Slashdot Mirror
RMS Speaks Out Against Ubuntu
An anonymous reader writes "In a post at the Free Software Foundation website, Richard Stallman has spoken out against Ubuntu because of Canonical's decision to integrate Amazon search results in the distribution's Dash search. He says, 'Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.) This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows. ... What's at stake is whether our community can effectively use the argument based on proprietary spyware. If we can only say, "free software won't spy on you, unless it's Ubuntu," that's much less powerful than saying, "free software won't spy on you." It behooves us to give Canonical whatever rebuff is needed to make it stop this. ... If you ever recommend or redistribute GNU/Linux, please remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend or redistribute.'"
I’m not a fan of ubuntu nor RMS, and I definitely don’t like the sounds of this feature, but since when was "free software" equated with "respects your privacy".
Culturally most of it does, and by consequence of having access to the code any privacy concerns can easily be detected / removed by end users if desired, but I still don't see the connection between free software and assumed privacy. If anything this seems like a dangerous assumption.
Also the usual stuff here applies about pragmatism and user choice. RMS states that this feature is "malicious" as a matter of fact, and throws around spooky words like "surveillance" and "spyware" like he's doing a Fox news special report. I'm all for having opinions, but the way RMS spouts them as absolute irrefutable fact has always annoyed me (even when I agree with them). Obviously most users probably don't share this view. It's probably a useful feature to most, it can easily be disabled by the sounds of it, will bring in some money, and I suspect most users don't give a shit about being "spied on" in this manner. Remember this is the facebook/twitter/whatever else generation. A lot of people _like_ sharing all the minutia of their day with the entire world. I don't get it, but it's their choice.
Just do 'sudo dpkg --purge unity-lens-shopping' and be happy.
The eternal causenik who still doesn't understand that the price of admission for using FOSS shouldn't be having to buy into his pet social movement.
You can't call it "freedom" if you only expect everyone else to just use it to agree with you and do what you want them to do.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
News at 11.
... turn it OFF.
go into the privacy settings and click on the fuck-amazon-i-want-my-privacy-back button.
Way before this spying business.
I can't find any issue with what he said or how he said it. A blizzard in Hell.
Bruce Perens wrote this recently on slashdot.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/11/05/0122238/bruce-perens-answers-your-questions
I fully agree with Bruce. Sometimes I feel the commercial opensource companies are worse than the commercial closed source companies in some ways. At the regular commercial companies are upfront about the fact they are in it just to make money.
Try figuring licensing terms of different components of MySQL. For eg. try to figure out what components of MySQL Cluster you can also use free of charge without paying for support & what has to be purchased. Ask a question on some public forum where there are lots of MySQL employees active. They will never give the answer on the forum. They will always ask you to contact them offline.
And what about Redhat who have built their product on back of lots of people who worked for free. And now Redhat tries to make sure Centos has a lot of trouble integrating patches made by Redhat.
I think you miss the point, it's not that it's social, its that it's sending information that isn't social to a third party.
Mod this up. Rarely is there a response in first post that makes a shred of sense.
It seems obvious that you don't listen to him, so what's the problem from your perspective? Somebody disagreeing with you?
That being said, instead of answering your question, let me rather tell you why so many people hate Stallman and rant against him. The reason is simply that he's right about most of the things he says, but people do not always like hearing the truth if it is inconvenient. With that respect he has a lot in common with Socrates...
I ditched Ubuntu about 18 months ago. I really, *really* hate the "Search for your stuff even if you know where it is" paradigm, and trying to use it just makes me infuriated. Moved back to Debian for servers and Debian back Mint for desktops a long time ago. Only problem with Mint is that by default you're stuck with whatever search / content provider affiliates they've decided you want.
"social" != social, and neither should imply giving up privacy.
You're creating a false dichotomy between being social and having privacy. That dichotomy does not exist. Everyone should be entitled to a public and a private life, and they should be the arbiters of crossovers between the two. I'm sorry you don't care anymore, but many people do care.
I think its a shame that we try to marginalise people rather than create compelling arguments. What is really concerning is in this industry Bill Gates (look at videos of him in anti-trust trials), Steve Jobs (had to work nights because he smelled). You have just created an account. The fact is Dick is normally on the money, and the world is better place for having great men like him, who have achieved things in their own right.
Do you miss high school?
I'm sure even the most anti-social and most geeky amongst the /. crowd are horrified by the sight of him eating his own toe cheese. RMS is in a class all by himself.
Obvious astroturf. 7 digit UID and only comments are the ones on this story.
Thanks. Your ad hominem has really moved me.
I'm usually hard for privacy but you know what I've stopped caring.
If it took longer than 4 hours to stop caring, call your doctor.
how nice of you to decide for all of us:
"Socializing means giving your privacy up for the experiement"
how very nice. you jump to this, you're happy about it and you've given up the old ideas of privacy.
fine for you.
but not so fine for the rest of us who have not decided to 'just give up' and take the shiney.
(I really hope that there are more like me that will not take the shiney when it comes with such strings attached.)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Real shame that a Linux distro has taken this anti-privacy, anti-anonymous step.
+1 for rms for speaking up. I certainly don't plan to be using stock Ubuntu anymore.
Searching for local files is not one of the tidbits that needs to be sent out for it to work.
How exactly does this make him anti-social? Why do you think we should listen to you, exactly, when you can't even comment on the current issue and just start bashing people? FU.
Your post has that not-so fresh scent of a shill for Industrial Big Data/Behavior Monitoring/Pre-Crime Complex.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The definition of "free and open source software" doesn't/shouldn't include any limits on what that software DOES. Wouldn't saying, "You can use this code, but not if you write programs that do something I don't like with it!" violate the fundamental principles of open software? How about, "Here's my code for a really great FTP implementation, but you can't use it, or any program including it, to download copyrighted movies." Wouldn't fly, would it?
I understand that the open source coding community also includes a lot of shared cultural values, but the more it becomes just another means of distributing code, the less those shared cultural values are, erm, shared. RMS certainly has the right to speak out against things he find abhorrent, and to encourage people to not support them, as everyone does. As is so often the case, "The right to do something" is not the same as "The right thing to do." I think by trying to link his personal views on what's good, right, proper, etc, to the concept of open source itself, which is utterly apolitical, damages open source and would make people worry that, by using it, they are implicitly accepting or supporting ethical/political ideas they disagree with. (I have seen tons of open source code, esp. Apache, used by people and companies whose goals and values are at extreme odds with the generic "open source" culture.)
And I think in general these paranoid RMS'es and other lunatic people have lost sense of what privacy even means...
New user ID and fawning over corporations.
You sound like a paid shill.
if there's something you don't want anyone to know, don't do it in the first place.
Please post your bank and account password.
Please post a list of all your satisfied sexual preferences and all unsatisfied ones along with the photograph name and address and phone number of your current partner(s).
Oh and please also post:
a) Your real name
b) The porn films you most enjor beating off to (no lieing)
c) Your boss's email address
d) Your mom's email address
e) Your granny's email adddress
Really? you won't tell us?
Perhaps you should just sit in a box and do nothing ever again then.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Obvious astroturf. 7 digit UID and only comments are the ones on this story.
Or, you know, a new user. Those still exist, right?
We have laws against the most outrageous abuses and that works.
I'll wager the most outrageous abuses haven't even been dreamt up yet.
History books will list this continuing erosion of personal privacy as a precursor to the problems that followed.
pragmatism and user choice
Don't you hate that those words. I feel dirty every time I see them, they reek of compromise. They are simply lies, Do you really think people are stupid?
Apple are selling advertising space in Ubuntu to Amazon as a revenue stream. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as users enter into this with there eyes open, and the consequences of that.
You're missing the point. When you search for a LOCAL FILE, that search term gets transmitted. Probably harmless if it's simply "cat picture" but maybe problematic if it's "divorce filing". The software shouldn't be leaking your LOCAL search terms to the interbutts.
For a rant about Unity....
I'm sick of the people who defend him on the basis of his contributions by way of GNU as though that somehow mitigates the harm he does from his soap box. Instead of doing something like taking the bull by the horns and making a slick Android distro that embodies his values AND is friendly to non-geeks, he froths at the mouth at any company or group that makes moves which earn them some money and make things easier for non-technical users.
Contribute to Haiku, fork Android, become benevolent dictator of OpenWebOS. Actually do something that matters today.
Doesn't mean he's wrong.
Privacy is a modern convenience, and people will eventually stop giving a shit about it when it moves too far toward inconvenience.
I don't give a shit that Ubuntu relays my searches through Amazon, especially when I can get rid of it with a single command.
The question should be how can you be social in privacy and transparency. The best social experience is when you can control and see clearly your information path. For what I've understand the dash will send your query to canonical, even if you're searching your personal information trying to reach your personal data in your personal computer.
What exactly does advertising have to do with being social?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Yes, we all live together. But it's my personal right as an introvert to keep my information to myself. I choose the ways in which my information is used, not a corporation.
Companies can ask to use my information and I am free to say "no". This is the world we live in together. This is reality.
