3 ms·

There are a host of issues that one could take with Stallman's proposals/ideas, but one that I think doesn't get much attention is the slight falseness in some

by hacknat 13y ago

There are a host of issues that one could take with Stallman's proposals/ideas, but one that I think doesn't get much attention is the slight falseness in some of his assumptions. We give up our freedom to a plethora of things in the world all the time that we all interact with (be it cars, planes, microwaves, televisions, etc). I interact with tons of products that I know, in theory, could threaten me because they are closed systems, but I use them anyway. I suspect RMS does the same and I'm sure he and I try to be cautious and judicious of our use of these things (many others are probably not). For example, I use Gmail. I know that there is a possibility, however remote, that my correspondence could be hacked or used against me in some way, because of the distributed and closed source nature of the program I'm using. I don't care though. I simply don't trust Gmail with correspondence that is sensitive to my personal life and I get along happily. How is Gmail impinging on my freedom if I am able to choose, taking a knowing risk? I know RMS would respond that since I don't have access to the source that I actually don't know the risks that I am taking, but I think this is a straw man. Even if every product in the world was open source we would all still be taking risks with them, because there is no way we could spend our time reviewing all of the specific implications of every product.

fluidcruft 13y ago
If your statement proves anything it's that you are unfamiliar with RMS and his writings beyond what trolls write. Also, what on Earth do you think you are proving by building a strawman and then explicitly arguing about it being a strawman?
mwfunk 13y ago
That's actually probably not how RMS would respond. He goes out of his way to emphasize that Free Software is fundamentally about morality rather than any sort of pragmatic reasons like security. He would probably make some analogy equating you choosing to use Gmail with some hypothetical people in the past choosing slavery or indentured servitude because they either didn't know any better or had no better choices in life. He might even chastise you for choosing expediency over moral correctness, and he might even question your own morality because you are contributing to the capital-E Evil in the world by doing so. You might think that this is somewhat crazy and shortsighted and absolutist and nonconstructive, and you might question the groundedness of someone who equates other people's choices in mail clients with things like slavery, and you'd be quite correct in feeling that way. If you then vocalize these concerns, you will be roundly flamed by one or more CS undergrads claiming that you just don't get it and that you either need to get on board or be steamrollered by history. You might think said CS undergrads are also a little lacking in the groundedness and perspective departments, and you'd probably be right about that too.
HerraBRE 13y ago
As long as you are happy with the terms GMail is offered under, and the feature set of the software, you are right, in the short term it probably does not impact your freedom in a way you are likely to notice. It may even enhance your short-term freedom by letting you focus on other things. However, the fact remains that if you dislike something about GMail (the ads, the way it renders ASCII art, or maybe you wish it supported OpenPGP encryption), you are powerless to do anything about it. This also means that if GMail changes in some way you don't like (e.g. the recent UI changes), you have no choice but to accept them. If one day they decide to forbid normal attachments and force everything to go into Google Drive... well that's just too bad. Basically, your choices always boil down to "take it or leave it", where leave it means migrating (or losing) your mail and learning to use a new app. This is not a trivial undertaking, even for a skilled user. When you further consider how many people are putting their eggs in the same basket, these issues (especially the privacy concerns) become much more worrying. GMail, through its market dominance, is actively holding back the adoption of encryption and actively harming the privacy of entire nations. This wouldn't be a concern if it were free software people ran in a decentralized fashion. Free Software comes with its own issues - running your own software and maintaining it does incur a cost. But with Free Software you have the option of doing things yourself or hiring someone to help you out. With non-free software, you don't have that choice. How important these issues are to you personally will of course vary. But that doesn't mean Free Software supporters are wrong to believe these are problems worth spending time and effort on fixing. Raising awareness is of course a necessary part of that. (disclaimer: I work on https://www.mailpile.is/ https://www.mailpile.is/, a Free Software project which aims to offer many of the features of GMail with strong emphasis on privacy/security, so I feel pretty strongly about this.)
- einhverfr 13y ago
  But this comes back to why I keep saying that freedom is economically valuable. If you don't like something about Gmail, if you have all the components, you can bring another service to market. This is what's missing in the discussion. The point of freedom is in production, in bringing things to market. There are certain things (like DRM) that Stallman does not want to be brought to market and so the FSF tries to discourage them using the license. But that's a dangerous power, left in the hands of a few organizations and companies. I prefer to see this as something that should not be in the hands of anyone, but a case where the freedom to bring products and services to market is the primary goal of the movement. However, this only really exists in Distributism, and of this, the BSD license is the best fit.

