Jailbreaking a device doesn't mean one has software freedom, a critical factor in making sure the device is loyal to its owner. It's good that you donate to the FSF and EFF despite your disagreeing with their goals to let people control their devices. I think people are rightly concerned about global spying and I encourage more learning about software freedom for freedom's sake. People were quick to dismiss the free software movement from the beginning, talking about how it wasn't (to use your words) "realistic or even a good idea" to have software freedom and that we'd never have a completely free OS. We have a lot of free software now (more than anyone can inspect on their own) and we're all better off for it. History shows the doubters were wrong to be dismissive of such concerns back then too. Holding every product to a standard that allows people to fully control their devices is a prerequisite for making software freedom the default in people's lives.
You should explain what you mean lest people read something into your hit-and-run argument that you don't mean. As it is, yours is an inarticulately defended counterargument which suggests you're not aware of the problems of arguing against software freedom by claiming that if one is free to become a slave, one isn't really free. That merely tries to turn freedom into paradox wherein proprietary software (the software that restricts your freedoms) are equivalent to respecting a user's software freedom. It's not a good argument.
In fact, nobody is restricting you from choosing non-free software or non-copylefted Free Software. The point remains with what you choose—what freedoms are you getting from your choices? With Free Software, particularly strongly-copylefted Free Software, the choices you are free to partake of are a lot more clear and beneficial to you, even if the strongly-copylefted Free Software program doesn't currently implement what you want. Because adding the missing functionality is an option and you don't have to fear that you trade away valuable freedoms in return. Convenience is simply overvalued to the point of giving up on liberties and that's a major problem.
I believe you're making a gross assumption by picking apart a minor error in my post. Most people use IP as shorthand.
No, I am responding to what you actually said. I do recommend avoiding the term "IP" no matter how popular it is precisely for the reasons I linked to if you wish to avoid the confusions that term raises.
I'm sure we're all grateful for your past and ongoing contributions to our software freedom (I certainly am) but nobody should get a pass for evidenceless assertions such as:
"The issue with the FSF is that it is a political organization and doesn't give a crap about the quality of the software they release."
"What RMS doesn't want is a threat to what he sees as his privileged place in the community."
When I hear an RMS talk I hear him give examples of real-world instances to back up his points. He writes with links to news stories to back up his claims. I don't see any pointers to that kind of information in what you write, just your opinion on matters that really need some backing up.
Consider your point about RMS's alleged egotistical involvement in this LLVM issue:
I can't help but hear a note of jealousy in RMS' tone when he fights against tools which are already free for the sake of preserving the FSF's position. The FSF has, quite frankly, sewn the seeds of this for many years by taking the policy that it did with GCC and other projects and making them inferior in order to keep them free. This position BEGS another group to come in and do it right. Some people may argue that he has a problem with the license.... I suspect that even if it were LGPLv3+ or GPLv3+ he would still have an issue since it is NOT gcc. If you make a more useful tool... people will flock to it. This is a lesson that I hope the FSF learns well and takes away from this experience.
For GCC to be replaced by another technically superior compiler that
defended freedom equally well would cause me some personal regret, but
I would rejoice for the community's advance. The existence of LLVM is
a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not
copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers -- so
that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as
much as it helps us.
In fact much of that post to the gcc@gcc.gnu.org mailing list would be relevant to reply to this story today. And RMS published that post about a year ago.
Quite right, in fact most of what gets posted to/. including this story could be responded to with a phrase Eben Moglen has been saying for years in his talks: "RMS was right". Richard Stallman had it right years ago and, equally importantly, for the right reasons. Not "Open Source" (the younger movement Brad Kuhn rightly points out is built to greenwash proprietary-supporting non-copylefted Free Software (copy 1, copy 2) but strongly copylefted Free Software released and developed for freedom.
The Affero GPL version 3 or later will keep software Free as in freedom and meet the needs of the future. Users will undoubtedly want to know how things work and benefit from software written by programmers allowed to understand how things work. This will help us avoid the very trap the grandparent post referred to (and you wisely advised against).
I think you're evaluating RMS' argument according to priorities you're imposing on him (such as talking about offering "choice" as if that's always a good thing) rather than trying to understand what software freedom is, how freedom and power differ, and why copyleft is something worth fighting for. That you would actually use the term "IP" as you do (meaning the phantom "intellectual property") suggests you haven't considered that concept very deeply either.
RMS is not alone in his views on working to marginalize GCC in favor of something that can be made into proprietary software, Brad Kuhn talks about copyleft licensing and around 21m44s in the linked linux.conf.au talk he points out that proprietors (he notes Apple by name) contribute enough upstream to non-copyleft Free Software projects to keep those projects useful to the proprietor. It's hardly a stretch to see Apple doing the same for LLVM "because [Apple and Qualcomm] want GCC to die" as Kuhn points out in his talk. Steve Jobs and NeXT's history of copyright infringement with GCC is very much a part of this story. Being caught infringing the GPL on GCC is something I doubt Jobs or Apple ever forgot and is a big part of the reason why he, like so many open source enthusiasts, think non-copylefted licenses such as the MIT X11 and new BSD license are better than than an enforced GNU GPL.
