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Sure, in the corporate world desktops are going to be around for some time to come, but in the home consumer world

Would an individual author working from home fit better into "the corporate world" category or "the home consumer world"?

I find it dangerous to assume that all authorship is "corporate", that people at home exclusively "consume", or view works made by others, as opposed to creating works themselves. It promotes the misguided view that only those who gain the approval of incumbent publishers deserve a platform for their speech.

certainly a fair portion of my emails and document reviews are done on my phone

How is that practical when your phone can display only one window at once? On a desktop or laptop running X11/Linux, I can split the screen to see the document in one half and an editor for my review comments in the other half. On Android without manufacturer-specific multi-window mode, everything is maximized, and many applications lack support for manufacturer-specific multi-window mode.

FSF has required, for many years, that contributors to FSF projects assign copyright to FSF so they don't need to contact a zillion people for permission in managing GPL issues. Coding Standards for Accepting Contributions and Lawyer's Explanation

FSF has required, for many years, that contributors to FSF projects assign copyright to FSF so they don't need to contact a zillion people for permission in managing GPL issues. Coding Standards for Accepting Contributions and Lawyer's Explanation

Lossy compression of javascript works fukin awesome.

If you're referring to minification, I'm inclined to agree. It loses variable names and internal comments, compressing them to a table mapping minified JavaScript files to their source code.

Its called NoScript. Loses it entirely!

Installing that and then not whitelisting any sites makes interaction with web applications require a full page reload for each update. Good luck getting web-based chat to refresh in a timely manner or making web-based image editing programs respond quickly without script. I assume that web users who find full page reloads inconvenient outnumber web users who are paranoid about a site owner running code in a sandbox on the user's computer.

The big issue I have with HTML is that it's useless for publishing larger content, like books or even just multi-page articles.

TeXinfo

I know, I know, it's just too hard for regular people to use.

Ed is the standard. Edlin is, of course, based on ed.

https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/...

"Ed is for those who can remember what they are working on." - patl.

Assuming that by "consume" you mean view:

You and I are also free to not consume their product

I don't see how. Feature-length motion pictures are advertised to the public using a "trailer", or a short film consisting of excerpts from the motion picture. The trailer is just as copyrighted as the full work. So when I am viewing another motion picture, and its presentation is interrupted by a trailer, I am all but forced to view the first second of the copyrighted trailer.

Despite that I paid nothing for access to this trailer, I pay with being legally deemed to have had "access" to this trailer. Once I have had access, if any of my own works ever end up appearing accidentally similar to the trailer, I could get in trouble for nonliteral copyright infringement. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music.

Nothing is stopping you from installing your own web server and use these apps on your intranet. But most people don't like paying thousands of dollars for software anymore.

Nor do they like paying thousands of dollars over the course of several years for a subscription that allows access to what FSF calls "service as a software substitute". Just because it's on the web doesn't mean it's available without charge.

In theory, one could extend LibreJS to support WebAssembly. In practice, I imagine few major for-profit web sites would bother to support LibreJS, particularly because all major web ad networks track users from one site to another using proprietary JavaScript.

"Doing so would make apps like Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp entirely insecure" is what makes running security-minded programs on non-free, user-subjugating, always-untrustworthy, proprietary OSes a joke. People get a sense that they're safer from malware then they really are and they think they get to keep their proprietary conveniences as well. Openwashing will not help you.

I know it's a lot of work to learn new things and change your views and your behavior. I understand that software freedom is differently political than what you're encouraged to adopt, and software freedom requires you to consider more than what's listed in virtually every features & money-based ad campaign from monied proprietors. And I get that coming to terms with the consequences of software freedom runs directly contrary to believing that you don't need to think any further than what proprietors and their "open source" friends tell you to think about (because no proprietor frames their offerings in terms of the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify the software, hence proprietors are more likely to sanction the open source movement which eschews these values and even celebrates partnering with proprietors like Red Hat's recent uncritical commentary on Microsoft's software and Microsoft's new campaign regarding "Linux"—no mention of GNU which might bring software freedom to mind). But in the real world you need to stop trusting proprietary systems to keep you safe, respect your privacy, or other practical consequences of software freedom. Proprietary software wasn't designed to do that and therefore that software never will do that job. There is no middle ground which allows you to run proprietary software while retaining the benefits of software freedom. It's time to value software freedom for its own sake.

Even if all published software were free, exploits like these are possible because all complex software has bugs. Perfect security is not the issue. The issue is who gets to control their own computer and how we treat each other. Even after these exploits are published by WikiLeaks and people have had time to consider them and protect against their adverse effects, proprietors will still have power over users who run their proprietary software. Users won't be able to tell what other exploits are out there and therefore it will be harder to protect against them. The difference between proprietary subjugation and software freedom becomes more clear: Free software users will be able to run, inspect, improve, and share improvements with others making that software more able to prevent future attacks. But proprietary software users won't be allowed to do the due diligence they need in order to help themselves no matter how technically skilled they are or how willing to repair things they are. No computer user deserves to be treated that way. It will take a lot of work to get people to understand why they too should care about software freedom even if they're non-technical (like most computer users are). So I urge you to understand software freedom for its own sake and to try to help others understand as well.

