From a corporate point of view, if the same software runs on a Linux environment or on a Windows environment, a decision-maker is going to opt for that Windows environment a lot when that decision-maker is himself more comfortable with Windows than with Linux.
That's right but it's probably more of a practical standpoint than anything else. The vast majority of people's computing choice isn't driven by ideological views but by practicality, it's a tool that does a job. People don't buy Windows because it's Windows, they buy Windows because it runs their programs. So from a practical standpoint why choose something that doesn't run your programs when you can choose something that does? There has to be a pretty compelling argument for that, in the smartphone market Apple provided one with the iPhone, it was disruptive innovation that benefited the consumer.
Well yes but in the case of the actual system running on actual hardware it isn't open. Like I said, in a theoretical sense it could be but in a practical sense it isn't and if anything Android in general is getting less open as more and more Android applications depend on Play Services.
When you actually use an Android phone or tablet it's far from an open source system, there's some open source bits in between but really if what you want is confidence that you control the computer and it isn't spying on you then you aren't getting that with an Android device.
On the AOSP Preparing to Build page under the heading Obtain proprietary binaries:
"AOSP cannot be used from pure source code only and requires additional hardware-related proprietary libraries to run, such as for hardware graphics acceleration." https://source.android.com/source/building
Yes the code is there but you can't really use it in a practical sense without proprietary binaries and that's even before you get to real world uses cases of actually using Android applications that depend on the play services binary.
From a theoretical standpoint yes the Android source code in the form of AOSP is there and it is open source but in the real world nobody actually uses it that way.
Android, in a practical sense, is not Open Source. AOSP is but there is more to an Android system than that, in fact in the linked article RMS himself calls out Android as a non-free operating system:
No. It in fact could not possibly be that. VMs have been around since well before WSL.
Is there any VM software for Linux that supports applications that use OpenGL (newer than ancient 2.1 that is), DirectX, CUDA and/or OpenCL? There are a great deal of applications that do their hardware acceleration through these methods and that's always been an issue running them in VMs.
I'm not sure who he is referring to when he says "we", when I use Linux it is because it does a particular task better than Windows does, for example controlling the machine remotely. And when I use Windows or macOS it is because it runs the programs I need to run to do a particular task. I'm a Linux user and Windows user and a macOS user, I'm not choosing a tool for a job based on the professed ideology of some of its contributors.
There is some merit to the idea that you shouldn't carry a smartphone, you shouldn't communicate over unencrypted channels, you shouldnt use hardware or software that you don't understand or haven't had vetted by somebody you trust that does understand it, you shouldn't use traceable electronic payment mechanisms, etc but it really isn't practical to take a religious absolutist approach to it so along the way people make compromises, some more than others, but in the general sense if you compromise one you compromise all. For example if you use any reasonably modern Intel or AMD processor it has a remote access backdoor which can theoretically compromise your whole system.
So I do understand Stallman's point that you could be compromised by a malicious actor with sufficient enough resources but is there really any practical scenario where you can be confident that can't happen? I would say probably not, so where is the sweet spot of compromise between privacy/security and practicality?
If it does everything you want then great, but most people are interested in running their applications rather than caring what operating system is running. There are certainly applications that run on macOS that do not run on Linux, maybe Jim Zemlin needs (or prefers) one of those or perhaps there is some feature in macOS that he likes that Linux-based operating systems do not provide.
Yes as the head of the Linux Foundation giving a presentation on mainstream usage of Linux that does send a bad message but outside of that role why should he use Linux over macOS? Like what is it that Linux offers to the average desktop user that macOS and Windows do not?
Yes, apologies for broadening the scope. I didn't mean to imply that your response was one to be applied to everything.
I certainly see why some people use it, I don't use it exclusively but I do use it in scenarios where it is the most appropriate choice. It just so happens those are very niche.
It isn't just software for presentations though, whether you're doing visual design, image manipulation, video production, audio production, CAD, CAM, CAE, 3D modeling, etc... you're almost always better off with a Mac or Windows machine because even in the outside case where one of the products you use is available on Linux and is best suited for that particular task (say Blender for a lot of 3D modeling tasks) it is almost always available on Mac and Windows too so you don't have to be hobbled in all your other tasks by a lack of software due to the choice of operating system. It's not as though an application like Blender is any different on Linux, Mac or Windows because the operating system itself isn't offering any compelling feature and you could certainly argue that is appropriate as the OS's job is to run the software.