Eben Moglen is quick to point out in his consistently wise speeches that "RMS was right" (as he did in his linux.conf.au 2015 keynote speech)./. should learn to do the same. If you want to get comments like "RMS is pretty incendiary, eccentric, and often does or says crazy shit but... in this case it sounds like he said something alarmist to get attention and try to get some discussion" you should back it up with specific examples of what you mean. His flavor of "eccentricity" led us to recognize software freedom as an ethical human need well after RMS saw this; another clear example of how RMS was right. When what RMS says looks to you as "crazy shit" you should make it clear to others that you understand his long history of being right on these issues.
Freedom and power are not the same thing. When someone distributes a non-free derivative of a Free Software program, the distributors are exercising power over the users of that derivative.
I am so disappointed in the open source community. It's like they don't care about the very foundation this community was built on.
The open source movement was started to never raise a user's software freedom as an issue. Read the FSF's essays (older essay, newer essay) on how open source differs from free software and you'll get a very clear explanation of how open source's goal to speak to business means accepting proprietary software and whatever other anti-user stuff businesses want to implement with proprietary software (DRM, spyware, back doors, patent traps, etc.). Mozilla's partnering with Adobe, the Linux kernel accepting and distributing proprietary software as part of the project (code which GNU Linux-libre removes), and Mono developers celebrating Microsoft's releasing.NET software under the MIT X11 license without acknowledging the danger of Microsoft's patent promise are just a few examples of how the philosophical differences between the older ethically-minded free software movement and the younger developmental methodology-focused open source movement play out on the ground.
I concur. A development methodology ("open source") will not address any of the deficiencies (when viewed from the voter's perspective, the perspective that should matter most) of voting. No matter how much one trusts a voting program, there's no way to be sure that the computer used for voting is running only software one trusts. No electronic system can compete with the simplicity and recount-friendly approach of what is called for here: voter-verified paper ballots.
So address to the question in the/. summary: You never should have stopped using voter-verified paper ballots.
There are computers one can purchase that do as the parent post specified—the voter feeds in a blank ballot (one which they could have filled out manually if desired) and the computer (which has a scanner and printer attached) will scan the ballot, help the voter by showing the choices on a screen, reading the ballot aloud, or reading the ballot text to headphones, and then collect votes from the voter. Then the computer's printer will print the voter's votes on the paper ballot, and eject the printed paper ballot to let the user inspect that printed ballot. At this point the voter can choose to carry the voter-verified paper ballot to be counted or spoil that ballot and start again. The voter can also feed in a marked up ballot (marked by hand or by computer) and let the computer summarize the votes which that ballot specifies. These features let the blind and/or illiterate vote without losing their privacy by forcing them to find & bring in someone else to mark up their ballot for them. This is as close to computers used in voting as one should want to get.
A sort-of correction that reaches the same conclusion: End Software Patents (ESP) speculates that "the 2012 'in re Spansion' case in the USA and the judge ruled that a promise is the same as a licence". And since ESP mentions that Microsoft's Patent Promise has serious problems restricting its promise to those who don't add covered code to another project or those who produce something other than a "compliant implementation" of.NET, it seems that Microsoft patent promise has enough problems that it's still wise to not build dependencies on.NET (as the FSF warned).
But is that wise? To your point, the Free Software Foundation's reaction to Microsoft's similar 2009 action point to exactly how changing ownership of patents render Microsoft's Patent Promise not to sue useless. This very promise could become the basis for a patent trap. In 2009 Microsoft's promise not to sue was called a "Community Promise" but today's.NET promise not to sue is risky in the same way—it's not (as the FSF rightly puts it) "an irrevocable patent license for all of its patents that Mono actually exercises" and neither is the MIT license Microsoft chose to release their code under.
Looking back at that essay from 2009, we see the FSF warn us (emphasis mine):
The Community Promise does not give you any rights to exercise the patented claims. It only says that Microsoft will not sue you over claims in patents that it owns or controls. If Microsoft sells one of those patents, there's nothing stopping the buyer from suing everyone who uses the software.
Falling into this trap will directly adversely affect your ability to run, share, and modify covered software. The FSF points to a practical way out as well:
The Solution: A Comprehensive Patent License
If Microsoft genuinely wants to reassure free software users that it does not intend to sue them for using Mono, it should grant the public an irrevocable patent license for all of its patents that Mono actually exercises. That would neatly avoid all of the existing problems with the Community Promise: it's broad enough in scope that we don't have to figure out what's covered by the specification or strictly necessary to implement it. And it would still be in force even if Microsoft sold the patents.
This isn't an unreasonable request, either. GPLv3 requires distributors to provide a similar license when they convey modified versions of covered software, and plenty of companies large and small have had no problem doing that. Certainly one with Microsoft's resources should be able to manage this, too. If they're unsure how to go about it, they should get in touch with us; we'd be happy to work with them to make sure it's satisfactory.
Until that happens, free software developers still should not write software that depends on Mono. C# implementations can still be attacked by Microsoft's patents: the Community Promise is designed to give the company several outs if it wants them. We don't want to see developers' hard work lost to the community if we lose the ability to use Mono, and until we eliminate software patents altogether, using another language is the best way to prevent that from happening.
I find it no accident that the built-to-be-business-friendly "open source" language is all over this announcement including the aforementioned blog post from a prominent endorser, while the wise warnings of falling into a patent trap come from the FSF who consistently looks out for all computer user's software freedoms—software freedom being the very thing that "open source" was designed never to bring to mind (see source 1, source 2 for the history and rationale on this point).
