Do you see the relationship between having a strong military and not being invaded?
I'm guessing you'll later define that relationship in terms that attempt to minimize the US empire (such as not pointing out that the US spends so more more than other world powers do on their militaries, and the US loses track of trillions of dollars which would have been better spent on social services that reflect majoritarian values including Medicare for All, a national jobs program, and potable water for all). The US is what Martin Luther King referred to it as, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". So many of the threats Americans face are reactions to American state belligerence. It's worth asking, as Glenn Greenwald did, why the people of Brazil, Chile, and other large and monied countries don't face these retaliatory attacks as Americans do. He
points to a 2004 report commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld on terrorism
(suggesting listeners look up those keywords online to find the
report) and says you'll find that Rumsfeld was told the attackers hate
America for its policies, not "hating us for our freedoms" or "hate us
because we're involved in a religious war because they have this
religion that hypnotizes them into committing violence" (quotes from
Greenwald). Chomsky points out that this report was a repeat of a
National Security Council document from 1958 commissioned by President
Eisenhower when Eisenhower asked "why is there a campaign of hatred
against us in the Arab world, not from the governments but from the
populations?" (quoting Chomsky). Chomsky summarizes the telling answer:
There is a perception in the Arab world that the United States
supports brutal and dictatorial regimes, and blocks democracy and
development and we do it because we want to make sure we control
their resources and their policies. And then it said these
perceptions are more or less accurate but we should continue doing
it because this is more or less in our interest. So the Rumsfeld
report is repeating what we should know and what the victims do
know. They don't have to read secret documents to find out.
We all should work for peace now, not wait for undefined others to do the heavy lifting as the thread-starting poster wrote. That overvalued post is indistinguishable from excusing empire-building, predator strikes (extrajudicial assassinations as the US does in its drone war), and endless military spending while Americans go without and die.
This issue has to do with patent law, not copyright law. So it's important to look at how Microsoft uses patent law to appear to be conciliatory while retaining considerable power. Microsoft has already demonstrated a preference for what Richard Stallman rightly calls "pushover" free software licenses—non-copyleft licenses such as the new BSD and MIT X11 license. Microsoft picks such licenses not for some inchoate disagreement with the GNU GPL as you stated but because those licenses don't stop Microsoft from doing more of what they did with their patent licence for.NET core. That license is so limited one can't do valuable things such as sharing code across projects and modifying code in ways we find useful to us without risking losing a patent infringement lawsuit from Microsoft.
In Microsoft's patent license for.NET core, "you're only protected if you're distributing the code "as part of either a.NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a.NET Runtime"". So if you add any of the code to another project, then you lose protection and MS reserves the right to use their patents against you.". The GNU GPL, by contrast, would have protected you from this, allowing you to use the covered code in another project and retain your software freedom.
As the article also points out, Microsoft's patent license only applies under very limited conditions, "the protection only applies to a "compliant implementation" of.NET. So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for embedded devices, then your implementation won't be compliant and the protection doesn't apply to you."
We don't know for sure if one would gain an implicit patent license with code distributed under the MIT X11 license but we do know one would get license to do as they need or want under the GNU GPLv3 because the text of the license says so:
Code distributed under the GNU GPLv3, comes with a patent grant which basically says the contributors can't use their patents against the users for exercising the freedoms granted in the licence:
([quoting the GNU GPLv3] section 11)
Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.
So if you're looking to use your software freedom, pick a license that does the job of ensuring those rights will be there when you need them by spelling out those rights explicitly; right now that's the GNU GPLv2 or later. I suspect that it is this consideration for users, plus Brad Kuhn's keen knowledge of the GNU GPLs, and practical value in licensing compatibly with the Linux kernel that lead him to recommend licensing under GNU GPLv2 or later.
If the corporate narrative were true you'd expect there to be no increase in privacy-focused search engine proxies, after all people just don't care (or so we're told). It's interesting how this contradicts the (almost entirely) corporate tech press narrative often repeated here: that people don't value their privacy. We're told some variation of that establishment-defending excuse on corporate repeater sites like this one whenever someone finds it necessary to stress a privacy-preserving alternative not found in the corporate media (such as bringing up the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software, or valuing free software for its own sake as well as the practical outcomes such as helping users preserve their privacy and more fully control their own computers).
This strikes me as another example of how hard it is for the corporate media, their sycophants, and their stooges on sites like these to promote the fiction that non-freedom and its consequences are good for us. That we should think of proprietary software on (what are ostensibly) our computers and the amount of data we give services as right and proper. That we're better off understanding things in terms of short-term values like financial cost and convenience, and that anyone who dares to raise any other values is rightly outside the bounds of allowable debate.
[...T]he fact that one of Microsoft's main compilers is now working in the same way that gcc works (self hosting, open contribution, free software, open source) is amazing. In a very deep way, the free software foundation has won. Before they came along there was plenty of "open source" software but it was ignored and simply ripped off by companies like Microsoft who could incorporate open source innovation into their products without even having to give credit. Now Microsoft is openly releasing Open Source Software which is really also Free Software.
Here's one big difference: Microsoft's C# compiler (licensed under the Apache 2.0 license) is a way to get its users into becoming dependent on the patent-encumbered.NET (as quoted in the/. summary, the article said "Of course, once you are building an API for the broad C# community, it is kind of a slam-dunk that it should be a.NET API, implemented in C#."). Apache 2.0 is more recommendable than other permissive licenses but Apache 2.0 doesn't look out for your interests in modifying and distributing modified software as well as the GNU GPLv3 does..NET is still a patent-encumbered trap. I can't say the same for GCC (licensed under the GNU GPLv3 or later with the GCC Runtime Library Exception.
A reminder of what limits you're taking on by using.NET:
The first limit is that you're only protected if you're distributing the code "as part of either a.NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a.NET Runtime". So if you add any of the code to another project, then you lose protection and MS reserves the right to use their patents against you.
Secondly, the protection only applies to a "compliant implementation" of.NET. So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for embedded devices, then your implementation won't be compliant and the protection doesn't apply to you.
This is very different from code licensed under the GNU GPLv3:
Code distributed under the GNU GPLv3, comes with a patent grant which basically says the contributors can't use their patents against the users for exercising the freedoms granted in the licence. [Therefore, Microsoft's] patent licence looks fine for users of the code published by Microsoft, but its protections disappear very quickly for those who wish to modify or re-use the code.
