4 ms·
He even announces a refusal to use Skype because it's not free software. Which is a valid complaint given the nature of Skype. There's also tons of other reaso
by vezzy-fnord 13y ago
He even announces a refusal to use Skype because it's not free software.
Which is a valid complaint given the nature of Skype. There's also tons of other reasons, though. Primarily technical ones.
Either way, software freedom is an important goal and even though I don't necessarily agree with RMS in this case, I understand where he's coming from. So many people seem to have some phobia of accentuating the ethical, freedom and community contexts that the term "free software" implies, preferring the more bitterly pragmatic "open source".
That and this is a very typical RMS rant. This is probably the umpteenth one of the same variation, only with $SOFTWARE being Clang/LLVM in this case.
For the record, I love Clang/LLVM and support BSD licensing. For a lot of software, having an open source development model without the deeper freedom contexts is good enough.
- ygra 13y agoRe Skype: He also suggests just making a normal phone call. Which has pretty much the same problems: It's an opaque, closed system with pretty much the only difference that there are multiple companies controlling it instead of just one.
- ochs 13y agoI don't think that's true. Phone systems are standardised. There is also free telephony software (like asterisk). The cell phone stuff is more secretive, but it's still more open than Skype, which is completely obfuscated, proprietary and centralised.
- belorn 13y agoI would only add that I can own my phone. I can not own my own skype client. The complaint about using phone would be much better suited for 1950 where "the phone company" owned the phone. You called, was asked to choose between 3 different colors, and then a few days/weeks later they came and installed a phone with the clear label that said "property of the phone company".