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FSF Certifies First Device in "Respects Your Freedom" Program
Earlier this year, the Free Software Foundation announced a hardware endorsement campaign for hardware that respects the rights of its owner (no DRM, runs Free Software, support for open formats, no or freely licensed patents, etc.). Now, they've announced that the Lulzbot AO-100 3D Printer is the first device to pass certification and be endorsed by the FSF. Source code to both the hardware and software is available, naturally.
I look forward to the first compliant 2D inkjet and laser printers, even more so if they are affordable.
The world is awash with evil fuckers who, rather than trying to win you over with solid products and services, will expend their effort and money on bribes, advertising, patent warchests, takeovers and suchlike with the sole goal of manipulating, extorting, deceiving and straitjacketing you, not just to get the money you have now, but an ever increasing tithe, in perpetuity. Against this backdrop, a small organisation starts a modest initiative to help lift the veil from these practices to help you, and you... mock them for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3d_printer
Maybe if they focused more on issues that actually mattered and stopped acting like god damn babies people would take them seriously. Right now they're trying to attack every non-free thing at once, flagging everyone who doesn't suck RMS' dick and releases every line of code ever written under the GPL as evil fuckers who should basically go die just because they disagree with the FSF philosophy.
Being pragmatic about the GPL is what accomplishes things. FSF just leads the example of what not to do, except sometimes it occasionally works. The other times, the rest of the community does the real work by looking at things with a practical approach rather than asslicking inducing religiousness.
...uhm... isn't FSF against this restriction on software??... well, maybe they don't care about it on hardware. Cuba will have to built its own printer :P
He said the FSF, not the free software movement. Stop assuming that doing it the RMS way is the only way to do things. Then again, you're one of those idiots who assume that if someone disagrees with them, they're obviously a human drone incapable of rational thought. Truth is, you're the one incapable of it by acting that way and feeling smug over everyone else.
Hopefully there's more people out there who value freedom AND common sense AND don't obsess over it as much as RMS.
It needs to start somewhere. If they start certifying desktops, laptops, and smartphones, I'll probably start wih those when I'm shopping.
Translation: Someone dared to question my religious organization so I must attack and demean them. Yes, I favor pragmatism over religiosity when it comes to computing. I'll take Linus any day over Richard 'Toejam' Stallman. He gets results without the cultish attitude.
This is nothing more than an attempt to cash in on the Makerbot closed-hardware closed-source fiasco.
You know, all the people who were alllllllll about open hardware / open source? Until people started making clones of their sacred cow, the makerbot 3D printer?
You know, the same people who then got absolutely ripshit when Makerbot went closed-source?
It's a desperate attempt by the FSF to remain relevant when the world has largely moved on and ignored them...
Please help metamoderate.
Maybe if they focused more on issues that actually mattered and stopped acting like god damn babies people would take them seriously. Right now they're trying to attack every non-free thing at once, flagging everyone who doesn't suck RMS' dick and releases every line of code ever written under the GPL as evil fuckers who should basically go die just because they disagree with the FSF philosophy.
Being pragmatic about the GPL is what accomplishes things. FSF just leads the example of what not to do, except sometimes it occasionally works. The other times, the rest of the community does the real work by looking at things with a practical approach rather than asslicking inducing religiousness.
I think that you need to consider them in context:
Specifically, it is the positions of the 'extremists' that help define the range that counts as 'pragmatic'. If you only have extremists on one side, your 'pragmatic' window drifts toward them one half-step at a time; because compromising and following the past of least effort is what 'pragmatists' tend to do. Extremists get less done, because there aren't as many of them; but their presence has a strong effect on what counts as 'moderate' opinion(and, please note, there are extremists of the opposite bent and they do the same thing. Consider, for instance, the incredible upsurge in the respectability of devices cryptographically locked from running anything not blessed by their vendor...)
That's not a good argument. Why mock a company if it does not help you in some way? I bet there is an enormously long list of companies that you do not benefit from.
Agreed, if they ever would certify a 2D printer, I think that would certainly have to be one of the requirements.
Because it has only 90 days of warranty, against the 2 years mandatory in EU.
Remember, the "AO-100" is still a printer, just like any (normal) printer. Apple knows it very well, now.
