Slashdot Mirror
Richard Stallman: 'Apple Has Tightest Digital Handcuffs In History'
jrepin points out a discussion with Richard Stallman in which he talks about how the Free Software movement is faring in light of companies that have been successful in the long term with very different principles, like Microsoft and Apple. Stallman had this to say:
"I would say the free software movement has gone about half the distance it has to travel. We managed to make a mass community but we still have a long way to go to liberate computer users. Those companies are very powerful. They are cleverly finding new ways to take control over users. ... The most widely used non-free programs have malicious features – and I’m talking about specific, known malicious features. ... There are three kinds: those that spy on the user, those that restrict the user, and back doors. Windows has all three. Microsoft can install software changes without asking permission. Flash Player has malicious features, as do most mobile phones. Digital handcuffs are the most common malicious features. They restrict what you can do with the data in your own computer. Apple certainly has the digital handcuffs that are the tightest in history. The i-things, well, people found two spy features and Apple says it removed them and there might be more. When people don’t know about this issue they choose based on immediate convenience and nothing else. And therefore they can be herded into giving up their freedom by a combination of convenient features, pressure from institutions and the network effect."
...if they stop you from eating the scabs on your feet.
Most people don't really care about being free. They'd rather be safe and feel secure even if it's only an illusion.
...seems pretty appropriate, given what this guy is like...
I get the impression he hates on Apple because it's popular to hate on them in particular - but they aren't doing MORE than what everyone else in the industry is doing. That's not excusing it, of course - but the real problem with the "Just run Linux" solution is that non-Computer Science people want to do things like answer e-mail, write correspondence, and buy software from the store that has a nice, easy installer. We geeks don't have trouble with the idea of tinkering under the hood when we don't like something - but I am driven to drinking when I think of my grandmother or father trying to use OSS for anything useful when they hit their first problem.
Freedom is nice, but when it involves having to become a computer engineer to exercise it - most people will take the padded handcuffs. Just the way most 'mundanes' are, sad to say. Since I am not drinking the Apple hate-eraid, I imagine I will be modded into oblivion.
. . . and in other news, the sky is still blue and Moore's Law continues to be a marketing ploy.
Perhaps this is Richard Stallman already answering my Ask Slashdot question?
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3278789&cid=42118329
Given what I've been through recently with Apple on my iPhone (http://www.anderson-net.com/~nathan/apple-broke-my-phone), and also recent stories such as this one (http://www.telecoms.com/54319/apple-vetting-operators-on-lte-network-performance/), I'd have to say, "yup."
-- Nathan
WTF? If anything it was shown that the silly monitoring application had the spyware pieces *DISABLED* on iPhones whereas Android phone sellers had it enabled. Google's original bits did not have it, since Google have their own way of tracking users :)
So how I am supposed to take Stallman seriously?
"And therefore they can be herded into giving up their freedom by a combination of convenient features, pressure from institutions and the network effect." Or, perhaps, they judged what they want and what they are giving up and chose something of their own accord because they don't care about the same things in their computing experience that RMS does. Crazy, I know.
I am as much for free and open software as the next nerd, but having its spokesman say about potential users that "they can be herded into giving up their freedom by a combination of convenient features, pressure from institutions and the network effect...." is extremely counterproductive. He is admitting that free software is inconvenient, that it isn't going to be supported by your workplace or school, and - what? What the heck is the "network effect"?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Nice try, RMS. Open Source is a movement that Free Software charlatans and cultists like to leech off of to serve their own demagoguery. As someone who contributes code and advice to multiple open source projects (although I'll only contribute to BSD or similarly-licensed projects: Absolutely no GPL3), there are few things that make me want to stop and just focus on my traditional-closed-source programmer day job than RMS being given so much as a single breath of air.
Time to grow up and move on, Slashdot. You'd be surprised how many of us in the Open Source movement have.
I was going to write something sardonic until I read his wiki entry for "personal life."
He reminds me of a LARPer, but instead of being invested in fantasy quests, he's obsessed about privacy.
Don't get me wrong, I worry about privacy, but he just takes it to a whole different level. Personally, I worry about diet and exercise, something he doesn't seem to prioritize. But, to each his own.
This man's views are totally ridiculous. "Digital handcuffs"? You might as well argue that because you can't install Linux on your Craftsman screwdriver it's taking away your freedom.
Stallman, here's a hint: it's phone. A phone. You may pick it up and put it down at your leisure. It's not taking away your freedom. More importantly, the restrictions the manufacturers put in place help make it stable and reliable. Nobody should have to understand the technology to make use of it.