INTJ
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/72012.html
I've stopped caring. People like to get their social fix and I've noticed that too. Now I'm active on Facebook, I buy from Amazon and Steam and you know what.. being social is better!
I've stopped caring. And btw? I wouldn't change it. Socializing means giving your privacy up for the experiement. It means being vulnerably and if you cannot let yourself be social then what hope is there in the world? We have laws against the most outrageous abuses and that works.
This applies because RMS is against the lens only because how it technically works. I rather be myself than RMS. He has completely lost his touch on reality. In the world WE ALL live in, together.
I'm proud to say I'm more social than ever before in my life and I enjoy it! The change came after I got a mac! And even if I really hate to admit it, Google CEO had correct words when he said "if there's something you don't want anyone to know, don't do it in the first place."
Were you so busy typing the 'first post' that you didn't even manage to read the summary or the article?
News at 11.
You should watch it sometime, this is about "peoples right to privacy"; "selling my information to 3rd party corporations without my consent"; "intrusion into my house", Those are on that news all the time.
I'm sorry this is so far away from any "belief" system you should not be posting.
Ubuntu is licensed under FSF approved licenses. If RMS hasn't been wrong all these years then no matter what Canonical does the end user can just edit the source, remove the spyware, compile and go happily on his way.
Unless of course RMS's rosy view of an GNU-approved world has some cracks in it.
I'm a rather social person. I tell my friends about most of my hobbies, and some of them even share them. I love sitting down with them and discussing topics that I enjoy talking about and that want to discuss with them.
I don't really enjoy telling some random company out there that I'm currently trying to find a condom and doggy treats. Especially if they don't know that I have to occupy my dog somehow while I have someone in my bed so he doesn't bark, it kinda kills my mood.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
sad news for you, web-boy. Being social means interacting with real people in the real world. It does not meaning posting details about yourself to the planet via the internet. Do you have any real friends? do you spend time with them?
I don't see the value of saying "don't do this".
He'd make a better point saying "This (or these) distro best represents the ideals of GNU and I recommend using it over the leading distro"
Well spoken, my anonymous friend. I would grant you mod points, if I had them to give.
John
I've been on 10.04 since it was released, and it seems like with every version there's more and more nonsense keeping me from upgrading. At this rate it seems, I'll be on 10.04 forever. However, the latest release of ROS doesn't officially support 10.04, so it seems like I might be forced to move on if I don't want to experience any unfortunate surprises... although now might be a better time than ever to find a new distro I'm comfortable enough with. Ubuntu is just going in the wrong direction.
a gnome shell default search from the dash links to google, and wikipedia by default, and no other options are given for the user to change them.
You can uninstall the Amazon lens like you can uninstall the rest of lenses.
I don't think so. I usually agree with him - I often dislike the way how he says things though. Also there is his insistence on the "GNU/Linux" thing, which not only goes against the FSF ideals (you don't get to keep naming rights) it's also a really stupid name.
find ... | grep ...
Have gnu, will travel.
Let's see here...
First post? Check.
Ridiculous content? Check.
Sounds like a troll? Check.
I'd call you a shill, but most shills here are actually trolls.
It's the world we all live in, together. Which is why it's important that we treat others with respect and don't hold unjust power over other people.
RMS is not against how it technically works in a strict sense. He is against the fact that users are, without explicit consent, unknowingly transmitting personal information to a 3rd party who can then do whatever they choose with it in secret.
He's against the notion that we should just "trust" the 3rd party even though they wont show us exactly what they're doing.
Amazon wants to hold power over people. Not a lot, just enough to know what you are looking for in order to sell it to you. Canonical wants to hold power over you, not much, just enough to know something valuable to give to Amazon.
This abuse is minor, but it's still an abuse. It's like someone coming up to you and spitting on you. It doesn't hurt physically, you can wipe it off, you can keep walking. But it's disrespectful, and it is not really acceptable.
It would be something very different if the tool was not installed by default, and you had to choose to install it rather than have it slipped into existing functionality unless disabled. However as it stands, it's another tool that is taking unjust power over its user. You are tricked into giving information to Canonical who sells it to Amazon. It can hardly be called free software. You are giving up something of value, that Amazon is willing to pay for. But worse than that, it's designed in such a way that you don't even know you're doing it until you've done it.
Personally, I navigate the spitstorm because I have to pick my battles. I respect RMS for his views though. It's less about not wanting anyone to know something in particular. It's about not wanting to give unfettered access to anyone to your details. You have a choice, whether you want to share your information with others, you can choose to use Ubuntu, or you can choose to use a more free alternative. RMS would rather you choose the alternative, but more than that wants you to know that you are making a choice in the first place.
Whoa, slow down and back up a little... define "social"? Do you actually mean being social, or Being Social(tm)?
Also: http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/
And you really think by playing word games you're anything but being ironic when you say that? Seriously?
RMS is the modern day Dread Pirate Roberts. He is constantly replaced by a new person to continue the IDEA...
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Free software doesn't spy on you? Everything Google, and much that is in the Android app store, says he's wrong. Did he not notice the barn is already half empty?
Is this not the year of linux then?
Really. Is it just incompetence or actual malice?
What the fuck is up with your site's formatting?
You went all "new age" and insisted on these bollocks new method of displaying threads (because it was new and your CV needed a spruce?) but guess what: you've manage to fuck it up BIG TIME.
Seriously, guys, if you can't write a website properly, DON'T TRY SOMETHING FANCY.
Agreed! Giving up all privacy is insane. Chimps are more self-aware than this voice of complacency.
Privacy was enshrined in the 4th amendment because free people don't give up their right determine who can access their personal papers (thoughts, associations, etc.), and none of the founding fathers, on either side of the Federalist Papers debate, would ever have thought it a *good* idea to indiscriminately "socialize" with each and every individual in a group.
I feel sorry for this bonehead that he believes it's better to give up his right of self determination in the long run for some transient *feeling* that he's being *social*.
This thread and your posts are great!
It's like listening to dialog from the 1978 version of "Invasion of The Body Snatchers":
Internet User Concerned with Privacy: [chats with FBI] I'll get the authorities involved.
FBI Chat Bot: How can I assist you?
Internet User Concerned with Privacy: I'd like to report four bodies in my backyard.
FBI Chat Bot: Wait right there Mr. Bennell.
Internet User Concerned with Privacy: How do you know my name?
Jack Bellicec: [Jack's eyes widen with fear] Disconnect the Hard Line, Matthew.
Internet User Concerned with Privacy: [replies to FBI Chat Bot] I didn't tell you my name.
Jack Bellicec: Disconnect!!!
Internet User Concerned with Privacy: [ends chat session] I didn't tell them my name!
Nancy Bellicec: That's because they're all part of it. They're all Social, all of them!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Why are you missing the forest for the trees? On purpose?
I think that Stallman is forgetting that the open source / free software community has an awful lot to thank companies like canonical for investing time and development resources into making Linux so much more accessible to people. Not wanting to start a debate about unity or other recent changes in the direction of Ubuntu. I have nothing but respect for Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth for driving Linux on the desktop forward and contributing to the rich Linux ecosystem we have today.
I would also like to mention that - if i recall correctly it is made clear to the user during the installation process about the Amazon feature and that it can easily be turned off. Its not like they are doing it by stealth or anything unlike the other example cited in the OP.
As a long time Linux user (as my primary OS) I worked my way through various distributions. learning much about the core OS from things like Gentoo. A few years ago I settled on Ubuntu as a distro that Looks nice , is usable and just works (TM) I dont feel the need to tweak these days!. I feel spoiled by what Linux is today - everything just works out of the box (which is more than i can say for this new Mac Mini on my desk).
I guess my point is that if every one in the community was as anal as Stallman I doubt we would be in such a great place as we are now - as far as Linux goes.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
RMS is Jesus
I am a sinnner, and I know that I cannot attain his level of purity, but he is my spiritual guide.
"they are free to do this. This is called a "fork" of the program. Soon the community switches to the corrected fork, and the malicious version is rejected. The prospect of ignominious rejection is not very tempting; thus, most of the time, even those who are not stopped by their consciences and social pressure refrain from putting malfeatures in free software."
The idea is that with the GPL, minor contributors can't make people dependant on minor contributions, and keeps the power with the programmer instead of lawyer and marketer.
After unity I can't see why anyone is still on ubuntu. This is the icing on the cake.
Linux Mint - Ubuntu fork. two great sensable desktops installed be default.
http://linuxmint.com/
I used ubuntu when it first came out years ago but it took me a month to get back to debian. I mean, what's wrong with debian? I run stable on my servers and testing on my desktops and there's no such thing as lens-shopping-whatever. Better yet, all your desktop flavors are a matter of choice as things should be. The only thing I dislike about it is it's rebranding of software sometimes (cdrkit, iceweasel and avconv for example) but since ubuntu is debian with a corporate flavor all over I bet that's also true for ubuntu. My previous company switched to ubuntu after I left but I wonder why, maybe to attract people for work?
Making the same badly informed assumptions, only months behind everyone else.