Yes certainly Windows 10 has gotten itself a bit of a privacy stigma hole that Microsoft is trying to dig it out of but macOS doesn't suffer this and in the corporate environment Windows is able to be controlled enough that this isn't a big deal so hoping for the competition to fail isn't really a viable option.
What you need to ask yourself is what, as a normal pragmatic user, makes a Linux system a better option?
Ok just to appease you precious Apple fanboys I guess I really do have to preface even the slightest criticism of a feature of an Apple product with this lest you completely lose your minds:
Yes I have an iPhone, yes I like it, yes in general I like Apple as a company, yes I think FaceID is a good idea, no I wouldn't consider switching to Android just because of the replacement of TouchID with FaceID, but - and I know this is difficult for people like you to understand - despite the fact that I generally like Apple and I do have an iPhone and plan to continue using iPhones, in my general use cases the replacement of TouchID with FaceID will be less convenient and so I hope that going forward they continue to offer TouchID rather than replace it with FaceID.
In all fairness, when I'm skiing, I also have to take off my gloves right now, to unlock my current iPhone 7. And any other phone out there, actually, as interacting with a phone does not work too well with skiing gloves on.
Yeah of course, but your finger is used as both the interaction mechanism and biometric authentication. It's not like you can just substitute taking off your glove for taking off your goggles...or who knows, maybe they're working on an eye-tracking interaction system, that could possibly work.
That doesn't make it sound like this is going to work particularly well when I'm wearing ski goggles or dirtbike gear. This new form over function could prove to be a very annoying direction for Apple to go.
Fingerprint sensors nor touchscreens work through gloves, which I assume you wear when skiing or riding your dirt bike. Google/Android has voice unlock, but I suppose to be useful for you it has to work over a revving 2 stroke engine and an aftermarket exhaust.
What exactly are you complaining about now?
I don't think this is that complicated: I've always had to take off a glove because that was both the interaction method and biometric authentication, now would I need to take off a glove and goggles. I really wouldn't have thought I would have to explicitly point that out and that any reasonable person would be able to work that out on their own, but I guess I was wrong.
Even the design is just copied from the Essential Phone. Hopefully this will be just a one off special edition rather than the new direction of the iPhone.
I'm sure crumpled paper will line up exactly with the 30k dots it has remembering the exact depth of your face.
That doesn't make it sound like this is going to work particularly well when I'm wearing ski goggles or dirtbike gear. This new form over function could prove to be a very annoying direction for Apple to go.
How do you expand that built in 32 GB storage? Would a hammer be enough or does one need powertools or corrosive chemicals?
It's called an SD-Card slot, an SD card is a memory card that allows you to expand the phone's available storage. Quite some time ago Android added the ability for applications to be installed on SD cards as well. Buying a phone that gives you this option of adding storage (or even better one that is supported by alternative OS distributions) is a way of "voting with your wallet". There is a vibrant and active community working to solve exactly the problem you are complaining about so support them by helping to write documentation, code or donating money.
Exactly what is your proposed solution? Or are you just here to suggest that everything is hopeless?
I assure you that when you have little internal storage and can't get rid of dropbox, Uber, and other apps, it is a problem. You may not be forced to use them, but you are forced to let them eat up your valuable available storage. This problem is real, and I have had to deal with it.
So the whole "problem" here has been mischaracterised and it's just a simple matter of needing more storage space. Looks like there's lots of solutions or buy a phone that is supported by LineageOS.
Are your willing to have software developers/vendors laugh in your face when you actually want their software to run (or run without issues) on your phone?
What specifically? Is there really so much critical software that won't run on say LineageOS?
Unfortunately, so much we do on mobile these days is absolutely dependent on proprietary applications and protocols, which means that you can't really have a full experience without depending on those outside the F/OSS community.
So the answer is to pour effort into developing those missing pieces rather than whine that the status quo isn't what you want.