Go get laid.
Machine guns may help.
So what if you liberate someone who doesn't want liberating? Most people, even me depending on the device, don't feel like tinkering. That's different than not having the option available to anyone.
Different strokes for different folks.
People, especially the current generation, have been indoctrinated to the concept that "privacy" is an outmoded concept, and in some cases that a lack of privacy is the normal, natural order of things. This, of course, is wrong and needs to be corrected before the problems with corporations and governments can be corrected. As always, the free flow of information and education of the masses leads to what's best for people.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Most people don't really care about being free. They'd rather be safe and feel secure even if it's only an illusion.
Its not true in the slightest; everybody want freedom and privacy, admittedly most do not realise either how much they have given up, or have not noticed it being taken away...and have not sacrificed these things anything as astute as security [that does not make sense anyway ] they have done it for old fashioned *convenience*.
It only the massive marketing campaign by Apple/Microsoft that they fuck you over for your own good. Its not good you being fucked. I find it offensive that you repeat there insane propaganda.
"Microsoft can install software changes without asking permission."
Is RMS referring to Automatic Updates?
Could a dictator ask for a better representative for freedom? In other words, if freedom means being like Stallman, not too many people will want to be free. Like it or not, personality matters. It also matters that some of the ideas he espouses have nothing to do with freedom and more to do with his obsessions. Stallman is the poster child for advocates who seek to remove us from the fascist frying pan by throwing us into the communist oven.
Privacy is a myth, it always has been a myth, and you are wrong. But by all means, waste your life trying to get that genie back in the bottle of you really think it's a problem. You may as well work on getting rivers to flow uphill while you're at it.
Ever tried to free them? They'd rather bash *your* head in than to do anything for their freedom.
Psychology and Neurology agree, that the majority of people are *not* individuals. They are more like body parts of a larger body. Cattle. Drones. NPCs.
This has a very specific reason: Imagine everybody having their own mind... being their own leader... It would be *chaos*. And endless wars. Nothing would get done.
So praise the cattle! For if you are full enough of yourself, they might serve *you* some day!
And don't whine just because it's not you right now. *Make* it you!
*Fade in. Hip young man is sitting and typing away furiously on unbranded laptop. Two noticeably older gentlemen wearing Apple and MS shirts walk up, sit down on opposite sides, and open their own laptops. Start typing as well.*
...I'm using it.
Older Gentleman 1: *Looks over at hip young man* What are you doing?
Hip Young Man: *Beaming smile* I'm using Linux!
Older Gentleman 2: Oh, neat. What are you doing on Linux?
HYM:
OG1: But what do you use it for?
HYM: Anything! Linux is free. You can do anything you want! It's powered by the community! I can even look at the source code if I want to!
OG2: Do you want to?
HYM: Not particularly.
OG2: I see... interesting. *Resumes typing*
HYM: *Looks at OG1* What are you doing?
OG1: Stuff that matters.
*OG1 and OG2 high-five over HYM* *Fade to black.*
You're wrong. Most people wants the freedom to be comfortable. Privacy is just part of personal comfort.
True freedom isn't comfortable, it's messy as well as a shitload of work. Most people don't care for it.
RMS doesn't promote true freedom, he simply promotes his own version of it.
If you've read one Stallman interview you've read them all.
"And therefore they can be herded into giving up their freedom by a combination of convenient features, pressure from institutions and the network effect."
Convenient features, such as stuff actually working well and doing what it's supposed to without needing tinkering. Pressure from institutions and network effect, aka '90% of my peers use the same software, it works well for our needs and it would be a major undertaking for them to migrate just to satisfy my whims'.
They're there in their room. You're on your own.
MS cannot "install software changes without asking permission" -- unless you give it permission to do so. Derp harder. After you take a bath.
Shills get a life. Even your bosses use open source software to power the cloud and to surveil and record all of us. The only difference is that they don't redistribute the code because they sell it as a service.
Why?
It does not use Flash.
See, Apple can't be all bad now can they?
Gadgets are there to get things (not necessarily work) done.
They are not a political instrument to convince everyone of your narrow-minded world-view.
And they certainly not a tool for tool's-sake.
If OSS can get do the shit I need to to in a convenient, easy and fun way without causing eye-sore, fine. Sign me up.
If not, get lost.
There is a mentality problem. But NOT on the side of closed source software users, but on the FSF side.