Relatedly, the Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your Freedom" campaign has some new hardware on the list. I recommend buying some and using it, even if it's not up-to-date with the latest capabilities and seemingly expensive for what's offered. We need more people to invest in free replacements for proprietary, locked-down, user-subjugating systems. We need to make investments in our own collective future by funding the free products available today so we can have modern, highly-capable, and fully user-controllable POWER8, RISC, etc. systems which will respect the owner's control.

Way to troll. How do you even know what the "Office Expenses" in a "Budget at a glance" head contains? FYI, it is just that - "office" expenses and no, that does not include software/hardware for schools. Kerala's expenditure on education is around Rs.15,000 crore in 2016-17 - refer page 25 of the detailed financial statement straight from Finance dept. You are either a fool or far removed from India and reality if you think just Rs.220 crore includes entire Kerala's education spend. You are two magnitudes off - in future, do a favor and do not comment authoritatively on things you know zilch about.

The 150k value per machine includes not just Office software but FOSS replacements for other highly valuable ones like Matlab, Animation software, Molecular modelling, Interactive geometric sketching etc.

Finally, what's with the ad hominem argument? I'll just leave this here.

Doing a lot of Odoo here. It's a good do-everything business suite for small businesses. I'm not sure how big implementations it can handle. Odoo is open source -although it has limitations (Richard Stallman says it's "trapped" see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...). One of the clear advantages is flexibility to model the ERP to the actual business processes (not the other way around). There is even a possibility to sell the code via their market/app store or to share it via the Odoo Community Association. The company I work for as a team of 20+ Odoo experts. All busy. We do provide a range wide of training programs for and with Odoo as well. I'm exploring Odoo carefully for my wife's business, and it looks pretty good.

They're actually copyright infringers, not pirates.

Publishers often refer to copying they don't approve of as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...

to consume it anyway

*view it

Nothing is "consumed" when a work is viewed.

without paying the creators whatever they want — is hypocrisy.

Then how much does the Shakespeare estate deserve for West Side Story (1961) and Romeo + Juliet (1996)?

Don't the people who the software has been distributed to get to require the source code?

Besides the point that this was purchased with Public monies:
(from GNU's GPL FAQ

Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?
No. Only to the users.

Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?
No. You can charge people a fee to get a copy from you. You can't require people to pay you when they get a copy from someone else.

What does “written offer valid for any third party” mean in GPLv2?
People who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code.

Does the GPL allow me to distribute copies under a nondisclosure agreement?
No.

Depending on the source, I feel that there is valid recourse here.

partition your repositories at project, application/subsystem, or API boundaries Git works fine if you have, say, one repository for the compiler support / standard library or vendor's SDK, another for your project's application, maybe a third for your-stuff specific libraries shared among multiple projects.

Unless you need the guarantee of atomicity to ensure that a change that happens to break the ABI between "your project's application" and "your-stuff specific libraries shared among multiple projects" doesn't end up breaking anything else.

You glue them together in the makefile common inclusions.

I'm interested. Can you link to an example of these "makefile common inclusions"? And how well does it work when the "your-stuff specific libraries" include C or C++ inline functions, or when different projects build the "your-stuff specific libraries" with different compile-time options? In these cases, you actually need to ensure each project has an updated copy of the library's source code rather than just building the library separately and copying it into the application as object code.

Parent is 100% wrong. The reason you are typically responsible for open source software is because the license comes with a disclaimer of warranty and of liability. For example, the GPL license says:

15. Disclaimer of Warranty.

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

16. Limitation of Liability.

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

This does not prevent a company from selling you a warranty for a fee. e.g. Enterprise software customers get a warranty, because they pay for it. If you're buying a self driving car, insist on a warranty.

tl;dr: Parent is wrong; do not buy a self-driving car that doesn't come with a warranty.

From how to offer source to proxy server users, part of the GPL FAQ:

For software on a proxy server, you can provide an offer of source through a normal method of delivering messages to users of that kind of proxy. For example, a Web proxy could use a landing page. When users initially start using the proxy, you can direct them to a page with the offer of source along with any other information you choose to provide.

The AGPL says you must make the offer to "all users". If you know that a certain user has already been shown the offer, for the current version of the software, you don't have to repeat it to that user again.

Widespread use of AGPL software would lead to even more pop-ups and interstitials offering to distribute source code for each covered component, which the user will see as an annoyance that he or she has to make go away to get to the work that he or she was trying to do. In addition, AGPL software has to track users to determine whether or not an offer to distribute source code was presented to each user. Though FSF recommends these pop-ups and interstitials, EFF appears to recommend against them.

And your Intel or AMD processor provides people remote access to your computer.

Nope.

Why are you being ignorant?

Your cell service is tracking you and your internet traffic is intercepted by your ISP and various other parties.

They don't have access to the data on my PC.