No mention of what System76 considers an Open Source computer.
Precisely; and that's a big part of the problem with marketing terms—they are designed to tell you nothing substantive. This seems particularly useless when pitching a computer for sale (pre-orders are said to be on offer in October) and speaking to what is likely a technically literate audience that values being in control of their own computers. I know what features I'd want in a modern, powerful computer but I can't begin to evaluate if this computer is worth considering.
I'd like to see this new system be evaluated for the Respects Your Freedom campaign; I'd find that useful information to help me determine whether I should order one of these computers. But right now all I see are vague terms and an ad campaign that doesn't illuminate what's really going on offer.
When will fans stop paying for the bad treatment they receive in response?
Disney was a principal figure in a US copyright term extension (which was exported abroad), much to the chagrin of Americans and the world. Bringing this up at that time elicited some responses like one of the highly-upvoted posts in this/. thread saying they'll not buy more of the products. But when the next Star Wars work comes out, fans here who know of the role Disney played then (which people are still seeing the effects of) will pay to see the new Star Wars thing.
A Star Trek copyright holder puts down ridiculous and provably unnecessary restrictions on making derivative Star Trek works (which didn't exist for most of Star Trek's existence). It doesn't really matter how this came to be or if you want to blame one party (say, Axanar) for speaking out of turn. What matters is what you're going to do in response, particularly if you believe that you have some say along the logic of "voting with your money".
The opportunities to show some spine abound. The question is whether you're going to reject paying for Star Trek stuff on the basis of being treated badly by Star Trek's copyright holders or show them that you'll knuckle under?
Somebody at Google said "hey, we could abuse our power for good!" and management came back saying "it's still abuse, so we're not doing it", and that was the end of it.
We can't be so sure, and it's generally unwise to consider only the company's word for this. But you have to read more news beyond this story to understand the debate over the issue. Ironically, you'd have to read stories that we're told aren't so easy to find if you depend on Google to bring them to your attention.
According to RT, one of the adversely affected parties:
Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet, says the company will "engineer" specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine's news delivery services.
"We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites -- it's basically RT and Sputnik," Schmidt said during a Q & A session at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada on Saturday, when asked about whether Google facilitates "Russian propaganda."
Google later wrote "a letter to Russia's media watchdog saying despite Eric Schmidt's recent comments about "de-ranking" RT and Sputnik, he referred only to "efforts to improve search quality." The company claimed it doesn't "re-rank" individual websites."
It is not just Russian sites that Google is de-ranking either. The corporation which enjoys almost complete monopoly over the internet has already been criticized for censoring left-wing, anti-war websites like Alternet, Democracy Now, Truth-out.org, Counterpunch and Truthdig. Some of those websites have reported huge drops in traffic since changes were made to Google's search algorithms to combat "fake news". Nothing could demonstrate more clearly that Google is a cheerleader for American militarism and a loyal partner to war profiteers both in the arms industry and in Congress. Yet the corporation still enjoys a widespread reputation as a benign arbiter of truth.
Apple is certainly to be avoided. What Apple does to its users is also an instance of a much larger problem—proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software—and we should all avoid nonfree software virtually all of the time. The only exception is for those who are reverse engineering the software to write a free replacement, but this requires controlled circumstances and is highly unlikely to come into play for most computer users. For most computer users proprietors and service providers are likely best avoided: Netflix treats users no better (movie DRM is rampant, Netflix's website conveys nonfree software to its users), nor do many popular game publishers, or any of a number of other software proprietors. This has been true for decades.
However services aren't free or nonfree, they raise different issues, and one needs to be clear to separate the benefits and harms services provide from the software used with the service. It's possible the harms of the service depend on nonfree software. I wouldn't give Apple money for a chance to possibly watch a movie even if iTunes were free software or if I could use a different free software program to interact with the iTunes service. I don't like the tracking that comes with streaming media, I don't like the nonfree software typically used to access streaming media, and I don't want the other software involved in typical use of the temporarily-accessed media (such as remotely erasing copies of books and promising never to do this again unless ordered to by the state, both of which Amazon did). I much prefer structural analysis which lets me know what other parties are capable of doing (whether they use their power or not) and looking into how they treat their customers and business partners. Hence I'm more likely to read books (not DRM-riddled eBooks) in privacy whenever and wherever I choose.
There is no reason to trust either a tracker (a more honest name for a mobile phone or cell phone along the lines of the time-honored wisdom of calling things by their proper names—we should recognize what those devices do most). There is no reason to trust the Echo or Home spy speakers either. The same reason applies—users don't control their computers when those computers running proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software. There's nothing to be gained in a distraction over which computer is more trustworthy. The goal should be to respect all computer users' software freedom for all of their computers. No matter what network analysis reveals about any of the spy speakers today (and no matter how thorough the analysis is) because that result could be rendered obsolete as quickly as Amazon can get Echo devices to install a software update (the Amazon Echo appears to have a universal backdoor as it installs updates automatically). The FSF looked into this and remarked "We have found nothing explicitly documenting the lack of any way to disable remote changes to the software, so we are not completely sure there isn't one, but it seems pretty clear."
As for evidence of turning the Amazon Echo into a listening device, it appears this was done by a party other than Amazon. Again on this the FSF remarks, "It was very difficult for them to do this. The job would be much easier for Amazon. And if some government such as China or the US told Amazon to do this, or cease to sell the product in that country, do you think Amazon would have the moral fiber to say no?". Amazon is the same organization that remotely erased people's legally-acquired books about which the FSF remarked
One of the books erased was 1984, by George Orwell. Amazon responded to criticism by saying it would delete books only following orders from the state. However, that policy didn't last. In 2012 it wiped a user's Kindle-Swindle and deleted her account, then offered her kafkaesque "explanations."
The wisdom of software freedom—a user's freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software—remains apt and clear: proprietary software is untrustworthy by default.
I consider that an attempt to bamboozle people into believing that politics is something to be avoided or an attempt to fool people into believing that one can "keep politics separated from [one's] work". Such a thing is not possible as people hold different views on all sorts of things and work together for different reasons.