Do everyone a favor RMS. Next time you feel the urge to 'speak out' on something, just don't.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
2 commands. They installed shopping-lens and something else too.
Redhat can write their own closed sourced OS. Then no one will know enough about their OS to provide support for it.
Redhat has an OS currently to support and make money of, because of the open nature of contributions to Linux - in that spirit, they should not be trying to hide stuff.
they reek of compromise
The problem with compromise, is it only works if its a two way negotiation. In today's world its not that Increasingly its about meeting someone half way, and then next time you meet them half way again..before you know it you may not have compromised.
You make a lot of points about free software with is not really the point of this discussion. The truth is I bought a video card which hasn't a proprietary driver...guess you didn't need to compromise :) Most of us don't.
So, wait... when I do a find / -name foo, I now wget results from Amazon? No? Then what the hell does Stallman's opinion have to do with any of it? Isn't he adamantly anti-GUI anyway?
is how does Canonical present this choice. If its hard coded and not documented, that's one extreme. If it is an option you openly select with a checkbox every time that's probably the other extreme. RMS IMHO is getting all hot and bothered about the wrong things. If we CAN'T have options to interact with external services then we have NO choice, that's not freedom. He's got a fixed view of things like that, and it is just not appropriate. Its also cultural. While we can say people should be entitled to a private and a public life you're not going to find very much agreement across cultures of what that means.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
I ask again why are theses company's allowed to spy on us? They have more power then the police,FBI,CIA,Congress and our President. I also ask again how do we stop this. Slashdot was powerful at one time why not again
Jack of all trades,master of none
And I can keep on using OpenBSD, Debian and Slackware.
First off, as an Amazon partner, we at Franks Freaky Finds are concerned about your privacy (after all, it's getting in the way of business) and we will say whatever it takes to get you to shut up. Now, we are sorry to hear that you miss placed your penis pump manual... We can provided a PDF for a small fee. We can't help but notice that you acquired this item in used condition so, sadly, we can't offer an after sale warranty third party as we normally would.
/sarcasm
I think the point is that computers have changed from private to public locations and not everyone has caught up to that fact yet. People have private conversations all the time in public (restaurants, parks, walking down hallways, passing love notes) but the rights mostly belong to other member of public - they can film you, take your picture, stand close to you and read what you are holding, and the only privacy privileges you have are granted by law (e.g. wiretapping, gender segregation in restrooms, etc...). In the computer world the internet is public. A modern computer is crippled without a connection to the internet. (Remember the days when a FPU was optional)?
So, if a modern computer is in a public location, and we extend physical items to their digital corollaries, then any privacy granted would then be a privilege granted by law (probably those same wire tapping rules). So where are the dividing lines? Is it the firewall? People are allowed to take pictures of the interior of a house from public locations (although some states have rules about magnification through windows), so shouldn't anyone be able to look at anything you have visible through a hole (e.g. window) in your firewall? But where is the dividing line between looking in a window and smashing it in to crawl through? Read = OK, Write = illegal?
This is not a simple discussion (and neither is privacy in the physical domain). But many electronic devices (especially computers) have a public presence which is critical to their operation and you should not expect privacy if there is a 'net connection. If you want privacy - then it is your responsibility to make sure legislation is generated which defines, delineates, and grants privacy in a public location as it pertains to your computer (my responsibility as well).
Huh, I've never argued from this side of the coin before. It's been an interesting exercise.
I am not sure about this. I think CentOS has been eating Redhat's lunch in the enterprise far more than Oracle.
Redhat speaking negatively about CentOS won't sound good - however if they speak against Oracle, it won't be so bad. I think Redhat is killing 2 birds with 1 stone here.
That shouldn't be an argument for why to use free software. There are a lot of good arguments for using free/open software, but there is no guaranteed correlation between free and not spying. If it's open, it can be audited to tell if it's spying on you. One could argue that free means that a developer has the freedom to write software that spies. And the user community has the right to look for and remove that spyware. Don't try to force a correlation that just doesn't inherently exist.
I really don't want Amazon search results unless I go to Amazon.com. But Ubuntu can do whatever they want. Dash sucked even before they started "spying", so that's another reason for me to abandon Ubuntu. RMS could make a spin of Ubuntu that was to his liking if he wanted.
New user ID and fawning over corporations. You sound like a paid shill.
Occam's razor: it's just a sad little man who knows how to troll slashdot effectively, not anyone earning anything. Other than maybe a slight reprieve from the emptiness and/or loneliness.
Because if you haven't, and RMS hasn't then you're both ideally skeptial of the claim.
Unless you believe things without evidence.
Calling "Astroturf!" is easier than picking up the debate.
Maybe Pop'n'Shop's been reading for years and just now hit the straw which made him/her finally have to post. I've read /. since the fall of '99, but it was years and years (and more years) before I finally snapped (and then got sucked in - see the social inherent in the system?). I can't even remember what it was about when I registered. Sure I've kicked myself a few times over never registering early (Ebay fodder if nothing else), but really I almost never check a UID when instead there's all that text in the box below it which is so much more informative.
Nobody is "entitled" to anything. That's why we have guns ... if you can buy them, keep them, not commit any crimes with them, and not allow the government to talk you into letting them take them away. Fail any of that, and you can't have guns, no matter what "inalienable rights" you think you're "entitled" to. If you can't keep peoples' noses out of your shit, you're not going to have a "private life" either.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers.
I haven't used this version of Ubuntu and don't have extensive-enough knowledge of this feature to corroborate or deny this. However, if true, I imagine plenty of organizations really couldn't live with this being installed by default. Organizational policies, regulations, and laws might even forbid them from letting such data leak out. In such case, it might be much easier to select a different distro/OS for the organization than to make sure someone remembers to disable Dash search on every new install. One oops, and you might violate HIPAA, e.g.
I am not a crackpot.
For an excellent account of how a lack of privacy destroys socialization see "The Nazi Seizure of Power" by William Sheridan Allen. By subsuming all private social organizations under the Party's banner, the Nazis actually destroyed the social fabric of Germany. Although it seems counterintuitive at first, by destroying privacy you also destroy solidarity. Okay, so I'm proving Godwin's law, but it really is an excellent book!
The suggested apps from the software store was the most annoying thing about 11.04 (along with the panel auto-hiding), and fortunately they removed it before I was forced to change distro . This Amazon thing is the only thing stopping me from upgrading 11.10 to 12.04. It's so annoying that I put up with the teething problems of Unity until it's now finally something nice to use, and then they pull this stunt. I really regret getting to like Unity. Almost as bad as when I used to recommend OS X and then Apple started all those lawsuits, leaving me to regret all those sales I made for them.
I guess after 11.10 I will switch back to KDE, which is also nice but I'll miss the Dash and the indicator applets.
RMS is 100% right.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
anyone with his bizarro attitudes towards child abuse, probably wants their searches to be entirely on TOR.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
I've never registered a Facebook account (not even for my cat), but it was more over dissatisfaction with the EULA (or whatever they call it) in their treatment of IP than treatment of privacy for me.
My cat didn't like the IP treatment either, privacy doesn't matter to her - she'll lick herself whether or not anyone's in the room.
i am not familiar with this, but i am not surprised to first learn about it on slashdot.
I used to refer to Linux as just Linux, but then I heard about GNU/Linux and I dug a little deeper. I use GNU/Linux now because though Linux is the rock star, Linux still needs the numerous essential untold anonymous GNU programs to be Linux the rock star.
I prefer to use GNU/Linux for philosophical reasons but you are free to call it whatever you want, even Unbuntu :), which by the way was built on the back of Debian.
I'm getting REALLY old, as this is the first I'm hearing this. It's tough when you're 70 and still trying to keep abreast of the open source movement! I think I will be going back to Slackware.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
what i want is software that respects my convenience and task requirements
Ubuntu removed itself from my list of recommended distros a long time ago!
If you didn't tell them, they'd never know you wanted doggy treat flavored condoms or condom shaped doggy treats.
if you look at who actually funds 'free software', a lot of it is the same big companies that are getting megabucks off of the surveillance state.
a company like Apple has to take responsibility for how its creations are used, and deal with privacy issues... but with free software the makes just claim 'not my problem' and continue their work without asking too many questions about where the money comes from.
what are the odds that drones contain free software? extremely high.
I read a lot of negative comments about RMS and it makes me sick. He is fanatical, sure, but he has a track record of *always* being right before anyone notices.
People should be reminded that the "free" in "free software" applies to freedom and not a monetary consideration. Privacy is an important part of freedom.
Cardinal Richelieu:
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
The idea is the privacy and private information must remain private because no matter how innocuous, it can be used to restrict your freedom.
RMS is right and we should support him in our own self interest.
What could be more social than having your Ubuntu Quantal-using attorney searching for your files using relevant (embarrassing, incriminating, deal-queering, etc.) keywords and having that data transmitted to a non-privileged 3rd party? Doesn't get more social and enjoyable than that.
I am not a crackpot.
I think natural rights are nonsense, but it should be pointed out that in the US, protection against wiretapping and similar invasions are not supposed to be privileges, but natural and/or god-given rights.