And how do you know that? Who told you that? What security audit did you read? Have you not seen the remote access facilities in modern x86 processors or in system firmware? No?

Nobody gives 2 shits about what Windows sends back because you're already completely compromised.

Obviously false or Windows 10 wouldn't have such pathetic adoption rates.

I guess that means Linux is rubbish then or otherwise it wouldn't have such pathetic adoption rates, but it isnt, it is brilliant and adoption rates mean nothing.

In fact when it comes to Windows the sorts of "security advocates" (and people like RMS and the FSF) have been saying for years that there are backdoors in Windows that send information already.

They've been saying that Windows was proprietary and insecure, not that it had mandatory phone-home and forced updates.

They have been saying it has backdoors for quite some time.

Show me where my Gentoo and AOKP are spying on me and not letting me control them.

Wrong attitude, assuming it is secure (despite running on compromised hardware connected to the public internet) just because you don't know any better is just stupidity.

What you are trying to do is called post-purchase rationalization.

No because I dont use Windows 10, I dont use any Windows and that didnt suddenly start with version 10. My preference is Linux and on Open Hardware wherever possible, my beef with people like you is that you live in ignorance and just think that because you run Linux or AOKP that makes you secure. Why do you think that? What evidence do you have that leads you to believe that?

Perpetuating your ignorance means we go from people being aware that they aren't particularly secure to thinking they are secure by using Linux even though they are not.

All proprietary software should be suspected of being malware. Microsoft Windows before version 10 was known to not behave in the user's interest and certainly not in the user's control (as per the definition of proprietary software). Microsoft tried pushing a Windows 10 "upgrade" on users by force, for example. Other "features" in Windows 10 (such as ignoring a user's privacy settings and doing what is in Microsoft's interest) were simply more along this line. Microsoft's aggressive sales tactics pointed to in this /. story are another example. In time there will be an announcement that Windows 7 will no longer receive updates and the hard sell for Windows 10 (or some other Windows variant) will continue. The question for all Windows users is how much more treatment like this they'd like to receive. It's never been easier to switch to a fully free software OS and run nothing but free software on top of that.

All proprietary software should be suspected of being malware. Microsoft Windows before version 10 was known to not behave in the user's interest and certainly not in the user's control (as per the definition of proprietary software). Microsoft tried pushing a Windows 10 "upgrade" on users by force, for example. Other "features" in Windows 10 (such as ignoring a user's privacy settings and doing what is in Microsoft's interest) were simply more along this line. Microsoft's aggressive sales tactics pointed to in this /. story are another example. In time there will be an announcement that Windows 7 will no longer receive updates and the hard sell for Windows 10 (or some other Windows variant) will continue. The question for all Windows users is how much more treatment like this they'd like to receive. It's never been easier to switch to a fully free software OS and run nothing but free software on top of that.

You're right in that the headline text is filled with lies (typical of the corporate tech press and their corporate repeater friends like /.) and things like this should all be opt-in by default. But without software freedom, even those changes would be necessary but insufficient to ensure user's privacy because there's no way to check to make sure the software actually behaves in accordance with the settings.

Microsoft's record shows this to be the case. The GNU Project's surveillance section of the Microsoft malware page does a good job of collecting stories about how this has already failed Windows users who thought they had tweaked the settings in just the right way to get Windows 10 to not "phone home" or report details of what happened outside the machine. These settings failed to do that job because the software was designed to fail in this way.

Much to the apparent chagrin of moderators in the recent Microsoft thread about letting Windows 10 users opt-out of automatic updates who marked down posts about software freedom, the real answer remains the same here—no software freedom means no real control over one's computer and that includes no privacy for the user. Network dumps reveal some of what the software does but not all; it's very easy for programmers to encrypt data they want to send somewhere and/or delay sending data in an attempt to not show up when the system's network output is being watched.

Microsoft's promises (which boil down to "Trust us this time! Really!") must be interpreted in the context of taking the word of a liar whose secret software should now be trusted. That makes no sense to do, and the same logic applies to all non-free/user-subjugating software. No matter how much technical skill you have you have to assume proprietary software is doing what you don't want it to do because you don't have the permission to check out what it's actually doing, change it to make it obey you, or help your community by sharing copies of improved software.

Open source means that the source code is available and you can modify it and redistribute it with minimal conditions.

It does not mean "portable", which already had a word describing the concept, namely "portable"!

Most open source software ends up ported to other platforms, because as the source is available, it's relatively easy for someone to do it if the original maintainer doesn't want to, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

You can read more about open source here. The related concept of Free Software (mostly a matter of emphasis - open source advocates tend to focus on the benefits of a community driven development matter, while free software advocates tend to focus on the right to have and to share knowledge) is described fairly well here. While the two philosophies are frequently considered rivals, software categorized as free software is virtually always also open source, and vice versa.

You could ask about their views on Coreboot and Libreboot and you can look up the licensing yourself. Coreboot has non-free software in it which is stripped out in the Libreboot distribution. Let's not talk about "Coreboot vs. Libreboot" as if they're opposed. As far as I can tell, both work together harmoniously whether Libreboot is a part of the GNU Project or not.

