VMWare is proprietary, WINE is Free VMWare is costly, WINE is free VMWare requires a Windows license, WINE is independant of Windows VMWare is by design slower than Windows, WINE is potentially faster than Windows VMWare isolates its programs from the host machine, WINE programs can interact with programs on the host machine.
VMWare is better for some things, but it's completely different than WINE, there's plenty of room for both.
The company is called Electrofuel, they're a Canadian company with as far as I know, they have no financial connection to IBM. IBM is merely one of the laptop brands they support. Check out their site, lots of good info.
Right, and we haven't even dealt with the "Mixing" stage yet. The way I see it, given a small number of nucleotides, you aren't even guaranteed a full sample space. If you have just enough nucleotides to make a full sample space, Mixing will be slow as the number of free nucleotides drops to zero, and there's no way to prevent duplicate strands, so you won't get a full space anyway. Increasing the vat will get you faster Mixing, and exponetially more duplicates and wrong answers to check.
As the problems get more complicated, strands are more likely to break, further compounding the situation.
This makes any real DNA-computer solution of the Traveling Salesman look awfully NP to me.
First off, while Priestly does appear to have done some research, apparently he missed researching the definition of "Security Through Obscurity". Large chunks of the article are trying to say STO is essential because you have to keep keys secret. STO refers to systems where algorhithms are kept secret, not keys or data. By extension, if bugs and security holes are kept secret, that too is STO, since it's information about the algorithm. There goes point number 1.
Point number 2 is somewhat valid, if you only need security for a short time, you can get away with STO. However, such situations are rare, and you are just as well off with real security, so why risk STO? Back in WWII, encrypting messages for broadcast was difficult and expensive, so they needed to come up with other ways (Navahos, Enigma, etc.), it no longer is a problem. Speaking of WWII, the German Enigma cypher is a classic example of the utter failure of STO, in a time-limited environment no less.
Point number 3 is not security. Having tripwires in place might be handy against script kiddies, but a well informed hacker can avoid them. Even an uninformed hacker has a statistical chance of avoiding them; just by trying random ports, they might come across the real port before they find any tripwires. Unlike a medieval moat, a digital moat can be just jumped over without any planning or special equipment.
Point number 4 is again based on the just plain wrong "But you keep keys hidden, that's STO" argument, but it makes a few other points as well. Yes, if someone finds a fast way to factor huge products of two primes, public key systems fall apart. Since the best minds in the world have been working on this problem for centuries without finding much, the chance of anyone finding a good solution right away is slim. In the mean time, open, non-STO public key systems with large keys are very secure.
The phony certificate issue is not an issue of "Open Complicated Systems vs STO" it's an issue of "Untrained users can compromise security". Public key systems offer easy ways of protecting against forged certificates, as long as they get used. User training and dillegence is a critical part of any good security system, without it, you don't have security.
The "Swedish Bank Account Number" example isn't an example of STO at all (unless you neglect to mention to anyone that the algorithm is an XOR of a key with the data). It's an issue of key management. On the other hand, using a simple algorithm like XOR would allow a cracker to get some useful information without needing to discover the whole key. More modern security algorithms don't have this hole.
In conclusion, Priestly has shown little understanding of the real issues of security. He has come up with one case where STO is not worse than real security (but also not better), and a bunch of arguments based on misunderstandings that show he should hit some more textbooks.
Looking at the link he gave, the DNA-computer based solution doesn't even claim to be a linear time solution. Given a finite number of paths between TSP points, and assuming the "Mixing" stage takes negligible time, you will get a number of non-unique DNA strands. Each DNA strand can be checked in linear time. The problem can't be solved in linear time.
I see a lot of people (me included) who requested shares under the Affinity/Directed Shares/Red Hat sent you a letter group. None of us got anything. Did anybody who got the letter actually get shares?!?! Is there any way we can find out from E*Trade how many people got shares and how many didn't?
Since WINS is essentially Microsoft's name for their version of NBNS (see RFC1001 and RFC1002), it's probably covered under DHCP's NBNS option (code 44) [see section 8.5]. If that doesn't work, send bug reports to Microsoft:-)
No, if you use SMB with NetBios, you still need WINS, no matter how many nifty tools you get on the internet side. If you want to dump WINS, dump Windows. If you can't do that, dump your Domain Controllers and install Samba on a Linux/BSD/Unix box. Samba's implementation of WINS integrates much better with internet naming systems.