He's not just focussing on phones: He's talking about all kinds of new tech that is Internet-enabled or surreptitiously recording your private information and not fully controlled by the consumers.
Yes and each thing is a different case, there isn't one solution that solves all problems. Which is why I was asking about that one case.
He's talking about thermostats provided by your power utility that are controlled remotely by that utility to reduce your power consumption when they feel like it.
And you can use a different thermostat, even an open source smart one or even build one. The same goes for the router your ISP gives you, you very often get much better performance with a different one.
All of these problems occur because of the way that consumers and citizens are prevented from having full control over the devices we purchase
And can be solved by exercising your right to choose what you buy.
With the business-slanted contracts and laws that prevent us from knowing what the software is doing and what our devices are surreptitiously reporting back to businesses and governments.
There's no law preventing distribution and supply of FOSS devices, indeed we've seen that in many industries. Look at OpenWRT routers for example.
The solutions are already there, instead of complaining that the world is burning maybe focus on proliferation of the existing solutions.
The second question is how can you go about avoiding that problem. You say 99% of people don't even understand that there is a problem, maybe there actually isn't a significant problem at all. Certainly if carriers shipped devices with apps that you were forced to use that you then had to put your data in and could not extract it out when you wanted to switch to another device then that could be a problem, but is that (or something like that) actually happening? For example I know many Android systems come with dropbox preinstalled, but you're not locked in to it, not only do you not have to use it but even if you did choose to use it you can copy your data from it to any other system at any time.
Is there really no phone you can buy to avoid this? Just because somebody sells something doesn't mean you have to buy it, there are plenty of smartphones out there that you can wipe the entire OS and install a replacement like Replicant or Lineage. These essays always make it sound like the world is ending just because there is a company out there selling something that you don't like.
Also what specifically are these "shovelware apps" that "lock customers to their networks"? I certainly have seen some pre-installed apps but I haven't seen any that lock customers to the networks of the companies that peddle them.
I have a hard time seeing how that won't be a big step backward... so I'll be curious to see the announcement on Tuesday AND how well (or how poorly) it works in the real world.
I'm sure if you're holding the phone in front of your face it probably works quite well but if you do things like unlocking your phone while it's sitting on the table then it's unlikely to work well at all. Have they got it to work reliably and securely when you're wearing a hat and/or glasses? I'm sure they've got some method to work around that but as you say, these are the sorts of scenarios where touchid works very well.
Because, unlike the alternatives, it has the necessary hardware and software support people want/need to run to do things they want/need to do. Yes OSX, Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc are in many ways technically superior but users don't care about the operating system, they primarily care about the ability of their computer to do the tasks they need done. This is the same reason Android and iOS dominate mobile, many other mobile operating systems came along that have been just fine but lacked the ability to run the applications that users wanted/needed and so naturally they failed.
Music is a big part of our culture and, thanks to Disney and the RIAA, it's locked up perpetually.
There's nothing to stop musicians from releasing works to the world independent of organizations like Disney and the RIAA, in fact professional quality recording, mixing and mastering is more affordable and accessible than ever before. The internet provides a mechanism for distribution that is much more affordable and accessible than the previous physical distribution mechanisms. The majority of musicians, songwriters, producers, etc, will sell out to corporate music where possible because that guarantees them the income and then those corporations own what they have produced.
If they want to monetize our culture, then they need to let it go in a reasonable time frame, say ten years with no extensions.
No, they don't have to do that, you might want them to do that but they most certainly do not have to do that. If you want to create a company that funds the production and promotion of music and then 'lets it go in a reasonable time frame' then by all means go and do that and let's see how successful you are. But I'd wager that people that have the choice would rather go with the company that will pay them royalties over 30 years vs 10 years.
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From a corporate point of view, if the same software runs on a Linux environment or on a Windows environment, a decision-maker is going to opt for that Windows environment a lot when that decision-maker is himself more comfortable with Windows than with Linux.