OSS ist not better just because it is OSS. You can't expect people to use OSS just because it is OSS, despite being a pile shit (hard to use, fugly, not documented, needs maintenance, needs compiling, etc).
The last 25 years, OSS has catered the nerds (notable exceptions like Firefox, Android and (hidden!) Linux on routers aside). Unless OSS is truly mainstream, and that means being as polished as commercial Software, like Apple's for instance, he can talk as much as he wants. No one, except some acolytes of him, will listen to him and do what he says. And rightly so.
I wonder what kind of car Stallman drives. Seriously. Does he update the firmware controlling the engine timing and fuel injectors?
What's that? The car manufacturers have digitally handcuffed him so that he can't go mucking around with things? Oh - it must be a safety issue. OK, well, surely he can update the firmware for other things in his car, such as the radio display?
People aren't hearded in to giving up their freedoms. There are certain freedoms that those people just don't *need* to begin with. My mother, who has an iPhone, isn't handcuffed - if anything, the device liberates her into using technology that she wouldn't otherwise use in in the modern world.
There are products across the spectrum that address the balance between usable and the freedom to do whatever you'd like. Just because manufacturers lock down their devices doesn't mean there's not a suitable audience that doesn't benefit...
Does he mention precious bodily fluids? Oh, no! The Flash plugin is reporting me to the Fringe Division. The NSA knows I bought Nutella! I am undone! Or something.
ProTip: Safety and freedom are both illusions. Sleep tight.
Wrong. Just patently wrong. People care about safety after a host of different attributes, such as: convenience, sex appeal, price, social status, etc...
People don't buy Apple products because they're safe, but because they fit into one of the above mentioned categories. Who would purposely purchase shackles when presented with a "shackle-free" alternative, ninety-nine percent of the (American?) population.*
My favorite science teacher in school told me this, "Life is lazy". Everything wants to do the least amount of work possible. Why would people be any different. I'm not excusing this behavior, just illuminating the cause. Like I tell my students, "If you strive to fit in, you're aiming for the bottom. Be better."
Now, if you had said, "Most people don't really care about being free. They'd rather do the "popular" thing", then I would be inclined to agree with you.
We (people in general) have become "fat and happy" and don't want to be hassled with the responsibility of making our own decisions. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke
"Do not go gentle into that good night" -Dylan Thomas
All great minds have railed against the "popular opinion". Why? Because as a people, humans are notoriously unreliable at making good decisions. As individuals, we have made magnificent strides in science, art, literature, etc...
Please, consciously decide against the tyranny of corporate control. They will never have your best interests at heart.
*I can only speak from an American point of view.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
For those who would be interested, my account of Richard Stallman's presentation to the Yorktown HighSchool computer club.
That means by 2043 the free software movement will be ... what exactly?
i think it's gone farther than half way: heck, every one of the 100,000+ compute server at my company runs suse linux.
i'd say the free software movement is suffering from a "last mile" problem.
but i guess that depends on what the intent of the movement is, exactly? dominate every compute platform?
hmmmm.....
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I was wondering about that myself when I saw the man's name in the headline and was disappointed to see this wasn't it.
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
Stallman's idea of liberating the people is quite similar to the idea of liberating the people of Somalia from their government.
Its really a wonderful place without Big Brother looking over his shoulder, I think he would be much happier.
I love free things too but I'm not under some illusion that everything has to be free or open source. These companies have a right to do as they wish and I have the right to not use or pay for their products which I exactly why there are no computers in my house that have windows in them an all run Linux. Now if there was a commercial *nix alternative to windows that offered better driver support/os support compared to free Linux distros I'd use that system and happily pay for it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I talked to a guy that picked Stallman up from the airport. He stopped to get gas and was berated for using his credit card. "They can track you!!" I'm sure he means well, but it comes across as ultraparanoid. And eating toejam doesn't really help your cause. You probably lose more credibility that way than Reiser.
Reading the comments on here makes me ashamed to even be visiting /. anymore. Microsoft could as well have sold you their version of "the net", which would not be interoperable or open at all. If people after all this time choose to be locked up, then I hope you bring lube.
We told you so, in advance.
Apple might as well have resurrected Compuserve and all the lock-in that it had; one only needs to look at their platforms and their un-free nature.
No wonder they want to go with ARM, since it provides an environment that locks the user to a few "approved" uses as well as having a platform that is equally as obscured as current Apple gear.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
"When people don’t know about this issue they choose based on immediate convenience and nothing else. And therefore they can be herded into giving up their freedom by a combination of convenient features, pressure from institutions and the network effect."
key word here: herded
Hence, the term: iSheep
How is trying to get rid of competition through VERY dubious patent lawsuits NOT "coercing people into buying their products"?
