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A cpu thats been tested and an open OS on top.
"How I do my computing"
https://stallman.org/stallman-... has some ideas on that.

Location data and contact/address data are sensitive yet inextricably linked to how people use trackers (also known as cell phones and other portable electronic devices). Whether the device conveys GPS coordinates, can be tracked to a remarkably small area via cell tower triangulation, or unknown (to the user) parties get the information from a proprietor (such as Apple), the privacy loss inherent in ordinary tracker operation makes it impossible to "avoid storing sensitive data on the phone".

This is no accident. When societies face the combination of nonfree software (both in OS and programs people are encouraged to install later), devices that are as close to always-on as is possible for mobile computing, and a userbase as persistently distracted away from focusing on their civil liberties as most tracker users are (no thanks to sites like /. which carry stories like these without any ethical critique to go alongside the corporate-written stockprice-sensitive spin) results like these are the outcome. Add to that the unethical ways in which trackers are made (such as Apple turning a blind eye to the environment in China or expoiting workers at Pegatron even worse than at Foxconn but Apple is certainly not alone in any of this) and you have an ugly recipe for abuse from end-to-end. Many thanks to people including Richard Stallman for compiling useful information about all of this and for his many years of warning people against nonfree software.

It's news because so many people are never taught to think of software freedom. Instead sites like this one shill for Microsoft, Apple, and a weaker "open source" message that was designed to draw attention away from ethical examination of the issue. Cutting off service and not providing programs for various systems are just two of the things proprietors with the power they wield over users. Software freedom would mean letting users maintain older OSes as much as they want to, backport programs they found valuable, and run builds of modern programs as much as desired.

You're quite right to point out that Apple is no friend on these grounds. But this shouldn't be looked at in terms of business; the effect on the user is far more important. Proprietors are the same in how they treat people because the heart of any nonfree software is unethical power over someone else's use of a computer. Richard Stallman reminds us that Apple uses this same leverage to pressure users into malicious "upgrades":

Using the lever of "You have a choice, but unless you say yes, your old activities will stop working" is something that Apple has done before, with malicious "upgrades". Apple ostensibly doesn't force people to accept the new nasty thing; it just punishes them if they don't.

Nobody should be obliged to work on developing programs and nobody should have the power to prevent users from developing the software.

I have overwhelmingly observed that the majority of computer users, do not want a truly free, democratic, autonomous, or self-empowering scenario, where their use of a computer is concerned.

With computer use, we now essentially have two groups of people. A minority of specialised, elitist programmers who write software for an almost completely unskilled, disinterested, and technophobic majority; and said technophobic majority themselves.

It seems that the proverbial "owner driver," of computers (a group among whom I gladly self-identify) are becoming a dying breed. I sat up all night last night, until 7 am this morning, compiling and re-compiling sources for my new NetBSD/amd64 vm. I have found use of that system tricky; and the current install is my third attempt. It is uneven in some areas, and there are many jagged edges. Nevertheless, I am determined, and while it has been somewhat frustrating, I have enjoyed the process; to the point where I have since only had six hours' sleep, in part due to my level of enthusiasm to get back into it.

People need to understand that maintaining their freedom requires vigilance, personal initiative and responsibility, and active defense. The psychopaths are tireless in their attempts to take it away from us; and more, to convince us that we should actually want them to take it away.

Learn to program yourself; but when I say this, I do not merely mean the new languages that are popular, which will win you approval from a manager. I mean the old languages, like C, FORTH, Tcl/Tk, shell, awk, m4, and LaTeX. Learn simple HTML, and use RMS' own web site as a code example if you do not know how. Java might bring you money, but in my observation at least, it will not bring you joy.

Use the BSDs. Get comfortable with compiling something from source code. A lot of applications are designed much more smoothly than they used to be, so this is nowhere near as difficult as it once was. Get VMware Player, and install an Open or NetBSD guest. Use it to teach yourself the command line and shell scripting, and then realise that there is no reason for you to pay hundreds of dollars to Microsoft for Windows if you don't want to. You can buy a perfectly good computer from here, which has completely Free Software compatible hardware, and then run one of the BSDs natively, and dual boot it with Windows if you want. I don't hate Microsoft at all; I just think people should have that choice.

In addition to your use of Twitter, consider downloading XChat 2 and discovering Internet Relay Chat. Many open source software projects have IRC channels, so if you do start using *BSD, that will also be a good way of getting help if you need it.

In addition to your use of Reddit, get Forte Agent and find out if your service provider maintains a Usenet server. If they don't, Forte sells Usenet access at $3/month for 20GB.

I know many of you want the new, shiny thing; but voluntary simplicity is becoming a major movement in other areas of life as well, and truthfully I really think it's time we brought it to computer use as well. I am certified as a Permaculture designer, and I truthfully view use of the BSDs as being as close as I can get to using a computer in a Permacultural manner. The word Permaculture is short for "permanent culture," and UNIX is timeless.

https://www.stallman.org/amazo...

Your other points are wrong and flamebait, so I won't respond, but this one is interesting.

It's your own servileness that's holding you back.

If you want people to support the goals of the FSF, perhaps it would be a good idea to NOT insult them with terms like "servile"

If you want people to make a change that causes short-term discomfort, you don't tell them, "Everything's fine. You're fine. By the way, you should totally change your life." That's the type of thing you tell them when you want them to indulge. For example, religion. The strong ones are the ones going, "You're a sinner; find salvation here." They actually get stuff done, for peculiar definitions of "stuff." The weak religions go, "Everything's fine. You're fine. Please donate."

