Come on. We did that last year and the year before! I love what stallman stands for, but this is getting stale!
I think it's interesting to follow up on how the FSF is coping with a changing computing environment - more integration of software and hardware in devices, more proliferation of cloud services and SaaS for example - but I agree it's pretty pointless to rehash the old BSD vs GPL discussion every single year. Like there needs to be a plan to address these changes and not just a "no, no, no don't do anything different because it's all bad for privacy and freedom" response to change.
and so, I am running quite old software on a mobile computer and unless I pay for new hardware (my old hw works fine, still) I can't get updates.
The hardware may work fine but there is no appropriate software to run on it. So ultimately is your privacy worth a couple hundred dollars every year or so?
essentially its abandonware. hundreds of dollars and I have a device that won't ever get updated even though there's not a single good reason for that.
The code is all there, it's open source but nobody wants to maintain it and nobody wants to pay anybody to maintain it. What do you think is going to happen to it? It isn't going to maintain itself.
Do you have any suggestions for popularizing Free Software with consumers in this age where we are moving toward software and hardware being even more tightly integrated in devices such as smartphones, DVRs, tablets, watches, etc...?
To clarify further, I understand the issues with locked-down and proprietary hardware & software in so many consumer products but simply informing people of those issues is not enough. To sway people we need functionally (and ultimately aesthetically but that can come later) comparable Free Software -based products with the matching adequate user experiences that they have come to expect from the proprietary vendors. To go mainstream, those freedoms need to be a value-add to a good product, not the key feature of the product.
Well, that is something else entirely, then. They should call it touchscreen mode.
It's hardly entirely different, if you want to be pedantic they should probably call it "Finger Touchscreen Interaction Mode", because you might not necessarily use your finger on the touchscreen, you might use a stylus which is more precise and doesn't need control resizing. But tablet mode is probably enough of a generalization.
Tablet mode sounds like you would want to use it on a tablet.
The fastest way to launch a program is to click on a shortcut. The start menu is for discovering what programs are on the computer. Searching is useless if you don't know what is installed.
I'm sure you can come up with a contrived scenario but are you really just exploring a computer and looking for a program to run without knowing what you want to do that often that using the start screen rather than the start menu was that much of an inconvenience? Even if you have a file and you don't know what program you want to open it with the "Open with..." menu generally lists all the appropriate programs, again you can come up with a scenario where this doesn't happen but it's far from typical.
What! Windows 10 isn't sophisticated enough to figure out if it is running on a tablet?
It's less a "tablet mode" and more a "touchscreen mode", and no, Windows 10 isn't sophisticated enough to figure out if you're going to use your mouse or your touchscreen to interact with your computer before you do.
Probably because this isn't marketed at the premium price point, they seem to have gone to great lengths to bring the price down, compare it to other Android phones of similar specifications or to the iPhone for example.
$30 this way or that won't sway people onto or away from your phone.
Right, so even if that $30 is completely profit off the top thanks to peoples' willingness to pay it, what's your point? Who cares?
Outside of the US the contactless payment systems are very popular, I use it for pretty much all purchases $100. And it's easier to just use my card than it is to interact with my phone.
If you're not multi-lingual I can see why you might want a slide-out keyboard but physical keyboards are also prone to wear and breakage (sure, highquality ones like those on Blackberrys were far less susceptible) and don't allow for customization.
The thing is a phone with the features you suggest will have to compromise somewhere else. This is the sort of market Project Ara is looking to address.
Well yes, there's no need to read too much into "No Compromises". We all know full well there is never going to be a device that is all things to all people.
Do you deny that the OnePlus One 64GB cost $50 more than its $16GB counterpart, while holding exactly the same specifications aside from an extra 48GB of NAND?
Yes. According to the summary: "If you don't mind handing over an extra $60, you'll receive 4GB of RAM to back the processor and 64GB of internal storage.". So it is an extra GB of RAM and extra 48GB of internal storage.
Well if you think it's a ripoff then don't buy it. You have listed the price for the raw chips, can you show me a phone manufacturer that prices its devices based on those numbers? Maybe it isn't as simple as that.
Severe problems like the ones I was thinking of above? No, to be fair to Microsoft, they have usually fixed those within a day or two.
Ok good so deferring the updates to not install immediately should alleviate a lot of the concern there.
Once again, the problem isn't just this specific issue, it's the uncontrolled risk associated with allowing anyone to force software changes on a PC you rely on.
So your proposed solution is what? I'm trying to work out what you're driving at here, is it that you're looking for a solution to a problem or you're just upset?
Google patched it back in April. The manufacturer's of the phone's are now responsible for providing it to you.
