4 ms·

Most of the people that dislike GNU base their dislike on political reasons (because they hate the GPL or Stallman or whatever) and then try to embarrassingly j

Most of the people that dislike GNU base their dislike on political reasons (because they hate the GPL or Stallman or whatever) and then try to embarrassingly justify their hate by shoehorning technical jargon.

marcan_42 5y ago
Most of the people that support the FSF base their support on vague poorly-grounded ideological reasons (because they drank the Stallman kool-aid or whatever) and then try to embarrassingly justify the missteps of their idols by deferring to said vague ideology to deflect from the elephant in the room. I have a whole Twitter thread on how the modern FSF's policies actually hurt user freedom while being completely inconsistent with their own ideals, if you'd perhaps consider opening up your mind to criticism of them: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1377899929209774081 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1377899929209774081
- bregma 5y ago
  The FSF is a political organization. Supporting it for political reasons is wholly appropriate. Disparaging the people who do so with put-downs and insults instead of engaging in reasoned debate is not.
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    The FSF has long been shifting from being a political organization to being a religious organization. Its policies are no longer consistent with their own views of user freedom. Read the thread for more info. They are literally promoting things that hurt user freedoms - things like promoting ignorance of security flaws, promoting hiding proprietary firmware (because it's only a problem if it looks like a blob), promoting actively crippling hardware (thus reducing its usefulness with present and future free software), and more. Those who blindly support them without taking a deep look into whether their actual policies are consistent and rational and further their goals are no different from religious fanatics who stand by ancient scripture while ignoring thousands of years of progress. I support user freedom. I support users having control over their own devices, knowledge of what software runs on them, and knowledge of what choices are available so they can make an informed decision. I spend most of my time working on reverse engineering and porting Linux to proprietary hardware (Apple M1) so users have the freedom to run whatever OS they want. I cannot support the FSF, an organization which supports censoring security vulnerability warnings when fixing them involves updating proprietary firmware (that already exists anyway); that supports burying proprietary firmware in non-introspectable read-only memory because then they can "pretend it's hardware", then selling the result as "fully libre" (even though the same device with the same firmware visible and accessible to the user would be much more free and transparent, allowing introspection, auditing, and replacement with a free alternative); that supports physically destroying hardware components that presently require a proprietary driver to function, ignoring the possibility that free software drivers might appear in the future. These are real FSF policies and actions. This is what you are supporting when you support the FSF. It's not user freedom any more. It's religious nonsense like "blobs in /lib/firmware are bad, we can't have any blobs be out in the clear".
    - type0 5y ago
      > that supports burying proprietary firmware in non-introspectable read-only memory because then they can "pretend it's hardware", then selling the result as "fully libre" (even though the same device with the same firmware visible and accessible to the user would be much more free and transparent, allowing introspection, auditing, and replacement with a free alternative); Totally agree, they have been completely swallowed by their own ideology. This shows that their actions are contradicting the same things FSF says publicly: that reverse-engineering is important.

marcan_42 5y ago

Most of the people that support the FSF base their support on vague poorly-grounded ideological reasons (because they drank the Stallman kool-aid or whatever) and then try to embarrassingly justify the missteps of their idols by deferring to said vague ideology to deflect from the elephant in the room. I have a whole Twitter thread on how the modern FSF's policies actually hurt user freedom while being completely inconsistent with their own ideals, if you'd perhaps consider opening up your mind to criticism of them: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1377899929209774081 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1377899929209774081

bregma 5y ago
The FSF is a political organization. Supporting it for political reasons is wholly appropriate. Disparaging the people who do so with put-downs and insults instead of engaging in reasoned debate is not.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  The FSF has long been shifting from being a political organization to being a religious organization. Its policies are no longer consistent with their own views of user freedom. Read the thread for more info. They are literally promoting things that hurt user freedoms - things like promoting ignorance of security flaws, promoting hiding proprietary firmware (because it's only a problem if it looks like a blob), promoting actively crippling hardware (thus reducing its usefulness with present and future free software), and more. Those who blindly support them without taking a deep look into whether their actual policies are consistent and rational and further their goals are no different from religious fanatics who stand by ancient scripture while ignoring thousands of years of progress. I support user freedom. I support users having control over their own devices, knowledge of what software runs on them, and knowledge of what choices are available so they can make an informed decision. I spend most of my time working on reverse engineering and porting Linux to proprietary hardware (Apple M1) so users have the freedom to run whatever OS they want. I cannot support the FSF, an organization which supports censoring security vulnerability warnings when fixing them involves updating proprietary firmware (that already exists anyway); that supports burying proprietary firmware in non-introspectable read-only memory because then they can "pretend it's hardware", then selling the result as "fully libre" (even though the same device with the same firmware visible and accessible to the user would be much more free and transparent, allowing introspection, auditing, and replacement with a free alternative); that supports physically destroying hardware components that presently require a proprietary driver to function, ignoring the possibility that free software drivers might appear in the future. These are real FSF policies and actions. This is what you are supporting when you support the FSF. It's not user freedom any more. It's religious nonsense like "blobs in /lib/firmware are bad, we can't have any blobs be out in the clear".
  - type0 5y ago
    > that supports burying proprietary firmware in non-introspectable read-only memory because then they can "pretend it's hardware", then selling the result as "fully libre" (even though the same device with the same firmware visible and accessible to the user would be much more free and transparent, allowing introspection, auditing, and replacement with a free alternative); Totally agree, they have been completely swallowed by their own ideology. This shows that their actions are contradicting the same things FSF says publicly: that reverse-engineering is important.