I can picture Mindspring or (shudder) AOL setting up a CNR server for their users, so their users can access common sites and information sans URL. A mercenary ISP could even sell entries in their CNR database.
The Alpha is an established 64-bit standard, and I can understand its manuals. Yes, the Alpha is very good.
I cannot understand the manuals for the Merced. You don't have to. It's the kernel, gcc and glib people who do. Write in C, it's safer.
It is possible, though usually inefficient, to hand-code for the Alpha. It is impossible for the Merced. Hand coding is never impossible. A big pain in the burro, but not impossible.
Alpha already is running Linux. Not so Merced. As the article indicates, Merced is already running Linux, to the extent where Merced exists. We're already ahead of the NT and Monterrey projects for Merced.
Why are we wasting time with the Merced? It is nothing but welfare for Intel. Two reasons. First, we want to support everything, that would include Merced by definition. Second, Merced will have lots of marketting bucks behind it, that will make it popular. We certainly should support the more popular platforms, even if they have deficiencies.
Alpha has been around for years, and it has demonstrated its worth again and again. It is the architecture of the future. I agree.
Who needs Merced? Intel does, to survive the future. The rest of us do, because Merced will make 64 bit platforms popular, and in the computer world, popular becomes inexpensive very quickly.
From the Athlon info at Tom's Hardware it looks like the processor has fewer pipeline quirks than the Pentium line, so K7-specific compiler tricks would be less important. Of course anything big on 3D graphics (or any other FP or Integer matrix applications) should check if it's a K7 and make use of the new, improved 3DNow instructions.
Actually, any version of Linux is infinate in value. If value is coolness/cost and cost=0, then now matter what the coolness is, value is infinity. That also means that if windows were free (it is, how many people actuall BOUGHT a copy of Windows 98?) it would also be infinite in value. Must be something wrong with my equation. Oh Well.
There's nothing wrong with your equation. People get Windows three ways: Retail sales (which are paid for), OEM computer purchases (which are paid for, the cost is just hidden in the cost of the system), and illegal copying (which are free, so infinite in value). In addition, the coolness of Windows is imaginary, so the value of any costly copy of Windows is also imaginary. The only Windows with real value are pirated copies:-).
Likewise, the free developer's release of Be is infinite in value, but the users' versions are not (but they do have real value, not imaginary). Downloading Linux is far more valuable than getting a CD, but only if you have a flat rate internet connection. I think I should stop now.
The piece from Caldera I'm most want them to open is nwclient, that way the community can get it to actually work for once. I got a copy of OpenLinux 2.2 specifically for NDS access months ago, and in their two updates since then, it still won't work for more than a few minutes at a time.
Yeah, they'd have to talk Novell into letting them open it, but having an open client would really help Novell. It won't compromise security, since that's all on the server end for them, and it will allow more users to access Novell servers.
3Dfx makes junky proprietary graphics cards that until recently were faster than everybody else's junky proprietary graphics cards. Now nVidia's Riva TNT2 is faster, and has free (BSD license, but hard to read source) drivers, there's little place left for 3Dfx in my world.
The K7/Athlon can be overclocked. Check out the Kryotech info towards the bottom of this site: AGN Hardware: Athlon Review
They're looking at having an Athlon system running at 1GHz by November. My take is AMD has no problem with overclocking, as long as it's clearly labelled as such.
As far as I can tell (I haven't used either), LinuxPPC is a general purpose distribution, along the same lines as Red Hat, Open Linux or Debian GNU/Linux. Yellow Dog is more targetted for the server market.
OK, let's say that it's three years from now, Linux is on 70% of the machines out there, and most Linux users are just normal folks, small businesspeople, people managing home finance, kids (and adults) playing video games. Practically none of these people care about Free Software, even a little. Would that be enough to make me leave Linux? No. I will use whatever suits me best, and what suits me best is a Free operating sytem that is usable? powerful and flexible. Currently Linux suits me best. Do the millions of people who don't care about freedom make Linux any less Free? No. Any less usable or powerful? Still no. Any less flexible? Probably more flexible. If, say HURD matured and became more powerful and/or flexible, and was just as Free as Linux, I might consider moving, but the presence or absence of millions of "heathens" wouldn't be a deciding factor. Unless the laws change (and they'd have to change in much of the world simultaneously), the Freedom in Linux is intrinsic, it isn't a perception of Freedom, it's built into the package, and you can't just take it away.