And your premise that the Internet is public, therefore it's a public place is nonsense as well. Just because it is a public medium, doesn't mean the communications over it are public. This is no different from letters, which are also sent across a public medium (even using public company), but can't simply be read by anyone who comes across them.
The idea that the computer itself becomes a "public location" is frankly preposterous. One's car depends on the public roads, is it therefore a public place?
Dilbert RSS feed
"I'm usually hard for privacy ..."
How he (and its definitely a he) got so many people to respond and still referenced an erection is a testament to the gullibility of current slashdot userbase.
If you ever recommend or redistribute GNU/Linux, please remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend or redistribute.
Already did this many years ago. Canonical has given me countless reasons to recommend against them since approximately 2008-2009. This, since it was announced, was just yet another in a long string of reasons for me to be against installing Ubuntu on any of my own machines in the future as well as to stop recommending it to other people. I'm sorry, but if I'm searching for a local file with a somewhat private name, there is no reason whatsoever for that text to be sent over to Canonical and Amazon. And if I wanted to be sold shit, I would just head to amazon.com or newegg.com... last I checked, Ubuntu came fully equipped with a web browser and capable of allowing its users to securely and expectedly order products without having to send every single "local" system search out to corporations.
That's just your computer's way of being social! People assume far too readily that social computing is about augmenting typical human interactions with long-distance, instantaneous communications—but it's not. It's about computers finding an excuse to talk to each other. when they deliver messages to each other about how their user made yet another typo, and oh my god, is he still working on that homework project? It's due in ten minutes!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
What you say is true, but is not related to this topic.
I think EVERYBODY is missing the point, which is RMS refuses to accept the fact that the GPL simply doesn't work in all situations and Canonical is going broke.
Does anybody think that Canonical WANTED to do this? They did it because they simply can't get the economies of scale required to make enough money with a Linux desktop product to keep the lights on, simple as that. Whether anybody likes it or not it has been proven time and again there is ONLY 3 ways to make money using the GPL model, 1.- Support contracts, worthless for desktops because too few buy 'em, 2.- Selling hardware, worthless for desktops because thanks to the trialware Windows Home isn't costing them anything so they can't get squat from the OEMs and canonical isn't gonna get the economies of scale to compete in the razor thin cutthroat hardware market, and 3.- the tin cup model which Canonical has been doing for several months on their download page and found too few give enough to keep the place going.
But why anybody listens to RMS anymore is beyond me when its so obvious he hates anybody making a cent on FOSS. Even the head of Red Hat said of RMS "He treats his friends as his enemies" and he'll even backtrack on his own words if you find a way to make money, for example when asked how software developers were supposed to survive giving away their software several years ago RMS said "They should charge for documentation", yet when software developers stopped including their docs under the GPL, the ONLY way to actually sell documentation when the GPL has a redistribution clause, then RMS came out against the devs and said "Documentation should be free!".
The guy is a failed developer whose only two projects, eMacs and GCC, were both forked AWAY from him, he is a self proclaimed "squatter at MIT" who has admitted that he doesn't even surf the net and has demonstrated ever increasingly bizarre behavior, such as just walking out of interviews where a reporter dares not to use "his language" in the matter he proscribes and of course the infamous "pulling off his socks and eating toe funk in the middle of the stage during a lecture" so WHY pray tell does anybody still listen to him?
Just because the man did something good 30+ years ago doesn't make his words today insightful, especially not in light of the fact he seems to have an open hatred of anybody that dares make their living off of FOSS, probably because he so utterly failed to do so himself. Seriously folks stop giving the loonie press, he really isn't a good spokesman for FOSS. Speak to Torvalds, Raymond, Perens, any of the above would be much more insightful and enlightening than speaking to the crazy squatter.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
(Continuing your most apt reply to original poster.)
I'd also like:
f) your complete medical history.
g) a list of all medications you are taking.
h) a list of all psychiatrists or mental health professionals you've ever sought treatment with.
i) a list of any addictions or behavioral problems you've had.
j) a list of any sexual impulses you are ashamed of or any fetishes you have acted out.
k) a list of specific persons or groups you've had inappropriate carnal feelings for (don't forget relatives, friend's spouses, etc.)
l) a list of outstanding debts and credit problems you are having.
m) your net worth, including a list of major holdings.
n) a list of valuables and where they are located in your house (including guns, if any)
o) floor plan for your house.
p) a list of times (of the day, week, year) that your house is typically empty.
q) name, breed, age of all pets you own, especially if they are Dobermans or German Shepherds.
r) a list of your fears, insecurities, and any emotional/spiritual issues you are struggling with.
s) a list of major relationship issues w/your spouse or immediate family.
t) a list of your biggest secrets and who you want them kept secret from.
u) a list of your friends'/spouse's/family's biggest secrets and who they want them kept secret from.
v) for each of your friends and family members, the one insult/cutdown that you could say to most seriously hurt that person.
w) an account of all times in your adult life when you acted (1) very stupidly, (2) very angrily, or (3) very unprofessionally.
x) a candid and complete list of your least-mainstream political views, including policy implications.
y) your SSN, DOB, and mother's maiden name.
z) your home address and all contact phone numbers.
That's not the point. The point is that there's a false compromise here - nobody asked to have their information given to amazon. So dealing with the result was never acceptable. Users never agreed to compromise, as this is a dick (and dictator) move.
Hanlon's razor applies too. We are not speaking about lawyers here, could be attributed to stupidity instead of malice.
What has been an interesting excersise, going insane?
WHAT does MY personal computer located in my house NEED from a public space in order to search my LOCAL files?
THERE IS NO NEED! Why should a search for "taxform 2012" go to amazon? If I want to buy a book about taxes, I can GOOGLE it MYSELF! I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A BOOK ON TAXES, I am looking for MY OWN data. Not amazons or anybody elses, MINE on MY hardware.
Even if am looking for music, anyone with more then two brain cells (Americans, you can stop reading here) knows that if you can't find a song in your private library, you have to either do without or find a way to download or buy it. I do NOT need Amazon to know when I am in the mood for a piece of music I already bought.
This move by Ubuntu is an INSANE leap into an amount of privacy invasion that is practically unheard off. This is not even CLOSE to what Facebook has pulled, at least when I am on facebook I KNOW I am on SOMEONE elses system where the most common goal is to share information.
I have NO such expectation when I am searching my own harddisk. I don't WANT to share my file searches, I have no need for it, it gives me no benefit it only is a massive privacy invasion.
I am perfectly okay with the bank knowing who I pay money to via a bank transfer, I got little to hide but THIS move by Ubuntu would be your bank installing a camera in your wallet to register every cash payment you make anywhere and see if there is something they can sell you because of it.
NO
The entire argument of the parent poster that your personal computer has somehow become public property because your BROWSER can be used to connect to other computers so search in a FILE EXPLORER should be send to other computers as well is such a leap of insanity I fear for the posters long term health, I fear he might keep it and continue to vote. It is an insane idea. What next, my car goes on the public road so my car is a public road? I go into public spaces so I am a public space?
The parent poster is probably someone who has used the word "cyberspace" and meant it. Sorry kid, my computer is a simple tool and it is MY property and I don't want data I don't want to go out to be send out especially when it doesn't serve my interests. My PC, Laptop, Tablet, Phone are NOT public terminals.
I wonder if the parent poster even ever heard of the concept of a firewall. Even Windows nowaday asks whether you want to allow a program to send data to the outside world. Granted, windows firewall is far from perfect but at least it tries. Ubuntu doesn't. And that is really really bad.
And all those who think it is worth for the ONE time they searched for a file and wanted to find a book they wanted to buy but only through amazon... please, try for a Darwin Award. It is something to tell your kids about...promise!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That being said, instead of answering your question, let me rather tell you why so many people hate Stallman and rant against him. The reason is simply that he's right about most of the things he says, but people do not always like hearing the truth if it is inconvenient. With that respect he has a lot in common with Socrates...
I genuinely don't think this is the reason. Like everyone, Stallman is entitled to an opinion on things (generally, opinions are neither right nor wrong) but his uncompromising stance and attitude to those who disagree with him gets people's backs up. And I think that this can cause challenges because some of his messages (maybe even this one) may well be important and valuable, but this can often be lost because people focus on the messenger rather than the message.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Ah, the mythical child of nondivorced happy parents and apparently you aren't married either. How's it going?
As for myself, my parents "divorced" each other which consisted of my dad buying a gun and mulling over for a few days whether to kill my mom (who wanted the divorce but didn't follow through yet) or not. I found it.
So I can tell you in awful detail just how bad something that starts with the words "divorce filing" can get.
if there's something you don't want anyone to know, don't do it in the first place.
Please post your bank and account password.
It's not just that we humans have things to hide (legitimate or not), it's that privacy is a basic psychological need. Some people can't work or even pee if someone's watching over their shoulder. Zoologist see this basic need in animals that start going crazy (exhibiting stereotypic motions, etc.) because they've been kept in a concrete pit in front of the public for years (and now zoos exhibits are designed completely differently as a result).