Location data and contact/address data are sensitive yet inextricably linked to how people use trackers (also known as cell phones and other portable electronic devices). Whether the device conveys GPS coordinates, can be tracked to a remarkably small area via cell tower triangulation, or unknown (to the user) parties get the information from a proprietor (such as Apple), the privacy loss inherent in ordinary tracker operation makes it impossible to "avoid storing sensitive data on the phone".
This is no accident. When societies face the combination of nonfree software (both in OS and programs people are encouraged to install later), devices that are as close to always-on as is possible for mobile computing, and a userbase as persistently distracted away from focusing on their civil liberties as most tracker users are (no thanks to sites like/. which carry stories like these without any ethical critique to go alongside the corporate-written stockprice-sensitive spin) results like these are the outcome. Add to that the unethical ways in which trackers are made (such as Apple turning a blind eye to the environment in China or expoiting workers at Pegatron even worse than at Foxconn but Apple is certainly not alone in any of this) and you have an ugly recipe for abuse from end-to-end. Many thanks to people including Richard Stallman for compiling useful information about all of this and for his many years of warning people against nonfree software.
It's news because so many people are never taught to think of software freedom. Instead sites like this one shill for Microsoft, Apple, and a weaker "open source" message that was designed to draw attention away from ethical examination of the issue. Cutting off service and not providing programs for various systems are just two of the things proprietors with the power they wield over users. Software freedom would mean letting users maintain older OSes as much as they want to, backport programs they found valuable, and run builds of modern programs as much as desired.
You're quite right to point out that Apple is no friend on these grounds. But this shouldn't be looked at in terms of business; the effect on the user is far more important. Proprietors are the same in how they treat people because the heart of any nonfree software is unethical power over someone else's use of a computer. Richard Stallman reminds us that Apple uses this same leverage to pressure users into malicious "upgrades":
Using the lever of "You have a choice, but unless you say yes, your old activities will stop working" is something that Apple has done before, with malicious "upgrades". Apple ostensibly doesn't force people to accept the new nasty thing; it just punishes them if they don't.
Nobody should be obliged to work on developing programs and nobody should have the power to prevent users from developing the software.
Voters can't be sure that there's any evidence of their vote entering the system accurately reflecting their vote without a voter-verified paper ballot. Electronic ballots are easily lost, misrepresented, and useless in a recount. Electronic voting doesn't improve on the problems with voter-verified paper ballots and electronic ballots introduce problems all their own. So this is an area where traditional voter-verified paper ballots are better for the voter and well worth fighting for.
Braille printed ballots are extra nice to have (the braille can co-exist with the ink print on the same voter-verified paper ballot). But voters who can't read ink printed text without braille (illiterate and blind voters, to name a couple of examples) can get help from a computer to help them prepare a voter-verified paper ballot. These voters can feed in a voter-verified paper ballot into a machine that is essentially a scanner/printer combo that prints marks on a traditional voter-verified paper ballot filling in the blanks in accordance with user input to the computer. The user can get the voter-verified paper ballot out of the machine and check out its accuracy, either submit it to be counted or spoil it to get a new voter-verified paper ballot and mark it themselves, Such voters can also bring someone they trust to help them vote but this is obviously less preferred as this means divulging one's vote to someone else.
I'm not convinced Wikipedia is somehow profoundly not an encylopedia. Part of the reason your post doesn't convince me is because you criticize Wikipedia for not being "on par with the Brittanica" without specifying what you think exactly that par is, or what exactly you think "the concept of an encyclopedia is". It's difficult to have a conversation about these things without understanding what you view those things to be.
I know that I don't get the same freedoms with Brittanica I get with Wikipedia: I'm not allowed to distribute verbatim or edited copies of Brittanica entries. These freedoms translate into practical outcomes for most people, most notably the main means of keeping Wikipedia viable and an (apparently) mainstream source of information. By contrast, if someone wants to build on what they view as Brittanica's articles they have to negotiate with Brittanica to do that (and I've never seen anyone do this) but I know of projects that build on Wikipedia. Many articles I find interesting and worth listing in an encyclopedia are simply missing from Brittanica but are present in Wikipedia, such as why Brittanica thinks "GNU/Linux" and "Linux" are the same (which is both inaccurate and unfair) while maintaining that the former is an operating system and the latter a kernel (which is accurate and fair).
I have no changelog for Brittanica, so I have nothing to point to there that compares with what I can get in Wikipedia's changelog. TFA implicitly shows the value of changelogs for identifying how long edits have remained and who edited what when.
As for editing by non-experts: I don't know who edits Brittanica's many editions (including the paper editions) nor do I know what their qualifications are. I find this to be roughly equivalent to Wikipedia because I don't know who edits Wikipedia either, nor do I know their qualifications.
I remember some years ago reading an article by a Brittanica affiliate who essentially proposed to weigh Brittanica and Wikipedia on an evaluation of one obscure point he knew something about. Not only is that bad surveying, but it invites critique that can be used against Brittanica just as easily. I recall being struck by how behind the times Brittanica was the last time I saw it, particularly on the free software movement, a topic I know something about. I found the lack of coverage in Brittanica telling. Where Brittanica had something to say on the matter, I found Brittanica made the usual errors and confusions people make when they've only been exposed to "open source" (such as attributing what Richard Stallman's actions with "open source" despite historical contradiction and Stallman's own words and deeds); open source movement's philosophy, practical outcomes, or history isn't the same as free software and it's a shame history and contemporary evidence weighs so lightly for Brittanica.