As for your other point, yes, I was describing the operational good that comes from Free Software (and sharing knowledge in general). You want to know if Freedom in this sense is intrinsic or operational. Freedom in this sense is just a shorthand for "The Freedom to Share Knowledge". Just to break down the phrase, knowledge would be an intrinsic good; sharing knowledge would be a means of increasing the intrinsic good, knowledge, so it would be technically operational; the freedom to share knowledge would be removing obstacles against increasing the intrinsic good, and also technically operational. So, technically speaking, Freedom is operational, and "Knowledge is intrinsically good" is the axiom on which my whole argument rests. Taken as a whole, "Freedom to Share Knowledge", is intrinsically good, becuase it is an intrinsically good concept (Knowledge) immersed in an environment (Freedom and Sharing) that serves to protect and maximise this concept. So whether "Freedom" is an intrinsic good, or "merely" an operational good depends on semantics, it depends on how narrowly you are asking the question.
Yes, both RMS and ESR are making utilitarian arguments. One major difference, as you noted, is that RMS is explicit about the moral component, I would say that ESR is implicit, he considers Freedom the moral path, but knows that most people don't like having other people tell them about morality, so he dodges the issue deliberately. RMS doesn't care that people don't like hearing hard truths, he tells them anyway. Another major difference is where RMS says that Freedom is important, and created an environment (the GNU project and FSF) where Freedom can flourish, ESR doesn't worry about current developers as much, and focuses his attention outwards. ESR will try to evangelize and push businesses over to his point of view, RMS will just point out what a business is doing wrong (or right) without trying to change them. They've got (almost) the same goal, but very very different ways of trying to achieve it, and a lot of personal baggage that encourages snide comments and bickering between them.
You talk about "the thing desired", and "might get what they wanted" as if there is an end to all this. There is no end, there is no goal. Gathering knowledge is a continuous and endless process. Freedom is part of what's needed to encourage and support this process. It's a part that I focus on because it's the part that's been most lacking and neglected nowadays, particularly in the software world. So, yeah, Freedom is a means not an end, but it's an important means, so it's still about Freedom.
Yeah, you're right on many of your points. However, he does predict a dire future for Linux, he predicts that the Linux community will hate Linux. That's a dire future if you ask me.
You write "if your vehicle became so popular it outran your ideology, would you stick with the vehicle? This author of this article is betting you'll ditch the vehicle. Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with him." I don't understand what you are saying here. If you are saying "If Linux became no longer Free, you would ditch it", I probably would, but I see no way of that happening without major changes to the world today. If you are saying as the original author did, "If Linux became popular, you would ditch it", I certainly would not ditch it just because it became popular.
Now, as for explaining Freedom as if I were defending it in a philosophy class instead of a soapbox, here goes. Note, I am limiting my discussion to Freedom in a software context, which is clearly defined, as opposed to Freedom in the abstract, where there is much dispute over the definition.
Before I talk directly about computers and software, let's look at a simpler, but related situation, a simple tool, say a rock. At one point way back in our evolution, we knew nothing about rocks, they would usually just sit there. If we were unlucky we might stub a toe on one, or one might fall on us in an avalanche. At some point, someone took a rock and realized you can do something with it, perhaps they figured out how to break open nuts, perhaps soften hides, perhaps use it as a weapon, or any one of hundreds of things you can do with rocks that we take for granted today. Regardless, before this person figured out the trick with the rock, hundreds might have figured out the exact same thing, but it didn't matter because nobody shared the knowledge. Once this person shares the knowledge, it has a chance of surviving, it has a chance of becoming part of humanity's arsenal of technology, and spurring on further innovations in other people. The knowledge is not the important thing, the shared knowledge is important.
Given that, if a person (Oog) figures something out, they decide whether or not it's worth telling someone else (Ug). When Ug hears it, they get to decide whether it's worth passing on. Should Oog have the right to prevent Ug from passing on the knowledge? I say no. Knowledge of how to do things is too important, it should not be kept hidden. There is no good way of forcing Oog to share, but once it is shared, Oog should not have the means to coerce Ug to keep quiet about it.
