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Richard Stallman: Cell Phones Are 'Stalin's Dream'
jbrodkin writes "Cell phones are 'Stalin's dream,' says free software pioneer Richard Stallman, who refuses to own one. 'Cell phones are tools of Big Brother. I'm not going to carry a tracking device that records where I go all the time, and I'm not going to carry a surveillance device that can be turned on to eavesdrop.' Even the open source Android is dangerous because devices ship with proprietary executables, Stallman says in a wide-ranging interview on the state of the free software movement. Despite some progress, Stallman is still dismayed by 'The existence and use of non-free software [which] is a social problem. It's an evil. And our aim is a world without that problem.'"
harbinger.
RMS is seen as crying wolf, but many of his weirdest predictions have come true.
Viz. The Right to Read
And we're already there with Amazon's action's regarding remote Kindle book manipulation.
Cell phones? Remember the article on government snooping while the phone's turned off? The fact that cell phones can and do track you is blindingly true, but for some reason, people don't even want to hear it.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
When he is cooking his tv dinner, he just wants a microwave that works.
I doubt his TV dinner is open sourced either. Most people would be (or, at least, ought to be) more concerned about what's in their food that what's in their software.
Tracking people is a matter of supply and demand. The supply side (mobile phone vendors, and networks) are only too happy to get a few extra euro/dollar for nearly nothing. In our capitalist world, it's the only goal of a company to maximize profit. If it's therefore necessary to screw all citizens and track them all, the company will do it.
It's the governments, on the demand side, which should not want the information. It's governments who can (and should) regulate it. But they don't.
Don't blame the mobile phones for a side-effect of an otherwise practical invention.
The constant spying by governments on its citizens is the real problem... not the inventions that enable it.
If you're going to rant about this, at least understand what the man is on about. It's not "OMG FOSS is just so better and Miscro$oft is teh evils!!!11!1ONE!!!"
His position is basically that if you don't have the source you don't have the freedom to control your own computing.
With closed source programs you are:
He considers those points (and at least one other, and possibly wider points than I have made) to be essential for a person to be free and to be in control of the device they are using. A computer is a general purpose device, shouldn't a user/owner be able (within their technical bounds) to make it do what they want?
Now, you may or may not agree with his stance (I don't agree with all of it, certainly), but for him and people like him this is not a question of utility.
Saying "where's the software" is therefore totally irrelevant to RMS and people of his views, because it becomes a moral issue. They wish to control their computing devices, they believe that it is their right to do so. Therefore they will not give money or time to those that promote a different agenda. Just like some people don't buy DRM, or Sony.
So yes, for them, being open source is enough reason. Or rather the reverse, something being closed source is enough reason to avoid it.
As I say, I do not necessarily buy into his stance, the guy has some views I don't agree with, but if you're going to rubbish him at least try to understand it instead of mindlessly bleating about how proprietary software is better. That's may be so, but it isn't the point.
Affordable motorcars are Hitlers dream. What's his point?
The FBI could have planted bugs in my apartment. They could bug my landline telephone. They could point a laser device at my window and pick up voice via the vibrations. They could be following me. They could have planted a tracking device on my car.
All of those except the landline require actions in the physical world, where resources are limited and distances are real. Those natural limitations will prevent large-scale invisible abuse. You can do it on a limited scale, or you can do it big scale but then the country turns visibly into a police state.
Bugging your landline or your phone, or reading your GPS coordinates remotely requires a computer and being the FBI so you can tell the telco to go and do it. Running it on 1000 people is only marginally more troublesome than running it on 100 people. And that's a very important difference.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
And the social problem of non-free software? People do not care
Not the point. The point is that they should, and Stallman is trying to make that happen. I am not saying he is going about it in the best way (I'd would say that Eben Moglen is, more or less).
I doubt Stallman cares about every little detail about things he uses but isn't that interested in. When he is cooking his tv dinner, he just wants a microwave that works.
You know what, I think Stallman does care whether his microwave has a microphone in it, that he is not allowed to control. And I think he cares about whether his sneakers have a GPS that will not let him decide when it is off or on. I even think you do.
The difference is that the telephone has a microphone and gps already, for good reason. But that is not a good reason not to let the end user control those -
I do not care if you installed a bug in my house, or installed software on my phone behind my back, the end result is the same.
People would be alarmed, if every book came with surveillance technology and screamed bloody murder if it came near a photo copier. The 'political arm' of the free software movement is saying you should be equally alarmed with the current state of affairs.
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
I'm paid to write software, not write software to sell.
It wouldn't matter if my employer decided to start passing on freely the software I write for them, they'd still need to pay me to write software in the first place.
The more software they can bring in for free from elsewhere also means the more advanced and cutting edge software I get to write.
Software doesn't have to be sold on for developers to get paid. For many companies the software their developers write for them pays for itself in increased staff productivity so there's no need to try and monetise the software directly.
I read a book on computer security, and it mentioned that somethings only become sensitive when aggregated. I couldn't really grok a good example until I started seeing stuff like this. When people use Twitter and FB and whatnot, they don't consider the information they put out there as being "sensitive" or private. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't become so when aggregated. These people signed up for it, I know, but I think the vast majority of social media users out there don't quite understand just how scary the information about them becomes when it is all aggregated together.