You'd not only rightly reject Google Chrome you'd also reject choice as a reason to favor nonfree software. Chrome is a nonfree browser so that is right out. A choice of nonfree programs doesn't satisfy what computer users need—software freedom. Choice is easily satisfied in that there's more than one alternative but choice of software says nothing about how well the alternatives address important needs to control one's computer (rather than letting the software control the users). So choice of software is a weak substitute for the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software.
People who care about controlling their computers care, as should all computer users care. This is another instance in a long line of great learning opportunities to distinguish between 'free as in price' and 'free as in freedom'—software proprietors get away with malware because how the software works is kept secret from its users. TFA tells us that Electronic Arts didn't tell prospective users SecuROM was a part of the gratis Sims 2 install, probably because EA knew users wouldn't install Sims 2 if they knew it came with SecuROM. Proprietors abuse the trust users have placed in them and it's time to teach users how things actually work, not encourage dismissal that hands users over to the abusers ("who cares").
If the drive's software were flashable (the device could be updated with different software) and the software were Free Software, there would be no reason to fear Intel's connection to the NSA. Users would have the freedoms they need to make sure the software does what they want it to do. Proprietary encryption, no matter who writes it or distributes it, is always untrustworthy for the same reason proprietary software is untrustworthy—you don't really know what it's doing and neither does anyone you can trust to help you understand what it's doing. Furthermore you can't make it do what you want and you can't help others by distributing improved versions that respect other user's freedoms.
Early Tuesday, gamers woke up to find out that they couldn't log in to any Sony Online Entertainment games--no Everquest, no Planetside 2, none of them.
[...] not everything has to be blessed by Stallmann to be acceptable
Regarding this point, Stallman certainly does endorse Free Software. And so much of what is in OpenBSD is Free Software—software that respects a user's software freedom—and the same goes for OpenSSL. Stallman (and his organization, the Free Software Foundation(FSF)) are known for standing up for a user's software freedom. Non-copylefted Free Software is Free Software. Furthermore, in 2004 the FSF gave Theo de Raadt an award for the Advancement of Free Software, "[f]or recognition as founder and project leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects, Theo de Raadt's work has also led to significant contributions to other BSD distributions and GNU/Linux. Of particular note is Theo's work on OpenSSH". A free system need not include GNU software or be licensed under a GNU license (such as the GPL) to respect a user's software freedom.
FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD all include instructions for obtaining nonfree programs in their ports system. In addition, their kernels include nonfree firmware blobs.
Nonfree firmware programs used with Linux, the kernel, are called "blobs", and that's how we use the term. In BSD parlance, the term "blob" means something else: a nonfree driver. OpenBSD and perhaps other BSD distributions (called "projects" by BSD developers) have the policy of not including those. That is the right policy, as regards drivers; but when the developers say these distributions âoecontain no blobsâ, it causes a misunderstanding. They are not talking about firmware blobs.
No BSD distribution has policies against proprietary binary-only firmware that might be loaded even by free drivers.
Including nonfree software and pointing users to nonfree software is quite common among those who endorse the open source philosophy, as the FSF has long pointed out (older essay, newer essay). The open source movement's philosophy is a development methodology built to toss aside software freedom for practical convenience in an attempt to be "more acceptable to business". So this philosophical difference sets up a radically different reaction in the face of reliable, powerful proprietary software. Quoting the newer essay:
A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.
The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.
And why all computer users need free software in all of their computers. I don't want someone I don't trust vetting the software that has the ability to ruin my project or kill me. Those who get to audit code may be expert in someone else's opinion, but I would rather have software freedom.
It's not enough, true, but we need to get Americans trained in the practice of being more politically active and to seriously consider the consequences of their consumerism. Today, encouraging people to think of encryption as required for increased secure communications is good. We can't fix anything "once and for all" because any change to anything can be reverted (hence Andrew Jackson's warning "...eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing" applies here too). Software proprietors and others who want to rob computer users of their freedom spend billions training people to think ephemerally (in fact,/.'s chosen "firehose" structure of fast and frequent updates usually from corporate repeaters exists to further that end). We need ordinary people to become more aware of the consequences of ignorance, make better choices, and train future generations that the acceptable social norm is lifelong political involvement. I think failing to meet this need is one of Snowden's fears ("The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change..."), and why Stallman says things like "I don't want any fans I want Freedom Fighters, who could actually help in his revolution". I have no doubt that whomever follows that murderous war criminal Obama in the US White House will follow the same behavior he both chose to follow from George W. Bush and ramp up. I'm not certain what will stop the horrors of "Terror Tuesday" killings, indiscriminate NSA spying, and more, but I won't object when groups want to raise awareness and help normalize objecting to the loss of our civil liberties.
More of Eben Moglen's ramifications on Snowden
on
Why Snowden Did Right
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· Score: 1
In case you didn't get to the bottom of the Guardian essay, that essay comes from "Snowden and the Future", a 4-part talk series Eben Moglen gave on October 9, October 30, November 13 and December 4 2013. It is highly recommended reading, watching, and/or listening. Audio, video, and transcripts are available at his website.
Let's not also forget two other particularly powerful points made in the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) essay:
"We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points out that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made any effort to study the situation."
"More importantly, popularity is not an end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with an ethical mission. In the past, Mozilla has distinguished itself and achieved success by protecting the freedom of its users and explaining the importance of that freedom: including publishing Firefox's source code, allowing others to make modifications to it, and sticking to Web standards in the face of attempts to impose proprietary extensions."
