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Free Software Foundation Announces 2013 Holiday Giving Guide

Posted by timothy on from the rewarding-good-behavior dept.

An anonymous reader writes "On Cyber Monday, millions of Americans will take to the Internet in search of the newest gadgets to bestow upon their loved ones. Most of these 'gifts' are trojan horses that will spy on their recipients, prevent them from doing what they want with their device, or maybe even block access to their favorite books or music. The Free Software Foundation is proud to introduce a map through this minefield: our 2013 Giving Guide. The Giving Guide features gifts that will not only make your recipients jump for joy; these gifts will also protect their freedom."

2 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So give the gifts to your techie friends. Or give the list to your non-technie family and say 'buy something from that list for me for christmas, family'.

    Who wouldn't want a 3D printer, libre laptop, or non-NSA-compatable internet file storage?

  2. Re:Really? by exomondo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can see what they're getting at but every single choice there is only better if you value "software freedom" above all else, and even in some cases they seem to be acting deliberately obtuse. For example you can install GNU/Linux on a Macbook Pro and not only will you have far superior hardware than the thinkpenguin solution but you have the choice to use whatever OS suits you for a particular task.
    Then there's Google Drive, sure it's free and your data is accessible to Google but if you want "cloud storage" you can't guarantee that data will always be private no matter who you host it with and if need further protections you will obviously encrypt it anyway.
    And what does mediagoblin vs youtube have to do with "gift giving"?

    The idea that most people will value software freedom above all else is idiocy so instead they need to focus on making good products, products that appeal to most people and compete with non-free products. At the moment many (not all) things in that list are examples of free (as in freedom) resulting in a crappier product. "Free" needs to result in an equal or better product in comparison but also have the advantage of being free.