Right in line with this is an assertion I've only ever read from advocates of the open source development methodology that some licenses (such as the MIT X11, the 3-clause BSD, and the Apache v2.0 licenses) are "apolitical" whereas the GNU GPLs (v2, v3, and the AGPLs) are "political". And this is typically said in a context which tries to demean use or defense of the relevant GPL. It's no accident that the former set are lax permissive, non-copyleft, or (as free software activist Richard Stallman aptly puts it) "pushover" licenses which all allow proprietary derivatives and these GNU GPLs do not allow proprietary derivatives. It's also no accident that large proprietary firms are fans of the open source development methodology. They stand to benefit when people develop powerful useful software and license it to allow for proprietary derivatives.
A better and more useful observation is that politics are an inescapable part of life, it's better to understand what's really going on and why (typically uncovered by asking 'who benefits?'), and that different political views are not the same as an absence of politics.
They don't care whether the ARM chips would have been better or not. Letting Microsoft choose ARM chips would be an admission of defeat.
Better for whom? Better for what? "Better" is vague and needs explication to understand whose perspective is being used for comparison. This story only comes up because Microsoft Windows is proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software; only Microsoft can legally inspect, modify, and share that OS so only Microsoft controls on which architectures it runs. That's not in the user's interests at all. Users are not well served because of a direct and intentional effect of monopoly control inherent in all proprietary software. Microsoft is thus a symptom of a much larger and more pernicious problem—a lack of software freedom.
The cure is software freedom. Free software—software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify—can and are ported to any architecture users want to use. We already have GNU/Linux running on ARM-designed chipsets and chipsets where the user gets completely free software firmware such as the high-end POWER systems and older Intel systems that don't have their backdoor (pitched as a sysadmin convenience). From software freedom one gets the freedom to meaningfully vet, improve, and distribute the software while running the improved software the whole time. That's worth paying extra for, that's worth abandoning vendors like Intel and AMD who apparently don't agree, and anyone who actually believes in the inherently undemocratic "voting with one's dollar" line (where wealthy people get more "votes" than poor people) will pick free systems such as the systems featured in the FSF's Respects Your Freedom campaign.
Software freedom; the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share published computer software plus user's vigilance and not installing stuff one really doesn't need.
Is there a mechanism in place to ensure no malware makes it into Firefox add-ons that are published on the Mozilla site?
We know of no perfect defense against malware. As this essay points out, "We who present free software as a defense against malware do not say it is a perfect defense. No perfect defense is known. We don't say the community will deter malware without fail.". The best defense we have is to run only free software and to support software freedom for its own sake, as a good unto itself. This is a big part of the reason why Firefox (which can be made free) is so important a browser and why other popular browsers (regardless of their developmental claims) aren't trustworthy. Other popular browsers are nonfree, user-subjugating, proprietary software and there's a lot of proprietary malware.
What you need is software freedom: the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software. Developmental methodology won't get you the provable security of free software and it won't necessarily get you the freedom to make your computer do what you want it to do by following your instructions.
It would be possible to come up with a browser that worked as you described but was proprietary. Such a browser would be as untrustworthy as other proprietary malware proves to be (not just Google's proprietary software either; there's plenty of proprietary malware to choose from, this is a structural problem with all proprietary software). With proprietary software it hardly matters if malware comes about through an engineering accident or on purpose because either way even the capable and willing users are forbidden from doing anything to help themselves to fix the problem, or to help their community by distributing a fixed version. A defensible developmental methodology is nice as far as it goes, but that doesn't go far enough to get societies what we need. What we need is software freedom.
Maybe they learned that enough people on corporate repeater sites like these will dance the DRM (digital restrictions management because I side with the user class) two-step: when something isn't yet implemented, push for its need absent any evidence that such need exists. Ignore that we need not think above business above all else, and ignore that even within that all-too-limited business-first framing businesses existed and worked at least as well without DRM. Later, if the DRM is implemented but not yet popular, talk about the DRM as if it were a well-established standard only fools speak up against (the "deplorables" of the tech world). People who seek to control the computers they own, perhaps, but people who have a long history of seeing how badly DRM recipients are treated. Thus DRM ends up being given the red carpet from mere idea to early implementation as if it were always in our interest (DRM is never in our interest) and we'd be wise to accept yet another loss of software freedom (as DRM implementations require proprietary, nonfree, user-subjugating software).
How much more important security is with a self-driving car where a hacker could literally drive a car
That sounds like another great reason to never get into a self-driving car. Even if someone you trust is at the wheel the software can easily remove them from gaining/retaining control of the car.
"Opening security code to other car manufacturers" (as per the language used in the/. headline) simultaneously exposes a problem with the open source development methodology (it's not about software freedom, users included) and points to a conflict self-driving car manufacturers and distributors aren't terribly interested to get you to consider—various authorities (police, FBI, etc.) want you in a vehicle they can more easily lock you into and commandeer.
Software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share published computer software) would work against outside controlling interests by giving you the keys (pun intended) to control your car to the limits of your expertise and willingness to learn or hire someone to work on your behalf. You could choose to let some authority control your car or you could edit out the code which gives anyone else that power and retain control of your car. After all, any free software activist will tell you it's your car therefore it's your computer in that car. We've seen what proprietary software interests think of your health and safety. I don't think we need to wait for more evidence that they don't have our interests in mind. We all deserve software freedom for all of our computers.
...or learn something closer to the real numbers later. As I pointed out earlier these stories follow a pattern and part of that pattern is to lowball the first press release of the number of adversely affected parties. Comcast will likely join the ranks of Equifax, Yahoo, and Hyatt.
Sorry I'll have to pass how Firefox these days. They are making to many decisions that really should be mine not there's.
It's a shame you're reaching such a radical decision with no clear indication of how you'll achieve this desired end. The other popular browsers (Edge, Safari, Chrome, or Opera) are proprietary (nonfree software, user-subjugating software). So without more information it seems like you're likely going to choose a browser that will, ironically, give you considerably less control over your browser and you'll end up making a choice to have fewer "decisions that really should be mine not [theirs]". You're overreacting in response to something that is literally a preference change away (as far as we know now). Encrypted DNS lookups could be a very good thing, but pushing users into using a particular DNS server is bad and choosing an organization with a track record for going back on their promises (as Cloudflare is famous for doing) makes this decision worse.