Brad Kuhn builds on these points in his essay discussing Mozilla's announcement: "Theoretically speaking, though, the Mozilla Foundation is supposed to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity which told the IRS its charitable purpose was: to "keep the Internet a universal platform that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and... develop open-source Internet applications". Baker fails to explain how switching Firefox to include proprietary software fits that mission. In fact, with a bit of revisionist history, she says that open source was merely an "approach" that Mozilla Foundation was using, not their mission."
Speaking of how people criticize the FSF without reading what they say, the FSF is not an "open source advocate" despite/.'s insistence to the contrary such as is stated in this story's headline. The FSF and the free software movement predate the developmental methodology known as open source, and the FSF fights for values the open source movement sets out to deny, namely software freedom. The FSF has published more than one essay on this topic (1, 2) and RMS includes a clear and cogent explanation of this point in virtually every talk you'll hear him give. Archives of these talks are readily available online in formats that favor free software. Mozilla's choice here is another example of reaching radically different conclusions given different philosophies: Mozilla's open source choice versus a free software activist's choice to reject DRM for many valid reasons the FSF points out.
With the number of times/. posters point out how RMS arrived at some conclusion well before so many other people, and wrote something illustrating the point and his rationale, I would hope/. posters would recall that.
More DRM isn't going to play out well for the public as it has already failed for those who enjoy leveraging their fair-use rights, reading/viewing something in another way, and more. RMS's ethics-backed rationale against DRM and nonfree software (as opposed to a developmental methodology that accepts practical convenience at the cost of our civil liberties) is simply invaluable. Snowden's revelations bring RMS's long-held objections to nonfree software into sharp focus all the more.
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Jailbreaking a device doesn't mean one has software freedom, a critical factor in making sure the device is loyal to its owner. It's good that you donate to the FSF and EFF despite your disagreeing with their goals to let people control their devices. I think people are rightly concerned about global spying and I encourage more learning about software freedom for freedom's sake. People were quick to dismiss the free software movement from the beginning, talking about how it wasn't (to use your words) "realistic or even a good idea" to have software freedom and that we'd never have a completely free OS. We have a lot of free software now (more than anyone can inspect on their own) and we're all better off for it. History shows the doubters were wrong to be dismissive of such concerns back then too. Holding every product to a standard that allows people to fully control their devices is a prerequisite for making software freedom the default in people's lives.
You should explain what you mean lest people read something into your hit-and-run argument that you don't mean. As it is, yours is an inarticulately defended counterargument which suggests you're not aware of the problems of arguing against software freedom by claiming that if one is free to become a slave, one isn't really free. That merely tries to turn freedom into paradox wherein proprietary software (the software that restricts your freedoms) are equivalent to respecting a user's software freedom. It's not a good argument.
In fact, nobody is restricting you from choosing non-free software or non-copylefted Free Software. The point remains with what you choose—what freedoms are you getting from your choices? With Free Software, particularly strongly-copylefted Free Software, the choices you are free to partake of are a lot more clear and beneficial to you, even if the strongly-copylefted Free Software program doesn't currently implement what you want. Because adding the missing functionality is an option and you don't have to fear that you trade away valuable freedoms in return. Convenience is simply overvalued to the point of giving up on liberties and that's a major problem.
No, I am responding to what you actually said. I do recommend avoiding the term "IP" no matter how popular it is precisely for the reasons I linked to if you wish to avoid the confusions that term raises.
I'm sure we're all grateful for your past and ongoing contributions to our software freedom (I certainly am) but nobody should get a pass for evidenceless assertions such as:
When I hear an RMS talk I hear him give examples of real-world instances to back up his points. He writes with links to news stories to back up his claims. I don't see any pointers to that kind of information in what you write, just your opinion on matters that really need some backing up.
Consider your point about RMS's alleged egotistical involvement in this LLVM issue:
I recall RMS saying something to this point:
In fact much of that post to the gcc@gcc.gnu.org mailing list would be relevant to reply to this story today. And RMS published that post about a year ago.
Quite right, in fact most of what gets posted to /. including this story could be responded to with a phrase Eben Moglen has been saying for years in his talks: "RMS was right". Richard Stallman had it right years ago and, equally importantly, for the right reasons. Not "Open Source" (the younger movement Brad Kuhn rightly points out is built to greenwash proprietary-supporting non-copylefted Free Software (copy 1, copy 2) but strongly copylefted Free Software released and developed for freedom.
The Affero GPL version 3 or later will keep software Free as in freedom and meet the needs of the future. Users will undoubtedly want to know how things work and benefit from software written by programmers allowed to understand how things work. This will help us avoid the very trap the grandparent post referred to (and you wisely advised against).
I think you're evaluating RMS' argument according to priorities you're imposing on him (such as talking about offering "choice" as if that's always a good thing) rather than trying to understand what software freedom is, how freedom and power differ, and why copyleft is something worth fighting for. That you would actually use the term "IP" as you do (meaning the phantom "intellectual property") suggests you haven't considered that concept very deeply either.
RMS is not alone in his views on working to marginalize GCC in favor of something that can be made into proprietary software, Brad Kuhn talks about copyleft licensing and around 21m44s in the linked linux.conf.au talk he points out that proprietors (he notes Apple by name) contribute enough upstream to non-copyleft Free Software projects to keep those projects useful to the proprietor. It's hardly a stretch to see Apple doing the same for LLVM "because [Apple and Qualcomm] want GCC to die" as Kuhn points out in his talk. Steve Jobs and NeXT's history of copyright infringement with GCC is very much a part of this story. Being caught infringing the GPL on GCC is something I doubt Jobs or Apple ever forgot and is a big part of the reason why he, like so many open source enthusiasts, think non-copylefted licenses such as the MIT X11 and new BSD license are better than than an enforced GNU GPL.