Privacy is a human right--not because we have secrets, but because it's a fundamental need.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Already done.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
RMS is a fanatic, plain and simple. He may be a fanatic for a good cause overall, but he is still a fanatic.
I'm something of a student of human nature and I'm really good at observing people and understanding their motivations and often making accurate predictions on what I see. I believe that about 10% or so of human beings are just like RMS. I don't like to use the term "fanatic" because while technically correct, I think it's too limiting. You see, people like RMS don't just see software in those terms or one thing in life in a fanatical way, they see everything in life in narrow terms. I call them "people who see everything in black and white". These people do not agonize over any day to day decisions like which model of car should I buy. Everything to them is crystal clear - good - bad, right - wrong, great - terrible, etc. Everything to them is quite clear and there's no areas of gray or ambiguity.
One of the things about these people is that they tend to be very religious. Now that does not mean that all religious people are like that, despite what many Slashdotters would love to believe, but it does mean that these people do tend to gravitate towards religion. For example, I believe that most of Al Queda's membership is made up of these people. This is why they are willing to commit suicide - the evil in non-believers is so apparent that it's repulsive to them. People who see the world in black and white will sometimes change their minds on something and they will go from opposing it to promoting it or from loving it to hating it. But they don't go back and forth. If they change their minds, that change is probably permanent. And they tend to be completely obsessed with following the "rules", which at times may be religious teachings, and punishing those who do not obey those same rules. They're the kind of people who want severe punishments for minor infractions, like wanting to put someone in jail for a year for running a stop sign. I served on a jury 7 years ago with a guy like this and it was not pleasant as it took some incredible work by our foreman to get him to agree to a guilty verdict on 2 of 3 counts we had to decide on when 11 of us felt strongly that he was innocent on one count and this one guy threatened to hang the jury unless we voted guilty on all 3 counts.
The most frustrating thing about people like this is that they do not get at all that they are the weird ones. They mistakenly believe that everybody sees the world in the same clear cut way that they do. So this is why you are almost always wasting your time in trying to reason with them and get them to see another point of view. To them any other point of view is irrational and they believe that anyone who holds another point of view is insane because they think that no rational person could ever believe something different from them. So this is why when people rail against RMS and point out inconsistencies or fallacies with his arguments that he digs in. He's truly incapable of seeing any other point of view because he views such as irrational and illogical. At least, that's my guess.
I just wish people could get it through their heads that there's no such thing as "Linux" or even "GNU/Linux." There is "Red Hat Enterprise Linux," "Debian GNU/Linux," "Gentoo Linux," "Android," "Slackware Linux," "openSUSE," et cetera, ad infinitum. The right way to refer to your operating system is by its name.
See subject-line above & answer the question...
* Personally I don't think he is on this topic... especially based on what I've been reading here from others & their comments on this!
APK
P.S.=> Being an alleged "fanatic" doesn't necessarily make him incorrect on his points here regarding intrusive search data (especially on LOCAL diskdrive data - that's "the one" that "set me off" personally in the comments here -> "When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers.", from the article itself, see above ) being sent out to external concerns...
... apk
The thing is that there is a feature now where when you type in "Coffee maker", Unity can show you coffee makers instead of just searching for apps in the Ubuntu App Store (called 'apt', mostly free apps), related to coffee makers. That's a feature. To do that, they have to search Amazon, or Frugal, or something. People are bitchy because when they punch in a search it goes to Amazon now, which is somehow terrifying because Big Evil Corporatism!
There's all kinds of stretch arguments here. "What if I search for my social security number?" "Divorce filings!" "Name of my girlfriend 'cause I want to see her boob pics I have..." Uh okay? What heinous crimes will be committed with this information? Why is your social security number a filename? You posted that you're getting divorced on Facebook like two months ago and you've been talking about it on your 'wall' ever since.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Which is plainly not true. The classic model of selling software licenses simply doesn't work with FOSS. There are more than a few who do make money, but like any business you have to work hard to do so.
No, this is your hatred speaking, not reality. He is involved in emacs and gcc development even today.
Ad-hominem, all of it. Stick to the discussion at hand, and stop letting your rage and hatred get in the way.
But I guess we can't. There are too many loud, irrational, hate-filled people to address his points. They'd prefer to attack the man than his argument.
I think you're underrating him. RMS created the whole GNU philosophy, which has inspired thousands of developers---that is his main contribution. Go and read some interviews where Torvalds himself sings the praises of the GPL v2 and its role in the success of Linux.
I myself and many of you use emacs and gcc every day---I do think there's a special credit to be given to the creator of such projects that underlie the whole Linux ecosystem, even if the projects were forked away from him.
Despite being an disheveled person with questionable personal philosophies, RMS deserves credit for having created the notion of software that has a life of its own and cannot be squashed or secreted away by financially driven interests. He is like the NRA---just as the NRA resists any attempt at squashing personal gun ownership (if they came up with handheld thermonuclear weapons, I believe the NRA would staunchly oppose any attempt at regulating them), in the same way, RMS takes an extreme position, because he knows that everyone else will adjust for that and the net result will be something more geared towards the GNU philosophy than if he didn't.
Your ad-hominem attacks disparaging RMS's lowly status and John-the-baptist-like lifestyle are telling---perhaps you yourself failed at making money of GPL software that was meant to benefit everyone? I agree that it is difficult or impossible to make money of this type of software; only a select few can do it. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, because it has the potential to empower the billions of financially oppressed poor in this world.
who the fuck even uses that shit, sick of these lame ass kids these days, make it debian or don't bother.
I don't always agree with RMS about everything, but his utterings tend to carry more weight than a truckload of Slashdot comments.
I never went to that distro, just like I avoid Suse and Redhat.
Now I know why windows is so convoluted that you have to use it search engine to find where it decided to place stuff (i.e. wget...)
Insert quote from Linus here...
RMS has been fighting for good shit since before alot of you punks were even born.
If you got some bad shit to say about RMS, your a punk ass bitch.
It's as simple as that.
You fuckers gonna dis on MLK too? Gahndi? What people gotta be fucking perfect or you gonna post your crap?
Jesus people, stay focused.
Stand in opposition to bullshit.
I don't really enjoy telling some random company out there that I'm currently trying to find a condom and doggy treats. Especially if they don't know that I have to occupy my dog somehow while I have someone in my bed so he doesn't bark, it kinda kills my mood.
But now you just told the whole world you date guys who like to bark like a dog in bed? Kind of a strange way to make a case for privacy. Wait, let me read that again...
I had an interesting experience just a couple of days ago.
I searched on YouTube for Rhonda Vincent videos (using Firefox v17) and watched a couple of them. That's all I did. I did not search on Google (I knowthey own YouTube). I did not access Amazon's website at all.
The next time I went to Amazon, just a couple of days later, lo and behold: their recommendations for me were all Rhonda Vincent CDs and DVDs. In other words, Amazon was sniffing and scooping my browsing history and then storing and using it. To me, that's downright creepy.
I searched around online for how and why this could happen. The majority of postings discussed the Invisible Hand add-on in the Chrome browser, neither of which I use. Eventually I ended up just going to Amazon and turning off their browsing history setting -- but the next time I delete my cookies, apparently, Amazon's ability to probe into my browsing history will be restored. This sucks.
licet differant, aequabitur
Even having a universal search option for users with network search off by default is "dangerous" according to him.
No, he demands one button for local search and one for network search. Screw the ease of use for the user, we know what is better for him. Reason #3462 for why free software user interfaces traditionally sucked.
The beauty of FOSS software, including Ubuntu, is that if you dont like what it does, then you have the ability to change it to do what you want it to do.
Ubuntu rather you and I want to admit it, is the platform that seems to be doing the best on the Desktop market. This post is really about the desktop though so lets just keep it with that. As of the time of this post, Steam is porting to Linux, but really only to Ubuntu. The interface is simple to use (though I happily admit that I install Gnome 3 and use that), and the installation is straightforward and simple to understand. Getting new applications and installing them is just as simple as Debian ever was, but with a UI that my less computer savvy friends can easly deal with. Its elegant in that it does everything that a desktop user needs it to do.
And then comes the evil spying corporate droneisms that we seem to be ranting about here. Well stop the bitching guys and alter the software to your liking. Someone above suggested removing the unity-lens-shopping package which is precisely what I mean. If it does something you dont like, then change that it does that. And if you have a problem with the distribution overall then you have two choices...
a. Dont use it.
b. Take their packages and make your own version of it with the packages that you DO want.
Its really that simple. RMS is a voice that should be heard even if for no other reason than because he is the one that says everything must be FOSS. Just the same as Linus seems to be a voice of reason while Bruce is the voice of reality. All our voices need to be heard because WE are the users of the software and each point of view needs to be at least considered. But again, if you dont like what Ubuntu is doing then choose your fate from the options above.
Thank you.
Because it's not functional or because you're squicked?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
But if you really want to bug the crap out of those data miners at some grocery with "member cards", go and buy a few packs of condoms and dog food. The look of the cashier alone is worth it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
RMS doesn't live in this world.