That's the problem with the Android ecosystem, Google makes the code change but then the questions of how/when/if that will reach users remain unanswered. Yes Android is open source (well the AOSP is anyway) but Google has the Open Handset Alliance which enforces terms on its members so they can use Google's Android services and get early access to the source code. Part of this contract should be a well-defined mechanism and commitment for getting security updates to users.
When Apple puts out an update for iOS or Microsoft puts out an update for Windows it is available to all users at the same time and getting updated code to users is what matters. Google should be making it work the same way.
The issue is bigger than that, and this story is just one early example of how forced updates could go wrong
Ok but we've got a solution to the issue in question, that's a good thing right? So now we need to look at the implications of other updates.
Firstly, given that the default behavior outside of enterprise environments is to automatically install updates do we have evidence that this has been significantly problematic? If this is indeed a problem then there should be plenty of instances in the history of Windows Update.
Secondly, if the above case turns out to be valid (I'm no expert, that's why I'm asking) then is there any evidence to indicate that this would still not be resolved after a few months of deferring the update in question?
I'm happy for you that apparently the systems you use are all running Windows Enterprise, and the people who set them up and maintain them have no problem with spending time figuring out which settings to adjust to turn this stuff off.
No, as I already pointed out a number of times the solution for this problem isn't exclusive to Windows Enterprise, I just found the solution online.
As for mandatory updates they aren't a problem themselves but if you have a problem as a result of them then let's look at what we can do to solve that problem.
Obviously from the fact that we're having this discussion a lot of people didn't know to turn this off and got stung by it
Right, so is the solution to proliferate the knowledge about how to resolve the problem or just bitch pseudonymously in web forum comments about the existence of it?
Do you know a lot of organisations that have an IT department and run Windows Enterprise but don't have dedicated IT staff?
Yes, and you don't need dedicated IT staff to resolve this issue. The method to turn off driver updates is already well-documented. Why are you trying to find a problem rather than a solution?
Even if they can, they're still going to be vulnerable to other forced system updates that could break stuff
Because now you're moving the goalposts. This is about forced driver updates (read the title).
Apparently plenty of people are more concerned about that than you are.
Well given the default setting for previous Windows versions is to automatically install updates anyway I doubt this is going to have any significant impact at all.
Where do all the people replying to me keep finding all these IT staff? A small CAD studio or indie game development shop of the kind I mentioned doesn't have a dedicated IT staff.
Where did I say "dedicated IT staff"?
Probably one or two of those people double as the "IT dept" when it comes to setting up the office network and maybe installing a standard set of software on a new starter's machine before they arrive, but they're taking time out from their real job to do it.
And I'm sure those people can point out what has already been pointed out multiple times in this story which is that driver updates through Windows update can be disabled, yes it's the same in Windows 10 as it has been in previous versions. You don't need a full time IT department to do it.
Well they would be using the Enterprise version, not Pro, so the IT department has control anyway. But even in the Home and Pro versions (which are not applicable to what you're talking about) you can turn off installation of driver updates anyway, it's only system updates that you can't turn off.
Perhaps you'd like businesses that paying their staff thousands per week to do CAD work or design game assets to just shut down for a few days until the drivers get sorted out?
Non sequitur, such businesses are not using the Home versions of their operating system.
Guess what: Content existed on the internet before advertising came along. It was different and less refined, but it was certainly there. People produce it because they want to. Not for clicks, not for eyeballs but because they want to produce it.
People do create a lot of things because they want to, but that sounds more like an argument for free content rather than paywalled content. You really think there's no way to present content and ads in the same page without calls to external known ad servers to pull those ads in? There's no reason websites can't display their own ads from their own domain so what would prevent you from seeing that?
No clickbait anymore (and where it is, a paywall keeps me from having to look at it)
Why not? People would just put in clickbait without a paywall.
Re:GPL *perfectly* covers all needs. Flawed?!?
on
On Being Pro-GPL
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· Score: 1
Why would a home user/consumer want there to be a monetization strategy? I get a whole OS that is totally free commodity. It has everything I could ever need, for free.
An OS on its own is useless, the fact that you can leverage the same OS that those corporations spend money developing is advantageous but it's just an operating system.
And I'm fine with that being non-GPL anyway. So GPL doesn't need to address monetization.
I'm not saying the GPL has to address monetization, I'm saying that the free software mantra of "software should be free" certainly will not work if you don't have a monetization strategy for the software that isn't funded by corporations as it stands.
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Come on. We did that last year and the year before! I love what stallman stands for, but this is getting stale!