Eben Moglen is quick to point out in his consistently wise speeches that "RMS was right" (as he did in his linux.conf.au 2015 keynote speech). /. should learn to do the same. If you want to get comments like "RMS is pretty incendiary, eccentric, and often does or says crazy shit but... in this case it sounds like he said something alarmist to get attention and try to get some discussion" you should back it up with specific examples of what you mean. His flavor of "eccentricity" led us to recognize software freedom as an ethical human need well after RMS saw this; another clear example of how RMS was right. When what RMS says looks to you as "crazy shit" you should make it clear to others that you understand his long history of being right on these issues.
Freedom and power are not the same thing. When someone distributes a non-free derivative of a Free Software program, the distributors are exercising power over the users of that derivative.
The open source movement was started to never raise a user's software freedom as an issue. Read the FSF's essays (older essay, newer essay) on how open source differs from free software and you'll get a very clear explanation of how open source's goal to speak to business means accepting proprietary software and whatever other anti-user stuff businesses want to implement with proprietary software (DRM, spyware, back doors, patent traps, etc.). Mozilla's partnering with Adobe, the Linux kernel accepting and distributing proprietary software as part of the project (code which GNU Linux-libre removes), and Mono developers celebrating Microsoft's releasing .NET software under the MIT X11 license without acknowledging the danger of Microsoft's patent promise are just a few examples of how the philosophical differences between the older ethically-minded free software movement and the younger developmental methodology-focused open source movement play out on the ground.
I concur. A development methodology ("open source") will not address any of the deficiencies (when viewed from the voter's perspective, the perspective that should matter most) of voting. No matter how much one trusts a voting program, there's no way to be sure that the computer used for voting is running only software one trusts. No electronic system can compete with the simplicity and recount-friendly approach of what is called for here: voter-verified paper ballots.
So address to the question in the /. summary: You never should have stopped using voter-verified paper ballots.
There are computers one can purchase that do as the parent post specified—the voter feeds in a blank ballot (one which they could have filled out manually if desired) and the computer (which has a scanner and printer attached) will scan the ballot, help the voter by showing the choices on a screen, reading the ballot aloud, or reading the ballot text to headphones, and then collect votes from the voter. Then the computer's printer will print the voter's votes on the paper ballot, and eject the printed paper ballot to let the user inspect that printed ballot. At this point the voter can choose to carry the voter-verified paper ballot to be counted or spoil that ballot and start again. The voter can also feed in a marked up ballot (marked by hand or by computer) and let the computer summarize the votes which that ballot specifies. These features let the blind and/or illiterate vote without losing their privacy by forcing them to find & bring in someone else to mark up their ballot for them. This is as close to computers used in voting as one should want to get.
A sort-of correction that reaches the same conclusion: End Software Patents (ESP) speculates that "the 2012 'in re Spansion' case in the USA and the judge ruled that a promise is the same as a licence". And since ESP mentions that Microsoft's Patent Promise has serious problems restricting its promise to those who don't add covered code to another project or those who produce something other than a "compliant implementation" of .NET, it seems that Microsoft patent promise has enough problems that it's still wise to not build dependencies on .NET (as the FSF warned).
Mono developer Miguel de Icaza has pledged to continue to add Microsoft's code to Mono saying "Like we did in the past with .NET code that Microsoft open sourced, and like we did with Roslyn, we are going to be integrating this code into Mono and Xamarin's products".
But is that wise? To your point, the Free Software Foundation's reaction to Microsoft's similar 2009 action point to exactly how changing ownership of patents render Microsoft's Patent Promise not to sue useless. This very promise could become the basis for a patent trap. In 2009 Microsoft's promise not to sue was called a "Community Promise" but today's .NET promise not to sue is risky in the same way—it's not (as the FSF rightly puts it) "an irrevocable patent license for all of its patents that Mono actually exercises" and neither is the MIT license Microsoft chose to release their code under.
Looking back at that essay from 2009, we see the FSF warn us (emphasis mine):
Falling into this trap will directly adversely affect your ability to run, share, and modify covered software. The FSF points to a practical way out as well:
I find it no accident that the built-to-be-business-friendly "open source" language is all over this announcement including the aforementioned blog post from a prominent endorser, while the wise warnings of falling into a patent trap come from the FSF who consistently looks out for all computer user's software freedoms—software freedom being the very thing that "open source" was designed never to bring to mind (see source 1, source 2 for the history and rationale on this point).
Location data and contact/address data are sensitive yet inextricably linked to how people use trackers (also known as cell phones and other portable electronic devices). Whether the device conveys GPS coordinates, can be tracked to a remarkably small area via cell tower triangulation, or unknown (to the user) parties get the information from a proprietor (such as Apple), the privacy loss inherent in ordinary tracker operation makes it impossible to "avoid storing sensitive data on the phone".