RMS Lives in this world and has an almost perfect record of seeing the problems before everybody else.
He resembles only the anti-social geeks.
Seriously, do you work for a company getting crushed by Linux? Insulting a man, not on his character but by your subjective view of his appearence is almost a text book example of insecurity and ignorance.
Not the kind of guy we want to show the world and hope we make good impressions! Seriously!
To the intellects that will listen, he is quite impressive. You, well, lets leave it at that.
Stallman here, is as bad as the US Government when they use the term 'Eminent domain' for seizing something they want but which doesn't belong to them. As an example, a few years ago two Israeli researchers created a new cryptographic technology in Israel. They applied for a US patent along with patents in other countries. They then toured Europe, Asia, and about 100 universities in the United States describing their research before the US government got back to them, not with a patent, but with a security order instructing them that their patent was denied and that they are ordered to turn over all materials in the creation of the technology, and are not to tell anyone about it (under penalty of US criminal law), and faced fines or imprisonment if they refuse. In gamer speek "All of your base are belong to us". The normal procedure for the US patent system was 1. Accept new technologies 2. run it past the military folk: if its juicy, instead of issuing a patent, issue a security order which means they shut up and are not compensated until someone else comes up with it that we can't control, then issue the patent, otherwise its not juicy so 3. issue the patent. The mistake made was either that foreign nationals can't create anything juicy the military would want, or they can bully foreign nationals around just like the local folks. They were mistaken. There is nothing in the GPL about privacy. It can be used for evil, it just has a very specific copyright regime. Richard wanted green grass and unicorns. Its a green sunny meadow, but there are no unicorns.
A modern computer is crippled without a connection to the internet
And a modern bathroom is crippled without a connection to the main retail area.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
must be delusional or part of the shill. Nothing more closer to the truth. Well said.
if there's something you don't want anyone to know, don't do it in the first place.
This is selfish position. The problem is not what you lose by giving up information but what they GET.
One's car depends on the public roads, is it therefore a public place?
No, but only because there's legislation (in the US, anyway) that says that one's car is legally private, just like one's home.
I the assumption that one's home computer system is entirely private is not necessarily valid. The communication may take place in a public medium, but, for the most part there is no intrinsic expectation of privacy like there is in a postal system when the message is nominally secured in an envelope (and far more secured by law). The communication takes place wide open and can be observed in the same way that a conversation in the park can be overheard by anyone within range of the sound waves. Instead of a letter, it's more like passing a note in the third grade to someone several desks away without bothering to fold it up. Such a communication not only lacks intrinsic privacy expectations, it has intrinsic expectations of being observed by all parties in between.
In the third grader's example, if one were to transmit an unfolded note written in a secret code it actually invites effort from the other students to read it (because if you wanted privacy you should have folded it up or given it directly to the recipient). (That is of course the strength of public key encryption - everyone can see it, but nobody (announced) can read it other than the recipient).
So, just as one doesn't have the right to expect complete privacy in one's own home (i.e. open windows) one should not expect the same for an electronic device in one's own home. That is precisely why the division between public/private and warrant access/simple request needs to be defined by law. The doors, window shades, open windows, park bench conversations, and etc... of the digital world need to be worked out, and we're only still at the threshold of the computer/internet integration phase.
Please post your bank and account password. Please post a list of all your satisfied sexual preferences and all unsatisfied ones along with the photograph name and address and phone number of your current partner(s). Oh and please also post: a) Your real name b) The porn films you most enjor beating off to (no lieing) c) Your boss's email address d) Your mom's email address e) Your granny's email adddress Really? you won't tell us?
I can't post my bank account number because in my country we use rolling lists.
I like ladyboys (kathoeeys in thailand) and I have no shame telling it. They are beautiful.
I like japanese massage films.
what a worthless comment
I'm not a heavy Linux user, but when I do, I use Ubuntu. I'm sorry if it no longer meets RMS's precious purity test, but I don't give a shit. I'm not surprised that the open source zealots would start pissing on a distro as soon as it actually started to become comparable, quality wise, to Windows and MacOS.
If you're a sniveling little wuss, then feel free to compile your Linux distro from source. I'll stick to what works.
I have no shame telling it.
Sure... anyone can admit to anything under the cover of anonymity, i.e. privacy.
Now give me your mom's email address, your granny's email address, your boss's email address and your real name.
Then we'll see if you care about privacy.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In a post at the Free Software Foundation website, Richard Stallman has spoken out against Chrome because of Google's decision to integrate Google search results in the browsers search. He says, 'Chrome, a widely used and influential browser, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using chrome, Google sends that string to one of Google's servers. (Google is the company that develops Chrome.) This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows. ... What's at stake is whether our community can effectively use the argument based on proprietary spyware. If we can only say, "free software won't spy on you, unless it's Chrome," that's much less powerful than saying, "free software won't spy on you." It behooves us to give Google whatever rebuff is needed to make it stop this. ... If you ever recommend search engines, please remove Google from the search engines you recommend.
negating failed mod
Karma? What's that again?
Your ad-hominem attacks disparaging RMS's lowly status and John-the-baptist-like lifestyle are telling
I didn't know John the Baptist chewed his toe gunk. That would explain a lot, come to think of it...
Can't you just disable this whole unified search thingy in Ubuntu by uninstalling a single package?
The choice is still there, RMS is just complaining about the default setting, sounds like.
The guy is a raving lunatic.. Even if he has something rational to say no one in their right mind would listen.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
OMFG did you just compare the MIT squatter to John The baptist? You did! I'm sorry folks but if this doesn't show what kind of batshit mentality this guy inspires i don't know what does.
If ANYBODY other than RMS said or pulled the shit he did, calling things he doesn't like "sins" and acting like he is the fucking pope while eating his toe gunk they would be labeled what their behavior obviously suggests they are...an Internet Troll. That is what he is, he starts flamewars wherever he goes for refusing to use anything but his cultish language and making it all into a battle between God (him) and Satan (all those that don't believe the same as him) and does NOTHING but divide and turn rational meaningful debate into an impossibility.
But when you compare that fricking hippie douchebag to John the baptist? Either you don't know your history very well or you need to get some fucking help.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This sounds a lot like an ad hominem argument. I can't defend every aspect of RMS and what he decides to do and say, but a lot of what he says is thought provoking.
Whether or not successful business can be built on providing GPL software is irrelevant as the licence is not based on money, but freedom. If Canonical is going broke, then they need to re-think their business model and some people might be fine with them piping information to Amazon by default. However, what RMS is speaking about is whether the GPL community should be making a stand on Canonical's decision. Are they besmirching the reputation of GPL by doing this?
I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, I use Xubuntu and thus am not directly affected by this as I don't use that particular search software. On the other hand, when I search for a local file on my local computer, I don't expect for that information to leave my computer and it feels like Canonical are sneaking this behaviour into Ubuntu.
RMS has unconventional views, but that's what makes him really interesting. He doesn't just regurgitate the popular opinion and as an "outsider", his thoughts can sometimes really hit the nail on the head.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Nothing is free. Those guys provide a service and need to pay folks and keep the lights on.
Do I like this "feature"? No, not at all.
Would I like it more if Ubuntu dried up and went away? No.
There are ways to easily disable this "feature" that are posted all over the place. If you like Ubuntu and value your privacy, disable this "functionality" and lodge your complaint with Canonical. Maybe they'll find a better way to earn a living without irritating their userbase.
Best,
There are many, many Ubuntu forks actually, but I think Linux Mint 14 XFCE edition (release candidate just out!) addresses this and many other concerns. In addition Mint is more popular than Ubuntu already on distrowatch and by several other metrics. It has a no nonsense interface (FUCK UNITY, and FUCK GNOME 3), is incredibly fast (8 second boot up on older hardware?!?! YES PLEASE!), and has all the good parts of Ubuntu baked in (apt, millions of apps, etc..).
Just get rid of Ubuntu altogether. It's been crap since it's crap brown days, and still is. They don't listen to end users, they don't really advance the platform, and I'm convinced Canonical has an agreement with Microsoft to continue to suck so that MS can stay in business.
Linux Mint is the bomb.com, go try it out and forget about Ubuntu!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The amazon search feature is useless and it does not work. It also ruins your internal files and applications searches. I think you can remove the amazon feature. But, ubuntu 12.04 has amazon search as well, but, it's placed in the last tab of the unity dash. What i understand is that ubuntu only queries your searches it does not grab any system or personal info and sells it to third parties like the way google and facebook does it. If it does snoop into your privacy I say FUCK YOU to that rich stupid ass oligarch motherfucker for selling out. And I was amazed that canonical was asking for donations when downloading that bloated broken ubuntu 12.10 which is really still in a beta stage. Ubuntu 12.04 works beautifully, 12.10 unity without proper video drivers can't be run, no more 2d support either i think it uses mesa which is so damn slow.
The year of Amazon on the desktop?