by hacknat 13y ago

fluidcruft 13y ago

If your statement proves anything it's that you are unfamiliar with RMS and his writings beyond what trolls write. Also, what on Earth do you think you are proving by building a strawman and then explicitly arguing about it being a strawman?

mwfunk 13y ago

That's actually probably not how RMS would respond. He goes out of his way to emphasize that Free Software is fundamentally about morality rather than any sort of pragmatic reasons like security. He would probably make some analogy equating you choosing to use Gmail with some hypothetical people in the past choosing slavery or indentured servitude because they either didn't know any better or had no better choices in life. He might even chastise you for choosing expediency over moral correctness, and he might even question your own morality because you are contributing to the capital-E Evil in the world by doing so. You might think that this is somewhat crazy and shortsighted and absolutist and nonconstructive, and you might question the groundedness of someone who equates other people's choices in mail clients with things like slavery, and you'd be quite correct in feeling that way. If you then vocalize these concerns, you will be roundly flamed by one or more CS undergrads claiming that you just don't get it and that you either need to get on board or be steamrollered by history. You might think said CS undergrads are also a little lacking in the groundedness and perspective departments, and you'd probably be right about that too.

HerraBRE 13y ago

As long as you are happy with the terms GMail is offered under, and the feature set of the software, you are right, in the short term it probably does not impact your freedom in a way you are likely to notice. It may even enhance your short-term freedom by letting you focus on other things. However, the fact remains that if you dislike something about GMail (the ads, the way it renders ASCII art, or maybe you wish it supported OpenPGP encryption), you are powerless to do anything about it. This also means that if GMail changes in some way you don't like (e.g. the recent UI changes), you have no choice but to accept them. If one day they decide to forbid normal attachments and force everything to go into Google Drive... well that's just too bad. Basically, your choices always boil down to "take it or leave it", where leave it means migrating (or losing) your mail and learning to use a new app. This is not a trivial undertaking, even for a skilled user. When you further consider how many people are putting their eggs in the same basket, these issues (especially the privacy concerns) become much more worrying. GMail, through its market dominance, is actively holding back the adoption of encryption and actively harming the privacy of entire nations. This wouldn't be a concern if it were free software people ran in a decentralized fashion. Free Software comes with its own issues - running your own software and maintaining it does incur a cost. But with Free Software you have the option of doing things yourself or hiring someone to help you out. With non-free software, you don't have that choice. How important these issues are to you personally will of course vary. But that doesn't mean Free Software supporters are wrong to believe these are problems worth spending time and effort on fixing. Raising awareness is of course a necessary part of that. (disclaimer: I work on https://www.mailpile.is/ https://www.mailpile.is/, a Free Software project which aims to offer many of the features of GMail with strong emphasis on privacy/security, so I feel pretty strongly about this.)

einhverfr 13y ago
But this comes back to why I keep saying that freedom is economically valuable. If you don't like something about Gmail, if you have all the components, you can bring another service to market. This is what's missing in the discussion. The point of freedom is in production, in bringing things to market. There are certain things (like DRM) that Stallman does not want to be brought to market and so the FSF tries to discourage them using the license. But that's a dangerous power, left in the hands of a few organizations and companies. I prefer to see this as something that should not be in the hands of anyone, but a case where the freedom to bring products and services to market is the primary goal of the movement. However, this only really exists in Distributism, and of this, the BSD license is the best fit.