Stallman's answer to that would be "It's doesn't matter". He has regularly and without the least sense of irony said that he would always rather use "worse" Free Software than "better" closed software. This is fine in my opinion, it's his computer and he can put whatever he likes on it. The telling bit is here: "The existence and use of non-free software [which] is a social problem. It's an evil. And our aim is a world without that problem." As soon as one side of the debate has labeled the other side "evil", the entire concept of "debate" is becoming worthless. This is the problem with Stallman as an advocate. He's got no shades of gray. Fanatics make terrible representatives for a cause, because in a world with billions of people, the chance to get even part of what you want, without some sorts of compromise, is non-existent.
Some would argue "Well that's silly, obviously he's gotten some of what he wants look how popular certain free software projects are." I'd argue that this has happened largely in spite of Stallman, not becasue of him. It's only since guys like Eric Raymond started the more compromise oriented "Open Source" philosophy (strange to think of ESR as a compromiser, but by comparison he is), and guys like Torvalds have written popular FOSS software in a non-political way; that FOSS has started getting traction.
As as side note, Stallman could care less about the lack of a VS equivalent; or whether or not Eclipse is worse, comparable, or better than VS. If you ever read him describe how he uses a computer, it more or less froze in the 1970s. He uses almost exclusively text and terminal based tools. Last I heard he doesn't even use the internet beyond FTP (for posting the stuff he writes), mail, and USENET; and he get the mail and USENET from a periodic UUCP connection.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
But Stalin would also have loved computers. They are the perfect tool of big brother. I mean really folks here is a news flash for everybody. Technology can be used for good or for evil.
Jet aircraft can fly people to hospitals where they can get treatment or carry bombs.
The printing press can be used for the Bible, Penthouse, Mien Kampf, and text books. I will let you all argue over which is and is not evil.
And a cell phone can be used to call for help when you car is stranded or if you are hurt.
And the internet can be used to view websites like Godhatesfags, slashdot, whitehouse.gov and REI.com. Again you can pick which of those is evil and which is good.
Welcome to the real world. Many things can be used for good and evil. That is just the way of the universe.
Oh and China is pushing Linux!
EVIL!!!!!!!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This is the problem with Stallman as an advocate. He's got no shades of gray. Fanatics make terrible representatives for a cause, because in a world with billions of people, the chance to get even part of what you want, without some sorts of compromise, is non-existent.
I think hardliners (to pick a word without the connotations of "fanatic" or "extremist") are quite useful in achieving a compromise.
I spent my youth disagreeing with hard-line Welsh nationalists, but I've come to realise that without their extreme demands (which they have not achieved), the Welsh language would have been killed by London-led government policy. I think the moderate situation we have now is about right, but it wouldn't have come about without the hardliners demanding something stronger.
Likewise, I'm glad of hard-line anti-war campaigners. I know there are situations on the global stage where the last resort of armed conflict becomes appropriate -- but I want peaceful resolution to be pursued wherever possible, so I'm grateful that there's a lobby demanding there be no war under any circumstances.
So what's your point? You can't complain about something that's wrong, if you don't complain about everything that's wrong?
Stallman himself has said that there are more important issues than free software, but, since he's a software guy, he talks about software.
The whole "How can you talk about A, when there's B in the world?" is just cheap rhetoric.
And just as a FYI, here's Stallman on hardware: http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-06-22-005-05-NW-LF
The first three posters in this thread have brand new, nearly consecutive uids and are sitting around agreeing with one another about proprietary software and MS. Just saying.
15 year old mobile phones could be recycled if you could modify the software.
So I think you need the whole spectrum of views, it's good that we have someone who is very vocal about software freedom, I think RMS be even more hardline just to counterbalance. I too have been annoyed by the unfree software in mobile phones, I have 10 year old Sony Ericsson phones that would be useful if I could modify the software.
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but getting totally fucked over by allowing myself to become dependent on orphanware, is how I became an "OSS geek." Proprietary executables have serious practical real-world disadvantages.
Free software isn't a religion; it's a rational strategic reaction. My Amiga went years without an OS update. OS/2 too. My current work machine can't run a lot of software because it has an obsolete version of Mac OS X and there is no upgrade for this hardware.
The proprietary compilers for the proprietary language that my former employer used (Clipper and Visual Objects) sucked and weren't getting maintained, and there wasn't anything to do about it except throw away thousands of lines of code that our products depended on. (Our solution was: go out of business. Problem solved.)
Then I look at all the computers I now own, and am grateful that every single one of them can and does get maintenance, because they run Free Software. The only way these computers will ever become obsolete, will be if I decide they're too old/slow/powerhungry. (It's surprisingly how many peoples' computers become obsolete for reasons other than those things.) The only weakness is that some of them have Nvidia hardware and I run the proprietary drivers, so some day I will upgrade a kernel, and the driver will no longer exist because Nvidia will decide, "fuck you, user." Fortunately, this day hasn't come yet for those machines -- and it won't come for any of my newer hardware, ever. (Why? Because I preemptively prevented it, by thinking about it before stupidly buying things which require proprietary drivers.)
If you use proprietary software, you get fucked, and that is the common case, not the rare case. It happens to most users at one time or another. Some of them realize what caused their problems and become "OSS geeks," and some of them don't get it, and repeat the mistake again and again and again, never ever learning how they set themselves up to become dependent on third parties.
This makes no sense.
If people post on Facebook, they're making their lives public. You may as well complain that when you took out that front-page ad about what's in your pants, EVERYONE read it and knew about it. Private information freely discussed in public is PUBLIC information. If you don't want people to hear about it, don't post it all over the friggin' internet.
It's not Facebook's fault that people reveal stupid details. That's what they want to do. And if your friends in REAL LIFE are revealing gossip about you, that's YOUR FRIENDS that are the problem.