I think it's interesting to follow up on how the FSF is coping with a changing computing environment - more integration of software and hardware in devices, more proliferation of cloud services and SaaS for example - but I agree it's pretty pointless to rehash the old BSD vs GPL discussion every single year. Like there needs to be a plan to address these changes and not just a "no, no, no don't do anything different because it's all bad for privacy and freedom" response to change.
and so, I am running quite old software on a mobile computer and unless I pay for new hardware (my old hw works fine, still) I can't get updates.
The hardware may work fine but there is no appropriate software to run on it. So ultimately is your privacy worth a couple hundred dollars every year or so?
essentially its abandonware. hundreds of dollars and I have a device that won't ever get updated even though there's not a single good reason for that.
The code is all there, it's open source but nobody wants to maintain it and nobody wants to pay anybody to maintain it. What do you think is going to happen to it? It isn't going to maintain itself.
But its a tablet.
And the only way to interact with a tablet is using your finger on a touchscreen? I think not.
Do you have any suggestions for popularizing Free Software with consumers in this age where we are moving toward software and hardware being even more tightly integrated in devices such as smartphones, DVRs, tablets, watches, etc...?
To clarify further, I understand the issues with locked-down and proprietary hardware & software in so many consumer products but simply informing people of those issues is not enough. To sway people we need functionally (and ultimately aesthetically but that can come later) comparable Free Software -based products with the matching adequate user experiences that they have come to expect from the proprietary vendors. To go mainstream, those freedoms need to be a value-add to a good product, not the key feature of the product.
Well, that is something else entirely, then. They should call it touchscreen mode.
It's hardly entirely different, if you want to be pedantic they should probably call it "Finger Touchscreen Interaction Mode", because you might not necessarily use your finger on the touchscreen, you might use a stylus which is more precise and doesn't need control resizing. But tablet mode is probably enough of a generalization.
Tablet mode sounds like you would want to use it on a tablet.
You probably would want to use it on a tablet.
I have yet to figure out this obsession some people have with screen space. Bitching about three friggin' toolbars?
On a smaller tablet that screen space does come at a premium, but if that's the biggest complaint then it's pretty impressive.
The fastest way to launch a program is to click on a shortcut. The start menu is for discovering what programs are on the computer. Searching is useless if you don't know what is installed.
I'm sure you can come up with a contrived scenario but are you really just exploring a computer and looking for a program to run without knowing what you want to do that often that using the start screen rather than the start menu was that much of an inconvenience? Even if you have a file and you don't know what program you want to open it with the "Open with..." menu generally lists all the appropriate programs, again you can come up with a scenario where this doesn't happen but it's far from typical.
What! Windows 10 isn't sophisticated enough to figure out if it is running on a tablet?
It's less a "tablet mode" and more a "touchscreen mode", and no, Windows 10 isn't sophisticated enough to figure out if you're going to use your mouse or your touchscreen to interact with your computer before you do.
$30 this way or that won't sway people onto or away from your phone.
Right, so even if that $30 is completely profit off the top thanks to peoples' willingness to pay it, what's your point? Who cares?
Outside of the US the contactless payment systems are very popular, I use it for pretty much all purchases $100. And it's easier to just use my card than it is to interact with my phone.
If you're not multi-lingual I can see why you might want a slide-out keyboard but physical keyboards are also prone to wear and breakage (sure, highquality ones like those on Blackberrys were far less susceptible) and don't allow for customization.
The thing is a phone with the features you suggest will have to compromise somewhere else. This is the sort of market Project Ara is looking to address.
Well yes, there's no need to read too much into "No Compromises". We all know full well there is never going to be a device that is all things to all people.
Do you deny that the OnePlus One 64GB cost $50 more than its $16GB counterpart, while holding exactly the same specifications aside from an extra 48GB of NAND?
Yes. According to the summary: "If you don't mind handing over an extra $60, you'll receive 4GB of RAM to back the processor and 64GB of internal storage.". So it is an extra GB of RAM and extra 48GB of internal storage.
Well if you think it's a ripoff then don't buy it. You have listed the price for the raw chips, can you show me a phone manufacturer that prices its devices based on those numbers? Maybe it isn't as simple as that.
Severe problems like the ones I was thinking of above? No, to be fair to Microsoft, they have usually fixed those within a day or two.
Ok good so deferring the updates to not install immediately should alleviate a lot of the concern there.
Once again, the problem isn't just this specific issue, it's the uncontrolled risk associated with allowing anyone to force software changes on a PC you rely on.
So your proposed solution is what? I'm trying to work out what you're driving at here, is it that you're looking for a solution to a problem or you're just upset?