Thanks for referring to the discussions that occurred when this first became public. The mailing list discussions and changes in the FSF's website make it clear that Leah Rowe is arguing on behalf of someone else—a former FSF employee whose identity was revealed when their bio was removed from the FSF Staff and Board webpage. The Libreboot project has not been "stolen" from the community as anyone is free to copy the project (before or after leaving the GNU Project) and develop the code further. That is why this is not a loss for software freedom, Libreboot users, or anyone who wishes to continue development (even continuing under the GNU Project again). This freedom is part of what makes free software so great and worth celebrating for its own sake. Only proprietary software really ends up becoming truly inactive because nobody but the proprietor is allowed to develop that code further.

One note on the reddit.org discussion pointed to in one of the links: poster "jammer170" claims:

Not "more free", but "more open". Stripping out binary blobs is important in the open source movement.

But that's almost exactly backwards; that assessment is woefully mistaken about the difference between the older free software movement (which objects on ethical grounds to proprietary software) and open source (a development methodology and right-wing friend of proprietors which finds it more convenient to help developers by sharing software development work but doesn't seriously object to proprietary software). This distinction is relevant to understand why Libreboot exists: Libreboot is a fully-free fork of Coreboot just as GNU Linux-libre is a fully-free fork of the Linux kernel. Both Coreboot and the Linux kernel contain non-free software in them. Both Libreboot and GNU Linux-libre projects inherit code from upstream and remove the non-free blobs (plus possibly make some other modifications beyond the scope of this point) and then distribute completely free software variants of their upstream projects. Thus GNU Linux-libre and Libreboot might not be able to run on all of the hardware their upstream projects run on but what systems can run either Libreboot and/or GNU Linux-libre are doing the jobs those programs do with free software.

This reddit.org discussion is not well sourced on this point, jammer170 makes the aforementioned points with no pointers to help readers understand this distinction nor why this distinction matters. The FSF has published essays (old, new) to explain why free software matters, why the open source movement eschews software freedom, and Richard Stallman devotes a section of his talks to clearly explaining the difference between the philosophies of the free software movement and open source including how those different philosophies play out in practical terms on the ground. Usually that difference comes down to free software activists taking steps to ensure software freedom while open source enthusiasts go along with whatever a proprietor requests.

Thanks for referring to the discussions that occurred when this first became public. The mailing list discussions and changes in the FSF's website make it clear that Leah Rowe is arguing on behalf of someone else—a former FSF employee whose identity was revealed when their bio was removed from the FSF Staff and Board webpage. The Libreboot project has not been "stolen" from the community as anyone is free to copy the project (before or after leaving the GNU Project) and develop the code further. That is why this is not a loss for software freedom, Libreboot users, or anyone who wishes to continue development (even continuing under the GNU Project again). This freedom is part of what makes free software so great and worth celebrating for its own sake. Only proprietary software really ends up becoming truly inactive because nobody but the proprietor is allowed to develop that code further.

One note on the reddit.org discussion pointed to in one of the links: poster "jammer170" claims:

Not "more free", but "more open". Stripping out binary blobs is important in the open source movement.

But that's almost exactly backwards; that assessment is woefully mistaken about the difference between the older free software movement (which objects on ethical grounds to proprietary software) and open source (a development methodology and right-wing friend of proprietors which finds it more convenient to help developers by sharing software development work but doesn't seriously object to proprietary software). This distinction is relevant to understand why Libreboot exists: Libreboot is a fully-free fork of Coreboot just as GNU Linux-libre is a fully-free fork of the Linux kernel. Both Coreboot and the Linux kernel contain non-free software in them. Both Libreboot and GNU Linux-libre projects inherit code from upstream and remove the non-free blobs (plus possibly make some other modifications beyond the scope of this point) and then distribute completely free software variants of their upstream projects. Thus GNU Linux-libre and Libreboot might not be able to run on all of the hardware their upstream projects run on but what systems can run either Libreboot and/or GNU Linux-libre are doing the jobs those programs do with free software.

This reddit.org discussion is not well sourced on this point, jammer170 makes the aforementioned points with no pointers to help readers understand this distinction nor why this distinction matters. The FSF has published essays (old, new) to explain why free software matters, why the open source movement eschews software freedom, and Richard Stallman devotes a section of his talks to clearly explaining the difference between the philosophies of the free software movement and open source including how those different philosophies play out in practical terms on the ground. Usually that difference comes down to free software activists taking steps to ensure software freedom while open source enthusiasts go along with whatever a proprietor requests.

Thanks for referring to the discussions that occurred when this first became public. The mailing list discussions and changes in the FSF's website make it clear that Leah Rowe is arguing on behalf of someone else—a former FSF employee whose identity was revealed when their bio was removed from the FSF Staff and Board webpage. The Libreboot project has not been "stolen" from the community as anyone is free to copy the project (before or after leaving the GNU Project) and develop the code further. That is why this is not a loss for software freedom, Libreboot users, or anyone who wishes to continue development (even continuing under the GNU Project again). This freedom is part of what makes free software so great and worth celebrating for its own sake. Only proprietary software really ends up becoming truly inactive because nobody but the proprietor is allowed to develop that code further.

