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The article raises good points. One important aspect is missing though; the reliance on web services, SaaS, and the like. Free software is not enough. We need f
by madez 9y ago
The article raises good points. One important aspect is missing though; the reliance on web services, SaaS, and the like. Free software is not enough. We need free software that runs locally and offline.
- DataWorker 9y agoAlan Kay has made this point rather eloquently in the past. Like stallman, his good points were not enough to stop free market from perverting the technology, with disastrous consequences.
- adrianN 9y agoRMS is also against SaaS (or Software as a Service Substitute, SaaSS), but AGPLv3 SaaS would be a step in the right direction. At least then you could examine the source code and see what data is collected. Edit: s/GPL/AGPL/
- digi_owl 9y agoThe source you directly interact with perhaps. Can you say for sure that the code running at the server end is the one in the repo or tarball?
- adrianN 9y agoOf course not, but the same can be said for local software. You usually don't build from source. But at least you can inspect your own network traffic more or less reliably. Having everything be AGPLv3 is not perfect, but I think it would be an improvement over the current state of affairs.
- nothrabannosir 9y agoThat sounds like exactly the Affero GPL.
- adrianN 9y agoWhew, I confused those. Thanks for pointing that out
- nothrabannosir 9y agoNo I mean, the license you’re describing sounds like the AGPL. If you use AGPL licensed code on a server which a user interacts with, you must provide them with the source code. That’s perhaps the biggest difference between the GPL and the AGPL. AGPL is “GPL for SaaS”.
- pmlnr 9y agoWhen it's RMS, free means Free (under Libre terms) & Open Source. And yes, I agree; back to local and offline first applications is a must.
- digi_owl 9y agoBest i understand, open source it charitably seen as a subset of the freedoms fronted by the FSF. If you claim that RMS does open source in his presence, he will sternly correct you.
- dhimes 9y agoMaybe the way to go with this is to have an auditing system where third-party auditors go through the source code (with NDAs) and certify it meets $PrivacyStandards. This might be a way to appease the folks who want to keep their software proprietary and yet make sure they don't just get to do what they want. Kind of like financial audits.
- pbalau 9y agoSorry, but no. For this to work you will need a select group of people with too much power. Why would I trust those people instead of the original creators? This is just going to create a parasitic industry, with no much value.
- dhimes 9y agoMan I'm so sorry I let this slip and didn't get back to you. It's not perfect for sure, but better than nothing and possibly something people will buy into. The big problem is there is no licensing-yet- that could be removed if they were caught lying. So you're right- we would have to build a trust model somehow.
- Too 9y agoApples privacy policy actually says they will always do "on device processing whenever possible". Where the line between possible and feasible is drawn isn't really specified but If they really live up to this it is reason enough for me to only buy apple products as the other 2 options seem to have a completely different view of this.
- CaptSpify 9y agoI'd love it if this were true, but we don't really know if it is true or not, and Apple refuses to allow us to see for ourselves. I really want to like Apple, but they won't put their money where their mouth is.