In the same way, I'm pointing out a character flaw, which practically everyone has in some way. Everybody is lazy, everybody lusts, and everybody has some servility to false idols. Many people in the computer industry use that natural servility to create the idol of the Sovereign Vendor. The Free Software movement is about tearing down that false idol, and bringing freedom to computer users. Tearing down the idol is going to be uncomfortable. You're more likely to put yourself through the discomfort if you realize that you're in a state of sin. However, St. IGNUcius is an atheist, and he doesn't believe in confession and penance. Just reform your life and live in peace.

He can't read that. He doesn't surf the Internet because he fears being tracked and being defiled by contact with non-free software.

Nice try, but no banana.

The thing is, I think he's the way he is because he never grew out of the 70's MIT AI Lab paradigms of computing. He's never used a computer the way I or you have. He's basically been sitting in front of a console in Emacs for almost 40 years. And Emacs itself is based on the even earlier paradigm of TECO. So basically RMS computes like it was 1962. You've read how he uses a computer, right?

http://stallman.org/stallman-c...

So he's totally out of touch. He'd never be able to explain the average tablet/phone user why they shouldn't use it.

tablet user: I use it to watch netflix and play games

RMS: You shouldn't use ti for that because it requires non-free software.

tablet user: but if I don't, how can I watch movies and play games.

RMS: you should use a free tablet

tablet: where can I get one and can I use netflix and play angry birds.on it

RMS: You shouldn't play non-free games or use netflix.

You get the gist.

by Richard Stallman - Published on Dec 07, 2012 01:52 AM

One of the major advantages of free software is that the community protects users from malicious software. Now Ubuntu GNU/Linux has become a counterexample. What should we do?

Proprietary software is associated with malicious treatment of the user: surveillance code, digital handcuffs (DRM or Digital Restrictions Management) to restrict users, and back doors that can do nasty things under remote control. Programs that do any of these things are malware and should be treated as such. Widely used examples include Windows, the iThings, and the Amazon "Kindle" product for virtual book burning, which do all three; Macintosh and the Playstation III which impose DRM; most portable phones, which do spying and have back doors; Adobe Flash Player, which does spying and enforces DRM; and plenty of apps for iThings and Android, which are guilty of one or more of these nasty practices.

Free software gives users a chance to protect themselves from malicious software behaviors. Even better, usually the community protects everyone, and most users don't have to move a muscle. Here's how.

Once in a while, users who know programming find that a free program has malicious code. Generally the next thing they do is release a corrected version of the program; with the four freedoms that define free software (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/...), they are free to do this. This is called a "fork" of the program. Soon the community switches to the corrected fork, and the malicious version is rejected. The prospect of ignominious rejection is not very tempting; thus, most of the time, even those who are not stopped by their consciences and social pressure refrain from putting malfeatures in free software.

But not always. Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.)

This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows. My late friend Fravia told me that when he searched for a string in the files of his Windows system, it sent a packet to some server, which was detected by his firewall. Given that first example I paid attention and learned about the propensity of "reputable" proprietary software to be malware. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ubuntu sends the same information.

Ubuntu uses the information about searches to show the user ads to buy various things from Amazon. Amazon commits many wrongs (see http://stallman.org/amazon.htm...); by promoting Amazon, Canonical contributes to them. However, the ads are not the core of the problem. The main issue is the spying. Canonical says it does not tell Amazon who searched for what. However, it is just as bad for Canonical to collect your personal information as it would have been for Amazon to collect it.

People will certainly make a modified version of Ubuntu without this surveillance. In fact, several GNU/Linux distros are modified versions of Ubuntu. When those update to the latest Ubuntu as a base, I expect they will remove this. Canonical surely expects that too.

Most free software developers would abandon such a plan given the prospect of a mass switch to someone else's corrected version. But Canonical has not abandoned the Ubuntu spyware. Perhaps Canonical figures that the name "Ubuntu" has so much momentum and influence that it can avoid the usual consequences and get away with surveillance.

Canonical says this feature searches the Internet in other ways. Depending on the details, that might or might not make the problem bigger, but not smaller.

Ubuntu allows users to switch the surveillance off. Clearly Canonical thinks that many Ubuntu users will leave this setting in the default state (on). And many may do

Apple may have known about the issue for a while and not talked about it until it could release whatever proprietary blob alleges to be a fix. Apple's users might have known Apple's software was buggy too, but not been able to do anything about fixing Apple's code, since that's the nature of proprietary software. Apple has sat on exploitable security issues before; in that case, governments used that iTunes security hole to invade people's computers (as RMS points out). So in that case, apparently multiple people knew iTunes was a security problem.

Just because your six year old hasn't been taught the value of software freedom doesn't make software freedom worthless. I'm guessing there are a lot of things a six year old has not yet come to value which they will later learn they should have valued all along. Perhaps teaching your six year old to value substantive issues like ethical understanding of how people treat one another would be a good start. And while I certainly wish anyone with a fix would have shared that fix, they're under no obligation to share in the free software world and I doubt they'll be convinced to by your namecalling. But the situation is still better that anyone could have fixed this (and possibly some did) rather than having no option but hoping the proprietor takes an interest.