That is how we learned how to use rocks to crush nuts, that is how we learned how to build a machine to remove seeds from cotton, that is how we learned how to tell a computer to edit our letters. It's all the same, the computer is just a tool, and software is just knowing how to tell a computer how to do something.
The shrinkwrap software industry depends on preventing the user from sharing software. Let's us as an example a program to balance your checkbook. A mainstream, shrinkwrap software company will give you the instructions for your computer to balance your checkbook, but they won't let you give those instructions to anyone else. Furthermore they won't let you use their instructions to let you figure out how to tell the computer yourself, and they won't let you modify the instructions to your computer to suit your needs. This is not good for civilization, because it is restricting access to our collective technology. Our society is poorer because of the restrictive license than it would be if it were Free Software.
These arguments apply to all forms of technology, whether it's how to run a computer, or how to suture an artery, or how to run a business. I focus on the software aspects of it because that's what I do, I'm a programmer.
On a personal level, it's pretty obvious that Free Software is a good thing ("Wow! I can use it and it's free! I can share it with my friends!"). I hope I've made it clear that it's a good thing on a societal level, given the assumption that "Technology, that is collective knowledge of how to do things, is a good thing for society". I think that's sufficient to defend Free Software from a philosophical standpoint. If you disagree, let me know.
Slashdot Mirror
VMWare is proprietary, WINE is Free
VMWare is costly, WINE is free
VMWare requires a Windows license, WINE is independant of Windows
VMWare is by design slower than Windows, WINE is potentially faster than Windows
VMWare isolates its programs from the host machine, WINE programs can interact with programs on the host machine.
VMWare is better for some things, but it's completely different than WINE, there's plenty of room for both.
----
The company is called Electrofuel, they're a Canadian company with as far as I know, they have no financial connection to IBM. IBM is merely one of the laptop brands they support. Check out their site, lots of good info.
----
Right, and we haven't even dealt with the "Mixing" stage yet. The way I see it, given a small number of nucleotides, you aren't even guaranteed a full sample space. If you have just enough nucleotides to make a full sample space, Mixing will be slow as the number of free nucleotides drops to zero, and there's no way to prevent duplicate strands, so you won't get a full space anyway. Increasing the vat will get you faster Mixing, and exponetially more duplicates and wrong answers to check.
As the problems get more complicated, strands are more likely to break, further compounding the situation.
This makes any real DNA-computer solution of the Traveling Salesman look awfully NP to me.
----
First off, while Priestly does appear to have done some research, apparently he missed researching the definition of "Security Through Obscurity". Large chunks of the article are trying to say STO is essential because you have to keep keys secret. STO refers to systems where algorhithms are kept secret, not keys or data. By extension, if bugs and security holes are kept secret, that too is STO, since it's information about the algorithm. There goes point number 1.
Point number 2 is somewhat valid, if you only need security for a short time, you can get away with STO. However, such situations are rare, and you are just as well off with real security, so why risk STO? Back in WWII, encrypting messages for broadcast was difficult and expensive, so they needed to come up with other ways (Navahos, Enigma, etc.), it no longer is a problem. Speaking of WWII, the German Enigma cypher is a classic example of the utter failure of STO, in a time-limited environment no less.
Point number 3 is not security. Having tripwires in place might be handy against script kiddies, but a well informed hacker can avoid them. Even an uninformed hacker has a statistical chance of avoiding them; just by trying random ports, they might come across the real port before they find any tripwires. Unlike a medieval moat, a digital moat can be just jumped over without any planning or special equipment.
Point number 4 is again based on the just plain wrong "But you keep keys hidden, that's STO" argument, but it makes a few other points as well. Yes, if someone finds a fast way to factor huge products of two primes, public key systems fall apart. Since the best minds in the world have been working on this problem for centuries without finding much, the chance of anyone finding a good solution right away is slim. In the mean time, open, non-STO public key systems with large keys are very secure.
The phony certificate issue is not an issue of "Open Complicated Systems vs STO" it's an issue of "Untrained users can compromise security". Public key systems offer easy ways of protecting against forged certificates, as long as they get used. User training and dillegence is a critical part of any good security system, without it, you don't have security.