One note on the reddit.org discussion pointed to in one of the links: poster "jammer170" claims:

Not "more free", but "more open". Stripping out binary blobs is important in the open source movement.

But that's almost exactly backwards; that assessment is woefully mistaken about the difference between the older free software movement (which objects on ethical grounds to proprietary software) and open source (a development methodology and right-wing friend of proprietors which finds it more convenient to help developers by sharing software development work but doesn't seriously object to proprietary software). This distinction is relevant to understand why Libreboot exists: Libreboot is a fully-free fork of Coreboot just as GNU Linux-libre is a fully-free fork of the Linux kernel. Both Coreboot and the Linux kernel contain non-free software in them. Both Libreboot and GNU Linux-libre projects inherit code from upstream and remove the non-free blobs (plus possibly make some other modifications beyond the scope of this point) and then distribute completely free software variants of their upstream projects. Thus GNU Linux-libre and Libreboot might not be able to run on all of the hardware their upstream projects run on but what systems can run either Libreboot and/or GNU Linux-libre are doing the jobs those programs do with free software.

This reddit.org discussion is not well sourced on this point, jammer170 makes the aforementioned points with no pointers to help readers understand this distinction nor why this distinction matters. The FSF has published essays (old, new) to explain why free software matters, why the open source movement eschews software freedom, and Richard Stallman devotes a section of his talks to clearly explaining the difference between the philosophies of the free software movement and open source including how those different philosophies play out in practical terms on the ground. Usually that difference comes down to free software activists taking steps to ensure software freedom while open source enthusiasts go along with whatever a proprietor requests.

According to the Information for Maintainers of GNU Software, a package becomes adopted by GNU FSF when a maintainer volunteers to do so. They could bring in a package they didn't write, as long as the package source has a GPL compatible license. It's also not required to transfer the source code copyright to FSF.

Libreboot was derived from Coreboot by removing the proprietary blobs. Leah volunteered to be a GNU package maintainer and started recruiting developers to work on Libreboot, and not for long decided to step down as a maintainer. There is no rule forbidding Leah from continuing to work on Libreboot without being associated with GNU/FSF. She is entitled to stop volunteering for GNU anytime for no reason whatsoever.

What Richard Stallman says is that a GNU package could be orphaned by its maintainer and often remain a GNU package until a new maintainer picks it up, but in this case he was compelled to make a special exemption to excise Libreboot from GNU. GNU/FSF's role is a librarian/publisher, and the maintainers are more like curators. It makes no sense for a package to "leave GNU" just because the curator stopped volunteering.

A few of the many, many articles:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."

Microsoft has no plans to tell us what's in Windows patches. Each update is a black box, and it's going to stay that way.

Leaks show that Microsoft writes release notes, so why can't it publish them? The lack of documentation of Windows' updates is a baffling move on Microsoft's part.

Microsoft's Software is Malware. Malware means software designed to function in ways that mistreat or harm the user.

How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?

NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 Uncovered

Microsoft Gave the NSA Direct Backdoor Access to Outlook, Skype

Microsoft [lack of] Privacy Statement

Here's how to Block Windows 10 "Spying"

if they said "Don't even look at GPLed code", that would be far more understandable

Not really. The learning aspect of studying Free software is never bound by viral licensing. See: Freedom 1.

Analogy time: Imagine homes with no Circuit Breakers. Any short circuit anywhere could burn down a house. Lawyers and lawmakers arrive on the scene and declare that everything you want to plug in needs to be short proof. Every product has to be certified not to burn down houses, no matter what failure happens. The designers of even a simple lamp can end up being charged with murder, and as a result nobody really wants to use electricity.

We have circuit breakers, which limit the amount of current to be supplied to an appliance. If you have a special big appliance, like an air conditioner, you have to use a special circuit to supply it with power. Circuit breakers serve to limit the side effects that are possible when you use electricity.

There is no analogous circuit breaker in our widely used operating systems. When you run an application as a user, ALL of your authority is given to the program, and you have to just hope that it does the right thing. There are systems which do place limits on the side effects of a program when you run them, and they are even user friendly and fairly easy to understand.

It's up to us to start to use operating systems that have the ability to limit the side-effects of programs. One example is the Genode project. There is also the perennially late GNU Hurd

There is one, called gnash. It's no longer active.

The fact that Debian doesn't meet Stallman's standards is a problem with Stallman's standards. Trisquel gives you what you are looking for, but when you can't use your hooble-dooble because the company is a bunch of apes that never made a FOSS driver, you'll be angry at the company, and a little angry that you didn't bend for just that one thing. You can run Debian as a fully free software Linux build, why is that not good enough? Because you could, if you wanted, not do that?

Their rationale on not including some of these- which dot a bunch of "i"s and cross a bunch of "t"s- is just very rms:
https://www.gnu.org/distros/co...