Horses**t. Anything I do in the privacy of my home, assuming it leaves no evidence and does not affect or involve anyone else, is private, always has been, and should rightfully continue to be in the future unless I choose to make it public. Anyone who claims otherwise is probably in the business of violating someone's privacy.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Privacy is a myth, it always has been a myth, and you are wrong.
Sayeth the completely anonymous internet user.
That's funny stuff right there.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
See, the difference is that rivers never used to flow uphill, so yes, there's your myth. Privacy did, in fact, have a significant role in our society -- that is not a myth. This was before folks like you grew up and got into the system. The 4th amendment used to mean something. But what it meant (primarily) was that the federal, and pretty much the state, governments had hard limits on them. They no longer do, as SCOTUS has made perfectly clear. So you're right, when you characterize it as "putting the genie back in the bottle" in terms of difficulty. However, you're very wrong when you characterize it as a myth. Vestiges still remain. As they go, there will be some uproar from those who understand the value of what is being lost, and yes, I know, you don't have to tell me -- that won't include you or people like you.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Most people don't really care about being free. They'd rather be safe and feel secure even if it's only an illusion.
That is not true. People are great at discerning reality from illusion, and do not feel "more comfortable" with illusion as protection - many dislike the TSA for example.
But something that is really going wrong in this discussion is that many seem to be thinking "freedom" equals "privacy", or that privacy has anything to do with freedom. The truth is that while people like and enjoy freedom, they really don't generally care as much about privacy.
By tying the two together, you are making people care less about freedom because you are bundling in arguments about things they don't really care about.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
..and YOU, you Cowardly Bastard, are EXACTLY the sort of person I'm talking about. You've been so thoroughly indoctrinated by governents, the media, and the corporations behind them all, that you actually believe what you're saying is The One And Only Truth, and that anyone that disagrees with you has a screw loose.
Sadly, there may be no hope for people like you.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
iPhones and can only display web pages created on a Mac. That kind of thing...
iOS is certainly more tied down than OS X but It's certainly not like phones were open before and he should be grateful Apple removed their DRM from their music and open sourced their coded to make sure he could play his media everywhere. But most importantly, I'll take the walled garden over the mess that is the play store which effectively makes me a slave to anti-virus/malware software instead of Apple.
Stallman is a good guy to have around (despite the fact he borders on crazy) but if he think iOS is so bad he's more than welcome to come up with a better alternative. Google hasn't so the opportunity is there.
The other app stores actually have apps I want.
Wether you're for or against things like copyrights, or the fact that it's been twisted and corrupted way beyond the original goal, you need to acknowledge that there's two kinds of files. The ones you create and the ones you buy. This means there is a difference between your property vs the property of other people.
As far as your own files are concerned, in my opinion Apple is not a bad guy, far from it.
Apple supports a lot of formats, some of them licensed and others completely open: .ical files
- Screen captures are in 32-bit PNG
- iCal supports regular
- Mail supports regular pop3 accounts
- Address Book supports vCard files
- iTunes supports AIFF, WAV, MP3, AAC, MPEG-4 and H.264 and their own proprietary Apple Lossless format
- Keynote has its own proprietary format but can export to Quicktime, Microsoft PowerPoint, PDF, images in JPEG/PNG/TIFF, Flash, HTML and even a format for iPods.
- Pages has its own proprietary format but can export to PDF, Microsoft Word, RTF and plain text.
- Numbers has its own proprietary format but can export to PDF, Microsoft Excel and plain CSV text with three choices of text encoding, one of them being UTF-8.
- iChat supports AIM, Jabber and Google Talk.
- Preview supports a shitload of formats
- Any program that can print can create a PDF file
Last week I just discovered that you can even Quick Look a Collada file and rotate the object while still in Quick Look mode, for crying out loud.
Some people will bitch that Apple doesn't support OGG Vorbis or OGG Theora, so let me the 1000th to bitch that such stupid names were bound to fail at grabbing any sensible marketshare. The idiots who thought of those names should be forced to watch this Simpsons episode every day for a year.
In contrast, Microsoft created BMP at a time when there was already at least 10+ graphic formats available, WAV at a time when there was at least 3+ audio formats available and AVI at a time when there was at least 2+ video formats available.