This is no accident. When societies face the combination of nonfree software (both in OS and programs people are encouraged to install later), devices that are as close to always-on as is possible for mobile computing, and a userbase as persistently distracted away from focusing on their civil liberties as most tracker users are (no thanks to sites like /. which carry stories like these without any ethical critique to go alongside the corporate-written stockprice-sensitive spin) results like these are the outcome. Add to that the unethical ways in which trackers are made (such as Apple turning a blind eye to the environment in China or expoiting workers at Pegatron even worse than at Foxconn but Apple is certainly not alone in any of this) and you have an ugly recipe for abuse from end-to-end. Many thanks to people including Richard Stallman for compiling useful information about all of this and for his many years of warning people against nonfree software.
It's news because so many people are never taught to think of software freedom. Instead sites like this one shill for Microsoft, Apple, and a weaker "open source" message that was designed to draw attention away from ethical examination of the issue. Cutting off service and not providing programs for various systems are just two of the things proprietors with the power they wield over users. Software freedom would mean letting users maintain older OSes as much as they want to, backport programs they found valuable, and run builds of modern programs as much as desired.
You're quite right to point out that Apple is no friend on these grounds. But this shouldn't be looked at in terms of business; the effect on the user is far more important. Proprietors are the same in how they treat people because the heart of any nonfree software is unethical power over someone else's use of a computer. Richard Stallman reminds us that Apple uses this same leverage to pressure users into malicious "upgrades":
Nobody should be obliged to work on developing programs and nobody should have the power to prevent users from developing the software.
Yes, you should object.
Voters can't be sure that there's any evidence of their vote entering the system accurately reflecting their vote without a voter-verified paper ballot. Electronic ballots are easily lost, misrepresented, and useless in a recount. Electronic voting doesn't improve on the problems with voter-verified paper ballots and electronic ballots introduce problems all their own. So this is an area where traditional voter-verified paper ballots are better for the voter and well worth fighting for.
Braille printed ballots are extra nice to have (the braille can co-exist with the ink print on the same voter-verified paper ballot). But voters who can't read ink printed text without braille (illiterate and blind voters, to name a couple of examples) can get help from a computer to help them prepare a voter-verified paper ballot. These voters can feed in a voter-verified paper ballot into a machine that is essentially a scanner/printer combo that prints marks on a traditional voter-verified paper ballot filling in the blanks in accordance with user input to the computer. The user can get the voter-verified paper ballot out of the machine and check out its accuracy, either submit it to be counted or spoil it to get a new voter-verified paper ballot and mark it themselves, Such voters can also bring someone they trust to help them vote but this is obviously less preferred as this means divulging one's vote to someone else.
I'm not convinced Wikipedia is somehow profoundly not an encylopedia. Part of the reason your post doesn't convince me is because you criticize Wikipedia for not being "on par with the Brittanica" without specifying what you think exactly that par is, or what exactly you think "the concept of an encyclopedia is". It's difficult to have a conversation about these things without understanding what you view those things to be.
I know that I don't get the same freedoms with Brittanica I get with Wikipedia: I'm not allowed to distribute verbatim or edited copies of Brittanica entries. These freedoms translate into practical outcomes for most people, most notably the main means of keeping Wikipedia viable and an (apparently) mainstream source of information. By contrast, if someone wants to build on what they view as Brittanica's articles they have to negotiate with Brittanica to do that (and I've never seen anyone do this) but I know of projects that build on Wikipedia. Many articles I find interesting and worth listing in an encyclopedia are simply missing from Brittanica but are present in Wikipedia, such as why Brittanica thinks "GNU/Linux" and "Linux" are the same (which is both inaccurate and unfair) while maintaining that the former is an operating system and the latter a kernel (which is accurate and fair).
I have no changelog for Brittanica, so I have nothing to point to there that compares with what I can get in Wikipedia's changelog. TFA implicitly shows the value of changelogs for identifying how long edits have remained and who edited what when.
As for editing by non-experts: I don't know who edits Brittanica's many editions (including the paper editions) nor do I know what their qualifications are. I find this to be roughly equivalent to Wikipedia because I don't know who edits Wikipedia either, nor do I know their qualifications.
I remember some years ago reading an article by a Brittanica affiliate who essentially proposed to weigh Brittanica and Wikipedia on an evaluation of one obscure point he knew something about. Not only is that bad surveying, but it invites critique that can be used against Brittanica just as easily. I recall being struck by how behind the times Brittanica was the last time I saw it, particularly on the free software movement, a topic I know something about. I found the lack of coverage in Brittanica telling. Where Brittanica had something to say on the matter, I found Brittanica made the usual errors and confusions people make when they've only been exposed to "open source" (such as attributing what Richard Stallman's actions with "open source" despite historical contradiction and Stallman's own words and deeds); open source movement's philosophy, practical outcomes, or history isn't the same as free software and it's a shame history and contemporary evidence weighs so lightly for Brittanica.
You'd not only rightly reject Google Chrome you'd also reject choice as a reason to favor nonfree software. Chrome is a nonfree browser so that is right out. A choice of nonfree programs doesn't satisfy what computer users need—software freedom. Choice is easily satisfied in that there's more than one alternative but choice of software says nothing about how well the alternatives address important needs to control one's computer (rather than letting the software control the users). So choice of software is a weak substitute for the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software.
People who care about controlling their computers care, as should all computer users care. This is another instance in a long line of great learning opportunities to distinguish between 'free as in price' and 'free as in freedom'—software proprietors get away with malware because how the software works is kept secret from its users. TFA tells us that Electronic Arts didn't tell prospective users SecuROM was a part of the gratis Sims 2 install, probably because EA knew users wouldn't install Sims 2 if they knew it came with SecuROM. Proprietors abuse the trust users have placed in them and it's time to teach users how things actually work, not encourage dismissal that hands users over to the abusers ("who cares").
