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.'"

Comments

This time of year already eh?

[Anrego]

I was expecting something a little less sane for his yearly fanatical rant, like revealing that Larry Ellison seeks control of the fires of eternal damnation (using non-free software) or something. This is still a fanatical rant, but definitely not RMS fanatical.

I’d like to note that I do have a lot of respect for RMS and what he has done for "free software"; however the man can be a fanatical lunatic, and I think at this point this does the cause more harm than good.

Re:Some developers have families to feed

[osgeek]

All too true.

I especially like how Stallman is always bitching about calling it "GNU/Linux" rather than just "Linux".

Guess what, Stallman, the name of the damned thing is FREE. Your pathological pursuit of freedom apparently doesn't extend to what we call things.

We're free to use it and modify it as we wish. We want to call it Linux so you can suck it.

Re:Open source vs proprietary

[TapeCutter]

If RMS was really interested in other people's freedom he would not be trying to stop them from growing non-organic tomatoes.