Basically, if there's a clearly labelled option to use nonfree / proprietary dudes, that disqualifies you. I have never met a single soul in person who finds that distinguishment useful, and outside of the FSF I suspect it is a rare opinion indeed, even among folks who jump through the requisite hoops to run only free software.

Is there an option to install it with all non-free repositories disabled by default? As my man RMS says, Debian is better than Ubuntu because it at least segregates packages into free and non-free repositories, but still enables both by default. If the non-free repositories were disabled by default, GNU might finally have a modern distribution it could throw its weight behind.

https://www.gnu.org/distros/fr...

My goal in running a GNU/Linux box is to not run a GNU/Linux box, and Debian and Ubuntu are really nice at that, but I'd like more confidence I'm running only free software than what I have now.

When the notice states that the "infringing file" was a Ubuntu ISO image. . . . . This was years ago

Was this around July 2011, when Emacs was discovered to include copyright infringements? Or around June 2012, when certain falling block games were ruled to infringe copyright, with M-x tetris in Emacs possibly next on the hit list of a video game developer who thinks free software should never have existed because it destroys the market?

Is there a timetable to ensure that important features can be used without JavaScript or with only free JavaScript? The Savannah code hosting service, based on a fork of the software that SourceForge uses, appears to work without any proprietary JavaScript.

He's saying, "Hey developers that use Linux. Try doing the *the same thing* you do on Linux within the new Bash on Ubuntu on Windows project.

There is no "new BASH." There is only one BASH, and you get it from Gnu.org. What they've got is MASH (Microsoft Adulterated SHell), which is a fork of BASH. Now, maybe Microsoft can find some success with their forked project and, seriously, good luck to 'em. But, seeing as how the current state of the law is that APIs are copyrightable, many of us don't see the value of contributing to a project whose benefits will accrue only to Windows, particularly given Microsoft's malicious stance toward Open Source/Free Software over the past 20 years.

Your response strikes me as typical of programmers in that they don't recognize how their work can affect a great deal more people than almost all of the examples you cite. With the possible exception of mishandling food, none of the other examples come close to affecting the same order of magnitude of people as programmers can.

The recent VW emissions scandal is a perfect example: VW's proprietary software was used in around 11 million VW cars worldwide (that VW admits to) from model years 2009-2015. Comparable proprietary software was used in more cars of other makes and model years. VW's software apparently turned some VW cars into cars that never should have been sold. Other makes and models of cars are also showing bad signs of polluting too much and not being in line with regulations. The full scope of the damage has not been accounted for. Only centralized food processors working on very highly used ingredients have the potential for that kind of adverse impact.

This creates a situation that kills us slowly instead of quickly by polluting our air in ways our (admittedly inadequate) regulation framework was designed to disallow. Proprietary software cheated those tests by behaving radically differently in regular driving than in testing mode. These cars should all be taken back by their manufacturers at full cost to the manufacturer, giving the current owner a complete refund of whatever they paid for the car, and the manufacturer's higher-ups should pay with criminal penalties and huge fines because this is a serious environmental matter. Programmers know their software is widely used (some programmers even value the wide reuse of their code) but rarely do programmers brag that their software treats people ethically and well.

Being "aware of their moral compass" is too low a standard and something programmers have typically balked at besides. As Brad Kuhn points out, software freedom doesn't kill people, security through obscurity kills people, yet programmers today still debate the value of software freedom for its own sake instead preferring to either work on proprietary software outright, or choosing to value a non-free software-allowing right-wing corporate reaction to free software known as "open source". Read just about any /. thread today and you'll find plenty of technically literate people who balk at introducing ethics into the discussion, or try to explain away giving us all the means of helping ourselves via software freedom. Our best chance of finding and fixing the cheating car code is to require copylefted free software for all vehicles and make transfer of the complete corresponding source code and build instructions for said software with ownership of the vehicle. But we choose not to do our best motivated in part by those who would rather not enter into a moral discussion because they place business desires above how people ought to treat other people.

One easy way to help fix this is helping those who help us. Today the Linux kernel is used in a lot of products that end up in people's homes, listening and watching them all the time via cameras and mics controlled with proprietary software. It's hardly a stretch to imagine that non-technical customers are being spied on without their knowledge or consent. It's bad enough that Linus Torvalds' fork of the Linux kernel allows proprietary software (as opposed to GNU Linux-libre which does not), but GPL violations are rampant. We can help the Software Freedom Conservancy by funding their efforts to pursue GPL violations, and I hope you'll do so. We owe the entirety of free software routers to comparable efforts, freeing code from Linksys which we can apparently reuse in many other routers. That freed software and its derivatives makes routers more trustworthy, improv

Let it never be said again that there's no substantive difference between free software and open source—here you have an open source booster (Red Hat's CEO Jim Whitehurst) pitching proprietary software as a good thing unto itself. Many years ago the Free Software Foundation told us about this when they wrote about the "Fear of Freedom" and the section that highlights how open source enthusiasts and free software activists react radically differently to non-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. I will get my work done some other way, and support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

Whitehurst mentioned "why Microsoft had to open source .NET". What freedoms does that really convey to .NET users? It's worth taking a look at Microsoft's Patent Promise for .NET Libraries and Runtime Components and understanding its limitations. This patent promise doesn't look out for your software freedom. As End Software Patents warned us two years ago:

[Y]ou're only protected if you're distributing the code "as part of either a .NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a .NET Runtime". So if you add any of the code to another project, then you lose protection and MS reserves the right to use their patents against you.

