7 ms·

What's cool about RMS is that he perfectly foresaw many decades ago the world that we live in today: your car or smart fridge refusing actions because its softw

What's cool about RMS is that he perfectly foresaw many decades ago the world that we live in today: your car or smart fridge refusing actions because its software says so. And you cannot change the bloody software! I cringe every time I see encrypted firmware running in trusted execution environment, DRM, DLCs for fucking physical products, websites or apps that scam you into signing up or giving up some other freedoms, or some other corpo garbage made in this era. Tesla literally sells car speed upgrade as an over the air update. My phone makes it hard or impossible to install the software that I want, unless some corpo bureaucrat from Google or Apple decided they like this software.

walteweiss 3y ago
This very morning, my wife performed reset of cache/cookies from our family’s perfectly fine iPad 3 (yeah, the one from 2012, 11 years old). The iPad is our kitchen TV, it shows either some content from VLC (works perfectly fine, kudos to the devs) or some YouTube from Safari (the AppStore’s app support is long gone, web app still works quite well, even considering it was updated recently). Today I spent my morning trying to login our kitchen account. Didn’t work. The account is perfectly fine, but Google refuses to login, as — I’m pretty sure — we use our obsolete software. Well, we do, we do. But even YouTube itself works relatively fine, and as many of you may understand, the iPad is great and much beyond what we need for kitchen, it has a loud speaker and great display, we don’t need anything else for that use-case. On top of that that’s separate device is nothing to worry about, as you may imagine controlling the iPad with dirty fingers, all the oils of the kitchen, etc. Not a place for a modern iPad that we also have, imo. For me that’s a great example. I personally know many old (even obsolete iPads) lying here and there collecting dust, as their software (and hardware) vendor decided they are all in for nature and ecology (sarcasm), so let millions of perfectly capable devices would be thrown away as a trash. Eyeing some Android tablet for that, the one I can flash with Lineage OS and be happy with. Maybe Google’s Pixel C or even Nexus 7. Meanwhile we continue using the iPad unlogginned till it stop working.
- aegis4244 3y ago
  Have you thought about the pinetab ? https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/
  - andrewshadura 3y ago
    I own one. It's extremely slow, and the screen is easily scratched by the keyboard when folded.
  - walteweiss 3y ago
    Have never seen it, looks promising. Even if it’s not well supported yet, it might be in the future. I’ll keep my eyes on them.
- dheera 3y ago
  I have a couple Samsung Galaxy A8 (2022) tablets set up as control panels around my apartment for Home Assistant. They cost a little more than $100 on eBay in very good condition. I don't think LineageOS supports this particular model, though, but I didn't bother since all it does is display a webpage. One of the things I like about Samsung tablets is that they have a "Battery saver" feature where you can restrict it from charging the battery past 85%, which is a generally good move if your tablet is going to be permanently plugged into power and used as some sort of fixed display. I've had MANY brand name devices with lithium batteries bulge when left constantly plugged in at 100% battery for months and don't want to risk an explosion.
  - LtWorf 3y ago
    I do this with an old samsung phone I have, but I can't do updates on it, because on that model samsung included an overlay with ads along with the updates. So I see ads (even videos!) instead of my simple html page, or on top of it. It's terrible!
    - MaKey 3y ago
      Are you sure this came from a Samsung update? I've been a Samsung phone user for over a decade and never saw such behavior.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dale_glass 3y ago
The pity is that while he was remarkably prescient, he seems to have stopped adapting decades ago. GNU seems to have little interest in keeping up with modern developments, and seems to be content with maintaining the old command line tools for the most part. Meanwhile, they're becoming a smaller and smaller proportion of an useful software stack, and people are rewriting them in more modern fashions, eg, Rust. Pretty much none of that is done under the GPL. The FSF is clearly not reaching the people it needs to reach. Where's their Youtube channel, or their Twitter? As far as I know, they have neither. I barely hear anything about the FSF on Linux sites. Their reach elsewhere has to be essentially nonexistent. And with the FSF it appears that RMS has no viable successor. That doesn't bode well either. The sad outcome is that we keep rehashing things like Right to Read -- a fine thing from 1997, but what has happened since?
- einpoklum 3y ago
  The FSF is a tiny organization with little funding; you can't lay the responsibility for "reaching out" on them. It's a question of what other cultural, educational and commercial organizations and groups have been doing; whether enough of them have taken these messages to heart; and what they have been promoting. Also, in suggesting they use Youtube or Twitter, you're simply exemplifying how you reject their principles. Those platforms are the opposite of free: Closed source, secret manipulation of content, censorship (and never mind the motivation), spying on users for the government, etc. The FSF would be hypocritical to endorse them. But of course, it does have "social network" videos - on PeerTube and MediaGoblin: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf35-videos-online-find-them-on-peertube-and-mediagoblin https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf35-videos-online-find... so ask yourself, why have we not been promoting those platforms, and why have everyone seemingly yielded to ever-widening control of our digital lives by these large corporations?