I do think RMS has a very good point here. But regardless of what he says, Canonical is clearly not introducing online Amazon searches for the pure benefit of their user base. Their intentions are pretty clear: they want to make commissions by taking advantage of their dominant position in the GNU/Linux market. They would never have introduced this feature when Ubuntu was a new, small distribution. As the saying goes: power corrupts.
At the end of the day, we're in a free market and Canonical might as well do as they please and if they want to milk their user base, it's their right to do so. However, considering that most of Canonicals user base are technologically savvy individuals that value their privacy, that's probably a bad move from them. I believe that it's only a matter of time before Canonical realizes that, publicly apologizes and removes the feature from their operating system. Either that or Ubuntu will be forked and maintained by a more ethical organization.
That's ultimately the power of free software. In the long run, bad players will get weeded out.
Why do Stallman's ideas whip you up into such a frenzy of hatred?
This man has devoted his life to the struggle for Freedom for the whole internet, even for folks who despise or are otherwise unworthy of liberty. Perhaps you resent that, despite his outlandish appearance and comparative material poverty, he has already earned his title as a Father of the Internet? While the world will little remember you and I, it would not surprise me a bit if in the future RMS is venerated as a saint.
Just read how he describes this feature - as something super malicious and then gives an all or nothing approach to the issue at hand. This guy had some genuinely good ideas, but we aren't at church and frankly the fact that someone is trying to make money with free software while giving people convenience should not be shot down.
Get a grip Richard. The world of pure hobbyist programmers making an alternate everything to the commercial world is ridiculous and counter productive.
Locate doesn't seem to need a 'cloud' to operate, at least, it didn't...
Stop living your life in fear and stop fearing that "divorce filing" is any kind of phrase that should be frightening you. Yeah I got a fucking divorce from that bitch - what's it to you? Your example is that of a fucking coward - grow up little man and learn to make you own way in this world ya fucking pussy!
Why do you occupy your dog while hoping that a male person in your bed doesn't bark?
Wouldn't it be easier to tell this person in your bed to be quiet for a while?
Have you talked to a doctor about your compulsion to occupy your dog?
Love, chatbot.
By default, on Ubuntu, Firefox is asking Google if the page you are visiting is secure! (Edit/Security/Block sites...).
It is incredible that Google KNOWS everything about your browsing habits (without your explicit consent).
Can you repeat that behavior? You should research how that is actually possible and publish the details.
WTF has sending information about local searches to third parties have to do with the GPL?
Life would be so much easier if RMS were to post a short list.
A list of the retailers (if there are any), manufacturers (if there are any), software (if there is any), etc. that he approves of.
It seems as though every other day there's yet another RMS rant on why something is violating our rights and freedoms.
I'm all for freedom, in nearly every sense of the word, as well as safety and privacy.
I've followed FSF from the beginning and consider myself an advocate, avoiding many of those products and/or services that have been deemed to be taboo by RMS.
But he needs to write a nice short "cheat sheet" style list of RMS approved;
maybe it could even be an app on approved handheld device (if there are any) from an approved manufacturer (if there are any) running an approved OS (if there are any), that I could buy from an approved retailer (if there are any). RMS, what's left for me to use/buy?
That does not change that both emacs forked (because RMS didn't want X windows support since HURD didn't have X) and gcc forked (because RMS didn't like some changes that would only benefit linux), which makes that comment above correct and not "hatred speaking". Your reply is your "ignorance speaking".
However this is not a complete failure and does also actually show a positive side of RMS since he didn't try to shut down the other forks - he may be grumpy but he didn't stop the game and take his ball home.
People forget that for years when asked about linux he'd say "never HURD of it. HA! HA!" - the same stupid joke for I don't know how many years in serious attempts to interview him, and he'd keep on repeating it in the same interviews if anyone persisted. Then he went from that directly to pretended ownership "for the good cause of raising awareness of GNU".
You'd think after Lindberg Americans would have learnt that hero worship only works when heroes are quiet. RMS is a person with his own agenda, and while worthy of some respect, blind hero worship will only lead to disappointment if you think he is on any "side" other than his own. He's really an example now of how not to run a software project - the "fuck off until we think you're good enough and then you can be the one and only official developer" way some of his projects were run is why emacs forked and IMHO why HURD development has been so slow. He's chased away the people he needs.
- Attention, we have an *pple lawyer here!
I love the Ubuntu ecosystem and use it on all my servers but I will never upgrade to Unity+Amazon. Mint here I come.
I used to think that RMS was just Nucking Futz on some of these issues then Ubuntu went and imposed Unity on me.....
Now I call it Un-ity because it is just unbelievable that they feel they can dictate the desktop experience to me. I went to Ubuntu because I didn't like Microsoft or Apple dictating my desktop to me and now they do it? WTF? I have been actively looking at alternatives like Mint, Debian and others. I'll probably switch over the holidays when I have spare time. I've given Un-ity a fair try but not my cup of tea. And what arrogance for Unbuntu to try and force this decission down my throat.
For one example: The idea that all icons have to be a certain size and that size is determined by the resolution of a finger size is just dumb. If I'm on a computer that has a pointing device like a stylus or mouse the resolution is much greater and could easily be put to use. But nooooooooooo (to quote Belushi) everything has to be done to the lowest common denominator. That is stupid.
I got kicked off the Ubuntu boards and don't really care any more. I'm moving on and I don't think RMS is completely nuts anymore.
if he was hung with an old rope.
It is too bad that the one company that has done the most to popularise Linux gets blasted for doing something for their commercial interest. At least They have been forthcoming with information about the Amazon search feature/bug (depending on how you see it). You don't have to use it, and are free to remove the tool. The alternative is to let Linux move further into the margins. As a desktop distro, Ubuntu is the best option for those taking the rather scary plunge away from Windows. It's also the distribution most likely to win support from Valve (Steam), a fact which stands to put a nice dent (or at least sratch) in the market shares of of Windows 8 (aka the disater).
The fundamental problem is that Mark Shuttleworth, who owns Canonical and the Ubuntu and Kubuntu trademarks, does not deal well with conflict. In this case he has made a decision that is destroying the reputation of his company.
I tried to talk with him about resolving conflict perhaps 2 years ago, but he did not take sufficient interest.
The guy is a failed developer whose only two projects, eMacs and GCC, were both forked AWAY from him, he is a self proclaimed "squatter at MIT" who has admitted that he doesn't even surf the net
Emacs was a good system in the olden days when vt100 terminals and monochrome monitors were the norm. If somebody uses an X-based GUI, I can't for the life of me see how Emacs makes sense in this scenario. Unless the unit really lacks much of a GPU, but even then. Oh, and Emacs is one of those rare programs that uses more of the features of X
GCC - well, the wheels are coming out off that one, thanks to GPL3. FreeBSD has already joined OS-X in deprecating it, and I wouldn't be too surprised if other non-Linux OSs follow. Even Linux OSs - I expect that a time will come soon when the next TiVo like companies would avoid using any GNU userland, and maybe do the converse of what Debian does in kFreeBSD - combine the Linux kernel w/ non-GPL userland, similar to BSD. Or maybe use Minix 3 instead of Linux in the first place.
As for Canonical, I think that they didn't have, as Sherlock Holmes once put it, 'the supreme gift of an artist - the idea of when to stop, and hence, ruined everything'. They were doing fine w/ GNOME2, and they could have introduced Unity as a new 'try-it-out' option for their new version, instead of deprecating GNOME2 as a whole. Just like Microsoft could have done w/ Metro. As for the adware, can't someone build ad-blockers into the Linux versions of Firefox, Chrome, Konqueror, GNOME Web or whatever it is Linux browser users use?
I think the next Shuttleworth - if there is one - would do well to repeat the experiment, but this time w/ a PC-BSD derivative plus any missing drivers, so that something like it works right OOTB. Not w/ any GPL based stuff. Do it w/ PC-BSD, maybe even make hardware (hey, port it to ARM or MPS if that improves your margins) and sell it. It would still have to be price compatible w/ the Dells and HPs - few are buying the more expensive System 76s - and then it would have a fair chance of getting some market, particularly if the Windows 8 situation doesn't improve.
You know you really shouldn't use big words if you don't know what they mean, as it makes you look stupid. An Ad-hominem attack is to attempt to derail a discussion on POLICIES or beliefs by making it personal, since the ENTIRE POINT of this thread is NOT a discussion on the merits of the GPL or FOSS but that RMS with his bad and increasingly bizarre behavior is a bad spokesman for the cause there can not be an Ad-hominem in this case, since the entire discussion is about him personally, not the GPL.
By your reasoning if RMS walked out on stage and...ohh I don't know, ate nasty toe funk from his foot then nobody would be able to mention or say anything about it, since it isn't about his beliefs on the GPL and FOSS and thus would be a Ad-hominem attack. Learn what the words mean before you use them, otherwise it makes you look foolish when you use them incorrectly..
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Actually, the one companies that do make money off Linux - namely RedHat and arguably Google - are companies he hates. So Hairyfeet's point above was accurate. The other one - TiVo - he loathes to the point that he named them while putting together GPL3. He is more of an asshole than even Theo de Raadt supposedly is.