Secondly, the protection only applies to a "compliant implementation" of .NET. So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for embedded devices, then your implementation won't be compliant and the protection doesn't apply to you.

Microsoft's "patent promise" so-called "protection" looks very different from how the GPLv3 treats users. End Software Patents summarizes the GPLv3's language in section 11: "[c]ode distributed under the GNU GPLv3[] comes with a patent grant which basically says the contributors can't use their patents against the users for exercising the freedoms granted in the licence" whereas Microsoft's "protections disappear very quickly for those who wish to modify or re-use the code".

Let it never be said again that there's no substantive difference between free software and open source—here you have an open source booster (Red Hat's CEO Jim Whitehurst) pitching proprietary software as a good thing unto itself. Many years ago the Free Software Foundation told us about this when they wrote about the "Fear of Freedom" and the section that highlights how open source enthusiasts and free software activists react radically differently to non-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. I will get my work done some other way, and support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

Whitehurst mentioned "why Microsoft had to open source .NET". What freedoms does that really convey to .NET users? It's worth taking a look at Microsoft's Patent Promise for .NET Libraries and Runtime Components and understanding its limitations. This patent promise doesn't look out for your software freedom. As End Software Patents warned us two years ago:

[Y]ou're only protected if you're distributing the code "as part of either a .NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a .NET Runtime". So if you add any of the code to another project, then you lose protection and MS reserves the right to use their patents against you.

Secondly, the protection only applies to a "compliant implementation" of .NET. So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for embedded devices, then your implementation won't be compliant and the protection doesn't apply to you.

Microsoft's "patent promise" so-called "protection" looks very different from how the GPLv3 treats users. End Software Patents summarizes the GPLv3's language in section 11: "[c]ode distributed under the GNU GPLv3[] comes with a patent grant which basically says the contributors can't use their patents against the users for exercising the freedoms granted in the licence" whereas Microsoft's "protections disappear very quickly for those who wish to modify or re-use the code".

You can't whitelist everything you need to, and you can't trust end users to be able to do that all themselves (no matter how many dialogs you pop up). A/V is only capable of doing so much, so users still need educations.

The other option, as this Google engineer proposes, is to lock everything down and only allow vetted programs. This is called Trusted Computing (a.k.a. Treacherous Computing) for software and digital rights management (digital restrictions management) for media. These are very secure (so long as you trust the vetting agency), but they promote too much vendor lock-in and they directly combat Free Software.

I too wouldn't mind seeing deceptive practices properly punished, but punishments won't inherently bring software freedom. Jailing amazon.com's leaders for taking away (of all books) "1984" from some legal purchasers of that eBook on the amazon DRM-riddled eBook device won't grant those readers what they need—DRM-free copies of the books they purchase and fully free software eBook reader source code. I think big organizations will eventually come to realize (if they don't already) that letting some higher-ups get punished is a small price to pay to retain the power over the user proprietary software gives them.

Also, open source was established well after the free software movement and open source was established precisely to disconnect the call for freedom that the free software makes central to its cause. A couple essays (older essay, newer essay) describe the on-the-ground practical differences in this and they couldn't be more stark: there are situations where open source fans will accept proprietary software where free software activists will instead choose to do without and perhaps work on a free replacement for the software. This difference also gets to why some people refer to open source's efforts to make non-free things look better than they are "openwashing" (a term based in the word "greenwashing" to make anti-environmental things look environmentally conscious; I first came across the term in a talk by Brad Kuhn, former Free Software Foundation Executive Director and currently at the Software Freedom Conservancy).

I too wouldn't mind seeing deceptive practices properly punished, but punishments won't inherently bring software freedom. Jailing amazon.com's leaders for taking away (of all books) "1984" from some legal purchasers of that eBook on the amazon DRM-riddled eBook device won't grant those readers what they need—DRM-free copies of the books they purchase and fully free software eBook reader source code. I think big organizations will eventually come to realize (if they don't already) that letting some higher-ups get punished is a small price to pay to retain the power over the user proprietary software gives them.

Also, open source was established well after the free software movement and open source was established precisely to disconnect the call for freedom that the free software makes central to its cause. A couple essays (older essay, newer essay) describe the on-the-ground practical differences in this and they couldn't be more stark: there are situations where open source fans will accept proprietary software where free software activists will instead choose to do without and perhaps work on a free replacement for the software. This difference also gets to why some people refer to open source's efforts to make non-free things look better than they are "openwashing" (a term based in the word "greenwashing" to make anti-environmental things look environmentally conscious; I first came across the term in a talk by Brad Kuhn, former Free Software Foundation Executive Director and currently at the Software Freedom Conservancy).

