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How Proprietary Software Lets Companies Cheat (locusmag.com)
"Proprietary software makes it possible to design products to cheat ordinary users..." writes Richard Stallman -- linking to a new essay by Cory Doctorow:
Carriers adapted custom versions of Android to lock customers to their networks with shovelware apps that couldn't be removed from the home-screen and app store lock-in that forced customers to buy apps through their phone company. What began with printers and spread to phones is coming to everything: this kind of technology has proliferated to smart thermostats (no apps that let you turn your AC cooler when the power company dials it up a couple degrees), tractors (no buying your parts from third-party companies), cars (no taking your GM to an independent mechanic), and many categories besides.
All these forms of cheating treat the owner of the device as an enemy of the company that made or sold it, to be thwarted, tricked, or forced into conducting their affairs in the best interest of the company's shareholders. To do this, they run programs and processes that attempt to hide themselves and their nature from their owners, and proxies for their owners (like reviewers and researchers). Increasingly, cheating devices behave differently depending on who is looking at them. When they believe themselves to be under close scrutiny, their behavior reverts to a more respectable, less egregious standard. This is a shocking and ghastly turn of affairs, one that takes us back to the dark ages.
All these forms of cheating treat the owner of the device as an enemy of the company that made or sold it, to be thwarted, tricked, or forced into conducting their affairs in the best interest of the company's shareholders. To do this, they run programs and processes that attempt to hide themselves and their nature from their owners, and proxies for their owners (like reviewers and researchers). Increasingly, cheating devices behave differently depending on who is looking at them. When they believe themselves to be under close scrutiny, their behavior reverts to a more respectable, less egregious standard. This is a shocking and ghastly turn of affairs, one that takes us back to the dark ages.
At least on PCs I could figure out what was crap, and delete it. With my phone, I know what's crap but I can't delete it. Worse, that crap lives in internal memory, which is usually too small and too expensive compared to an easily installed SDCC card (why is a 64G SDCC card cheaper than a 16G internal storage upgrade?).
I've love to see a class action suit filed that would force Facebook, Groupon, Snapchat, and dozens of other apps I'll never use explain why they are taking up precious and expensive space in my phone.
Hopefully once that hurdle is cleared it will create a precedence for the other abuses.
I think Richard Stallman must feel like Cassandra these days. All the bad tidings he's been warning about for years are coming true.
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
Um. Thermostats controlled by the utility are optional. You can go your own way if you want. The reason they are good is not that they are cheating, but rather than it's to everybody's benefit not to overload the grid: if you overload it, it goes down, and then everybody loses. It's called cooperation. This is not what Stallman and Doctorow are talking about. Open source software in those devices would be great, and indeed there are some pretty nice open source home energy control systems available today.
For years Eben Moglen has been pointing out "Stallman was right" in his talks. Moglen regularly cites how Stallman got there years before the corporate-minded press (and thus repeater sites like /. don't promote that point of view). It's very much the problem we see with the open source advocacy for nonfree software (or, put differently, the open source enthusiasts' unwillingness to stand by their pitched development methodology). I understand it rankles to read someone pointing out that free software and open source aren't the same, but when it comes to endorsing proprietary software they certainly are not and this endorsement ought not be pushed aside. Red Hat has a cozy relationship with Microsoft which includes bundling .NET software despite patent claims that render such software nonfree particularly if one wants to do something with the software they can do with free software—adding covered code to another project.
You still see people here (even on this topic) posting something that demonstrates an unfounded belief they have more control over their nonfree OS-running computer than they have. "At least on PCs I could figure out what was crap, and delete it.", for example. Taking "PC" not to mean "personal computer" but computer running Microsoft Windows, there are plenty of examples of programs that either don't include working uninstallers or installers that purposefully leave something behind which can't be easily uninstalled (Sony's rootkit which also interfered with CD ripping, for example).
/.'s user-driven censorship scheme effectively increases the odds that freedom-talk goes unseen. If you want to see your post never get moderated up (and thus be less likely to show up for most /. readers using default settings), try pointing to any of the GNU Project's malware pages. These pages are highly informative lists which are helpfully divided into useful subcategories. They all explain how nonfree or proprietary software most computer users run deserve the alternative name "user-subjugating" and point to stories written by others, naming names and leaving no doubt as to their authenticity. /. wants clicks and like any click/like-oriented publication, adherence to established corporate norms is the heart of the effort. Stories like this come along once in a while but clearly the mainstay of tech press is convincing people to argue over minor technicalities while they narrow the allowable debate to which proprietary programs shall run on one's system.
Digital Citizen
I just posted on the thread about Equifax about how they identify more with hackers than customers. We have reached the bizarre and unsustainable state where in computing, the customer is simultaneously the customer, the product, and the enemy.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What happens if cooperation is necessary for sustainability, but people don't cooperate and control the thermostats themselves? Who then should have the final say?
Money works. Where I used to live there was a discount on power bills if you agreed to have a smart switch on your A/C. I never noticed any difference in temperature, and I paid less. I benefitted from the arrangement and so did the utility.
Building a phone is not the mission of the FSF, the FSF's concern is about the wider politics of software users and software distribution. The FSF are happy to partner with projects that have the goal of promoting user freedom through phone software and phone hardware. Anybody is free to run such a project, it's just that there isn't any investment capital to do such a thing within the existing FSF associated projects.
The preaching is important because without it, nobody will demand for a change in the status quo and then invest into that change - nobody will understand that there is a problem that needs fixing. First the education has to happen before society will choose to invest into changing the status.
In RMS' world, end-users are honest and can support themselves.
In real life end-users lie, cheat, and do stuff to equipment then say to support "I have no idea why it doesn't work, you need to replace this POS."
Unlike RMS, companies live in the Real World, where incompetent people do dumb things then complain when you can't fix it.
Put RMS on level 1 support and see what he thinks afterwards.