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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."
And yet, he's absolutely honest and correct. Any marketing spin would be slightly dishonest and manipulative, and he won't stand for that.
Humans are biased to our own detriment. We'll take immediate payoff (the "convenient features") over a bigger long-term benefit (Linux's flexibility). We'll trust recommendations ("pressure") from authorities as being absolute, rather than re-evaluating solutions to find what's best for us. When surrounded by others doing something, we'll assume that we must do the same (allowing the "network effect")
Humans just suck. Not saying that outright is being nice.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
What are you talking about? Many engineering students make modifications to vehicles, purely for pleasure.
The issue is simple:
If I WANT to tinker, *I CAN*.
THAT is the freedom being discussed here. I can't just decide one day that I am dissastisfied with the windows file copy dialog box's estimated time to completion algorithm, bust open the source code, and tinker on it.
I *CAN* do that on linux. (Moreover, if my reimplemetation is superior, the linux community eagerly wants my changes!)
If I *want* to modify my fuel injection system on my vehicle, I can. The hood isn't welded shut, and the ECM isn't designed to kill itself when tampered with. Compare that with say, an xbox360 with efuses, and tamper tape.
Stallman is definately a crackpot in a large number of ways. (Harvesting fresh footfungus in front of an audience and all that..) however, arguing about this level of freedom, even if people choose not to make use of that freedom, is definately to the betterment of mankind, and should be supported.
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...
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!"
It's not just physically disgusting, it's borderline insane. The entire point of taking someone like RMS's opinion is based on the assumption that he's more informed than the average person, has dedicated more thought to it, and has come to rational conclusions.
I have always had serious trouble with the "rational" part of that in regards to Stallman, and the foot-eating thing only reinforces that. Basic disagreements with his philosophy (in particular the extremist elements of it, the basic idea that software should be free I agree with but we live in a concrete world and our philosophical models aren't perfect so you need to be flexible) aside, I have a real problem delegating any thought at all to someone so unaware or uncaring of social norms.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I use Linux, and I used to agree with some of your platitudes, but not any more.
Although you believe that the community isn't trying to hide the flaws, most users didn't compile squat on their machines. They didn't look at the code, and although some are indeed coders, there are now millions of lines of code that change *a lot*. There's the kernel, in many revisions, and there are apps and distro families that change/mutate frequently and not very many people look at the code before they compile it and go Oh! There's a problem there! They may look at best, as a forensic exercise, long after they downloaded a replacement app, but that's about it.
Yes, there are wonderful kernel contributors and many fantastic FOSS sites and apps and distros. Only a handful of organizations try and keep it together-- at all.
"Found and fixed quickly" is largely a myth. Some communities really work hard towards fixing bugs, but there are many platforms and combinations needed to emulate problems. Coders move on, communities split, fork, or just die of boredom. There are no guarantees in either commercial or FOSS software.
And having been hacked hard twice, I can tell you that you can be rooted in moments, your machine hijacked, and unavailable to a user session no matter what OS you use. With a big enough hammer, you can break *anything*. The smugness is unwarranted.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
... 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.
And this brings us right back to the crux of it - freedom may not be free, but neither is your 'locked down device' ever going to be secure. We dont make secure devices anymore, we havent for years, the lockdown isnt to prevent software that YOU consider malicious, only to prevent software that the manufacturer (who generally doesnt even consider you a customer) considers malicious, regardless of your opinion. The manufacturer always leaves ways for themselves to get in, they are just locking YOU out. The malware makers then come along and find and exploit the doors the manufacturer left, so these systems wind up being LESS secure than Free systems.
Freedom to tinker isnt only important to the tinkerer - it's important to 'consumers' in general, because todays tinkerer is tomorrows competitor in the marketplace offering something the customer wanted - or alternatively not offering it, because that freedom was taken away and they never had a chance.
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