But regardless of the change or how easy it is to switch the behavior back to using only your preferred DNS server and never informing an unwanted third-party about your browsing, the saving grace of Firefox remains the same: Firefox is licensed such that one can make a free derivative browser (as others have done). We're all allowed to inspect the code, make changes, run the now-trusted version, and help others by distributing a derivative browser. You can't legally do any of that with other popular browsers.
We make free software better by improving it and using the improved versions, not abandoning free software when it becomes inconvenient or undesirable. The privacy you obviously, and rightly, want to keep depends on software freedom.
For expert users and IT pros accustomed to having fine-grained control over the update process, these changes might seem wrenching and even draconian...
DRM, jailing, tyrannical control, surveillance, interference with ordinary activities, and sabotage are all there. When and if Microsoft deems it time for Windows users to take their updates without warning or opportunity for delay (including enterprise users), Microsoft will do so. This isn't unique to Microsoft either, this is part of an ongoing pattern of which Microsoft is but one proprietor wielding this control. Proprietors get to make these decisions stick based on your willingness to submit to their authority; you determine the limit of their control over your system by how long you'll let proprietary software (such as most of Microsoft's software) be installed on your computer. You can choose to favor software freedom instead, even if it means giving up some conveniences and learning new things. In doing so you take a step in the direction of controlling your computer and getting back the power you deserve over your computer.
How long will Disney's investors tolerate Disney's ongoing mismanagement? Disney came to the Internet late (like Microsoft did with the web), Disney reportedly paid George Lucas a lot of money for a franchise that has been described as "creatively bankrupt since 1983" (which I'd say is about right), and Disney mistreats the public via policy changes (the last copyright term extension was chiefly a power grab and widely known to have been driven by Disney). Now Disney is letting Turner come to them and ask "What's this renegotiation over rights worth to you?" based on a renegotiation for rights Turner doesn't have to accept at all?
Great to know, a list of software that doesn't contain US government sanctioned backdoors. If the Pentagon doesn't like it, then you can be 99% sure it values your privacy and doesn't harvest your private data.
Actually the irony is that you can not be sure of that at all precisely for the same reason we can not trust so much of the software on and off this Pentagon list. Your post is currently moderated as "Interesting" but would be better moderated as "Funny" because it might be a joke, but it certainly isn't true.
The way we come to trust a program is by examining its source code, then modifying that program to suit our needs, running the version of the program we trust, and we can help our community by distributing a copy of the program and its source code under a free software license. These are the four freedoms of free software—software users are free to run, inspect, modify, and share for any reason even commercially. Therefore free software is worth trusting; when those who are skilled and motivated to do the vetting do that work, they can come to trust that software. Those who trust their efforts can get copies of programs from them.
Nonfree software (proprietary, user-subjugating software) is frequently malware and is untrustworthy by default. We don't know what's in it and we're unable to inspect its source code. This means we can't "be 99% sure it values your privacy and doesn't harvest your private data". Perhaps it does that but is part of a malware scheme separate from the US Government and American corporate malware schemes we've come to learn about. We also don't know if they have "US government sanctioned backdoors" but direct the spied-upon data somewhere else. If we find out a proprietary program is malware we can't do anything to fix that program (modification is not legally allowed), and even if we modify a copy of the binary we can't legally distribute a copy of that fixed binary to others to help our community.
Therefore this list doesn't help us evaluate trustworthiness at all. At best it uses a proxy for trustworthiness—nationality (if that even means anything, considering software development firms hire worldwide): the nationality of people or an organization that had something to do with writing the code. But that's not terribly helpful. If the NSA hired a contractor to write a program, then released that program as free software, we could vet that program's source code and that code might be useful to us in the free world despite that the code came from the NSA (which is justifiably widely untrusted in so many of their other activities). In another example we're told that Apple's iTunes contained a security flaw that went unpatched for years and "allowed intelligence agencies and police to hack into users' computers for more than three years". I'm guessing people working with both the NSA and Apple come from many countries.
Mozilla Is Working On a Chrome-Like 'Site Isolation' Feature For Firefox
If Firefox's implementation will be free software (or something that can easily become free software), Firefox will continue to allow anyone to inspect, modify, and share the software even commercially. This leads those who do such work to personally trust the code because they know what's in that code and if they find something they don't like (no matter how that is defined) they can improve the code (or get someone they trust to do this for them) and then they can distribute the improved code to help the community (including non-programmers, the majority of computer users). This also helps explain why other browsers including the Tor Browser derive from free software browsers such as Firefox.
Chrome, on the other hand, is nonfree software (proprietary, user-subjugating software); software which does not respect a user's software freedom. Therefore we can't determine all of what Chrome does, and if we find out it does something we don't like we have no permission to improve Chrome and distribute an improved version. Proprietary software developers are in a position of power over their users, which is an injustice to the users. So long as Chrome remains unvettable by its users Chrome remains untrustworthy by default. As the Free Software Foundation rightly points out, proprietary software is often malware: "the initial injustice of proprietary software often leads to further injustices: malicious functionalities". Any further assessment of Chrome means looking at proxies for its trustworthiness instead of going to the natural and logical place to make this determination—a program's source code. Then we get to the reputation of its developer—Google—a known participant in international mass surveillance (per Edward Snowden's leaks). It makes no sense to talk about the security and privacy benefits that come from a feature such as site isolation while relying on an inherently untrustworthy program to look out for your interests. You'll note that popularity of a program or its developer doesn't enter into any serious discussion of how much trust to place in these programs, or whether to recommend their use by others.
Feedbro is nonfree software; according to its license entry in Firefox Add-Ons (where the site you pointed to directs users to get the Feedbro add-on) the license is "All Rights Reserved".
Feedbro tries to convince you they care about your privacy by including "We believe privacy is important so that only you know what sources you follow." on their site but that's completely unverifiable. If they really believed privacy was important, users included, they'd distribute the software as free software -- free for the user to run, inspect, share, and modify.
/. just listed another story where browser add-ons were caught collecting data on users. Developers get away with malware in proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software. It's much harder to get away with that in free software because technically capable and willing users can and do help their community by distributing malware-free copies of the software. This is also ironic in that the main feature that separates Firefox from other browsers is that Firefox is software that can be made into free software very easily (and users have done this with multiple Firefox derivatives).