I'm guessing that, of the two, one can't easily avoid being spied on either way. So there's no need to take on the unethical, user-subjugating proprietary software of Skype as well. But the software involved in a traditional phone call isn't under the user's control and doesn't require the caller to take on nonfree software. There's no need to restrict our consideration to just these two options, however. As Skype is perceived as a viable alternative to the traditional phone call, Skype shows us that a free software program that respects our privacy could supplant Skype. What we need is an easily-used totally free software calling program that can encrypt calls at the ends of the call so even if the call data is recorded it can't easily be decrypted for a very long time. It would be even better if there was some way of masking the parties involved the call as well so the data describing the call is unclear as well.

I don't know about "Internet.org" specifically but as for using anything tied to Facebook, Instagram, and similar services: Try watching any of his recent talks, from the most recent talks to the talks dating back about a year or three. He tells you right at the top of the talk what he thinks of Facebook, Instagram, and the like—he dares to call them by their proper name: surveillance engines—and he asks users to not participate by not uploading copies of his talks and photos with him to these services. You can also read his personal website on Facebook detailing many reasons to avoid Facebook. I imagine any other service that works similarly ("Google+", for example) will receive a comparable critique.

It seems unlikely to me that any program started by these organizations will be anything other than come-ons to lose one's privacy to these data collection companies.

There are free software web browser add-ons you can install on your free software web browser: Priv3, NoScript, and various cookie editors/filters which will help you deal with the monitoring various services use when you get an offer to be tracked with a "like" button or similar thing. There's more work to be done on this ground, to be sure, but this is a good start.

There are some confusions in what you're asking. It isn't Stallman or the FSF's job to supply anyone with a business model. It's the FSF's job to lay out the ethical argument to defend their case that nonfree software is unjust and that we all deserve software freedom. Put differently, and not to equate nonfree software with slavery (slavery is more oppressive than nonfree software), but ethical arguments against slavery don't have an obligation to provide alternative labor sources to exploit. Ethical arguments against slavery have to lay out why people should be treated with human dignity as equals and not as slaves. With that, there are some approaches you should consider:

1. You can learn to be more charismatic, if you think it necessary, but plenty of speakers with important messages (including talking about issues of life and death) are not charismatic (charisma being an eminently subjective quality). Speakers including Noam Chomsky and Jeremy Scahill get large standing-room-only audiences of engaged listeners while delivering their ideas in a perfectly reasonable way because of what they have to say and write. I find this approach to be far more respectful to the audience than that of a charismatic speaker who delivers horrible messages like US President Obama who charismatically tells the world that he'll continue George W. Bush's wars against terror, or deflects serious discussion of what he does every Tuesday when he picks whom to assassinate (sometimes referred to as "Terror Tuesdays"), or when he delivers content-free acceptance speeches like he did in Grant Park spouting vague platitudes about his forthcoming presidency (as Adolph Reed Jr. pointed out on an interview with Bill Moyers, Obama gave "evocative statements" with "no real content"), and more).
2. You can learn to write other software. You can learn to do other jobs besides writing software.
3. All software needs support, regardless of user interface. There are also features businesses will pay for that need to be added to extant free software, such as directory service-related features desired for easier mass deployment within their organization. You can learn to write software that is sold based on its support; other organizations have charged large sums of money based on software they did not initially write; Cygnus which, until it was bought by Red Hat, provided GCC consulting services.
4. Apparently other people find ways to develop and distribute software via Internet download, make money, and do loads of other jobs all while not exploiting people.

Stallman is not going to address your reference to "open source" in the way you expect because he is not a representative of the open source movement, nor has he ever been. Perhaps you would have done well to read the summary /. provided on this story and the links contained therein. One of those links pointed you to a long-published article about how Stallman is not a spokesperson for "open source" and he has pointed out significant differences between his older movement—the free software movement—and the younger open source movement which focuses on development methodology (and is therefore willing to install and recommend nonfree software). That newer essay updates an older essay which has been published in print as well as online.

Also, developing and distributing free software doesn't always mean publishing GNU GPL-covered programs. There are lots of other free software licenses from which to choose depending on the details of the program and one's goals in distributing the program.

I read a little on your website about your take on technology that uses non-free software. Do you still not own a cell phone? If not, I'd love to hear your perspective on life without one these days, where its just assumed that people own one.

As a follow-up, where exactly do you draw the line concerning openness of source and whether or not you use software. For example, do you toast bread in a toaster that runs proprietary code? Obviously we're talking about different things here, but I'm curious to know at what point you say "no thanks!" when it comes to locked down technology.

Any complex software has bugs and perfection is never available. The important question remains: how are the users treated? If the software respects a user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify the software, users are treated well. If these freedoms are not respected, the user is subjugated. This is an ethical issue with technical ramifications.

Non-free programs (such as Microsoft Windows and Apple's OSes) are designed and licensed to prohibit anyone but the proprietor from understanding how the software works. Nobody but the proprietor can fix bugs or improve the program (I use the word "improve" purposefully subjectively here). And the proprietor could have included a variety of other problems (from the user's perspective) because proprietary software is often malware. A free software system (such as a GNU/Linux system on which nothing but free software is installed) can be fully inspected, shared, and modified by the users. Free software lets users treat each other ethically, non-free software leaves even the most expert users who are willing to do technical inspection/bugfixing work in the dark and prevents them from sharing with others, thus preventing them from helping others.