The "Swedish Bank Account Number" example isn't an example of STO at all (unless you neglect to mention to anyone that the algorithm is an XOR of a key with the data). It's an issue of key management. On the other hand, using a simple algorithm like XOR would allow a cracker to get some useful information without needing to discover the whole key. More modern security algorithms don't have this hole.
In conclusion, Priestly has shown little understanding of the real issues of security. He has come up with one case where STO is not worse than real security (but also not better), and a bunch of arguments based on misunderstandings that show he should hit some more textbooks.
----
Looking at the link he gave, the DNA-computer based solution doesn't even claim to be a linear time solution. Given a finite number of paths between TSP points, and assuming the "Mixing" stage takes negligible time, you will get a number of non-unique DNA strands. Each DNA strand can be checked in linear time. The problem can't be solved in linear time.
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Check out Compubrick for some lego keyboards, among other things :-).
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Thank you for this timely info!
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I see a lot of people (me included) who requested shares under the Affinity/Directed Shares/Red Hat sent you a letter group. None of us got anything. Did anybody who got the letter actually get shares?!?! Is there any way we can find out from E*Trade how many people got shares and how many didn't?
----
Since WINS is essentially Microsoft's name for their version of NBNS (see RFC1001 and RFC1002), it's probably covered under DHCP's NBNS option (code 44) [see section 8.5]. If that doesn't work, send bug reports to Microsoft :-)
----
No, if you use SMB with NetBios, you still need WINS, no matter how many nifty tools you get on the internet side. If you want to dump WINS, dump Windows. If you can't do that, dump your Domain Controllers and install Samba on a Linux/BSD/Unix box. Samba's implementation of WINS integrates much better with internet naming systems.
----
I can picture Mindspring or (shudder) AOL setting up a CNR server for their users, so their users can access common sites and information sans URL. A mercenary ISP could even sell entries in their CNR database.
----
Unless you don't care whether you get shares or not, confirm anyway.
----
Litestep is good, powerful, flexible, no more unstable than Windows Explorer, and best of all, GPLed.
---(litestep.net)---
Litestep info at Floach.pimpin.net
If you run LiteSpawn as well, Litestep becomes even more stable than Windows Explorer.
http://www.litestep.org/files/fi les/litespawn.html
----
Anonymous Coward complains:
The Alpha is an established 64-bit standard, and I can understand its manuals.
Yes, the Alpha is very good.
I cannot understand the manuals for the Merced.
You don't have to. It's the kernel, gcc and glib people who do. Write in C, it's safer.
It is possible, though usually inefficient, to hand-code for the Alpha. It is impossible for the Merced.
Hand coding is never impossible. A big pain in the burro, but not impossible.
Alpha already is running Linux. Not so Merced.
As the article indicates, Merced is already running Linux, to the extent where Merced exists. We're already ahead of the NT and Monterrey projects for Merced.
Why are we wasting time with the Merced? It is nothing but welfare for Intel.
Two reasons. First, we want to support everything, that would include Merced by definition. Second, Merced will have lots of marketting bucks behind it, that will make it popular. We certainly should support the more popular platforms, even if they have deficiencies.
Alpha has been around for years, and it has demonstrated its worth again and again. It is the architecture of the future.
I agree.
Who needs Merced?
Intel does, to survive the future. The rest of us do, because Merced will make 64 bit platforms popular, and in the computer world, popular becomes inexpensive very quickly.
----
From the Athlon info at Tom's Hardware it looks like the processor has fewer pipeline quirks than the Pentium line, so K7-specific compiler tricks would be less important. Of course anything big on 3D graphics (or any other FP or Integer matrix applications) should check if it's a K7 and make use of the new, improved 3DNow instructions.
----
Altavista reports:
:-)
+free: 102,950,414
+"open source": 39,761
+proprietary: 521,860
I think the meaning is clear
----
be-fan wrote:
:-).
Actually, any version of Linux is infinate in value. If value is coolness/cost and cost=0, then now matter what the coolness is, value is infinity. That also means that if windows were free (it is, how many people actuall BOUGHT a copy of Windows 98?) it would also be infinite in value. Must be something wrong with my equation. Oh Well.