  - Kinrany 3y ago
    Their goal should be encouraging people to demand open software and hardware, not being principled. Youtube and Twitter have power, not acknowledging that is dumb.
QuesnayJr 3y ago
I remember thinking that Stallman was too pessimistic and things like that would never happen. But I was wrong, and Stallman was right.
onethought 3y ago
Why do you need? Or have the right? To modify the software. That same Tesla is cast with a proprietary alloy that not only they won’t tell you what it is, but it’s patent anyway. Same is true of the rubber in the tyres. Open source is a great thing. But it’s not better (morally) than closed source. Open is just a feature. Like Lego vs a solid plastic toy.
- rakoo 3y ago
  > But it’s not better (morally) than closed source. That's a highly subjective opinion, and yours is not more valid than others'
  - onethought 3y ago
    Likewise to who I’m responding to, and exactly my point.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  The first principle, is when I have a thing (computer, car, toaster), I have the thing. It’s mine. I control it, I can have it repaired wherever, I can resell it, and if I have the skill, maybe even tweak it. But most importantly the thing serves me, not the corporation that sold it to me. If the thing is a general purpose computer that can run arbitrary software (and I’d be tempted to include anything that can be remotely updated as "software", so this would include Tesla’s firmware), then I should be able to run my software instead. That’s the true test of whether I truly own my computing device. Before we even get to Free Software, we need documented hardware architectures.
  - onethought 3y ago
    That is why I made the point about the metal in a Tesla. It’s hardware, it’s yours, you have no reasonable capability to modify it, yet that is uncontroversial. So why is the software?
    - Freedom2 3y ago
DesiLurker 3y ago
I actually attribute success of free software & linux to RMS. IMO he deserves a lot more credit than he gets for his work on gcc/egcs. it is foundational that we have access to a compiler that can produce user created executable otherwise entire software industry would look very different. the likes of MS & Apple would have us wrapped up in licencing agreements & TOSes to stifle innovation at a basic choke-point. if anyone has any doubts you only need to look at the ecosystem for opensource h/w design.
- epolanski 3y ago
  I think he's credited with it fine, he's always mentioned as one of the if not the founding father of open source (albeit with less emphasis on the license debacles).
chpatrick 3y ago
Another way to look at it is Tesla sells an over the air discount in exchange for a slower car.
tjpnz 3y ago
And the Four Freedoms are perhaps even more relevant today. I would urge anyone to read them again now.
mrtksn 3y ago
It's just business though. It has nothing to do with the software, the software is just a tool to enforce a business model. A car that already has the hardware but requires payment to enable that by software is exactly the same thing as paying for a video game: The video game is already created and uploaded on the servers but software requires payment to let you download and play it. There are numerous other examples like game consoles sold at loss, printers sold less than the cost, search engines or mail services provided for free, free hosting etc. - all investing huge sums on creating the product in hope to recoup that and make profit by collecting small fees later and they need their products locked down to be able to do this. The whole thing revolves around collecting small payments for a the very large capital investment that is required to create the product in first place. Since the small payments are collected post-development, someone has to risk their large capital for this to happen, they also expect compensation and guarantees that the small payments will arrive if the product is developed successfully. The software is locked down only because they want to enforce that business model. You can refuse to participate in that but ultimately, those who can invest large amount of money end up making the much better products.
- groestl 3y ago
  > the software is just a tool to enforce a business model. And that's what RMS understood better than many others: His software (and by proxy it's license) is just a tool to enforce an ethical business model.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    What's more ethical about receiving payments immediately for the job done at this very moment than investing your time and money to build something and receive payments for it later?
    - groestl 3y ago
      That's a strawman, because neither I nor RMS make arguments about the timing of payments in relation to work done. The restrictions on business models (imposed by software licenses as a tool) is necessary to preserve the Four Freedoms, which, at least in his view are required to use software ethically. RMS predicted, and accurately as we see, that forgoing these essential Freedoms will create a world where software is used (on us) in an unethical way.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bigstrat2003 3y ago
Yeah. I profoundly disagree with RMS on many things. But as much as it pains me to say it, year after year I find myself saying "fuck, Stallman was right."