Software freedom is a far better arrangement for the user. Where non-free software users have to wait for a proprietary binary to patch a problem (possibly introducing new problems and leaving other known problems unfixed such as Apple did for over 3 years with an exploitable iTunes bug during which time governments used the hole to invade people's computers), a free software user has additional options. One can choose to learn to program and fix bugs themselves, one can get someone else to fix software for them (even commercially, by hiring someone trustworthy and appropriate just as one would do to fix other things). No one person can understand all the software they need, there's way too much software to do that. But together we can (and do!) maintain free software systems very well.

I would have been really interested in this. Actually, I almost went to Korea over the Xmas holidays anyway, but learned that they require fingerprinting now for non-citizens. I ended up staying in Hong Kong instead for the entire duration of my holiday just because of this point. I refuse to be treated like that.

http://www.businesstraveller.a...

I see some countries even require visitors to take an iris scan. That's insane.

http://www.stallman.org/bad-bo...

... and the Discovery of Gravity.
Happy Grav-Mass!

Why not celebrate comprehensible laws of physics that got your astronaut asses to the damn Moon by honoring Isaac Newton? You know, someone who was actually born on December 25th?

My point is that we need LESS non-programmer work from RMS! His extreme positions are doing Free Software no favors.

you replied that the real people we should thank for GNOME are coder Miguel de Icaza and dotcom startup Eazel

Yes, they did the real work. And now the grunt work behind Gnome is done by people working for IBM and Red Hat.

He's been doing non-programmer work full-time for about twenty years now. Including launching four desktop projects and doing everything he can to make them a success

He should have done it right...the first time. And if he wants to make Free Software a success he needs to stop being so extreme!

And with GNOME he did.

The man didn't DO anything in regards to GNOME. Yes yes, the GNU project was there behind the scenes, and that was good but HE isn't the person we should be thanking directly. He doesn't even use Gnome, he lives in Emacs in the console! The man is stuck in the computing paradigms of his MIT days.

The man can also be a bit of a jerk, he'll betray his own principles...as long as the downsides don't affect him.

http://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html

refuse to have supermarket frequent buyer cards of my own because they are a form of surveillance. I am willing to pay extra for my privacy and to resist an abusive system. See nocards.org for more explanation of this issue.

However, I don't mind using someone else's card or number once in a while, to avoid the extra charge for not using a card. That doesn't track me.

When I need to call someone, I ask someone nearby to let me make a call. If I use someone else's cell phone, that doesn't give Big Brother any information about me.

Is the harddrive running open-source firmware too? How could I possibly store my data on a device that uses proprietary software?

The firmware residing in hardware ROM is considered part of the hardware. The FSF only takes issue with the binary firmware that are distributed as part of the driver software, i.e. those binary blobs under /lib/firmware. RMS even said if the hardware manufacturers put those blobs on ROM then it would be fine [1].

In part they are able to get away with living in Fantasyland because they still use computers the same way they did when they were students at MIT back in the 70's, not like the way most everyone else uses computers.

For goodness sake, RMS doesn't actually use a web browser like "normal people do:

http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

I spend most of my time editing in Emacs. I read and send mail with Emacs using M-x rmail and C-x m. I have no experience with any other email client programs. In principle I would be glad to know about other free email clients, but learning about them is not a priority for me and I don't have time.

There's nothing wrong with using Emacs... but the vast majority of computer users don't use a text editor to read their e-mail. If one wants to make a free operating system that is of use to people who don't have neckbeards...then perhaps one should learn about Non-Emacs reading of E-mail. It's not that hard to learn a E-mail client...it's not like learning lisp.

I edit the pages on this site with Emacs also, although volunteer helpers install the political notes and urgent notes. I have no experience with other ways of maintaining web sites. In principle I would be glad to know about other ways, but learning about them is not a priority for me and I don't have time.

Not even Seamonkey's composer.

I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (but I make sure I have no net connection, so that it won't fetch anything else).

I sometimes use Google's search engine, and I sometimes use DuckDuckGo. When I use a search engine, it is always from a machine that isn't mine and that other people also use. I never identify myself to the site, of course.

That more than anything else shows the disconnnect in how a Free Software most fervent promoters use computers compared to everyone else. No wonder they seem so "Fantasyland"

I think it would serve RMS or any other hardcore FSFer to actually watch how people who are NOT FSF members actually use computers and then design a free operating system for them...not just bearded guys still using 1970's paradigms who know nothing about modern computer use.

Since when is "hacker" some sort of elite geek thing? Hacking is not about technology, it is an attitude. Applying the term to "everybody" is much older than you think. The earliest reference I have for it is from the primordial hacker himself, Richard Stallman, about 12 years ago. I am sure that there are much older references out there.

Aside from the obvious abuse of power, there's this: http://www.stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

You want to understand the hate, you could start @ his personal website - http://stallman.org/ and you'd understand why. He, in his own words, is unhinged - and would come off as that to anyone who doesn't happen to be a part of the OCCUPIER crowd

Oh dude, stay the hell away from Amazon http://stallman.org/cgi-bin/site-search.cgi

Right about what? He is a Left wing conspiracy nut, who makes wild charges about anybody he doesn't like. Check out his website http://stallman.org/ before one mods me down.

