3 ms·

Does that mean he doesn't drive/fly/ride in/on any cars/buses/trains/aircraft? Because the same applies to those.

Gigachad 3y ago
Stallman and the FSF has fairly arbitrary views on this stuff. Non free firmware running on microcontrollers is fine because it's part of the hardware. But if there is a firmware blob that gets copied over by the OS on boot, then it's not ok for unclear reasons. Results in a lot of stuff getting rejected for FSF certification despite being just as open practically as the certified stuff. A car probably just isn't seen as software to him if it's just the internal control systems. Maybe the entertainment system these days would be.
- Xelynega 3y ago
  I think you have this a bit backwards. To my knowledge the FSF doesn't consider firmware blobs with no way to flash "part of certification" because it would be inoractical to do so. By definition "software you can't change" isn't "free"(as in speech, not beer), so I don't think it's an ideological line. So they either have to consider any device with unmodifiable software to be non-free(basically removing entire device classes), or be realistic and draw the line somewhere. "Can you modify the software on the device from the rest of the gnu software" is a line that matches up with their ideals fairly well IMO. Basically, Richard Stallman is well aware that cars are bundles of non-free software(see: https://jalopnik.com/richard-stallman-weighs-in-on-the-check-engine-light-5881544 https://jalopnik.com/richard-stallman-weighs-in-on-the-check...). He has voiced opinions that software controlling the brakes in your car should be FSF and not binary blobs that come pre-installed with no visibility.
skrebbel 3y ago
I think what it means is that if there were open source airplanes he’d take those, even at the cost of an enormous detour.
debok 3y ago
RMS is notorious for his willingness to go through quite a lot of inconvenience to stick to his free software principles. You can search his site for the word "ticket" to get an idea of how he feels about software systems in public transport.

Stallman and the FSF has fairly arbitrary views on this stuff. Non free firmware running on microcontrollers is fine because it's part of the hardware. But if there is a firmware blob that gets copied over by the OS on boot, then it's not ok for unclear reasons. Results in a lot of stuff getting rejected for FSF certification despite being just as open practically as the certified stuff. A car probably just isn't seen as software to him if it's just the internal control systems. Maybe the entertainment system these days would be.

Xelynega 3y ago
I think you have this a bit backwards. To my knowledge the FSF doesn't consider firmware blobs with no way to flash "part of certification" because it would be inoractical to do so. By definition "software you can't change" isn't "free"(as in speech, not beer), so I don't think it's an ideological line. So they either have to consider any device with unmodifiable software to be non-free(basically removing entire device classes), or be realistic and draw the line somewhere. "Can you modify the software on the device from the rest of the gnu software" is a line that matches up with their ideals fairly well IMO. Basically, Richard Stallman is well aware that cars are bundles of non-free software(see: https://jalopnik.com/richard-stallman-weighs-in-on-the-check-engine-light-5881544 https://jalopnik.com/richard-stallman-weighs-in-on-the-check...). He has voiced opinions that software controlling the brakes in your car should be FSF and not binary blobs that come pre-installed with no visibility.

skrebbel 3y ago

I think what it means is that if there were open source airplanes he’d take those, even at the cost of an enormous detour.

debok 3y ago

RMS is notorious for his willingness to go through quite a lot of inconvenience to stick to his free software principles. You can search his site for the word "ticket" to get an idea of how he feels about software systems in public transport.