In the interest of looking for a solution
Google patched it back in April. The manufacturer's of the phone's are now responsible for providing it to you.
That's the problem with the Android ecosystem, Google makes the code change but then the questions of how/when/if that will reach users remain unanswered. Yes Android is open source (well the AOSP is anyway) but Google has the Open Handset Alliance which enforces terms on its members so they can use Google's Android services and get early access to the source code. Part of this contract should be a well-defined mechanism and commitment for getting security updates to users.
When Apple puts out an update for iOS or Microsoft puts out an update for Windows it is available to all users at the same time and getting updated code to users is what matters. Google should be making it work the same way.
The issue is bigger than that, and this story is just one early example of how forced updates could go wrong
Ok but we've got a solution to the issue in question, that's a good thing right? So now we need to look at the implications of other updates.
Firstly, given that the default behavior outside of enterprise environments is to automatically install updates do we have evidence that this has been significantly problematic? If this is indeed a problem then there should be plenty of instances in the history of Windows Update.
Secondly, if the above case turns out to be valid (I'm no expert, that's why I'm asking) then is there any evidence to indicate that this would still not be resolved after a few months of deferring the update in question?
I'm happy for you that apparently the systems you use are all running Windows Enterprise, and the people who set them up and maintain them have no problem with spending time figuring out which settings to adjust to turn this stuff off.
No, as I already pointed out a number of times the solution for this problem isn't exclusive to Windows Enterprise, I just found the solution online.
As for mandatory updates they aren't a problem themselves but if you have a problem as a result of them then let's look at what we can do to solve that problem.
Obviously from the fact that we're having this discussion a lot of people didn't know to turn this off and got stung by it
Right, so is the solution to proliferate the knowledge about how to resolve the problem or just bitch pseudonymously in web forum comments about the existence of it?
What else did you mean by the following, exactly?
Whoever is dealing with IT.
Do you know a lot of organisations that have an IT department and run Windows Enterprise but don't have dedicated IT staff?
Yes, and you don't need dedicated IT staff to resolve this issue. The method to turn off driver updates is already well-documented. Why are you trying to find a problem rather than a solution?
Even if they can, they're still going to be vulnerable to other forced system updates that could break stuff
Because now you're moving the goalposts. This is about forced driver updates (read the title).
Apparently plenty of people are more concerned about that than you are.
Well given the default setting for previous Windows versions is to automatically install updates anyway I doubt this is going to have any significant impact at all.
Where do all the people replying to me keep finding all these IT staff? A small CAD studio or indie game development shop of the kind I mentioned doesn't have a dedicated IT staff.
Where did I say "dedicated IT staff"?
Probably one or two of those people double as the "IT dept" when it comes to setting up the office network and maybe installing a standard set of software on a new starter's machine before they arrive, but they're taking time out from their real job to do it.
And I'm sure those people can point out what has already been pointed out multiple times in this story which is that driver updates through Windows update can be disabled, yes it's the same in Windows 10 as it has been in previous versions. You don't need a full time IT department to do it.
Well they would be using the Enterprise version, not Pro, so the IT department has control anyway. But even in the Home and Pro versions (which are not applicable to what you're talking about) you can turn off installation of driver updates anyway, it's only system updates that you can't turn off.
No, they're probably using Pro, which has exactly the same fundamental problem just deferrable by a few months.
Do you actually have this problem where an update is causing you critical problems months later?
Perhaps you'd like businesses that paying their staff thousands per week to do CAD work or design game assets to just shut down for a few days until the drivers get sorted out?
Non sequitur, such businesses are not using the Home versions of their operating system.
Guess what: Content existed on the internet before advertising came along. It was different and less refined, but it was certainly there. People produce it because they want to. Not for clicks, not for eyeballs but because they want to produce it.
People do create a lot of things because they want to, but that sounds more like an argument for free content rather than paywalled content. You really think there's no way to present content and ads in the same page without calls to external known ad servers to pull those ads in? There's no reason websites can't display their own ads from their own domain so what would prevent you from seeing that?
No clickbait anymore (and where it is, a paywall keeps me from having to look at it)
Why not? People would just put in clickbait without a paywall.
Why would a home user/consumer want there to be a monetization strategy? I get a whole OS that is totally free commodity. It has everything I could ever need, for free.
An OS on its own is useless, the fact that you can leverage the same OS that those corporations spend money developing is advantageous but it's just an operating system.
And I'm fine with that being non-GPL anyway. So GPL doesn't need to address monetization.
I'm not saying the GPL has to address monetization, I'm saying that the free software mantra of "software should be free" certainly will not work if you don't have a monetization strategy for the software that isn't funded by corporations as it stands.