If there's someone who's disrupting your abilities to quit their platforms by chaining down your own documents, it's Microsoft a hell of a lot more than it is Apple.
Media that you paid for, however, is a completely different story. But don't only blame Apple, blame the media companies and remember that there hasn't been DRM on audio files from iTunes for the last five years or so. Just because these people will never understand that you can't lock down bit patterns doesn't mean they won't keep trying.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Do you chew your fingernails?
"That's borderline insane!"
Eaten bogies you've picked?
"That's borderline insane!".
Really, leave the histrionics for someone able to carry them off, dear.
... is that handcuffs do nothing but restrain you. An iPhone restrains you in certain ways but it also enables a whole lot of other things. It's all about trade-offs.
It's the difference between an actual prison, and a prison where you can eat delicious food, see your friends, travel to some extent, etc etc etc., versus living "free" in the woods.
Furthermore, they aren't "handcuffs" in that I can get out of them. I might lose some stuff, but then again, I might not -- it all depends on what I'm doing and how. As it happens, there is nothing on my iPhone that I a) care about and b) couldn't easily move to another system. So depending on who you are, they may not be handcuffs at all.
Finally, it's a continuum. There's a difference between "handcuffs" and "oh well, I guess I can't watch this movie I bought in iTunes anymore because I have an Android phone now." I gain nothing from some pursuit of absolute theoretical perfection. Same thing with security: what do I gain by reading SSL certificates, if I'm going to give my credit card to a 19-year-old in a restaurant to take out of my sight for five minutes the next day? "Those who would trade...", yeah yeah yeah. It is impossible to live a life that is perfect in every way. Have you ever tripped? Well then, why don't you just stare at your feet for every single step you take in all of life? Oh, because the benefits of looking around every hour of every day outweigh tripping on things a couple times a year.
The bigger problem with cell phones, really, are the odious terms from the telcos, like AT&T selling me a fixed number of bytes and then charging extra depending on what I want to do with them. Or requiring that all smartphones have data plans in the first place, and then making the "entry level" plans more and more expensive each year.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The GNU/Linux desktop hasn't been hard to use in years. Linspire really got things rolling with CNR in 2005. They had a working solution even if it wasn't perfected. Shortly after that Canonical hired a bunch of Linspire engineers. At the time the founder & major funder Michael Robertson stole funds from the company. This resulted in Kevin Carmony and a slew of people leaving the company. Until then things were looking good. After that Canonical basically took over where Linspire left off.
What was wrong with Linspire was related to stability and the decision to bring in support for non-free software. There once a year releases were timed pretty well although it could have been clearer when releases would be made. What they lacked was engineering resources and people with experience. There was a lot of messing about too going on. A lot of that is still going on at Canonical unfortunately. What I have to say about Linspire was they at least stuck to bringing the GNU/Linux desktop to the masses and didn't run off in other directions.
The main issue that has existed until recently was there wasn't a place to get support on the consumer end. Canonical fails to realize the problems with its relationship with Dell. However there IS a company working on fixing these issues. There focus mainly on hardware and working with various companies in the chain. Companies like Atheros which produce wireless chipsets and things of that nature. ThinkPenguin's been doing the work Linspire should have been doing in preparation for the Linspire 5.0 release (by far one of the easiest distributions and releases that had ever come out). They have / are setting up support operations around the world. They have a proven business model and scaling it. That business model is fixing the hardware situation and providing proper support to the masses. Technical users don't matter. Freedom however does. Freedom leads to better supported or properly supported hardware. Nobody seems to get that. You can actually get support and things work out of the box. There isn't any fudging about with drivers. There solutions are by far the easiest in the industry compared to System76, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Apple, etc.
While you can't yet walk into a penguin store today like you can with Apple Dell sold consumers direct to the masses for years and did just fine (the company grew to be #1 in the industry in terms of sales). They only reentered the retail market fairly recently. Dell's main problem was the F***d the quality up in order to achieve that #1 position.
What RMS doesn't realize, is that the handcuffs are very comfortable and grant the wearer superpowers.
Most people don't really care about being free. They'd rather be safe and feel secure even if it's only an illusion.
Its not true in the slightest; everybody want freedom and privacy
The difference is that I can show reams of evidence that people in general are happy with only the illusion of safety and security, while you can't show any evidence at all that people as a whole want freedom and privacy based on their actions.
(Also, there => their.)
For copyright infringement and DMCA violations.
Nothing is stopping your carrier from refusing to allow your phone to connect.
Nothing is stopping the county court jailing you for a criminal act (you DID turn on the phone and click I agree to the EULA, right? UCITA has your ass).
