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Richard Stallman: 'Apple Has Tightest Digital Handcuffs In History'

Posted by Soulskill on from the taking-applications-for-digital-houdini dept.

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."

6 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. Freedom by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most people don't really care about being free. They'd rather be safe and feel secure even if it's only an illusion.

  2. Some of us are grown-ups by Joehonkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

    1. Re:Some of us are grown-ups by fredprado · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mostly because they can't see what waits them in the end of the road if they keep on this path. RMS has a very good point. Most users would abhor, if they could see a bit ahead, the dystopia companies like Apple and MS want to create where they have absolute control over what we can or cannot do with the devices we buy. If they don't it is mostly because of ignorance.

  3. Thank you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Handcuffs are a good thing... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not a psychiatrist, but I know other people with similar eating disorders and he may well have Pica. Dismissing his ideas because of that is not unlike picking on the socially awkard kid who is also a genius.

    If RMS were "normal" he wouldn't have had the insight and persistence that earned him universal recognition as the father of the Free software movement and a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. If the price he pays for the genius is a little socially inappropriate behavior when he's stressed and it doesn't hurt anyone, then what's really the problem here? Sounds more like a convenient red herring than anything else.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  5. Re:Wow. You have no idea, do you. by milkmage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "That's the borderline insane part. " i don't think it's insanity..
    is a simple failure to recognize social norms. think about what you do in your car (dig for gold) at a stoplight. you forget you are in a little glass box where everyone can see you.

    i've seen women applying makeup, men shaving, people flossing.. BUT those same people (hopefully) don't do that at the fucking dinner table.. RMS is just in his car ALL THE TIME.

    brilliant guy, but the social graces of a mountain fucking gorilla...

    have you seen his requirements for a personal appearance? I don't think the biggest Hollywood diva's get this specific:

    "Above 72 fahrenheit (22 centigrade) I find sleeping quite difficult. (If the air is dry, I can stand 23 degrees.) A little above that temperature, a strong electric fan blowing on me enables me to sleep. More than 3 degrees above that temperature, I need air conditioning to sleep."

    complete list: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developers-public/2011-October/007647.html