in. That's a tremendously important job -- please join in if you can."). This work leads to increased support for fully free operating systems, including fully free support in Linux-libre.

Increased security is one of the things you get with the pursuit of software freedom for its own sake. I think RMS very much recognizes the security enhancements that come along with Linux-libre and why his org

Addressing both your comment and the grandparent comment: this distinction of allowing non-free software is part of what distinguishes the older free software movement from the younger open source movement. RMS has been talking and writing about this critical distinction for years.

Consider the following from "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software":

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

In other words, open source won't endorse software freedom for its own sake. That movement was designed to never raise the issue of software freedom in order to promote a developmental methodology thought to lead to more reliable, more powerful programs. That methodology is fine as far as it goes (everyone likes powerful robust programs) but as we're seeing with the Snowden revelations, that methodology doesn't go far enough. RMS realized this very early on and has been providing ethical counterarguments since the open source movement began (older essay, newer essay).

This difference explains what we're seeing in the very different approaches taken in Linus Torvalds' fork of the Linux kernel versus the GNU Linux-libre fork of the Linux kernel. Linux-libre's distinction is that this fork removes the blobs that come with the Torvalds fork of the Linux kernel. Torvalds includes nonfree code meant to make the kernel run on more hardware which places a high value on convenience at the cost of software freedom. Linux-libre values software freedom instead. As a result, Linux-libre doesn't run on as much hardware and might not take advantage of everything modern hardware can do, but one gains a system they are allowed to fully inspect, share, and modify—software freedom. Linux-libre lets users make sure the software does only what that user wants that program to do. RMS, as recently as his recent responses to /. questions, encouraged readers to reverse engineer hardware in order to fully document hardware ("The parts of Linux we need to replace are the nonfree parts, the "binary blobs". [...] The main work necessary to replace the blobs is reverse engineering to determine the specs of the peripherals those blobs are used in. That's a tremendously important job -- please join in if you can."). This work leads to increased support for fully free operating systems, including fully free support in Linux-libre.

Increased security is one of the things you get with the pursuit of software freedom for its own sake. I think RMS very much recognizes the security enhancements that come along with Linux-libre and why his org

Firstly, not being able to release in-house tools is a complete non-issue.

Secondly, if the programs are loosely coupled, the GPL, especially GPLv2, is very forgiving of proprietary code and GPLed code working together. You just have to mind your manners and know the rules. For the GPLv3, here are some basic rules from the GPL FAQ:

For instance, if the program uses only simple fork and exec to invoke and communicate with plug-ins, then the plug-ins are separate programs, so the license of the plug-in makes no requirements about the main program.

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the ‘main’ function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case.

Furthermore, the system library exception may prove useful sometimes as well, though that is less common.

In conclusion then, while there is a kernel of truth hiding very, very well around what you are saying, it is largely FUD. From the GPL FAQ again:

Which programs you used to edit the source code, or to compile it, or study it, or record it, usually makes no difference for issues concerning the licensing of that source code.

Finally, although far less importantly, if you suppose that the GPL is violated by your project in some subtle manner (just don't copy code, mkay?), chances are, it doesn't matter unless you are doing something particularly malign. In general, someone else will have to find some way to prove you violated the terms of the license. Furthermore, generally organizations like the FSF provide an ample chance to fix noncompliance, even deliberate noncompliance. I highly doubt there is a recorded case of someone being made sorry for using the GPL in good faith.

Not yet, but eventually. Systemd has all of the bloat of emacs, without any of the benefits.

See Daemon Managing Daemon. It was written in the early-00s for the Hurd, languished for the better part of a decade, and has been picked up again. It has a model kind of like systemd, only without the Windows braindamage (I mean come on, ini files as a programming language?). Development on DMD is pretty active now, and it's written in Scheme instead of C so mere mortals can hack on it. The design is pretty interesting, and makes extending things easy. E.g. imagine you run an openafs cell and need a service to grab Kerberos tickets and afs tokens at start. You can just register interest in the service in another service and have it Just Work (tm). From the looks of it, you may even be able to just write a single "Kerberize all the services" service. Better than sysvinit (oh joy, forking an init script) and better than systemd (oh joy, forking an ini-file-pretending-its-not-a-program)..

See Daemon Managing Daemon. It was written in the early-00s for the Hurd, languished for the better part of a decade, and has been picked up again. It has a model kind of like systemd, only without the Windows braindamage (I mean come on, ini files as a programming language?). Development on DMD is pretty active now, and it's written in Scheme instead of C so mere mortals can hack on it. The design is pretty interesting, and makes extending things easy. E.g. imagine you run an openafs cell and need a service to grab Kerberos tickets and afs tokens at start. You can just register interest in the service in another service and have it Just Work (tm). From the looks of it, you may even be able to just write a single "Kerberize all the services" service. Better than sysvinit (oh joy, forking an init script) and better than systemd (oh joy, forking an ini-file-pretending-its-not-a-program)..

RMS: Pay with coding skills or money to free a tablet.

Why? I have an avenue for getting the stuff I want RIGHT NOW. If free software/hardware is superior, why does it not already exist to do the same thing as I can get with non-free software/hardware?