Just finished reading the comments, thank you all, most insightful in understanding the demographics of /. today: rage comic addicts with a depressingly shallow perspective on free software and that would gladly trade their siblings for the next iShiny and that think that saying inanity like "Well, freedom isn't important if the product is usable" is anything more than a mediocre platitude. Reading Computer Shopper adverts was more challenging that this drivel, "Oh, I don't mind that I don't own the software or even know what they do with my data because it is soooo convenient lol this RMS guy is so out of it!".
Magnis nomini umbra indeed Slashdot.
Richard Stallman doesn't like closed systems! NEWS AT 11!
SKY BLUE!? WHO KNEW? More on KBTW News!
Humans see the world through eyeballs, scientists have confirmed!
What this thread really needed was another off the cuff interuptation of the story from someone who knows nothing about IT or computers or another rant about how Linux is hard. You're not being downmodded because you appear like Apple, you're being downmoded because your opinion offers nothing to the conversation.
May I offer you a padded hammer instead?
RMS, Google's favorite FOSS spokesperson has attacked Apple again? what's new?
Just because people own Android devices doesn't mean they actually use them. How much web traffic comes from Android phones and tablets vs. iPhones and iPads? See Slashdot's traffic stats, where iOS beats Android 4 to 3.
FYI
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
They were one of the (if *not* THE) first to come up with a general computing platform that has a digital distribution mechanism for client apps full of DRM *that happens to be the only way to install third-party software on the platform*.
Define "general computing platform". NES had Videomation, and Super NES had Mario Paint. Both used cryptographic lockout chips to ensure that only authorized cartridges would run, even if the NES had a vulnerability to reversing the polarity.
That was sarcasm. This isn't: iPhones can only run web applications and applications created on a Mac, and its web browser limits the capabilities of web applications. For example, how can a web application use the device's 3D accelerator, camera, or microphone? Does Safari for iOS do WebGL and getUserMedia yet?
i'd say the free software movement is suffering from a "last mile" problem.
but i guess that depends on what the intent of the movement is, exactly? dominate every compute platform?
Or at least provide a usable, widely available alternative to every non-free compute platform. For example, Xubuntu is the alternative to Windows, Android is the alternative to iOS, and in April 2013, Ouya will be the alternative to Wii U.
everybody want freedom and privacy
Yeah, that explains twitter and facebook.
But yes that is true that people want freedom and privacy. However, as computer specialist we are a bit how of touch with the real world meaning of that. Most people are happy to share minute details of their life to anybody interested to hear them. But they want privacy from the people that would use that information in a negative way, or more precisely, they want to be protected from the people that would not follow the "social contract". A bit like how people were leaving their door opened in village: the understanding was that you would not enter if you hadn't some good reason.
Until Joe User figure out what kind of place internet really is, open and free system will be a tough sell.
I'm so tired of hearing OSS fanatics tell me I'm not free. What, exactly, am I not free to do?
Install your OS on my device? Why the hell would I want to do that?
Shop in your app store? Why the hell would I want to do that? Have you not noticed you app store kinda sucks?
Install music moving it between folders? Why the hell would I want to do that?
Use Gimp? Oops, I *can* do that. If for some damned reason I wanted to.
Freedom to do things the hard way? Freedom to not use professional tools? Freedom to get help from condescending jerks?
What, precisely, am I not free to do?
You can't liberate people by forcing, or coercing them, into thinking the same way that you do. People who buy closed systems do so of their own free will, for reasons that might be more important to them they are to you. They do it in spite of reasons that may be more important to you than they are to them. True liberty is about respecting the choices of others, and allowing everyone access to a variety of options so that they may choose which is most suitable for them. If you want people to choose your option, make it as attractive to them as the options presented by the people you oppose. Don't blame others for presenting options that you disagree with.
how can I uninstall the Blockbuster application on my phone without rooting the thing?
By next time buying a device that you can root out of the box.
Why is anyone still listening to this nasty old troll? Let him enjoy the benefits of his NAMBLA membership instead.
We really don't own our hardware or software anymore. We just plunk down a prepaid user fee. The vendors are the ones who have most of the benefits of what we commonly call ownership. They can do more or less whatever they like to the object you 'own', whenever it suits them. They can even stop you from using it after you pay them. And they can use that object to do whatever they want to all the other objects you think you own but really don't. And if it stops working or doesn't behave the way they pretend they've warranted, you discover it was never warranted and it sucks to be you. Even your own behavior while using their object isn't your own. It's theirs, the information about it is theirs to do with as they wish w/o your knowledge or consent.