Debian is willing to put something into the non-free archive area (and things that depend on it into contrib). In fact, the existence of the non-free section on Debian servers is why the GNU project cannot recommend Debian. Fedora is more likely to instead leave out a package entirely, except for non-free firmware that executes on peripheral coprocessors instead of the main CPU. But even that's too much non-free software for GNU.

FSF divides works of authorship into computer programs, instructional works, works of opinion, and artistic works. Each brings separate licensing issues, as described on the GNU project's list of licenses and comments on the loaded word "consume". FSF ethics do not require works of opinion or artistic works to be free.

Other than digital restrictions management, what's the FSF-approved way for the publisher of an artistic work to offer a service consisting of a time-limited license for a subscriber to experience that work? Is the alternative really to drop rental altogether in favor of selling a durable copy of something that most people are likely to watch only once?

FSF divides works of authorship into computer programs, instructional works, works of opinion, and artistic works. Each brings separate licensing issues, as described on the GNU project's list of licenses and comments on the loaded word "consume". FSF ethics do not require works of opinion or artistic works to be free.

Other than digital restrictions management, what's the FSF-approved way for the publisher of an artistic work to offer a service consisting of a time-limited license for a subscriber to experience that work? Is the alternative really to drop rental altogether in favor of selling a durable copy of something that most people are likely to watch only once?

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html

It's right there in section 3. Are you completely blind?

They have made no changes to the source code of the original OS being used.
The following from the GPL comes into play:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

They provide the very link required above on their OSS website.

I don't get why you think taking a portion of a GPL-licensed work means that portion wouldn't itself be GPL-licensed. Of course it is, like the whole work is.

The stance of the FSF is that game assets are not software and thus having a GPLed engine bundled with non-free assets is ok. The assets and the engine doesn't form a complete work that as whole has to be GPL licensed. Going by that interpretation taking the assets from a GPL game and including them in a proprietary work would be ok, as it's just the reverse direction of what is already common practice (see Doom, Quake, Dosbox, ScummVM). The GPL would apply to the art, but not to the engine.

The license follows the graphics no matter how you get them.

That's not the issue, the graphics will obviously stay GPL, the issue is if it does force other parts of the program to fall under the GPL. In a statically linked C project the issue is clear because all the used library become part of the resulting executable. In a lot of other context the coupling between the GPL code and the proprietary code is not so tight. Using a GPLed grep in a proprietary shell script is for example considered ok, but using a GPLed grep() function loaded from a dynamic library would be considered a violation going by the common interpretation, even so it's essentially the thing. The proprietary code wouldn't need to contain any GPLed pieces, it would just call them. In the case of graphics the only thing that couples the code with the assets would be a filename.

Things get even more complicated when you are dealing indirect couplings by third parties, not by the distributor of the proprietary application. For example assume a proprietary application provides support for themes and then a user builds a theme from GPLed assets. Is that a violation or not? What about plugins or scripts?

This whole situation really isn't clear and even the official GPL FAQ is a little vague when it comes to how to deal with plugins and basically leaves the user with a "it depends".

I think there's misunderstanding of "based on" versus "linked against" here. If you take a work licensed under GPL, you can't use part of that source code under a different license because you can't change the license on somebody else's code. The only exception is if you yourself wrote that code, retain copyright of it, and choose to offer it under a dual license in addition to the GPL.

Aggregation of multi-licensed works is a different matter. If you have a substantial body of work that stands on its own absent a GPL work, that work maintains its own license. A stand alone library that works with or without another GPL work is its own entity. An application which links against GPL libraries is still its own work and may carry its own license.

You may link any work against a GPL-licensed work for your own purposes without regard to the licenses. GPL is a distribution license, not a use license. If you wish to distributed to someone else a non-GPL work along with the GPL-licensed work, you must comply with the GPL. GPL states that you may not distribute a combined (linked) work with any additional restrictions beyond what GPL specifies. It does not state that distributing the entire work under GPL is the only way to comply with that requirement. It's certainly the easiest way, but not the only way.

There's a list of GPL-compatible licenses on FSF's website. You may link code licensed under any of those licenses with GPL-licensed code and distribute the result.

No part of GPL requires that you license all your code under GPL if you link to GPL code. It only requires that anyone to whom you distribute your final work can obtain, use, and redistribute all of the parts of it (including source, build tools, etc.) without any part being more restrictive than GPL.

Indeed; there are many reasons not to do business with Apple and many reasons to never use proprietary, user-subjugating software. Contrary to one of the follow-ups to the parent post, this has everything to do with TrueCrypt, VeraCrypt, and any other free software to which one entrusts their sensitive information. There's nothing these programs can do to fix the real problem. The user has to switch operating systems to a fully free software, user-respecting OS and install only free software on top of that to do the best we can do to avoid the aforementioned problems. So while nobody can blame these free software programs for leaked keys, passphrases, and other leaked information there's no reason to trust the underlying proprietary software these free programs rely on to do everything they do when running on non-free OSes.