You should not use Feedbro to do this job. You'd be better off keeping your privacy and using software that respects your software freedom.
So this is the code review that apparently led to releasing so many backdoors up to this point.
The only code review that means anything is the one that comes from the computer's owner or someone the computer owner trusts, not a proprietor's claim to users or media. The only way to implement what computer owners need is to use free software for all of their computer's software without exceptions.
To elaborate on that last point: being dependent on works under the "Microsoft Patent Promise for.NET Libraries and Runtime Components" is considerably dangerous because of the profound limits for software reuse and modification, and because of how limited this "patent promise" is. You cannot deal in the "Microsoft Patent Promise for.NET Libraries and Runtime Components" covered software as you can with free software (which is so named because it respects a user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify the software) under, say, the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3). Here are a few highlights from that article:
"[Under the Microsoft Patent Promise for.NET Libraries and Runtime Components] youâ(TM)re only protected if youâ(TM)re distributing the code "as part of either a.NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a.NET Runtime". So if you add any of the code to another project, then you lose protection and MS reserves the right to use their patents against you.
[...] the protection only applies to a "compliant implementation" of.NET. So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for embedded devices, then your implementation wonâ(TM)t be compliant and the protection doesnâ(TM)t apply to you.
That's a huge danger, particularly to anyone used to working in free software where merging code between compatibly-licensed programs is the norm. Your interests as a user (regardless of your technical skill or willingness to learn technical skills) is far better served by the GPLv3 (also covered at the aforementioned article). The GPLv3 is simply far more straightforward and clear about your permissions, and the GPLv3 grants you what you need to deal fully in the software respecting your software freedom the whole time.
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I'm guessing you'll later define that relationship in terms that attempt to minimize the US empire (such as not pointing out that the US spends so more more than other world powers do on their militaries, and the US loses track of trillions of dollars which would have been better spent on social services that reflect majoritarian values including Medicare for All, a national jobs program, and potable water for all). The US is what Martin Luther King referred to it as, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". So many of the threats Americans face are reactions to American state belligerence. It's worth asking, as Glenn Greenwald did, why the people of Brazil, Chile, and other large and monied countries don't face these retaliatory attacks as Americans do. He points to a 2004 report commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld on terrorism (suggesting listeners look up those keywords online to find the report) and says you'll find that Rumsfeld was told the attackers hate America for its policies, not "hating us for our freedoms" or "hate us because we're involved in a religious war because they have this religion that hypnotizes them into committing violence" (quotes from Greenwald). Chomsky points out that this report was a repeat of a National Security Council document from 1958 commissioned by President Eisenhower when Eisenhower asked "why is there a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world, not from the governments but from the populations?" (quoting Chomsky). Chomsky summarizes the telling answer:
We all should work for peace now, not wait for undefined others to do the heavy lifting as the thread-starting poster wrote. That overvalued post is indistinguishable from excusing empire-building, predator strikes (extrajudicial assassinations as the US does in its drone war), and endless military spending while Americans go without and die.
This issue has to do with patent law, not copyright law. So it's important to look at how Microsoft uses patent law to appear to be conciliatory while retaining considerable power. Microsoft has already demonstrated a preference for what Richard Stallman rightly calls "pushover" free software licenses—non-copyleft licenses such as the new BSD and MIT X11 license. Microsoft picks such licenses not for some inchoate disagreement with the GNU GPL as you stated but because those licenses don't stop Microsoft from doing more of what they did with their patent licence for .NET core. That license is so limited one can't do valuable things such as sharing code across projects and modifying code in ways we find useful to us without risking losing a patent infringement lawsuit from Microsoft.
In Microsoft's patent license for .NET core, "you're only protected if you're distributing the code "as part of either a .NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a .NET Runtime"". So if you add any of the code to another project, then you lose protection and MS reserves the right to use their patents against you.". The GNU GPL, by contrast, would have protected you from this, allowing you to use the covered code in another project and retain your software freedom.
As the article also points out, Microsoft's patent license only applies under very limited conditions, "the protection only applies to a "compliant implementation" of .NET. So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for embedded devices, then your implementation won't be compliant and the protection doesn't apply to you."
We don't know for sure if one would gain an implicit patent license with code distributed under the MIT X11 license but we do know one would get license to do as they need or want under the GNU GPLv3 because the text of the license says so:
The language of GPLv2 section 7 applies here as well.
So if you're looking to use your software freedom, pick a license that does the job of ensuring those rights will be there when you need them by spelling out those rights explicitly; right now that's the GNU GPLv2 or later. I suspect that it is this consideration for users, plus Brad Kuhn's keen knowledge of the GNU GPLs, and practical value in licensing compatibly with the Linux kernel that lead him to recommend licensing under GNU GPLv2 or later.
If the corporate narrative were true you'd expect there to be no increase in privacy-focused search engine proxies, after all people just don't care (or so we're told). It's interesting how this contradicts the (almost entirely) corporate tech press narrative often repeated here: that people don't value their privacy. We're told some variation of that establishment-defending excuse on corporate repeater sites like this one whenever someone finds it necessary to stress a privacy-preserving alternative not found in the corporate media (such as bringing up the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software, or valuing free software for its own sake as well as the practical outcomes such as helping users preserve their privacy and more fully control their own computers).
This strikes me as another example of how hard it is for the corporate media, their sycophants, and their stooges on sites like these to promote the fiction that non-freedom and its consequences are good for us. That we should think of proprietary software on (what are ostensibly) our computers and the amount of data we give services as right and proper. That we're better off understanding things in terms of short-term values like financial cost and convenience, and that anyone who dares to raise any other values is rightly outside the bounds of allowable debate.
Here's one big difference: Microsoft's C# compiler (licensed under the Apache 2.0 license) is a way to get its users into becoming dependent on the patent-encumbered .NET (as quoted in the /. summary, the article said "Of course, once you are building an API for the broad C# community, it is kind of a slam-dunk that it should be a .NET API, implemented in C#."). Apache 2.0 is more recommendable than other permissive licenses but Apache 2.0 doesn't look out for your interests in modifying and distributing modified software as well as the GNU GPLv3 does. .NET is still a patent-encumbered trap. I can't say the same for GCC (licensed under the GNU GPLv3 or later with the GCC Runtime Library Exception.