Which is fine. When I rent a car this is how I expect to be treated. When I 'buy' an airplane ticket this is how it works. All we're arguing about is whether or not when you 'buy' software or hardware you're really just prepaying consumption of that hardware or software just as you would a rented car or a perishable service like an airline seat.
All we have to do is disabuse ourselves of the fiction that we're buying something that we then own. We are not.
Also, rms is to blame too.
The onus is on him to prove his claims. That having open access to source is better and software freedom is paramount.
Don't blame apple when they figured out having a more closed ecosystem meant things ran more smoothlyn, and not just from the security side either.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
music has DRM.
An iPhone restrains you in certain ways but it also enables a whole lot of other things. It's all about trade-offs.
It's the difference between an actual prison, and a prison where you can eat delicious food, see your friends, travel to some extent, etc etc etc., versus living "free" in the woods.
Furthermore, they aren't "handcuffs" in that I can get out of them. I might lose some stuff, but then again, I might not -- it all depends on what I'm doing and how.
I won't say that Slashdot is user-unfriendly, however often the word "sheepie" is used around here. But their voices are absent.
If you want to hang on to everything RMS says like it is gospel, then you should know that he never believed in putting passwords on computers either.
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Early_years
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
What's wih this obsession with foot candy? I mean: RMS may have strange habits, but it's his ideas we are discussing here.
You know -- intelligent people are sometimes known to do weird things. They're still intelligent and their ideas worth discussing.
Imagine that whenever we discuss Newton's "F=m*a" (however *he* wrote that down) you went "OMG OMG he nearly *POKED* his eye *OUT*!!! Doing an *EXPERIMENT*!!! OMG" instead of discussing mass acceleration and all that.
Or perhaps you do that -- that'd explain a couple of things...
Stallman's not a person I can take seriously when he talks about liberty, for one simple reason:
He's as much a control freak as the MPAA and RIAA are.
The GPLv3 is fundamentally in the same category as DRM; it's there to prohibit you from doing things with something that the author doesn't want you to do. The purpose is not to maximize freedom; it's to maximize one very narrow subset of freedoms, while prohibiting whole classes of others. And the more aggressive and draconian terms, coupled with the ever more elaborate attempts to prevent people from violating the spirit of the law, come down to the same thing that's wrong with the DMCA: You cannot make ethics happen by force. All you can do is replace any consideration of the ethics with a focus on the legal limits.
When I give code away, I give it away. I do not sit around making elaborate rules for how it can be used. I let people make their own calls. That's liberty. Liberty does include the possibility that other people will do things you don't appreciate, such as not choosing to also give things away or give people free reign with their stuff. Okay, fine.
But once people start making elaborate and complicated legal terms for things, which are designed to try to prevent all sort of things they don't like, and maybe they prevent a few things which coulda been okay but whatever... I don't care whether it's the RIAA or the FSF. It's about control, not liberty, and I don't like it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
It's the best solution possible; a very locked down system for nontechnical users, a much more relaxed system for technical users that choose to step outside.
The best solution possible is the one that Google is using, where you only have to click a checkbox to "step outside". Apple forces you to break out, which is why it's a jail. Google's door is open, which is why it isn't. You are not a very good liar.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
i would say you are leaving the woods.
As someone who just spent a day with my employer's IT department cobbling a workaround to Apple's stupid, arbitrary, unannounced decision to not have the newest version of QuickTime support AVI files, I say A-fucking-men. As far as I'm concerned, they're approaching Microsoft levels of suckage.
Whatever Richard Stallman's personal eccentricities, the man is one of the cyber-heroes of our age. He could have cashed out long ago and joined the ranks of corporate America-approved "visionaries" like Jobs or Zuckberberg or Page, but he's stayed true to the original principles of F/OSS and the hacker movement in general.
"But once people start making elaborate and complicated legal terms for things, which are designed to try to prevent all sort of things they don't like, and maybe they prevent a few things which coulda been okay but whatever... I don't care whether it's the RIAA or the FSF. It's about control, not liberty, and I don't like it."
You would have wasted less bytes if you simply stated that you hate copyright. Any copyright system is based on the idea of control. Even the non-copyleft licenses would prohibit you from claiming that you wrote something that you didn't. Or from changing the permissive copyright to a copyleft, something which a clueless Linux hacker once attempted to do WRT some BSD code.
iOS users are not limited either; they can jailbreak if they want to use other stores, and many do.