That's right but it's probably more of a practical standpoint than anything else. The vast majority of people's computing choice isn't driven by ideological views but by practicality, it's a tool that does a job. People don't buy Windows because it's Windows, they buy Windows because it runs their programs. So from a practical standpoint why choose something that doesn't run your programs when you can choose something that does? There has to be a pretty compelling argument for that, in the smartphone market Apple provided one with the iPhone, it was disruptive innovation that benefited the consumer.
Well yes but in the case of the actual system running on actual hardware it isn't open. Like I said, in a theoretical sense it could be but in a practical sense it isn't and if anything Android in general is getting less open as more and more Android applications depend on Play Services.
When you actually use an Android phone or tablet it's far from an open source system, there's some open source bits in between but really if what you want is confidence that you control the computer and it isn't spying on you then you aren't getting that with an Android device.
On the AOSP Preparing to Build page under the heading Obtain proprietary binaries:
"AOSP cannot be used from pure source code only and requires additional hardware-related proprietary libraries to run, such as for hardware graphics acceleration."
https://source.android.com/source/building
Yes the code is there but you can't really use it in a practical sense without proprietary binaries and that's even before you get to real world uses cases of actually using Android applications that depend on the play services binary.
From a theoretical standpoint yes the Android source code in the form of AOSP is there and it is open source but in the real world nobody actually uses it that way.
Android is completely open source
Android, in a practical sense, is not Open Source. AOSP is but there is more to an Android system than that, in fact in the linked article RMS himself calls out Android as a non-free operating system:
"...Making a non-free system, such Windows or MacOS or iOS or ChromeOS or Android, more convenient is a step backward in the campaign for freedom.""
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/will-microsoft-love-linux-to-death-shuttleworth-and-stallman-on-whether-windows-10-is-free-softwares/
No. It in fact could not possibly be that. VMs have been around since well before WSL.
Is there any VM software for Linux that supports applications that use OpenGL (newer than ancient 2.1 that is), DirectX, CUDA and/or OpenCL? There are a great deal of applications that do their hardware acceleration through these methods and that's always been an issue running them in VMs.
I'm not sure who he is referring to when he says "we", when I use Linux it is because it does a particular task better than Windows does, for example controlling the machine remotely. And when I use Windows or macOS it is because it runs the programs I need to run to do a particular task. I'm a Linux user and Windows user and a macOS user, I'm not choosing a tool for a job based on the professed ideology of some of its contributors.
There is some merit to the idea that you shouldn't carry a smartphone, you shouldn't communicate over unencrypted channels, you shouldnt use hardware or software that you don't understand or haven't had vetted by somebody you trust that does understand it, you shouldn't use traceable electronic payment mechanisms, etc but it really isn't practical to take a religious absolutist approach to it so along the way people make compromises, some more than others, but in the general sense if you compromise one you compromise all. For example if you use any reasonably modern Intel or AMD processor it has a remote access backdoor which can theoretically compromise your whole system.
So I do understand Stallman's point that you could be compromised by a malicious actor with sufficient enough resources but is there really any practical scenario where you can be confident that can't happen? I would say probably not, so where is the sweet spot of compromise between privacy/security and practicality?
If it does everything you want then great, but most people are interested in running their applications rather than caring what operating system is running. There are certainly applications that run on macOS that do not run on Linux, maybe Jim Zemlin needs (or prefers) one of those or perhaps there is some feature in macOS that he likes that Linux-based operating systems do not provide.
Yes as the head of the Linux Foundation giving a presentation on mainstream usage of Linux that does send a bad message but outside of that role why should he use Linux over macOS? Like what is it that Linux offers to the average desktop user that macOS and Windows do not?
Yes, apologies for broadening the scope. I didn't mean to imply that your response was one to be applied to everything.
I certainly see why some people use it, I don't use it exclusively but I do use it in scenarios where it is the most appropriate choice. It just so happens those are very niche.
It isn't just software for presentations though, whether you're doing visual design, image manipulation, video production, audio production, CAD, CAM, CAE, 3D modeling, etc... you're almost always better off with a Mac or Windows machine because even in the outside case where one of the products you use is available on Linux and is best suited for that particular task (say Blender for a lot of 3D modeling tasks) it is almost always available on Mac and Windows too so you don't have to be hobbled in all your other tasks by a lack of software due to the choice of operating system. It's not as though an application like Blender is any different on Linux, Mac or Windows because the operating system itself isn't offering any compelling feature and you could certainly argue that is appropriate as the OS's job is to run the software.