walteweiss 3y ago

This very morning, my wife performed reset of cache/cookies from our family’s perfectly fine iPad 3 (yeah, the one from 2012, 11 years old). The iPad is our kitchen TV, it shows either some content from VLC (works perfectly fine, kudos to the devs) or some YouTube from Safari (the AppStore’s app support is long gone, web app still works quite well, even considering it was updated recently). Today I spent my morning trying to login our kitchen account. Didn’t work. The account is perfectly fine, but Google refuses to login, as — I’m pretty sure — we use our obsolete software. Well, we do, we do. But even YouTube itself works relatively fine, and as many of you may understand, the iPad is great and much beyond what we need for kitchen, it has a loud speaker and great display, we don’t need anything else for that use-case. On top of that that’s separate device is nothing to worry about, as you may imagine controlling the iPad with dirty fingers, all the oils of the kitchen, etc. Not a place for a modern iPad that we also have, imo. For me that’s a great example. I personally know many old (even obsolete iPads) lying here and there collecting dust, as their software (and hardware) vendor decided they are all in for nature and ecology (sarcasm), so let millions of perfectly capable devices would be thrown away as a trash. Eyeing some Android tablet for that, the one I can flash with Lineage OS and be happy with. Maybe Google’s Pixel C or even Nexus 7. Meanwhile we continue using the iPad unlogginned till it stop working.

aegis4244 3y ago
Have you thought about the pinetab ? https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/
- andrewshadura 3y ago
  I own one. It's extremely slow, and the screen is easily scratched by the keyboard when folded.
- walteweiss 3y ago
  Have never seen it, looks promising. Even if it’s not well supported yet, it might be in the future. I’ll keep my eyes on them.
dheera 3y ago
I have a couple Samsung Galaxy A8 (2022) tablets set up as control panels around my apartment for Home Assistant. They cost a little more than $100 on eBay in very good condition. I don't think LineageOS supports this particular model, though, but I didn't bother since all it does is display a webpage. One of the things I like about Samsung tablets is that they have a "Battery saver" feature where you can restrict it from charging the battery past 85%, which is a generally good move if your tablet is going to be permanently plugged into power and used as some sort of fixed display. I've had MANY brand name devices with lithium batteries bulge when left constantly plugged in at 100% battery for months and don't want to risk an explosion.
- LtWorf 3y ago
  I do this with an old samsung phone I have, but I can't do updates on it, because on that model samsung included an overlay with ads along with the updates. So I see ads (even videos!) instead of my simple html page, or on top of it. It's terrible!
  - MaKey 3y ago
    Are you sure this came from a Samsung update? I've been a Samsung phone user for over a decade and never saw such behavior.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dale_glass 3y ago

The pity is that while he was remarkably prescient, he seems to have stopped adapting decades ago. GNU seems to have little interest in keeping up with modern developments, and seems to be content with maintaining the old command line tools for the most part. Meanwhile, they're becoming a smaller and smaller proportion of an useful software stack, and people are rewriting them in more modern fashions, eg, Rust. Pretty much none of that is done under the GPL. The FSF is clearly not reaching the people it needs to reach. Where's their Youtube channel, or their Twitter? As far as I know, they have neither. I barely hear anything about the FSF on Linux sites. Their reach elsewhere has to be essentially nonexistent. And with the FSF it appears that RMS has no viable successor. That doesn't bode well either. The sad outcome is that we keep rehashing things like Right to Read -- a fine thing from 1997, but what has happened since?

einpoklum 3y ago
The FSF is a tiny organization with little funding; you can't lay the responsibility for "reaching out" on them. It's a question of what other cultural, educational and commercial organizations and groups have been doing; whether enough of them have taken these messages to heart; and what they have been promoting. Also, in suggesting they use Youtube or Twitter, you're simply exemplifying how you reject their principles. Those platforms are the opposite of free: Closed source, secret manipulation of content, censorship (and never mind the motivation), spying on users for the government, etc. The FSF would be hypocritical to endorse them. But of course, it does have "social network" videos - on PeerTube and MediaGoblin: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf35-videos-online-find-them-on-peertube-and-mediagoblin https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf35-videos-online-find... so ask yourself, why have we not been promoting those platforms, and why have everyone seemingly yielded to ever-widening control of our digital lives by these large corporations?
- Kinrany 3y ago
  Their goal should be encouraging people to demand open software and hardware, not being principled. Youtube and Twitter have power, not acknowledging that is dumb.

