4 ms·

> What's the reason that's not considered a problem It's considered a problem: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html http://

> What's the reason that's not considered a problem It's considered a problem: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se...

Touche 10y ago
> The original idea of web servers wasn't to do computing for you, it was to publish information for you to access. Even today this is what most web sites do, and it doesn't pose the SaaSS problem, because accessing someone's published information isn't doing your own computing. The more grey area that exists the harder it is for me to understand what Stallman's beliefs actually are. "doing your own computing", why is that the center of his moral beliefs? The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Because laws around digital intellectual property are profoundly different from physical goods, even when the goods are intellectual property like a book. Consider a trivial example. I bought an iOS SSH app called prompt. The authors subsequently release a new version and removed the old one from the store. It works great on my phone and I decided decided to put it on another device. Guess what? It's not on the App Store any more, and my options for using it are limited.
  - stephen_g 10y ago
    If you log in to the App Store on that device, go to Updates -> Purchased -> Not on this iPhone (or iPad, etc.) you should be able to install it on the new device.
  - sooheon 10y ago
    Well if the FSF had its way prompt would never have been made to the degree of polish and quality that it was, because there would have been no financial incentive, no?
    - izacus 10y ago
      Really? So that's why so many of those fancy proprietary web sites run on fully opensource free stacks?
    - Natanael_L 10y ago
      In the same way that Red Hat isn't a thing, right?
- educar 10y ago
  > The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers. That ad hominem is uncalled for.
- EuAndreh 10y ago
  The point of "doing your computing" is the concept of freedom within the Free Software movement. According to RMS, "freedom is having control over your life". "In a computer system there are just two possibilities: either the user controls the program or the program controls the user". So, "doing your own computing" is "having control over your life", and thus, having freedom.
  - Touche 10y ago
    My point, that I didn't articulate well, is that over time everything is going to be computing. Some day your pants will have a CPU in it. Do you not have control over your life if proprietary pants software cools your legs when it's hot? So it seems that the definition of "what is software" has to constantly be redefined OR the whole Free Software thing becomes more and more a luddite idea.
    - Delmania 10y ago
      > Do you not have control over your life if proprietary pants software cools your legs when it's hot? Do you have the source code to firmware on the chip in the pants? Can you install a custom version? That would be consistent with the FSF's viewpoint. They want the user to have full access and control over the software he uses in all devices he uses.
      - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
        To put a bit of a finer point on it: Stallman has said (paraphrasing; I'm having trouble finding a good source) that self-contained embedded firmware/microcode without an update mechanism isn't "software" in a sense relevant to the Free Software movement. Rather, it's equivalent to a hardwired state machine, and we can judge its behavior as a single object, notwithstanding what its architecture looks like internally.
        Touche 10y ago
        When did he say this? In the 80s when he established the FSF or recently when the issue came up? This is my entire point, over time the definition of "software" has to be re-evaluated to justify the existence of this ethos; if one man defines what is "software" under this philosophy it doesn't feel like a real philosophy at all.
- braderhart 10y ago
  I think what it comes down to more than anything is equality. What happens when someone discovers a breakthrough to reverse aging or to improve cognitive functioning? Should that information be public, or only accessible to the rich? Now take the same analogy to computing. How many people have access to entire data centers to run algorithms for machine learning and AI? Doing your own computing is the opposite of that. Instead of sharing your information, it's saying we should build software and applications that run locally and that are open source so that we can audit the code. It's sad that the norm is everything in the cloud these days without any concern for privacy.

Touche 10y ago

> The original idea of web servers wasn't to do computing for you, it was to publish information for you to access. Even today this is what most web sites do, and it doesn't pose the SaaSS problem, because accessing someone's published information isn't doing your own computing. The more grey area that exists the harder it is for me to understand what Stallman's beliefs actually are. "doing your own computing", why is that the center of his moral beliefs? The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers.

Spooky23 10y ago
Because laws around digital intellectual property are profoundly different from physical goods, even when the goods are intellectual property like a book. Consider a trivial example. I bought an iOS SSH app called prompt. The authors subsequently release a new version and removed the old one from the store. It works great on my phone and I decided decided to put it on another device. Guess what? It's not on the App Store any more, and my options for using it are limited.
- stephen_g 10y ago
  If you log in to the App Store on that device, go to Updates -> Purchased -> Not on this iPhone (or iPad, etc.) you should be able to install it on the new device.
- sooheon 10y ago
  Well if the FSF had its way prompt would never have been made to the degree of polish and quality that it was, because there would have been no financial incentive, no?
  - izacus 10y ago
    Really? So that's why so many of those fancy proprietary web sites run on fully opensource free stacks?
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    In the same way that Red Hat isn't a thing, right?
educar 10y ago
> The longer time passes, the more it feels like Stallman is holding a lifelong vendetta because he had trouble debugging some printers. That ad hominem is uncalled for.
EuAndreh 10y ago
The point of "doing your computing" is the concept of freedom within the Free Software movement. According to RMS, "freedom is having control over your life". "In a computer system there are just two possibilities: either the user controls the program or the program controls the user". So, "doing your own computing" is "having control over your life", and thus, having freedom.
- Touche 10y ago
  My point, that I didn't articulate well, is that over time everything is going to be computing. Some day your pants will have a CPU in it. Do you not have control over your life if proprietary pants software cools your legs when it's hot? So it seems that the definition of "what is software" has to constantly be redefined OR the whole Free Software thing becomes more and more a luddite idea.
  - Delmania 10y ago
    > Do you not have control over your life if proprietary pants software cools your legs when it's hot? Do you have the source code to firmware on the chip in the pants? Can you install a custom version? That would be consistent with the FSF's viewpoint. They want the user to have full access and control over the software he uses in all devices he uses.
    - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
      To put a bit of a finer point on it: Stallman has said (paraphrasing; I'm having trouble finding a good source) that self-contained embedded firmware/microcode without an update mechanism isn't "software" in a sense relevant to the Free Software movement. Rather, it's equivalent to a hardwired state machine, and we can judge its behavior as a single object, notwithstanding what its architecture looks like internally.
      - Touche 10y ago
        When did he say this? In the 80s when he established the FSF or recently when the issue came up? This is my entire point, over time the definition of "software" has to be re-evaluated to justify the existence of this ethos; if one man defines what is "software" under this philosophy it doesn't feel like a real philosophy at all.
braderhart 10y ago
I think what it comes down to more than anything is equality. What happens when someone discovers a breakthrough to reverse aging or to improve cognitive functioning? Should that information be public, or only accessible to the rich? Now take the same analogy to computing. How many people have access to entire data centers to run algorithms for machine learning and AI? Doing your own computing is the opposite of that. Instead of sharing your information, it's saying we should build software and applications that run locally and that are open source so that we can audit the code. It's sad that the norm is everything in the cloud these days without any concern for privacy.