A reminder of what limits you're taking on by using .NET:
This is very different from code licensed under the GNU GPLv3:
Precisely; and that's a big part of the problem with marketing terms—they are designed to tell you nothing substantive. This seems particularly useless when pitching a computer for sale (pre-orders are said to be on offer in October) and speaking to what is likely a technically literate audience that values being in control of their own computers. I know what features I'd want in a modern, powerful computer but I can't begin to evaluate if this computer is worth considering.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) put together criteria by which hardware ought to be evaluated however this organization predates the development methodology brought up by the term "open source" by over a decade. The FSF has a history of doing work with published, carefully structured definitions (such as their list of "Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing") based on critical thinking about relevant technological and social issues. For example, the FSF doesn't want to be lumped in with "open source" because they stand for different values.
I'd like to see this new system be evaluated for the Respects Your Freedom campaign; I'd find that useful information to help me determine whether I should order one of these computers. But right now all I see are vague terms and an ad campaign that doesn't illuminate what's really going on offer.
When will fans stop paying for the bad treatment they receive in response?
Disney was a principal figure in a US copyright term extension (which was exported abroad), much to the chagrin of Americans and the world. Bringing this up at that time elicited some responses like one of the highly-upvoted posts in this /. thread saying they'll not buy more of the products. But when the next Star Wars work comes out, fans here who know of the role Disney played then (which people are still seeing the effects of) will pay to see the new Star Wars thing.
A Star Trek copyright holder puts down ridiculous and provably unnecessary restrictions on making derivative Star Trek works (which didn't exist for most of Star Trek's existence). It doesn't really matter how this came to be or if you want to blame one party (say, Axanar) for speaking out of turn. What matters is what you're going to do in response, particularly if you believe that you have some say along the logic of "voting with your money".
The opportunities to show some spine abound. The question is whether you're going to reject paying for Star Trek stuff on the basis of being treated badly by Star Trek's copyright holders or show them that you'll knuckle under?
We can't be so sure, and it's generally unwise to consider only the company's word for this. But you have to read more news beyond this story to understand the debate over the issue. Ironically, you'd have to read stories that we're told aren't so easy to find if you depend on Google to bring them to your attention.
According to RT, one of the adversely affected parties:
Google later wrote "a letter to Russia's media watchdog saying despite Eric Schmidt's recent comments about "de-ranking" RT and Sputnik, he referred only to "efforts to improve search quality." The company claimed it doesn't "re-rank" individual websites."
But RT isn't alone in this claim. RT also reports that other sites have experienced similar de-ranking.
Black Agenda Report has also raised this as an issue. This simply isn't as clear-cut as your summary would claim.
Apple is certainly to be avoided. What Apple does to its users is also an instance of a much larger problem—proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software—and we should all avoid nonfree software virtually all of the time. The only exception is for those who are reverse engineering the software to write a free replacement, but this requires controlled circumstances and is highly unlikely to come into play for most computer users. For most computer users proprietors and service providers are likely best avoided: Netflix treats users no better (movie DRM is rampant, Netflix's website conveys nonfree software to its users), nor do many popular game publishers, or any of a number of other software proprietors. This has been true for decades.
However services aren't free or nonfree, they raise different issues, and one needs to be clear to separate the benefits and harms services provide from the software used with the service. It's possible the harms of the service depend on nonfree software. I wouldn't give Apple money for a chance to possibly watch a movie even if iTunes were free software or if I could use a different free software program to interact with the iTunes service. I don't like the tracking that comes with streaming media, I don't like the nonfree software typically used to access streaming media, and I don't want the other software involved in typical use of the temporarily-accessed media (such as remotely erasing copies of books and promising never to do this again unless ordered to by the state, both of which Amazon did). I much prefer structural analysis which lets me know what other parties are capable of doing (whether they use their power or not) and looking into how they treat their customers and business partners. Hence I'm more likely to read books (not DRM-riddled eBooks) in privacy whenever and wherever I choose.
There is no reason to trust either a tracker (a more honest name for a mobile phone or cell phone along the lines of the time-honored wisdom of calling things by their proper names—we should recognize what those devices do most). There is no reason to trust the Echo or Home spy speakers either. The same reason applies—users don't control their computers when those computers running proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software. There's nothing to be gained in a distraction over which computer is more trustworthy. The goal should be to respect all computer users' software freedom for all of their computers. No matter what network analysis reveals about any of the spy speakers today (and no matter how thorough the analysis is) because that result could be rendered obsolete as quickly as Amazon can get Echo devices to install a software update (the Amazon Echo appears to have a universal backdoor as it installs updates automatically). The FSF looked into this and remarked "We have found nothing explicitly documenting the lack of any way to disable remote changes to the software, so we are not completely sure there isn't one, but it seems pretty clear."
As for evidence of turning the Amazon Echo into a listening device, it appears this was done by a party other than Amazon. Again on this the FSF remarks, "It was very difficult for them to do this. The job would be much easier for Amazon. And if some government such as China or the US told Amazon to do this, or cease to sell the product in that country, do you think Amazon would have the moral fiber to say no?". Amazon is the same organization that remotely erased people's legally-acquired books about which the FSF remarked
The wisdom of software freedom—a user's freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software—remains apt and clear: proprietary software is untrustworthy by default.
I consider that an attempt to bamboozle people into believing that politics is something to be avoided or an attempt to fool people into believing that one can "keep politics separated from [one's] work". Such a thing is not possible as people hold different views on all sorts of things and work together for different reasons.
Right in line with this is an assertion I've only ever read from advocates of the open source development methodology that some licenses (such as the MIT X11, the 3-clause BSD, and the Apache v2.0 licenses) are "apolitical" whereas the GNU GPLs (v2, v3, and the AGPLs) are "political". And this is typically said in a context which tries to demean use or defense of the relevant GPL. It's no accident that the former set are lax permissive, non-copyleft, or (as free software activist Richard Stallman aptly puts it) "pushover" licenses which all allow proprietary derivatives and these GNU GPLs do not allow proprietary derivatives. It's also no accident that large proprietary firms are fans of the open source development methodology. They stand to benefit when people develop powerful useful software and license it to allow for proprietary derivatives.
A better and more useful observation is that politics are an inescapable part of life, it's better to understand what's really going on and why (typically uncovered by asking 'who benefits?'), and that different political views are not the same as an absence of politics.