QuesnayJr 3y ago

I remember thinking that Stallman was too pessimistic and things like that would never happen. But I was wrong, and Stallman was right.

onethought 3y ago

Why do you need? Or have the right? To modify the software. That same Tesla is cast with a proprietary alloy that not only they won’t tell you what it is, but it’s patent anyway. Same is true of the rubber in the tyres. Open source is a great thing. But it’s not better (morally) than closed source. Open is just a feature. Like Lego vs a solid plastic toy.

rakoo 3y ago
> But it’s not better (morally) than closed source. That's a highly subjective opinion, and yours is not more valid than others'
- onethought 3y ago
  Likewise to who I’m responding to, and exactly my point.
loup-vaillant 3y ago
The first principle, is when I have a thing (computer, car, toaster), I have the thing. It’s mine. I control it, I can have it repaired wherever, I can resell it, and if I have the skill, maybe even tweak it. But most importantly the thing serves me, not the corporation that sold it to me. If the thing is a general purpose computer that can run arbitrary software (and I’d be tempted to include anything that can be remotely updated as "software", so this would include Tesla’s firmware), then I should be able to run my software instead. That’s the true test of whether I truly own my computing device. Before we even get to Free Software, we need documented hardware architectures.
- onethought 3y ago
  That is why I made the point about the metal in a Tesla. It’s hardware, it’s yours, you have no reasonable capability to modify it, yet that is uncontroversial. So why is the software?
  - Freedom2 3y ago

DesiLurker 3y ago

I actually attribute success of free software & linux to RMS. IMO he deserves a lot more credit than he gets for his work on gcc/egcs. it is foundational that we have access to a compiler that can produce user created executable otherwise entire software industry would look very different. the likes of MS & Apple would have us wrapped up in licencing agreements & TOSes to stifle innovation at a basic choke-point. if anyone has any doubts you only need to look at the ecosystem for opensource h/w design.

epolanski 3y ago
I think he's credited with it fine, he's always mentioned as one of the if not the founding father of open source (albeit with less emphasis on the license debacles).

chpatrick 3y ago

Another way to look at it is Tesla sells an over the air discount in exchange for a slower car.

tjpnz 3y ago

And the Four Freedoms are perhaps even more relevant today. I would urge anyone to read them again now.

mrtksn 3y ago

It's just business though. It has nothing to do with the software, the software is just a tool to enforce a business model. A car that already has the hardware but requires payment to enable that by software is exactly the same thing as paying for a video game: The video game is already created and uploaded on the servers but software requires payment to let you download and play it. There are numerous other examples like game consoles sold at loss, printers sold less than the cost, search engines or mail services provided for free, free hosting etc. - all investing huge sums on creating the product in hope to recoup that and make profit by collecting small fees later and they need their products locked down to be able to do this. The whole thing revolves around collecting small payments for a the very large capital investment that is required to create the product in first place. Since the small payments are collected post-development, someone has to risk their large capital for this to happen, they also expect compensation and guarantees that the small payments will arrive if the product is developed successfully. The software is locked down only because they want to enforce that business model. You can refuse to participate in that but ultimately, those who can invest large amount of money end up making the much better products.

groestl 3y ago
> the software is just a tool to enforce a business model. And that's what RMS understood better than many others: His software (and by proxy it's license) is just a tool to enforce an ethical business model.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  What's more ethical about receiving payments immediately for the job done at this very moment than investing your time and money to build something and receive payments for it later?
  - groestl 3y ago
    That's a strawman, because neither I nor RMS make arguments about the timing of payments in relation to work done. The restrictions on business models (imposed by software licenses as a tool) is necessary to preserve the Four Freedoms, which, at least in his view are required to use software ethically. RMS predicted, and accurately as we see, that forgoing these essential Freedoms will create a world where software is used (on us) in an unethical way.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bigstrat2003 3y ago

Yeah. I profoundly disagree with RMS on many things. But as much as it pains me to say it, year after year I find myself saying "fuck, Stallman was right."