There's nothing wrong with your equation. People get Windows three ways: Retail sales (which are paid for), OEM computer purchases (which are paid for, the cost is just hidden in the cost of the system), and illegal copying (which are free, so infinite in value). In addition, the coolness of Windows is imaginary, so the value of any costly copy of Windows is also imaginary. The only Windows with real value are pirated copies
Likewise, the free developer's release of Be is infinite in value, but the users' versions are not (but they do have real value, not imaginary). Downloading Linux is far more valuable than getting a CD, but only if you have a flat rate internet connection. I think I should stop now.
----
I got the following from Altavista:
+cake: 735,420 Web pages.
+cake +"eat it": 57,155 Web pages.
So about 13% of the cake sites have their cake and eat it too!
----
The piece from Caldera I'm most want them to open is nwclient, that way the community can get it to actually work for once. I got a copy of OpenLinux 2.2 specifically for NDS access months ago, and in their two updates since then, it still won't work for more than a few minutes at a time.
Yeah, they'd have to talk Novell into letting them open it, but having an open client would really help Novell. It won't compromise security, since that's all on the server end for them, and it will allow more users to access Novell servers.
----
3Dfx makes junky proprietary graphics cards that until recently were faster than everybody else's junky proprietary graphics cards. Now nVidia's Riva TNT2 is faster, and has free (BSD license, but hard to read source) drivers, there's little place left for 3Dfx in my world.
----
The K7/Athlon can be overclocked. Check out the Kryotech info towards the bottom of this site:
AGN Hardware: Athlon Review
They're looking at having an Athlon system running at 1GHz by November. My take is AMD has no problem with overclocking, as long as it's clearly labelled as such.
----
Try one of these:
LinuxPPC
Yellow Dog Linux
As far as I can tell (I haven't used either), LinuxPPC is a general purpose distribution, along the same lines as Red Hat, Open Linux or Debian GNU/Linux. Yellow Dog is more targetted for the server market.
----
Nugget94M asks:
You! Reading this article! Do you use ssh and pgp?
No!
If not, why not?
Because ssh is non-free, and pgp is patent encumbered. Why use that when there are excellent Free alternatives, such as:
SSLrsh
SSL-MZtelnet
gpg
S/WAN
----
OK, let's say that it's three years from now, Linux is on 70% of the machines out there, and most Linux users are just normal folks, small businesspeople, people managing home finance, kids (and adults) playing video games. Practically none of these people care about Free Software, even a little. Would that be enough to make me leave Linux? No. I will use whatever suits me best, and what suits me best is a Free operating sytem that is usable? powerful and flexible. Currently Linux suits me best. Do the millions of people who don't care about freedom make Linux any less Free? No. Any less usable or powerful? Still no. Any less flexible? Probably more flexible. If, say HURD matured and became more powerful and/or flexible, and was just as Free as Linux, I might consider moving, but the presence or absence of millions of "heathens" wouldn't be a deciding factor. Unless the laws change (and they'd have to change in much of the world simultaneously), the Freedom in Linux is intrinsic, it isn't a perception of Freedom, it's built into the package, and you can't just take it away.
As for your other point, yes, I was describing the operational good that comes from Free Software (and sharing knowledge in general). You want to know if Freedom in this sense is intrinsic or operational. Freedom in this sense is just a shorthand for "The Freedom to Share Knowledge". Just to break down the phrase, knowledge would be an intrinsic good; sharing knowledge would be a means of increasing the intrinsic good, knowledge, so it would be technically operational; the freedom to share knowledge would be removing obstacles against increasing the intrinsic good, and also technically operational. So, technically speaking, Freedom is operational, and "Knowledge is intrinsically good" is the axiom on which my whole argument rests. Taken as a whole, "Freedom to Share Knowledge", is intrinsically good, becuase it is an intrinsically good concept (Knowledge) immersed in an environment (Freedom and Sharing) that serves to protect and maximise this concept. So whether "Freedom" is an intrinsic good, or "merely" an operational good depends on semantics, it depends on how narrowly you are asking the question.