For starters, which OS does the US government use that is made in China? Windows? Made in Redmond. Linux? Well, the US government tends to prefer RHEL derivatives, such as Scientific Linux, and even SE Linux features have made it back to the major Linux distros. So made in Raleigh, or Portland or Helsinki. I don't know how much of the government uses Apple, but that too is written in Cupertino, and if one is talking NeXT or Mach, it originated in Redwood Shores or Carnegie Mellon. BSD? OBSD is Canadian based, but thanks to Theo, the US government has blacklisted BSD and doesn't use it in anything. GNU? Okay, how much of it is developed in China?

So which Chinese made OS does the US government use, according to the man who judges a Lemote Yeedong to be the only acceptably free system he can get his hands on? Does he actually think that the US government uses Red Flag Linux? Reading TFA, the interviewer referred to Huawei, which is a company blacklisted by a number of governments, and they don't write OSs - although they may well have written in back doors to that OS. But the solution in that case is what is already happening - blacklist Huawei, and let the US government ban their products from being used.

The flip side of his comments - that other countries shouldn't use OSs made in the US - is laughable. What OSs should they then use? Let's assume for a moment that his accusations against MS are true. Anything else they use would still be largely made in the US, unless any country chose to pick a pretty obscure OS made outside, such as L4, Minix, QNX, Haiku, and so on. If he were to say that governments should only use liberated OSs and not proprietary ones, one can agree w/ him, since there would be no way of embedding backdoors into such systems. But to say that an OS should not be made in China or the US or anywhere else is just his usual deranged self talking.

Per http://stallman.org/to-4chan.html:

"Regarding graphics accelerators for PCs, ATI mostly cooperates with the free software movement, while nVidia is totally hostile. ATI has released free drivers.

However, the ATI drivers use nonfree microcode blobs, whereas most of nVidia's products (excepting the most recent ones) work ok with Nouveau, which is entirely free and has no blobs.

Thus, paradoxically, if you want to be free you need to get a not-very-recent nVidia accelerator.

I wish ATI would free this microcode, or put it in ROM, so that we could endorse its products and stop preferring the products of a company that is no friend of ours."

This sort of thing gets discussed quite a bit on 4chan's technolo/g/y board. Also, installing Gentoo.

I won't comment on his liberated firmware blob comment, or the stupidity of his suggestion of putting it in ROM (and calling it a circuit), but why does RMS insist on calling the company ATI, when it's been acquired, merged & digested by AMD?

Per http://stallman.org/to-4chan.html:

"Regarding graphics accelerators for PCs, ATI mostly cooperates with the free software movement, while nVidia is totally hostile. ATI has released free drivers.

However, the ATI drivers use nonfree microcode blobs, whereas most of nVidia's products (excepting the most recent ones) work ok with Nouveau, which is entirely free and has no blobs.

Thus, paradoxically, if you want to be free you need to get a not-very-recent nVidia accelerator.

I wish ATI would free this microcode, or put it in ROM, so that we could endorse its products and stop preferring the products of a company that is no friend of ours."

This sort of thing gets discussed quite a bit on 4chan's technolo/g/y board. Also, installing Gentoo.

Do it like RMS, download all the pages you might want to visit in a day, and browse them with an offline browser (and from a machine that never connects to the internet).

Seriously, is it hard to google RMS Hurd before posting crap?

It takes a while when you have to fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back so you can then look at them using a local web browser. (Seriously!)

You youngsters and your newfangled technologies, the proper way of browsing is Stallman's:

I have several free web browsers on my laptop, but I generally do not look at web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites operated for or by the GNU Project, FSF or me. I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly.

There is nothing libertarian about RMS - he's an extreme Leftist. Just see his site http://stallman.org/ if you disbelieve me - it's full of calls to action on every Leftist pet peeve - real AND imagined - that exists out there. There is nothing satirical about his positions either - that's what he actually believes, whether it's his opposition to national IDs, boycott of Coke for using child labor in Latin America (unsubstantiated), support of the Palis against the Israelis, boycott Apple, Amazon, Skype, Ubuntu, or worrying about the death of honeybees last winter. So yeah, I agree w/ the GP - I too ignore him on principle, and anything that I happen to agree w/ him on is just coincidental. I much prefer a more sane approach, such as by ESR, who doesn't hate everything about the US the way RMS does.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#On_sex

"On sex
[P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants).
http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
Link
There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That's not willing participation, it's imposed participation, a different issue.
Link
I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
http://stallman.org/articles/extreme.html"

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#On_sex

"On sex
[P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants).
http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
Link
There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That's not willing participation, it's imposed participation, a different issue.
Link
I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
http://stallman.org/articles/extreme.html"

I'm enforcing my desires on people? yeah, sure, that must be it. It's not like Stallman has anything to say about the matter, right?

It's not about what I like or don't like, or my preferences. This is what's called you being an ad hominem lazy troll, Basil.

This is a complete quote from the relevant section of http://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html

Cellular Phones

        I refuse to have a cell phone because they are tracking and surveillance devices. They all enable the phone system to record where the user goes, and many (perhaps all) can be remotely converted into listening devices.