The iPhone is like any other phone as far as the warranty is concerned.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
From the website: Not for sale to the Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, or North Korea.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
How would an electronic device, that is completely voluntary to own, infringe upon my freedom?
Since this seems to be the trend, I'll add to the AC trolling.
Whether you agree with RMS or not, it is impossible to deny the signficance of the GPL and the GNU ecosystem he created. Just because you don't like bearded hippies who don't compromise their integrity doesn't make them insignificant. Obviously no one likes being told that someone else makes a moral choice that one doesn't, because folks don't think of themselves as immoral. That's why omnivores hate on vegans. That's why folks think religious nuts are out to stop their fun (okay, maybe true here). Get over yourself!! Be glad that there are people of integrity in our world who don't let pragmatism get in the way of their belief system. Call them extremists if you will, but they are, at least, honorable.
More open hardware please! I love to tinker and mod. It's exciting to share these ideas back. I like to control the things I own, so open hardware makes my electronics better for me.
I'm looking at you System76 and ZaReason. One of FSF requirements in this program is a free BIOS, and we have a good one in CoreBoot (and it can make boot times faster). Worried about Secure/Restricted Boot? Get a laptop with a free bios, boot what you want.
Or in other words:
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw
-- What does that have to do with open source software and open source hardware?
(I'm not sure I've understood this question, as I'd assume the issues with closed software and hardware are familiar to anyone who reads slashdot.) Many of the companies that produce hardware and software do so in a way that is deliberately designed to work against you. Off the top of my head... CarrierIQ springs to mind. Apple's walled garden. Vendor lock-in. Standards bait-and-switch. Patent submarines and trolls. Tivoisation. Non-repairable hardware. Security through obscurity. Thanks to the market, you often have choice, but instead of just not doing these shitty things and instead adding value, the evil fuckers are expending their effort and money on keeping you in the dark and misdirecting you until it's too late, and you're locked into your two year contract or whatever.
It seems evident to me that software and hardware that has been vetted by someone like the FSF to ensure it does not represent the kinds of practices listed above is better, all other things being equal. This vetting is only possible if it is open source.
-- You can't seriously believe open-source companies are limited from things like "bribes and advertising" by the FSF's bullet points
(BTW by advertising I mean the kind of advertising that deliberately exploits our frailties.)
No I don't believe that they are limited from these things. The evil fuckers are everywhere, and such is their nature that you often don't realise it till they present you with the bill. An open source company could still be trying their damnedest to fuck you over.
But I do believe that producing the kind of product that would pass the FSF bullet list is a good indicator that the company's values and priorities are aligned with mine, and they're therefore less likely to be evil fuckers, or at least are being forced to innovate and find new ways of being total douchebags.
-- At this point, you're just going hyperbolic to try to make everyone agree with you
I think "evil fuckers" is a good shorthand for most businesses of a certain size. Yes, it's hyperbolic. But basically the gist of their attitude is to do absolutely anything at all to reduce costs and maximise profits, which is effectively a search for a way of giving you nothing and taking everything (aka "maximising ARPU"). It's hard for me not to see this as a pretty reasonable definition of evil, even if it's carried out in an environment of competition that in theory prevents it from coming to pass. And if someone is the sort that's convinced himself that this quest is not only not evil, but actually good -- "good business" -- then, well, he's a fucker.
-- [The FSF and communists] fight against capitalists (which makes them good in your mind)
I'm a capitalist, in the sense that I take capitalism as a given. I believe our choice isn't between free markets and central planning, it's between free markets and black markets. But I don't believe that capitalism has to have the bias towards immorality that it currently seems to ("If I don't pull this dick move that screws people over but is to my advantage, my competitor will, and I'll soon be out of business"). It seems feasible to me to have a form of regulated capitalism where the spirit of the regulation is that businesses should provide customer value, and if it is shown that they have deliberately acted against this spirit, they are sent to the naughty chair. We see this can work with things like, random example, car safety standards.
I know that you can print the plastic parts that hold together the various bars. As a matter of fact, the AO-100 printer I've looked at has printed parts holding it together. You'd need to buy motors, the arduino clone they use, and other stuff like the heating bed. I don't know how heavily modded their motherboard is though. I suppose you could get some parts elsewhere, or get them from the source.