The "X" in XEmacs is thus not related to the X Window System. XEmacs has always supported text-based terminals and windowing systems other than X11. Installers can compile both XEmacs and GNU Emacs with and without X support. For a period of time XEmacs even had some terminal-specific features, such as coloring, that GNU Emacs lacked.
How is a guy who is a self-proclaimed atheist, who occasionally wears a T-shirt that says 'Impeach God' - a Jew? It's not like he likes the Jewish God and hates the Christian one - he thinks that God is evil, period. So why would his rants have anything to do w/ Jews at all?
NO!
One of the sticking points was most definitely that the emacs developer (yes only one was allowed - gnu development sucked back then) was putting in support for X windows and RMS did not think that was appropriate because HURD did not have Xwindows support, and he didn't want any GNU tools to be better on anything other than the GNU platform (which would have been fine if it had been delivered). So RMS got one of his students to spend a year learning C and then forked emacs development to him. Fuck some random text on the wiki that has nothing to do with the split, the transcripts of the newsgroup discussions are still on line so you can read it yourself. Of course xemacs worked on stuff other than X, the argument was about adding X support on top of emacs and not about making emacs X only (which would have been very silly at the time and probably silly even now).
Dude wore a shirt made from camel hair and ate locusts and honey out in the desert. People back then thought he was nutty or a prophet. And John the Baptist did the same.
Perhaps RMS was high from eating his own toxic toe jam, or maybe he had some coke stuck in his neck beard he sniffed up before making his statement.
RMS speaks out against Ubuntu and RMS speaks out against Ubuntu business strategy are 2 different things.
Casteism
OMFG did you just compare the MIT squatter to John The baptist?
Are you like 10 years old or what? Both RMS and John the Baptist can be seen as "preachers", in the sense of being propagators of a message that they consider to be bigger than themselves (I mean... are you not here complaining about his fanatical preachings?) AND both can be seen as living/having lived with some level of asceticism (it's one of the things you are complaining about, in case you haven't noticed), so... YES, the metaphor/comparison seems apt.
But when you compare that fricking hippie douchebag to John the baptist? Either you don't know your history very well or you need to get some fucking help.
I'm sure, if you were alive during John the Baptist's lifetime, you'd also probably try to dismiss him for being a "fricking toe-gunk-eating hippie douchebag" or some other insult with reference to some other equally-irrelevant apparent eccentricity.
I guess "ad hominem" passes off as "insight", these days...
To think for a minute on what is more pragmatic, to reconcile with our present circumstances and give in? One might conclude that it is the best strategy to go for, when it is only his interests that matter to him. What about the whole of mankind? Is such forced reconciliation the best thing for the whole of man, to have everyone give in to infinitesimal changes that occcur in their daily lives, such as the one that is the centre of this debate here. To say it very concisely, RMS just wants to convey that the sum of infinitesimals is an integral. It is said that we all are being boiled slowly in a pot of water, and hence are unable to discren that we are being cooked.
Simple - even though he doesn't say so in so few words and has written essays on it, it essentially boils down to 'My way or the highway'.
just unplug the blue cord when you locate kiddy porn movies on your hdd
what i find baffling is that companies pay amazon and google to advertise, whilst even if i spend all my time on truck forums the likelihood of me clicking on any truck tires banner ad is 0.000%
A modern computer is crippled without a connection to the internet
And a modern bathroom is crippled without a connection to the main retail area.
i don't get this at all... what is modern? what is crippled? maybe the first quote was by a young person who has only known the internet... still, it's too bad that someone would really feel that way. as for me, I don't need a network connection... I have always just liked the flashing lights. an electronic device that turns on is much more useful than one that does not.
accurately define good according to a criteria and seek it out.
Especially those that say code should be easy to debug and cool to look at (like you crutchy).
"...cos we all try to write code that "looks cool" and you know, writing code that functions and easy to debug is all of secondary importance" - by crutchy (1949900) on Sunday November 18, @02:55AM (#42017605)
FROM -> http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42017605
Yet where was crutchy's error handling here http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42016197 ???
(It's not. What a b.s. artist you are crutch.)
An article just for you here. Read it -> http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/146250/the-scourge-of-error-handling noob.
You need it after your statement here quoted above, noob.
project much, crutch?
Protip: It's spelled lying
Simple - even though he doesn't say so in so few words and has written essays on it, it essentially boils down to 'My way or the highway'.
That is how leaders are supposed to be. They are not there to coddle you, they are there to pursue and inner vision with complete integrity to that vision. You raise them up when the world needs them and you diminish their influence when it doesn't. What you don't do is expect them to sacrifice their integrity. If they do that, they're not leaders, they're just the guy who happens to be in front.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Thanks for the upmod from the -1 this post was bogusly downmodded to, when I noted here the next day on the SAME topic -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3304601&cid=42235477
APK
Canonical has no business collecting personal data. Stallman has identified this and is making a good point, that it is counteracting the benefits of free open source software. Canonical can offer this feature, but it should be turned off by default at least. I understand they are trying to generate a revenue stream, but collecting data and putting ads on a desktop doesn't seem to be the way. They are better off utilizing other methods, similar to how Red Hat has created specific distributions targeted to businesses and support is offered for a premium.
Just pointing out the difference between what goes on in a private location and whether or not it happens to be directly connected to a public one.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Jew is a race. Compare his surname to commonly known Jewish surname.
If not Jew by race he is at least being guilty of being part of the Google shill.
Twitter: @dainsanefh
sore loser
says the pitiful done nothing little noob who says he's a pro at programming but can't prove it (rotflmao).
not saying much for yourself then, since the supposed noob found a bug in your code... you're not really doing yourself any favors
'CruTcHy' claims to have "debugged" MY code (that ran 5x PERFECTLY in front of him, and 100's of times before that too):
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3058625&cid=41091833
Funniest part? He didn't DEBUG a thing (he used an online debugger)
and
LMAO - he didn't INDENT HIMSELF either which is his "big complaint" in my code (a paste to /. doesn't always format code properly, & his own post shows that too - see link above)
Funnier yet?? My code ran PERFECTLY in front of him, 5x in a row (some "bug", eh? Not, lol!):
---
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42014943
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42016015
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42014957
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42014957
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42015649
---
LMAO - Funniest part of all though, from the troll 'CruTcHy' (lol) was this statement from him:
"...cos we all try to write code that "looks cool" and you know, writing code that functions and easy to debug is all of secondary importance" - by crutchy (1949900) on Sunday November 18, @02:55AM (#42017605)
FROM -> http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42017605 [slashdot.org]
Yet where was crutchy's error handling here -> http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42016197 ???
Oh, wait - It gets BETTER, read on!
When 'CruTcHy' (lmao) was asked to PROVE his statement he was a "professional programmer"?
Well - He flew into a rage foaming at the mouth, lmao (because he couldn't, lol):
"you're a moron for even assuming i need to justify myself... fuck knuckle if you don't like what i say, go back to fucking your sister" - by crutchy (1949900) on Monday November 26, @03:38PM (#42097505)
FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3272015&cid=42097505 [slashdot.org]
So much for THAT puny troll... lol!
Clue/new NEWS/NewsFlash, 'CruTcHy' - Profanities & "FoaMiNg-@-The-MouTh" raging rants "doth not proof make" of YOUR words, BUT, did prove you are a "pot calling a kettle black", lol... & his words?
He had to "eat those words", lol - flavored with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, & his foot in his mouth!
I love it!
APK
P.S.=> Here endeth the lesson, & 'CruTcHy'? See the price you pay when you troll others, boy?? You fail... badly!
... apk
As a daily normal user from 1990 of both unix like and dos,win please tell me :
- in case A named geek say do not like X OS for that Z machine - can be a nice/clean software world ?
I think also that geek "opinion" can be self contained in unbeateable simple/opinion messages - free from beeing sued by some attorney.
But please do not do it for clicks....
Respectfully,
mtiriba@gmail.com
Bucharest, RO
RMS may be all or none of the things he's been called or accused of in these comments but one thing is for sure. We're all reading, talking, debating, and thinking about it.
This is the best thread I've seen on Slashdot in a long long time and who do we have to thank for it? I for one have done all I can to avoid the glaring eyes of Amazon and Google and preserve as much of my personal privacy as possible and using Linux as my only OS is part of that, even though at my skill level I would probably get more out of Windows(frustration included). I for one am thankful we have fanatics like RMS in this world as just like a gun, knife, or Backtrack, they all can be used for good or bad. Fanatic is also pretty close to passion, conviction, etc..
RMS may be all or none of the things he's been called or accused of in these comments but one thing is for sure. We're all reading, talking, debating, and thinking about it. This is the best thread I've seen on Slashdot in a long long time and who do we have to thank for it? I for one have done all I can to avoid the glaring eyes of Amazon and Google and preserve as much of my personal privacy as possible and using Linux as my only OS is part of that, even though at my skill level I would probably get more out of Windows(frustration included). I for one am thankful we have fanatics like RMS in this world as just like a gun, knife, or Backtrack, they all can be used for good or bad. Fanatic is also pretty close to passion, conviction, etc..