        In addition, most of them are computers with nonfree software installed. Even if they don't allow the user to replace the software, someone else can replace it remotely. Since the software can be changed, we cannot regard it as equivalent to a circuit. A machine that allows installation of software is a computer, and computers should run free software.

        When I need to call someone, I ask someone nearby to let me make a call.

As a ham radio operator myself, reading some on GSM and other standards, a little on OpenBTS, and what the military (especially black ops like CIA) have done in these kinds of situations, I think I can reliably state this:

1. *ANY* radio transmission can be tracked to its source. If your phone on, it can be triangulated automagically by the base stations around you, although modern E-911 compliant ones also assist in this. In addition, the TIMING can be used to trace your distance from even one cell site (think latency/ping), so you can get a radius (similar to GPS, if I've read right).

2. The only way not to be tracked in this fashion is to turn off all radio transmitters on your person or nearby that can be associated with you. This includes wifi and can even include bluetooth in radio-quiet locations. Bear in mind you can fingerprint individual transmitters, to the point there are commercial transmitter fingerprint readers readily available: these are usually used when dealing with jammers, but you can track anyone with these.

3. None of this precludes them putting an active tracking device in your phone (I've read the battery can be replaced with a smaller one with a device included), your car, jacket, etc. These were being done during the cold war; the only difference is that you can buy them online now! And don't even get started on passive methods like lasers-on-the-windows, Van Eck, etc.

4. Jamming just keeps you from making calls: your radio can't hear the base. The base can still hear you just fine (under normal circumstances).

The bottom line: you'd have to do like RMS does and not carry one...though I wonder how useful that is since his entourage probably are loaded with them!

Richard Stallman gives good reasons why this CC license is the wrong one to use: http://stallman.org/articles/online-education.html

I visited Stallman's site to see what he had to say on the passing of his comrade Chavez, and it didn't disappoint. But what he cited was a hoot - blaming Venezuela for global warming, er, heating, due to them exporting their oil.

Only problem - Chavez too needed money, and Stallman never explained to him how he too could be better off by ending Venezuela's oil exports and selling free, sorry, libre software instead. Now, if only Stallman could put together an online petition suggesting that Chavez's body be made available for necrophilia - Stallman's own #2 choice after scientific experimentation.

Sure, Stallman uses a web browser sometimes...but only when he can't read the text from the HTML. And in any case, "I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me."

Look kids, you have to pick your fights. For me its been Apple. Apple has been my windmill. All others are nessessary evil.

It's still surprising when we get a bit more data on exactly *how much* of a dick he was. I wish some of this stuff had come out while he was alive.

Are you kidding? How far back do we need to go? When the iphone was released and they had paid actors that stood in line. The product they sell is not being sold on it's merits, but on attempting to look popular/hip. All the talk about how GPL is somehow "limiting" and how "BSD is more free", even though BSD can = free code becomes nonfree. with thousands and thousands of apple paid folks to push that viewpoint in that somehow BSD is better for being more free, while the same people who take advantage of BSD being able to be made less free, were making the statement. They didn't even invent the ipod scroll wheel, that was synaptics. Yet you don't hear people acknowledging synaptics while using their products every single day in basically every laptop that exists. And yet at the same time, people say apple is better because "it's not Microsoft", while failing to recognize that Apple actually polices what you can do with the computer and anything they don't want to allow you simply aren't allowed to do. Aka ethical quandaries? It's apple's choice. see: controversial app blocking on IOS, etc. Even Stallman makes every one of these arguments.

Since when has any of that represented an actual solid product and since when has that been anything other than the highlighting of that while the software engineers at their company are certainly awesome, the company itself has been as much of a dick as Ballmer.

Into what platform should companies sink development time instead?

Not Apple.

Wow... Here it's claimed that... RMS's worst flaw... Is his software design preferences?! And that is why copyFREE software is gradually leapfrogging copyLEFT?! Nonsense! That's like saying Hitler's worst flaw was his vegetarianism!

I hate to see bad people attacked for wrong reasons, because it distracts the eye of history from their actual faults. In reality RMS is intelligent, charismatic, and does not have an oft-alleged hygiene problem. He might not be an accomplished programmer, but some of his lispy software design ideas did at one time have merit, though history has shown them to be less than ideal. C++ does contradict the UNIX philosophy of developing myriads of small tools, although it might be a valid option for huge projects like compilers and Web browsers (until a better C-killer language, like D or Go, is fully baked). Free software should handle such aesthetic disagreements amicably, through forking and choice. Vi / Emacs / Eclipse users can be friends, yadda yadda yadda...

RMS's real flaw is his fanatical socialist / anti-capitalist politics, and that is precisely the philosophy from which radical copyLEFT has emerged!

RMS's vision stands against the software philosophy of the free market, where copyfree and proprietary software exist in a symbiotic relationship, resulting in a more financially-solvent, more competitive, more innovative, and more advanced software industry world-wide. He thinks all businesses are evil, and that everything, starting with software development, should be funded by the state - presumably with him in charge.

RMS and his supporters are horrendously hypocritical in their stance on "intellectual property rights". GPL relies on illegitimate government force far more than major software corporations do, because the latter mostly function through explicit contracts (SaaS, hardware bundling, support contracts, education / certification contracts, etc). GPL, on the other hand, is purely an "implicit contract", which, in a rational world, would have no more validity than sticking a post-it note on your forehead that says "by seeing me you are legally bound to kiss me"!