You cannot argue superiority of free when it doesn't accomplish what people are used to doing with non-free.

Hence why RMS needs to keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Why free a tablet? Because freedom is better than bondage. RMS doesn't claim that freedom leads to higher-quality software. That's ESR. RMS claims that freedom is better for society, so we should simply reject non-free software, no matter how inconvenient it is.

Why doesn't free hardware exist? Free hardware doesn't exist for the same reason why so few software companies produce free software: The socio-economic system favors exploitative producer-consumer relationships. RMS's message is ultimately a social message, not a technological message.

As for streaming, there are free technologies, but they are not widely installed and therefore little used. That's probably one reason why RMS still considers Gnash to be so important.

To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer".

We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves them. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the program, we call it a âoenonfreeâ or âoeproprietaryâ program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
*The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

GNU's Free Software Definition

Your failure to research the philosophy of the license you wish to see changed does not constitute an argument. It is rather an admission that you're a willing member of the rabble... as if posting AC wasn't enough of one.

It's so convenient to argue against yourself isn't it? No need to ask him what he actually thinks (his email address is readily available) or read any of his many essays. You might be particularly interested in a list of surveillance examples found in proprietary software including one pertinant description for a program you just mentioned—"Angry Birds spies for companies, and the NSA takes advantage to spy through it too.".

It's so convenient to argue against yourself isn't it? No need to ask him what he actually thinks (his email address is readily available) or read any of his many essays. You might be particularly interested in a list of surveillance examples found in proprietary software including one pertinant description for a program you just mentioned—"Angry Birds spies for companies, and the NSA takes advantage to spy through it too.".

He discusses cloud computing here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...

Words matter and definitions matter only and precisely because *people use them together to get things done*. Language is a fundamental component of human collective activity.

"Being careful about definitions" is important as far as it goes, but it is not sufficient. It is also important to be careful about definitions while remaining true to colloquial use—at least if one wants to be heard and have one's arguments taken seriously.

When one carefully articulates definitions that run counter to common use, one isn't arguing about the referents of statements any longer, but about statements themselves. A pessimist might say that he's simply debating in bad faith. I suspect that it's a more acute case of what happens here on Slashdot quite often—a particular subculture is sufficiently removed from mainstream culture that the two simply can't talk intelligently with one another, because both are always and ultimately talking about different things, despite best efforts.

Funnily enough RMS has political correctness as one of his beliefs. He mentions his list of politically incorrect words here:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/...

RMS mentions his list of words to avoid, with political reasons to avoid them, and sometimes alternative words.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/....

Libertarian political correctness?

the tracking sites will just go to IP based tracking.

Good luck with IP address-based tracking when you have 10,000 different people behind one IPv4 address. This can happen with carrier-grade NAT, with ISP-wide caching proxies like those used by AOL and the ISP formerly known as Qtel, or with Tor exits.

Or did you mean the other kind of IP?

Trying to shoehorn tablets into being a desktop replacement is just stupid. Sure, you can approach that level by buying a bluetooth keyboard and maybe a mouse if your tablet supports such things, but why would you do such a thing when using an honest to god computer is so much better for the task?

I can think of three reasons, from most technical to most ideological:

• At the end of 2012, manufacturers stopped making 10" laptops. Only in 2014 did an affordable 10" laptop return to the market in the form of the Transformer Book by ASUS.
• Tim Cook is trying to delude the public into thinking that "tablets will quickly replace PCs", according to the AppleInsider article.
• There's a general tendency to encourage the general public to consume and be a consumer that is happy with only consuming. Someone who owns a device fit for creating works is likely to try his hand at creating sometime. Someone who owns a device only fit for viewing others' works is more likely to keep just viewing rather than spend extra to buy a device fit for creating. This proliferation of devices that are artificially limited to just viewing stunts public participation in creating works, which gives incumbent publishers a captive audience.

I don't see the point of programming on a smartphone.

That item is probably more relevant to the iPad than to the iPhone.

A month seems like a reasonable minimum period for a subscription.

If a Blockbuster store (back when it still existed) couldn't offer movies and console games for rental for periods shorter than a month, how could it keep enough stock in front of customers to stay in business?

forceful proselytization

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by forceful.

In short, none of these look like things I'd do on a mobile device.

From the page: "Fans of these iProducts defend Apple's practices, claiming that almost nobody demands the functionality that the Guidelines ban. Even if this is true of each individual item, there are still a lot of people who want one or more items on the list as a whole." Someone might start by choosing iOS, thinking the same way you do, and then his needs grow to include forbidden functionality. That would require buying an Android tablet and a tethering plan to connect the Android tablet to the Internet.

I'm just speaking from the average consumer's point of view.

The problem here is the word "consumer". If a device is capable only of "consumption", or viewing works created by others, it encourages people to remain "consumers" as opposed to hobbyist authors.

That is EXACTLY what he is saying given his comments regarding LLVM.
Referring to this post in particular.
His stance is a demonization of liberally licensed code, to a very unfortunate degree.
I am absolutely not trolling when I say that man has given up freedom for ideology.