Yes certainly Windows 10 has gotten itself a bit of a privacy stigma hole that Microsoft is trying to dig it out of but macOS doesn't suffer this and in the corporate environment Windows is able to be controlled enough that this isn't a big deal so hoping for the competition to fail isn't really a viable option.
What you need to ask yourself is what, as a normal pragmatic user, makes a Linux system a better option?
Ok just to appease you precious Apple fanboys I guess I really do have to preface even the slightest criticism of a feature of an Apple product with this lest you completely lose your minds:
Yes I have an iPhone, yes I like it, yes in general I like Apple as a company, yes I think FaceID is a good idea, no I wouldn't consider switching to Android just because of the replacement of TouchID with FaceID, but - and I know this is difficult for people like you to understand - despite the fact that I generally like Apple and I do have an iPhone and plan to continue using iPhones, in my general use cases the replacement of TouchID with FaceID will be less convenient and so I hope that going forward they continue to offer TouchID rather than replace it with FaceID.
In all fairness, when I'm skiing, I also have to take off my gloves right now, to unlock my current iPhone 7. And any other phone out there, actually, as interacting with a phone does not work too well with skiing gloves on.
Yeah of course, but your finger is used as both the interaction mechanism and biometric authentication. It's not like you can just substitute taking off your glove for taking off your goggles...or who knows, maybe they're working on an eye-tracking interaction system, that could possibly work.
That doesn't make it sound like this is going to work particularly well when I'm wearing ski goggles or dirtbike gear. This new form over function could prove to be a very annoying direction for Apple to go.
Fingerprint sensors nor touchscreens work through gloves, which I assume you wear when skiing or riding your dirt bike. Google/Android has voice unlock, but I suppose to be useful for you it has to work over a revving 2 stroke engine and an aftermarket exhaust.
What exactly are you complaining about now?
I don't think this is that complicated: I've always had to take off a glove because that was both the interaction method and biometric authentication, now would I need to take off a glove and goggles. I really wouldn't have thought I would have to explicitly point that out and that any reasonable person would be able to work that out on their own, but I guess I was wrong.
Even the design is just copied from the Essential Phone. Hopefully this will be just a one off special edition rather than the new direction of the iPhone.
I'm sure crumpled paper will line up exactly with the 30k dots it has remembering the exact depth of your face.
That doesn't make it sound like this is going to work particularly well when I'm wearing ski goggles or dirtbike gear. This new form over function could prove to be a very annoying direction for Apple to go.
How do you expand that built in 32 GB storage? Would a hammer be enough or does one need powertools or corrosive chemicals?
It's called an SD-Card slot, an SD card is a memory card that allows you to expand the phone's available storage. Quite some time ago Android added the ability for applications to be installed on SD cards as well. Buying a phone that gives you this option of adding storage (or even better one that is supported by alternative OS distributions) is a way of "voting with your wallet". There is a vibrant and active community working to solve exactly the problem you are complaining about so support them by helping to write documentation, code or donating money.
Exactly what is your proposed solution? Or are you just here to suggest that everything is hopeless?
And look at how increasingly larger percentages of new routers do not allow you to load any other firmware.
But there are plenty that do and in the absence of those you can even build your own using a PC thanks to FOSS.
Problem: I assure you that when you have little internal storage and can't get rid of dropbox, Uber, and other apps, it is a problem.
You're really too daft to see any possible solution to that problem? Really?
I assure you that when you have little internal storage and can't get rid of dropbox, Uber, and other apps, it is a problem. You may not be forced to use them, but you are forced to let them eat up your valuable available storage. This problem is real, and I have had to deal with it.
So the whole "problem" here has been mischaracterised and it's just a simple matter of needing more storage space. Looks like there's lots of solutions or buy a phone that is supported by LineageOS.
Are your willing to have software developers/vendors laugh in your face when you actually want their software to run (or run without issues) on your phone?
What specifically? Is there really so much critical software that won't run on say LineageOS?