Are iPad (fourth generation), iPad mini, and iPhone 5 jailbroken yet? Is jailbreaking a tablet (not a phone) even legal in the United States?
The best solution possible is the one that Google is using, where you only have to click a checkbox to "step outside".
That is not as good for non-technical users because it all too easily allows them to be gamed into opening that up and downloading malware.
Jailbreaking is just involved enough that a user cannot be simply tricked into doing so.
Its easier for you, yes, but the proper way to look at it is; what is better for the large majority of users - especially non-technical users that cannot protect themselves. For too long we have built systems that are the "best" for technical users only to the detriment of the world at large.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It only the massive marketing campaign by Apple/Microsoft that they fuck you over for your own good.
Ahem. The main Android device supplier? Samsung.
Samsung alone spend more than 10 times as much on marketing as Apple does. So much for the Apple is only successful because of the marketing myth.
Apple is successful because their products are better.
ask the TSA monkees getting paid if its a waste of tax dollars... rather have 'em friskin ya in the parking garage instead?
Samsung alone spend more than 10 times as much on marketing as Apple does. So much for the Apple is only successful because of the marketing myth.
Apple is successful because their products are better.
I agree that Apple's success is predominantly because of the quality of their products, but you've made a mistake in suggesting the effect/quality of marketing is measured by how much is spent on it, not all marketing is the same.
The other one where you're still running Ygdrassil on 22 floppies isn't one we can inhabit.
The code was dual licensed BSD/GPL.
The code was forked and added to with GPL only code, making the fork GPL only.
You know that the original BSD code was available, right? This is the continued clarion call of BSD trolls proclaiming that BSD is "more free" despite being locked up in propriatory code: "the original is still available!".
Well, apparently this BSD allowance is ONLY allowed if you're taking the code propriatory.
You didn't get to see Microsoft's improvements to the BSD stack. And the compiled code doesn't have the attribution in it. But not a peep from BSDers. When it's GPL, though, different entirely. Because they chose BSD not because of its freedome but BECAUSE IT WASN'T GPL.
Do you think the carriers are subsidising the phones to make the deal cheaper for you??? Really?????
No, the subsidy is saving you money like buying on 29% APR loans for 3 years is "saving you money".
Why do you persist in asking stupid questions that are answered in the affirmative with five seconds of Google work?
I went to Google, typed in iphone 5 jailbreak, and got pages like "genuine progress being made". And I went to Google and typed in ipad jailbreak legality and got this page distinguishing tablets, which don't have a DMCA exemption, from phones, which do. What keywords did you end up typing?
[The fact that end users are forbidden to add their own PPAs] Is one of the lesser but real reasons that the Apple App Store is safer.
Would it be even safer to require developers to have "relevant industry experience", "financial stability", and a "secure office not located in a residence and not shared with another business" before being allowed to sign up for the iOS developer program?
These days people do most of their shopping at a single hypermarket.
For one thing, most != all. For another, I don't know about where you live, but in my home town, they have a Target, a Walmart, and a Meijer just within a few blocks of each other, so people have a choice of which hypermarket to choose. Likewise, Android phone owners have a choice of which app hypermarket to use (Google or Amazon).
To to any standards compliant web app with Safari
How would one go about making a barcode scanner or something like Instagram as a standards compliant web app?
Are you telling me that of I access a web page on an Android it can take a picture of me and record my voice?
Yes, but only if you've already given microphone and camera permissions to that origin.
And camera access came with iOS6.
So why did it take five years from the "all apps are web apps" mentality of iOS 1 to Safari finally getting camera access in iOS 6?
[Safari for iOS] limits the capabilities of web applications. [...] Does Safari for iOS do WebGL and getUserMedia yet?
All browsers limit the capabilities of web applications. Generally for security and stability purposes.
Firefox and Opera support at least some WebGL on Android according to this chart, but Safari on iOS 6 does not.
Sorry.. that iPlatform argument is crap. You aren't any less free on those devices. Install your own OS, do whatever the hell you want with it.
Clearly the world has shown there's room for more than one mobile platform. This is a totally different battle than GNU vs Microsoft.
RMS needs to realize he is approaching irrelevancy and make his last contribution to GNU and retire to the land of the foot eaters, or find some other way to be relevant... here's an idea go back to your roots and make some strong mobile focussed GNU *apps* for mobile devices. Take on the Apple store on that.
I didn't know Mark Zuckerberg posted on /.