Better for whom? Better for what? "Better" is vague and needs explication to understand whose perspective is being used for comparison. This story only comes up because Microsoft Windows is proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software; only Microsoft can legally inspect, modify, and share that OS so only Microsoft controls on which architectures it runs. That's not in the user's interests at all. Users are not well served because of a direct and intentional effect of monopoly control inherent in all proprietary software. Microsoft is thus a symptom of a much larger and more pernicious problem—a lack of software freedom.
The cure is software freedom. Free software—software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify—can and are ported to any architecture users want to use. We already have GNU/Linux running on ARM-designed chipsets and chipsets where the user gets completely free software firmware such as the high-end POWER systems and older Intel systems that don't have their backdoor (pitched as a sysadmin convenience). From software freedom one gets the freedom to meaningfully vet, improve, and distribute the software while running the improved software the whole time. That's worth paying extra for, that's worth abandoning vendors like Intel and AMD who apparently don't agree, and anyone who actually believes in the inherently undemocratic "voting with one's dollar" line (where wealthy people get more "votes" than poor people) will pick free systems such as the systems featured in the FSF's Respects Your Freedom campaign.
Software freedom; the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share published computer software plus user's vigilance and not installing stuff one really doesn't need.
We know of no perfect defense against malware. As this essay points out, "We who present free software as a defense against malware do not say it is a perfect defense. No perfect defense is known. We don't say the community will deter malware without fail.". The best defense we have is to run only free software and to support software freedom for its own sake, as a good unto itself. This is a big part of the reason why Firefox (which can be made free) is so important a browser and why other popular browsers (regardless of their developmental claims) aren't trustworthy. Other popular browsers are nonfree, user-subjugating, proprietary software and there's a lot of proprietary malware.
What you need is software freedom: the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software. Developmental methodology won't get you the provable security of free software and it won't necessarily get you the freedom to make your computer do what you want it to do by following your instructions.
It would be possible to come up with a browser that worked as you described but was proprietary. Such a browser would be as untrustworthy as other proprietary malware proves to be (not just Google's proprietary software either; there's plenty of proprietary malware to choose from, this is a structural problem with all proprietary software). With proprietary software it hardly matters if malware comes about through an engineering accident or on purpose because either way even the capable and willing users are forbidden from doing anything to help themselves to fix the problem, or to help their community by distributing a fixed version. A defensible developmental methodology is nice as far as it goes, but that doesn't go far enough to get societies what we need. What we need is software freedom.
RT shows these claims including a child from this contest saying much the same thing. This doesn't legitimate the ongoing Russiagate accusations but it helps to further other ends.
Maybe they learned that enough people on corporate repeater sites like these will dance the DRM (digital restrictions management because I side with the user class) two-step: when something isn't yet implemented, push for its need absent any evidence that such need exists. Ignore that we need not think above business above all else, and ignore that even within that all-too-limited business-first framing businesses existed and worked at least as well without DRM. Later, if the DRM is implemented but not yet popular, talk about the DRM as if it were a well-established standard only fools speak up against (the "deplorables" of the tech world). People who seek to control the computers they own, perhaps, but people who have a long history of seeing how badly DRM recipients are treated. Thus DRM ends up being given the red carpet from mere idea to early implementation as if it were always in our interest (DRM is never in our interest) and we'd be wise to accept yet another loss of software freedom (as DRM implementations require proprietary, nonfree, user-subjugating software).
That sounds like another great reason to never get into a self-driving car. Even if someone you trust is at the wheel the software can easily remove them from gaining/retaining control of the car.
"Opening security code to other car manufacturers" (as per the language used in the /. headline) simultaneously exposes a problem with the open source development methodology (it's not about software freedom, users included) and points to a conflict self-driving car manufacturers and distributors aren't terribly interested to get you to consider—various authorities (police, FBI, etc.) want you in a vehicle they can more easily lock you into and commandeer.
Software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share published computer software) would work against outside controlling interests by giving you the keys (pun intended) to control your car to the limits of your expertise and willingness to learn or hire someone to work on your behalf. You could choose to let some authority control your car or you could edit out the code which gives anyone else that power and retain control of your car. After all, any free software activist will tell you it's your car therefore it's your computer in that car. We've seen what proprietary software interests think of your health and safety. I don't think we need to wait for more evidence that they don't have our interests in mind. We all deserve software freedom for all of our computers.
...or learn something closer to the real numbers later. As I pointed out earlier these stories follow a pattern and part of that pattern is to lowball the first press release of the number of adversely affected parties. Comcast will likely join the ranks of Equifax, Yahoo, and Hyatt.
It's a shame you're reaching such a radical decision with no clear indication of how you'll achieve this desired end. The other popular browsers (Edge, Safari, Chrome, or Opera) are proprietary (nonfree software, user-subjugating software). So without more information it seems like you're likely going to choose a browser that will, ironically, give you considerably less control over your browser and you'll end up making a choice to have fewer "decisions that really should be mine not [theirs]". You're overreacting in response to something that is literally a preference change away (as far as we know now). Encrypted DNS lookups could be a very good thing, but pushing users into using a particular DNS server is bad and choosing an organization with a track record for going back on their promises (as Cloudflare is famous for doing) makes this decision worse.
But regardless of the change or how easy it is to switch the behavior back to using only your preferred DNS server and never informing an unwanted third-party about your browsing, the saving grace of Firefox remains the same: Firefox is licensed such that one can make a free derivative browser (as others have done). We're all allowed to inspect the code, make changes, run the now-trusted version, and help others by distributing a derivative browser. You can't legally do any of that with other popular browsers.
We make free software better by improving it and using the improved versions, not abandoning free software when it becomes inconvenient or undesirable. The privacy you obviously, and rightly, want to keep depends on software freedom.
How proprietors use their power over the user power varies and perhaps increasingly obtuse, but is completely explainable in terms corporate media mostly doesn't dare to explain even as it documents a proprietors' excesses: the power is firmly rooted in denying users software freedom—the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share published computer software. Proprietary software users get as much control as the proprietors let them have. Microsoft has shown its users a taste of their power before such as when Windows 10 ignored user's privacy settings (including sending identifiable information to Microsoft, even if a user turns off its Bing search and Cortana features, and activates the privacy-protection settings) or when Microsoft forcibly and immediately imposed "upgrades" to Windows 10.
