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FSF Petition for Freedom in Education

6 points by gtsnexp 6y ago

mark_l_watson 6y ago
I up-voted this because I agree that large institutions should have the resources to not use Zoom/Meetings/etc. and should use open standards instead. That said, I think it is fine for individuals to use one of the proprietary video platforms to talk with their parents, etc. I think organizations should be held to higher standards than individuals who are juggling getting work done, maintaining family and friends, etc. I dropped my paid membership to the FSF a few years ago because in my own lifestyle I rely on closed platforms like Apple Watch + AirPods, etc. to enhance my life. I release software under open source licenses (I favor dual LGPL and Apache 2 licensing) and the books I write, even though I charge for them, are released under a Creative Commons license so (with some restrictions) people can share them. Anyway, I find it a tricky balance between software and information freedom vs. friction free life.
PaulHoule 6y ago
The Orwellian statement "Freedom is Slavery" applies to the EFF and FSF more than any domain I've seen. Like it or not, the Apple 1984 ad was all about how computers oppress people by exposing their innards: talk to business people and they will say you "get your hands dirty" if you spend any time reconciling the contradictory mess of desires people have with a computer's ability to show you the logical outcome of that contradictory opinion. In the U.S. they will give that job to an Indian, and the Indian would give the job to a Dahlit if they let Dahlits get an education enough to do it. People don't remember that the Mac was the first computer that didn't come with BASIC or some other tool that would let you program it. We learned the hard way in the next 30 years that the computer programs you whether or not you can program it... So when people like the "FSF" describe what they think of as "Freedom", most people think that is being a slave to the transistor and mathematics. What the "FSF" describes as "Slavery" is perceived by neurotypicals as "Freedom to let somebody else Slave on your behalf"
- gtsnexp 6y ago
  Your statement about the Mac not shipping with BASIC is incorrect. Basic interpreters were available by default since the Apple II.
  - PaulHoule 6y ago
    The Apple ][ has two BASIC interpreters (the integer basic Woz wrote and the Applesoft basic licensed from Microsoft.) The original Mac was a demo -- with 128MB of RAM it struggled to do anything at all, with 512MB you had some room to work with. Original development for a mac was done on a different computer. There was no compatibility between the Apple ][ and the Mac. Apple did not realize how long the ][ would last. If they'd known that, and known that Motorola was going to abandon the 68k, they might have come out with something like this earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS which could have evolved an entirely different direction and avoided more than one of the near death experiences the Mac went through.
    - gtsnexp 6y ago
      Thanks for the detailed reply.I still fail to see your point and it's relation to software freedom.

6 points by gtsnexp 6y ago

I up-voted this because I agree that large institutions should have the resources to not use Zoom/Meetings/etc. and should use open standards instead. That said, I think it is fine for individuals to use one of the proprietary video platforms to talk with their parents, etc. I think organizations should be held to higher standards than individuals who are juggling getting work done, maintaining family and friends, etc. I dropped my paid membership to the FSF a few years ago because in my own lifestyle I rely on closed platforms like Apple Watch + AirPods, etc. to enhance my life. I release software under open source licenses (I favor dual LGPL and Apache 2 licensing) and the books I write, even though I charge for them, are released under a Creative Commons license so (with some restrictions) people can share them. Anyway, I find it a tricky balance between software and information freedom vs. friction free life.

PaulHoule 6y ago

The Orwellian statement "Freedom is Slavery" applies to the EFF and FSF more than any domain I've seen. Like it or not, the Apple 1984 ad was all about how computers oppress people by exposing their innards: talk to business people and they will say you "get your hands dirty" if you spend any time reconciling the contradictory mess of desires people have with a computer's ability to show you the logical outcome of that contradictory opinion. In the U.S. they will give that job to an Indian, and the Indian would give the job to a Dahlit if they let Dahlits get an education enough to do it. People don't remember that the Mac was the first computer that didn't come with BASIC or some other tool that would let you program it. We learned the hard way in the next 30 years that the computer programs you whether or not you can program it... So when people like the "FSF" describe what they think of as "Freedom", most people think that is being a slave to the transistor and mathematics. What the "FSF" describes as "Slavery" is perceived by neurotypicals as "Freedom to let somebody else Slave on your behalf"

gtsnexp 6y ago
Your statement about the Mac not shipping with BASIC is incorrect. Basic interpreters were available by default since the Apple II.
- PaulHoule 6y ago
  The Apple ][ has two BASIC interpreters (the integer basic Woz wrote and the Applesoft basic licensed from Microsoft.) The original Mac was a demo -- with 128MB of RAM it struggled to do anything at all, with 512MB you had some room to work with. Original development for a mac was done on a different computer. There was no compatibility between the Apple ][ and the Mac. Apple did not realize how long the ][ would last. If they'd known that, and known that Motorola was going to abandon the 68k, they might have come out with something like this earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS which could have evolved an entirely different direction and avoided more than one of the near death experiences the Mac went through.
  - gtsnexp 6y ago
    Thanks for the detailed reply.I still fail to see your point and it's relation to software freedom.