The practical consequences of copyLEFT have been horrendous, not just for the software industry at large but for the growth of free software as well. CopyLEFT is inherently antagonistic and legally unpredictable, which gives the business world good reasons to avoid it. Billions have been wasted rewriting the same code (at times in roundabout ways) just to avoid copyLEFT restrictions! Since copyFREE code equalizes the playing field, the fact that so much open source software was poisoned by copyLEFT has benefited the strongest player in the market, which is Microsoft - whose dominance would have been greater still without the copyFREE software that has been utilized by its competitors like Apple, thus restoring a more competitive environment.

--libman

I just don't see the problem with the GPL license.

It is a deeply-rooted disagreement between the more libertarian (i.e. free market capitalist) approach to software philosophy vs the more socialist approach of Richard Stallman. Politics (and, to a lesser degree, other philosophical issues, like design aesthetics) have been crucial to Stallman and other founders of the GNU movement, and the (mostly accidental) popularity of their license has legitimized and empowered their ideas. There are some things we'd agree on, but the differences between our visions can neither be reconciled nor ignored.

The philosophical core behind copyLEFT believes that "money is the root of all evil", that corporations need to be destroyed, and that government force is OK just as long as it serves their desired aims. I believe in individual self-ownership, free markets, voluntary cooperation, and owning the fruits of your labor. My epistemology is grounded in rationalism, empiricism, and logical deduction of a Theory of Natural Rights; theirs is based on existentialism / emotionalism, demagoguery, and the thirst for political power. They believe that government force is legitimate when it suits them (copyLEFT enforcement, "net neutrality", funding of their pet projects, etc) and evil when it doesn't (patents, SOPA, vice prohibitionism, etc); I believe that violations of (individual, negative) Rights are always wrong.

CopyFREE and proprietary software exist in a natural symbiotic relationship. People can innovate and are free to decide how they release their innovations, including in a way that profits them the most, but free market competition eventually drives prices to zero and recognizes openness / source availability / copyFREE-ness as a competitive advantage. You eventually get the best of both worlds - the developer's rent gets paid through the next cycle of innovation, and the source is eventually released. There's no definite need for state-sponsored "intellectual property" monopolies in this process, because development can be funded through explicit contracts, SaaS (which, BTW, is the direction that Microsoft is moving in), hardware bundling (which Apple did from day one), support bundling, education / certification-bundled contractual agreements, an open reputation-based donation system, etc, etc, etc.

CopyLEFT software, on the other hand, exists in a perpetual state of uncertainty and antagonism with everything around it. The Linux kernel has avoided some of this uncertainty by pledging to stay with GPL v2, but many of Linux distros' essential components will follow the latest version, and there's no telling whether (A)GPL v4 or v9 will begin to include quotations from Chairman Mao... Businesses embracing copyLEFT as a PR-friendly add-on to copyright is not what RMS had originally intended, and fear of losing more market share is the only thing that's limiting their push for ever-more-restrictive licenses. They ultimately believe that businesses are evil and should be taxed into non-existence, and government monopolies should fund all software development and control everything - with them in charge.

The BSD license permits people to take free source code and lock it way and not share back [... below ...]. The way I see it, GPL is an immunization for the user community against the jerks who want to take source code and not share back their changes.

Copying is not a crime, and it is wrong do deal with "jerks" (who have not initiated physical aggression) through violence - lest you forgot that the power of GPL enforcement ultimately derives from the guns of state!

The BSD and other

It's not so much a matter of being wrong (although he very often is).

Like what?

The idea that people should care about free software. What tangible benefit does it offer that people should abandon their current systems for? Why should I do my computing like Stallman? For all his pontificating on the evils and dangers of non-free software it hasn't had any negative effect on me and I don't see how switching to free software would have any benefit.
For the vast majority of people they wouldn't know or care whether they are using free software or not. Free software needs to produce better end user products and end user experiences than proprietary products to prove its worth and make people care, but in its 30-odd year history it has not done this. Free software is great on the backend - and often this has nothing to do with software freedom and is more about open source - but proprietary products are leading innovation for end users and abandoning proprietary products in favor of free alternatives (where they even exist) would in most cases be a significant regression.
Free software like WebKit is great, but in most cases (like on iOS) users can't actually exercise many of those freedoms, nor do they care to so whether it's free or not makes no difference.

What a tragedy. Ubuntu's focus on ease of use was such a great leap forward for Linux usability. Now they've lost the plot and forgot about their constituency, instead trying to drive more and more revenue with things the user's don't actually want.

Does anyone want Facebook? How is it that Facebook is free?

When users want "privacy", they want to make sure that their location isn't tracked ... until they want to be able to share that with their friends and know where there is an available parking space. To say that by sacrificing our privacy we will have a much richer lifestyle is a tautology by this point. For example, it's happened more than once that I found someone on the Internet using a service that they didn't expressly consent to, and they were delighted that I found them because they had been looking for me and were unable to find me. What was more important -- that I respected their privacy, or that we have a newly-kindled friendship?

When RMS talks about "privacy", keep in mind the monk-like lifestyle he leads. http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

I'd be willing to accept an "apples and oranges" rejoinder.