If the drive's software were flashable (the device could be updated with different software) and the software were Free Software, there would be no reason to fear Intel's connection to the NSA. Users would have the freedoms they need to make sure the software does what they want it to do. Proprietary encryption, no matter who writes it or distributes it, is always untrustworthy for the same reason proprietary software is untrustworthy—you don't really know what it's doing and neither does anyone you can trust to help you understand what it's doing. Furthermore you can't make it do what you want and you can't help others by distributing improved versions that respect other user's freedoms.
Could the users have used another server to connect with each other? Or is this a case of DRM ("Digital Restrictions Management", when properly viewed from the perspective of its effect on the users) and, more generally, nonfree software restricting users from running the games with other people?
Regarding this point, Stallman certainly does endorse Free Software. And so much of what is in OpenBSD is Free Software—software that respects a user's software freedom—and the same goes for OpenSSL. Stallman (and his organization, the Free Software Foundation(FSF)) are known for standing up for a user's software freedom. Non-copylefted Free Software is Free Software. Furthermore, in 2004 the FSF gave Theo de Raadt an award for the Advancement of Free Software, "[f]or recognition as founder and project leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects, Theo de Raadt's work has also led to significant contributions to other BSD distributions and GNU/Linux. Of particular note is Theo's work on OpenSSH". A free system need not include GNU software or be licensed under a GNU license (such as the GPL) to respect a user's software freedom.
The FSF is quite clear why it doesn't list OpenBSD (or the other BSD distributions) in their list of Free system distributions:
Including nonfree software and pointing users to nonfree software is quite common among those who endorse the open source philosophy, as the FSF has long pointed out (older essay, newer essay). The open source movement's philosophy is a development methodology built to toss aside software freedom for practical convenience in an attempt to be "more acceptable to business". So this philosophical difference sets up a radically different reaction in the face of reliable, powerful proprietary software. Quoting the newer essay:
And why all computer users need free software in all of their computers. I don't want someone I don't trust vetting the software that has the ability to ruin my project or kill me. Those who get to audit code may be expert in someone else's opinion, but I would rather have software freedom.
It's not enough, true, but we need to get Americans trained in the practice of being more politically active and to seriously consider the consequences of their consumerism. Today, encouraging people to think of encryption as required for increased secure communications is good. We can't fix anything "once and for all" because any change to anything can be reverted (hence Andrew Jackson's warning "...eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing" applies here too). Software proprietors and others who want to rob computer users of their freedom spend billions training people to think ephemerally (in fact, /.'s chosen "firehose" structure of fast and frequent updates usually from corporate repeaters exists to further that end). We need ordinary people to become more aware of the consequences of ignorance, make better choices, and train future generations that the acceptable social norm is lifelong political involvement. I think failing to meet this need is one of Snowden's fears ("The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change..."), and why Stallman says things like "I don't want any fans I want Freedom Fighters, who could actually help in his revolution". I have no doubt that whomever follows that murderous war criminal Obama in the US White House will follow the same behavior he both chose to follow from George W. Bush and ramp up. I'm not certain what will stop the horrors of "Terror Tuesday" killings, indiscriminate NSA spying, and more, but I won't object when groups want to raise awareness and help normalize objecting to the loss of our civil liberties.
In case you didn't get to the bottom of the Guardian essay, that essay comes from "Snowden and the Future", a 4-part talk series Eben Moglen gave on October 9, October 30, November 13 and December 4 2013. It is highly recommended reading, watching, and/or listening. Audio, video, and transcripts are available at his website.
Let's not also forget two other particularly powerful points made in the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) essay:
Brad Kuhn builds on these points in his essay discussing Mozilla's announcement: "Theoretically speaking, though, the Mozilla Foundation is supposed to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity which told the IRS its charitable purpose was: to "keep the Internet a universal platform that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and ... develop open-source Internet applications". Baker fails to explain how switching Firefox to include proprietary software fits that mission. In fact, with a bit of revisionist history, she says that open source was merely an "approach" that Mozilla Foundation was using, not their mission."
Speaking of how people criticize the FSF without reading what they say, the FSF is not an "open source advocate" despite /.'s insistence to the contrary such as is stated in this story's headline. The FSF and the free software movement predate the developmental methodology known as open source, and the FSF fights for values the open source movement sets out to deny, namely software freedom. The FSF has published more than one essay on this topic (1, 2) and RMS includes a clear and cogent explanation of this point in virtually every talk you'll hear him give. Archives of these talks are readily available online in formats that favor free software. Mozilla's choice here is another example of reaching radically different conclusions given different philosophies: Mozilla's open source choice versus a free software activist's choice to reject DRM for many valid reasons the FSF points out.
With the number of times /. posters point out how RMS arrived at some conclusion well before so many other people, and wrote something illustrating the point and his rationale, I would hope /. posters would recall that.
More DRM isn't going to play out well for the public as it has already failed for those who enjoy leveraging their fair-use rights, reading/viewing something in another way, and more. RMS's ethics-backed rationale against DRM and nonfree software (as opposed to a developmental methodology that accepts practical convenience at the cost of our civil liberties) is simply invaluable. Snowden's revelations bring RMS's long-held objections to nonfree software into sharp focus all the more.