Unfortunately, so much we do on mobile these days is absolutely dependent on proprietary applications and protocols, which means that you can't really have a full experience without depending on those outside the F/OSS community.
So the answer is to pour effort into developing those missing pieces rather than whine that the status quo isn't what you want.
He's not just focussing on phones: He's talking about all kinds of new tech that is Internet-enabled or surreptitiously recording your private information and not fully controlled by the consumers.
Yes and each thing is a different case, there isn't one solution that solves all problems. Which is why I was asking about that one case.
He's talking about thermostats provided by your power utility that are controlled remotely by that utility to reduce your power consumption when they feel like it.
And you can use a different thermostat, even an open source smart one or even build one. The same goes for the router your ISP gives you, you very often get much better performance with a different one.
All of these problems occur because of the way that consumers and citizens are prevented from having full control over the devices we purchase
And can be solved by exercising your right to choose what you buy.
With the business-slanted contracts and laws that prevent us from knowing what the software is doing and what our devices are surreptitiously reporting back to businesses and governments.
There's no law preventing distribution and supply of FOSS devices, indeed we've seen that in many industries. Look at OpenWRT routers for example.
The solutions are already there, instead of complaining that the world is burning maybe focus on proliferation of the existing solutions.
99% of the people who buy phones are not technically savvy enough to even understand that there is a problem, never mind find the phones that solve it
So the first question is defining the problem: what specifically are these "shovelware apps" that "lock customers to their networks"?
The second question is how can you go about avoiding that problem. You say 99% of people don't even understand that there is a problem, maybe there actually isn't a significant problem at all. Certainly if carriers shipped devices with apps that you were forced to use that you then had to put your data in and could not extract it out when you wanted to switch to another device then that could be a problem, but is that (or something like that) actually happening? For example I know many Android systems come with dropbox preinstalled, but you're not locked in to it, not only do you not have to use it but even if you did choose to use it you can copy your data from it to any other system at any time.
Is there really no phone you can buy to avoid this? Just because somebody sells something doesn't mean you have to buy it, there are plenty of smartphones out there that you can wipe the entire OS and install a replacement like Replicant or Lineage. These essays always make it sound like the world is ending just because there is a company out there selling something that you don't like.
Also what specifically are these "shovelware apps" that "lock customers to their networks"? I certainly have seen some pre-installed apps but I haven't seen any that lock customers to the networks of the companies that peddle them.
I have a hard time seeing how that won't be a big step backward... so I'll be curious to see the announcement on Tuesday AND how well (or how poorly) it works in the real world.
I'm sure if you're holding the phone in front of your face it probably works quite well but if you do things like unlocking your phone while it's sitting on the table then it's unlikely to work well at all. Have they got it to work reliably and securely when you're wearing a hat and/or glasses? I'm sure they've got some method to work around that but as you say, these are the sorts of scenarios where touchid works very well.
Because, unlike the alternatives, it has the necessary hardware and software support people want/need to run to do things they want/need to do. Yes OSX, Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc are in many ways technically superior but users don't care about the operating system, they primarily care about the ability of their computer to do the tasks they need done. This is the same reason Android and iOS dominate mobile, many other mobile operating systems came along that have been just fine but lacked the ability to run the applications that users wanted/needed and so naturally they failed.
Music is a big part of our culture and, thanks to Disney and the RIAA, it's locked up perpetually.
There's nothing to stop musicians from releasing works to the world independent of organizations like Disney and the RIAA, in fact professional quality recording, mixing and mastering is more affordable and accessible than ever before. The internet provides a mechanism for distribution that is much more affordable and accessible than the previous physical distribution mechanisms. The majority of musicians, songwriters, producers, etc, will sell out to corporate music where possible because that guarantees them the income and then those corporations own what they have produced.
If they want to monetize our culture, then they need to let it go in a reasonable time frame, say ten years with no extensions.
No, they don't have to do that, you might want them to do that but they most certainly do not have to do that. If you want to create a company that funds the production and promotion of music and then 'lets it go in a reasonable time frame' then by all means go and do that and let's see how successful you are. But I'd wager that people that have the choice would rather go with the company that will pay them royalties over 30 years vs 10 years.