Yes, both RMS and ESR are making utilitarian arguments. One major difference, as you noted, is that RMS is explicit about the moral component, I would say that ESR is implicit, he considers Freedom the moral path, but knows that most people don't like having other people tell them about morality, so he dodges the issue deliberately. RMS doesn't care that people don't like hearing hard truths, he tells them anyway. Another major difference is where RMS says that Freedom is important, and created an environment (the GNU project and FSF) where Freedom can flourish, ESR doesn't worry about current developers as much, and focuses his attention outwards. ESR will try to evangelize and push businesses over to his point of view, RMS will just point out what a business is doing wrong (or right) without trying to change them. They've got (almost) the same goal, but very very different ways of trying to achieve it, and a lot of personal baggage that encourages snide comments and bickering between them.
You talk about "the thing desired", and "might get what they wanted" as if there is an end to all this. There is no end, there is no goal. Gathering knowledge is a continuous and endless process. Freedom is part of what's needed to encourage and support this process. It's a part that I focus on because it's the part that's been most lacking and neglected nowadays, particularly in the software world. So, yeah, Freedom is a means not an end, but it's an important means, so it's still about Freedom.
----
Yeah, you're right on many of your points. However, he does predict a dire future for Linux, he predicts that the Linux community will hate Linux. That's a dire future if you ask me.
You write "if your vehicle became so popular it outran your ideology, would you stick with the vehicle? This author of this article is betting you'll ditch the vehicle. Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with him." I don't understand what you are saying here. If you are saying "If Linux became no longer Free, you would ditch it", I probably would, but I see no way of that happening without major changes to the world today. If you are saying as the original author did, "If Linux became popular, you would ditch it", I certainly would not ditch it just because it became popular.
Now, as for explaining Freedom as if I were defending it in a philosophy class instead of a soapbox, here goes. Note, I am limiting my discussion to Freedom in a software context, which is clearly defined, as opposed to Freedom in the abstract, where there is much dispute over the definition.
Before I talk directly about computers and software, let's look at a simpler, but related situation, a simple tool, say a rock. At one point way back in our evolution, we knew nothing about rocks, they would usually just sit there. If we were unlucky we might stub a toe on one, or one might fall on us in an avalanche. At some point, someone took a rock and realized you can do something with it, perhaps they figured out how to break open nuts, perhaps soften hides, perhaps use it as a weapon, or any one of hundreds of things you can do with rocks that we take for granted today. Regardless, before this person figured out the trick with the rock, hundreds might have figured out the exact same thing, but it didn't matter because nobody shared the knowledge. Once this person shares the knowledge, it has a chance of surviving, it has a chance of becoming part of humanity's arsenal of technology, and spurring on further innovations in other people. The knowledge is not the important thing, the shared knowledge is important.
Given that, if a person (Oog) figures something out, they decide whether or not it's worth telling someone else (Ug). When Ug hears it, they get to decide whether it's worth passing on. Should Oog have the right to prevent Ug from passing on the knowledge? I say no. Knowledge of how to do things is too important, it should not be kept hidden. There is no good way of forcing Oog to share, but once it is shared, Oog should not have the means to coerce Ug to keep quiet about it.
That is how we learned how to use rocks to crush nuts, that is how we learned how to build a machine to remove seeds from cotton, that is how we learned how to tell a computer to edit our letters. It's all the same, the computer is just a tool, and software is just knowing how to tell a computer how to do something.
The shrinkwrap software industry depends on preventing the user from sharing software. Let's us as an example a program to balance your checkbook. A mainstream, shrinkwrap software company will give you the instructions for your computer to balance your checkbook, but they won't let you give those instructions to anyone else. Furthermore they won't let you use their instructions to let you figure out how to tell the computer yourself, and they won't let you modify the instructions to your computer to suit your needs. This is not good for civilization, because it is restricting access to our collective technology. Our society is poorer because of the restrictive license than it would be if it were Free Software.
These arguments apply to all forms of technology, whether it's how to run a computer, or how to suture an artery, or how to run a business. I focus on the software aspects of it because that's what I do, I'm a programmer.
On a personal level, it's pretty obvious that Free Software is a good thing ("Wow! I can use it and it's free! I can share it with my friends!"). I hope I've made it clear that it's a good thing on a societal level, given the assumption that "Technology, that is collective knowledge of how to do things, is a good thing for society". I think that's sufficient to defend Free Software from a philosophical standpoint. If you disagree, let me know.
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