So inspiring it see such an impassioned defence of Lulzbot by pr0nbot. :-(
I think its time I reported to the Sleepshop. I don't much like this new world.
The electronics are a RAMPS shield on a standard Arduino. The plastic parts are indeed printed by other 3d printers in the Lulzbot bot farm. So depending on your definition of "make" it can indeed make more 3D printers. The frame is based in large part on the MendelMax design. All of this is open source and available on the reprap.org site, and other related sites.
Kudos to the Lulzbot team.
I want to see a PC (that can run a full Linux distro) that has this FSF stamp.
Or even just the bits that go into one (motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM etc)
I recently got a Lemote Loongson 3A laptop, it has a free "BIOS", actually PMON. The sleek aluminium look and 4 cores of relatively obscure architecture are just a nice bonus ;)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The wheel has come full circle. RMS started this due to his problem in getting a printer to work with his lab computers, and today, he has a 3D printer that follows this spec.
Yeah, just like there is FSF-EU, FSF-LA, FSF-India, they should introduce an FSF-Comintern made up of Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, China & such countries, and have that group make this 3D printer, as well as work on completely liberated software. Start w/ GNU Hurd, which would be from scratch, and then have Emacs and GNOME on it. Also, have them working on a VLIW CPU on which to run all these, so that every iteration of it would require re-compiles, and there is no place for any binaries or object code when it comes to distribution mechanisms. RMS should get a suite right next to Casto's, where he can be the head of the world Software Liberation Army, and be a modern Che.
Hey, make a VLIW CPU, w/ its verilog code under GPL3. Not only will the CPU be GPL, but in that family, anyone who wants to maintain compatibility w/ the CPU will have to release the source, since a recompile will be needed w/ each & every change. Let the FSF get obsessed w/ perfecting a VLIW compiler, which is GPLed.
Welcome to Capitalism, if you don't like it you're welcome to move to North Korea.
Thanks, but I'd rather stay in Europe... We're not perfect but at least we see a middle ground between being either communist extremists or free market extremists and while far from perfect we do have regulations controlling what business do, and even our right wing nuts are (mostly) not whackjobs enough to suggest that unregulated market would do us better - hell, we just need to look across the pond to see it's not the way to go, yet you yanks just push towards that goal...
We mock the FSF because we respect private property, they're against the spirit of copyright ("copyleft" lol, never heard so much Orwellian Communist double-speak in all my life) and they're against software patents, which reward innovators and punish freeloaders (like the loonie-leftist hippies denizens of this Web site).
Yeah, you just keep babbling... there are very few places I'd not choose to live in over USA, but North Korea is one of them, so is China, but Cuba I would choose over USA... Still I'd choose my home country over any of the above any day.
As for your software patents claim... Well, I should have read your whole post before starting my reply and I'd have noticed you are actually making fun of free market extremists ;)
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Jeff Moe here, founder of Aleph Objects, Inc. maker of the LulzBot 3D printer. Note this is a printer which makes *objects*, not a printer that prints on paper.
I haven't spent much time on /. recently. I appreciate the post and the positive comments from many of you. The others, not so much. ;) I typically use the nick "jebba", but this account got set up with "yeb" for some reason, long forgot.
I am a long time supporter of free software, open culture, open publishing, etc. I am not a communist, as you can figure out if you go to opensecrets.org or many other places (cf. http://thebubblefilm.com/ )
Just saying hi. Thanks again, and happy hacking!
I'd pay top dollar for a quality Android phone with RYF certification. Just sayin'...
Space is probably the best example of a place where when something goes wrong, not having the right spare part really is a matter of life and death. With a beefed up 3D printer, stored schematics to the hardware in space equipment, and a 'printable' material suitable for space use, they could theoretically create any replacement part they need on the fly to help avoid many of the potential problems found in space. If 3D Printers could also be tied into an automated mining/refinery process, you could theoretically land some hardware on the moon or mars that would begin mining and refining local materials into a usable material for the 3D Printer, which could then church out buildings one piece at a time providing an unmanned way of building out a possible future settlement of sorts. 3D printers have the potential to be basically the equivalent of a Star Trek replicator. Given that it has the right materials to print with, it can create virtualy anything.
http://interserver.net/