DRM, jailing, tyrannical control, surveillance, interference with ordinary activities, and sabotage are all there. When and if Microsoft deems it time for Windows users to take their updates without warning or opportunity for delay (including enterprise users), Microsoft will do so. This isn't unique to Microsoft either, this is part of an ongoing pattern of which Microsoft is but one proprietor wielding this control. Proprietors get to make these decisions stick based on your willingness to submit to their authority; you determine the limit of their control over your system by how long you'll let proprietary software (such as most of Microsoft's software) be installed on your computer. You can choose to favor software freedom instead, even if it means giving up some conveniences and learning new things. In doing so you take a step in the direction of controlling your computer and getting back the power you deserve over your computer.
How long will Disney's investors tolerate Disney's ongoing mismanagement? Disney came to the Internet late (like Microsoft did with the web), Disney reportedly paid George Lucas a lot of money for a franchise that has been described as "creatively bankrupt since 1983" (which I'd say is about right), and Disney mistreats the public via policy changes (the last copyright term extension was chiefly a power grab and widely known to have been driven by Disney). Now Disney is letting Turner come to them and ask "What's this renegotiation over rights worth to you?" based on a renegotiation for rights Turner doesn't have to accept at all?
Actually the irony is that you can not be sure of that at all precisely for the same reason we can not trust so much of the software on and off this Pentagon list. Your post is currently moderated as "Interesting" but would be better moderated as "Funny" because it might be a joke, but it certainly isn't true.
The way we come to trust a program is by examining its source code, then modifying that program to suit our needs, running the version of the program we trust, and we can help our community by distributing a copy of the program and its source code under a free software license. These are the four freedoms of free software—software users are free to run, inspect, modify, and share for any reason even commercially. Therefore free software is worth trusting; when those who are skilled and motivated to do the vetting do that work, they can come to trust that software. Those who trust their efforts can get copies of programs from them.
Nonfree software (proprietary, user-subjugating software) is frequently malware and is untrustworthy by default. We don't know what's in it and we're unable to inspect its source code. This means we can't "be 99% sure it values your privacy and doesn't harvest your private data". Perhaps it does that but is part of a malware scheme separate from the US Government and American corporate malware schemes we've come to learn about. We also don't know if they have "US government sanctioned backdoors" but direct the spied-upon data somewhere else. If we find out a proprietary program is malware we can't do anything to fix that program (modification is not legally allowed), and even if we modify a copy of the binary we can't legally distribute a copy of that fixed binary to others to help our community.
Therefore this list doesn't help us evaluate trustworthiness at all. At best it uses a proxy for trustworthiness—nationality (if that even means anything, considering software development firms hire worldwide): the nationality of people or an organization that had something to do with writing the code. But that's not terribly helpful. If the NSA hired a contractor to write a program, then released that program as free software, we could vet that program's source code and that code might be useful to us in the free world despite that the code came from the NSA (which is justifiably widely untrusted in so many of their other activities). In another example we're told that Apple's iTunes contained a security flaw that went unpatched for years and "allowed intelligence agencies and police to hack into users' computers for more than three years". I'm guessing people working with both the NSA and Apple come from many countries.
If Firefox's implementation will be free software (or something that can easily become free software), Firefox will continue to allow anyone to inspect, modify, and share the software even commercially. This leads those who do such work to personally trust the code because they know what's in that code and if they find something they don't like (no matter how that is defined) they can improve the code (or get someone they trust to do this for them) and then they can distribute the improved code to help the community (including non-programmers, the majority of computer users). This also helps explain why other browsers including the Tor Browser derive from free software browsers such as Firefox.
Chrome, on the other hand, is nonfree software (proprietary, user-subjugating software); software which does not respect a user's software freedom. Therefore we can't determine all of what Chrome does, and if we find out it does something we don't like we have no permission to improve Chrome and distribute an improved version. Proprietary software developers are in a position of power over their users, which is an injustice to the users. So long as Chrome remains unvettable by its users Chrome remains untrustworthy by default. As the Free Software Foundation rightly points out, proprietary software is often malware: "the initial injustice of proprietary software often leads to further injustices: malicious functionalities". Any further assessment of Chrome means looking at proxies for its trustworthiness instead of going to the natural and logical place to make this determination—a program's source code. Then we get to the reputation of its developer—Google—a known participant in international mass surveillance (per Edward Snowden's leaks). It makes no sense to talk about the security and privacy benefits that come from a feature such as site isolation while relying on an inherently untrustworthy program to look out for your interests. You'll note that popularity of a program or its developer doesn't enter into any serious discussion of how much trust to place in these programs, or whether to recommend their use by others.
Feedbro is nonfree software; according to its license entry in Firefox Add-Ons (where the site you pointed to directs users to get the Feedbro add-on) the license is "All Rights Reserved".
Feedbro tries to convince you they care about your privacy by including "We believe privacy is important so that only you know what sources you follow." on their site but that's completely unverifiable. If they really believed privacy was important, users included, they'd distribute the software as free software -- free for the user to run, inspect, share, and modify.
You should not use Feedbro to do this job. You'd be better off keeping your privacy and using software that respects your software freedom.
So this is the code review that apparently led to releasing so many backdoors up to this point.
The only code review that means anything is the one that comes from the computer's owner or someone the computer owner trusts, not a proprietor's claim to users or media. The only way to implement what computer owners need is to use free software for all of their computer's software without exceptions.
To elaborate on that last point: being dependent on works under the "Microsoft Patent Promise for .NET Libraries and Runtime Components" is considerably dangerous because of the profound limits for software reuse and modification, and because of how limited this "patent promise" is. You cannot deal in the "Microsoft Patent Promise for .NET Libraries and Runtime Components" covered software as you can with free software (which is so named because it respects a user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify the software) under, say, the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3). Here are a few highlights from that article:
That's a huge danger, particularly to anyone used to working in free software where merging code between compatibly-licensed programs is the norm. Your interests as a user (regardless of your technical skill or willingness to learn technical skills) is far better served by the GPLv3 (also covered at the aforementioned article). The GPLv3 is simply far more straightforward and clear about your permissions, and the GPLv3 grants you what you need to deal fully in the software respecting your software freedom the whole time.