It's one thing to have some Larry Wall style eccentricities, but Stallman hurts any movement he attaches his name to because of his extremist views. He believes, for example, that programmers should not expect to be paid for their work and that it's more important that non-free software disappear than it is for someone's children to be fed (he also believes nobody should have children). He's also made vile statements about what he calls "voluntary pedophilia", claiming that it should be legalized.

The annoying part is that in nearly every Stallman discussion, people will say things like, "You may not agree with everything he says, but we sure need someone like him who always sticks to their guns!" No, we don't. He's hurting the movement.

GNU was an interesting philosophy when it was started, but it's not as if it was the only open source ideology or that other open source movements wouldn't have taken hold. This isn't to diminish GNU so much as it is to diminish Stallman's glorified role in history among computer geeks and lessen the movement's reliance on a crazy person.

Your source is clearly biased, and fills his missive with ad hominens, which nearly instantly destroys any credibility for me

He never says that he doesn't think developers should get paid. Maybe you inferred that believing developers only get paid if they work on proprietary software.

I doubt, due to my first statement, that Stallman's views were accurately portrayed about any subject in that article, especially voluntary pedophilia and utilitarian ethics.

How do you know that a few children starving would be less important for the world then open software. Hypothetically, if open software leads to 10% more productivity, a few children starving would be offset by all the other benefits of that increased productivity (if it were evenly distributed) and then less children would starve. Thats just one argument, and you're wading into an insoluable problem and counting on the audience's ingrained sense of values to conclude that Stallman is a nut.

Same sort of line of thinking applies about whether children are always harmed by relations with an adult. Unfortunately, even me saying this will engender some knee jerk reaction calling me not human because I was able to compartmentalize my disgust long enough to consider the problem without letting repulsion bias me into thinking this automatically makes someone a nut...IF he even said it. Direct quote please.

You have such an inflammatory style, similar to the post you linked, I wonder why your post was modded up.

All that said, I'm not saying RMS is not a nut, but I am saying I don't think you advanced the argument in a legitimate way anywhere.

Z

It's one thing to have some Larry Wall style eccentricities, but Stallman hurts any movement he attaches his name to because of his extremist views. He believes, for example, that programmers should not expect to be paid for their work and that it's more important that non-free software disappear than it is for someone's children to be fed (he also believes nobody should have children). He's also made vile statements about what he calls "voluntary pedophilia", claiming that it should be legalized.

The annoying part is that in nearly every Stallman discussion, people will say things like, "You may not agree with everything he says, but we sure need someone like him who always sticks to their guns!" No, we don't. He's hurting the movement.

GNU was an interesting philosophy when it was started, but it's not as if it was the only open source ideology or that other open source movements wouldn't have taken hold. This isn't to diminish GNU so much as it is to diminish Stallman's glorified role in history among computer geeks and lessen the movement's reliance on a crazy person.

Your source is clearly biased, and fills his missive with ad hominens, which nearly instantly destroys any credibility for me

He never says that he doesn't think developers should get paid. Maybe you inferred that believing developers only get paid if they work on proprietary software.

I doubt, due to my first statement, that Stallman's views were accurately portrayed about any subject in that article, especially voluntary pedophilia and utilitarian ethics.

How do you know that a few children starving would be less important for the world then open software. Hypothetically, if open software leads to 10% more productivity, a few children starving would be offset by all the other benefits of that increased productivity (if it were evenly distributed) and then less children would starve. Thats just one argument, and you're wading into an insoluable problem and counting on the audience's ingrained sense of values to conclude that Stallman is a nut.

Same sort of line of thinking applies about whether children are always harmed by relations with an adult. Unfortunately, even me saying this will engender some knee jerk reaction calling me not human because I was able to compartmentalize my disgust long enough to consider the problem without letting repulsion bias me into thinking this automatically makes someone a nut...IF he even said it. Direct quote please.

You have such an inflammatory style, similar to the post you linked, I wonder why your post was modded up.

All that said, I'm not saying RMS is not a nut, but I am saying I don't think you advanced the argument in a legitimate way anywhere.

Z

Stallman wrote in his blog entry of June 28, 2003 that possession of child pornography should be legalized:

'The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.'

There is no other way to interpret his statements. Along with so-called voluntary pedophilia, Stallman advocates legalization of child pornography possession and believes the act is only illegal due to prejudice.

Holy crap, here's the actual extract from http://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05, specifically the entry at 05 June 2006:

"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."

So unless his domain was hacked and these aren't his actual views, let me just sat WOW!

Incidentally, the parent poster presents some pretty widely held and well founded views, and even backs them up with references to the actual words of the person he attacks, and he still gets modded down? Welcome to /. indeed...

It's one thing to have some Larry Wall style eccentricities, but Stallman hurts any movement he attaches his name to because of his extremist views. He believes, for example, that programmers should not expect to be paid for their work and that it's more important that non-free software disappear than it is for someone's children to be fed (he also believes nobody should have children). He's also made vile statements about what he calls "voluntary pedophilia", claiming that it should be legalized.

The annoying part is that in nearly every Stallman discussion, people will say things like, "You may not agree with everything he says, but we sure need someone like him who always sticks to their guns!" No, we don't. He's hurting the movement.

GNU was an interesting philosophy when it was started, but it's not as if it was the only open source ideology or that other open source movements wouldn't have taken hold. This isn't to diminish GNU so much as it is to diminish Stallman's glorified role in history among computer geeks and lessen the movement's reliance on a crazy person.