5 ms·

a lot of these are inherent on the laptop you wrote this with coupled with using the internet in general.

Canada 12y ago
Yes, and any mobile phone. "Ok Google" RMS was right all along. We need free software, or we will have no control over our computers. And our computers are going to be everywhere.
- api 12y ago
  But since it's free, nobody will pay for it. If nobody pays for it, it won't get built. Free as in beer is the enemy of free as in freedom.
  - RadioactiveMan 12y ago
    I don't understand your argument. Some of the most popular software in the world is free. Linux, Apache, OpenSSL, Firefox and more are used by millions and got built without charging people to use them. On a personal computer, there is free software to accomplish any desktop computing task. How can you say that it wont get built when it already has been?
    - api 12y ago
      Those are all special cases, and are all subsidized heavily. Ordinary OSS authors are volunteers. You can only go so far that way, but people have to build a viable career around things or they will eventually be given up. Meanwhile, the closed systems people do pay for have a monstrous advantage and will continue to be far ahead. Nowhere are they further ahead than design and user experience, which in my experience are harder and more work to get right than core code. When you make something work you are only maybe 25% of the way to making it usable. That last 75% is the no-fun stuff people have to be paid to do, and it's the stuff that separates products people use from geek projects only a tiny number of enthusiasts play with.
    - Canada 12y ago
      Those examples you mention exist mainly because interests with money decided it was cheaper to support communal infrastructure upon which they could build proprietary offerings. Even if they started for the joy of hacking, a lot of people were paid good money to make those projects what they are today. That will not automatically happen for a lot of classes of software. You point out that any desktop computing task can be done with free software. So what? That doesn't even matter anymore. It's 2014 and we can't accomplish a significant amount of mobile computing tasks with free software, and those are more intimately connected to us than desktops ever were.
      - RadioactiveMan 12y ago
        Those projects do have a lot of money behind them. The point there is that there is room to make money with open source projects. There are business models besides selling software directly. You make an excellent point about mobile computing. However, interest in free mobile software is growing and we'll see more options available to mirror the demand.
        Canada 12y ago
        Definitely. We've certainly seen great examples of open source projects turning into successful commercial ventures, while remaining committed to free software. What I'm trying to say here is that I hope to see even more business models that work well so we can get free alternatives in more areas of computing sooner rather than later.
  - Canada 12y ago
    That's definitely true. Freedom isn't actually free. I hope that viable business models that support free software emerge. I have a feeling that the general public will be made to suffer by this surveillance system growing around us, and will learn that like convenient Starbucks, freedom is worth paying a few extra bucks for.
  - logn 12y ago
    People pay for free (libre) software because there can still be service offered and sold. And people will pay for a free software TV because it's a physical object.
- javert 12y ago
  But that's not the argument RMS has made. The morality of RMS is an abstraction that is disconnected from empirical truth, just like any religion is. Maybe he would have done some good (other than the software he's written) if he had actually made the argument that we need open source for privacy reasons.
  - Canada 12y ago
    He did. Privacy is merely a byproduct of having the freedom to control your computer. We should all feel deeply offended at not having that control, if we know what's good for us. Looking at the current state of affairs, I'm starting to think RMS wasn't radical and fanatical enough!
    - npizzolato 12y ago
      And you probably feel that way because you're deeply intimate with the inner-workings of computers and so having "control" means something to you. That's not true for most of the population. Let's replace "cars" with "computers" in the freedom slogan. I know nothing about cars, and to be honest, I don't really care to. Cars help me get from A to B, and I would gladly trade freedom to tinker with the inner workings of my car for greater convenience in accomplishing my goal (getting from A to B). I only have so much time in the day, and figuring out how my car works simply doesn't fit into the equation, and it wouldn't interest me even if it did. Now replace car with computer and you have a good idea of what an even larger portion of the population thinks.
      - userbinator 12y ago
        The difference between cars and computers is that people are still relatively still in control of their cars (and they should be if they're driving them...), and there isn't all that much variability in what cars can do - "get from A to B" - nor is there currently much that the manufacturers can do to interfere with that ability to "get from A to B". On the other hand, computers are how we communicate with and consume information from others; they are essentially how we view the world. Thus what power the companies-in-control have to limit, persuade, and otherwise manipulate the population who uses computers is far greater than what they can do with cars. To come back to the car analogy, if the manufacturers had the same type of power those making computers and their software did, they would be able to remotely control your car to make it go not where you want it to, disable it if you tried to drive to "non-approved/licensed" locations or if you attempted to drive faster than they allowed, carried more passengers than licensed for, etc. Of course, convenience and control are not disjoint either - and more control can also lead to greater convenience, as users customise the software they use to make their use of it more convenient.

Yes, and any mobile phone. "Ok Google" RMS was right all along. We need free software, or we will have no control over our computers. And our computers are going to be everywhere.

api 12y ago
But since it's free, nobody will pay for it. If nobody pays for it, it won't get built. Free as in beer is the enemy of free as in freedom.
- RadioactiveMan 12y ago
  I don't understand your argument. Some of the most popular software in the world is free. Linux, Apache, OpenSSL, Firefox and more are used by millions and got built without charging people to use them. On a personal computer, there is free software to accomplish any desktop computing task. How can you say that it wont get built when it already has been?
  - api 12y ago
    Those are all special cases, and are all subsidized heavily. Ordinary OSS authors are volunteers. You can only go so far that way, but people have to build a viable career around things or they will eventually be given up. Meanwhile, the closed systems people do pay for have a monstrous advantage and will continue to be far ahead. Nowhere are they further ahead than design and user experience, which in my experience are harder and more work to get right than core code. When you make something work you are only maybe 25% of the way to making it usable. That last 75% is the no-fun stuff people have to be paid to do, and it's the stuff that separates products people use from geek projects only a tiny number of enthusiasts play with.
  - Canada 12y ago
    Those examples you mention exist mainly because interests with money decided it was cheaper to support communal infrastructure upon which they could build proprietary offerings. Even if they started for the joy of hacking, a lot of people were paid good money to make those projects what they are today. That will not automatically happen for a lot of classes of software. You point out that any desktop computing task can be done with free software. So what? That doesn't even matter anymore. It's 2014 and we can't accomplish a significant amount of mobile computing tasks with free software, and those are more intimately connected to us than desktops ever were.
    - RadioactiveMan 12y ago
      Those projects do have a lot of money behind them. The point there is that there is room to make money with open source projects. There are business models besides selling software directly. You make an excellent point about mobile computing. However, interest in free mobile software is growing and we'll see more options available to mirror the demand.
      - Canada 12y ago
        Definitely. We've certainly seen great examples of open source projects turning into successful commercial ventures, while remaining committed to free software. What I'm trying to say here is that I hope to see even more business models that work well so we can get free alternatives in more areas of computing sooner rather than later.
- Canada 12y ago
  That's definitely true. Freedom isn't actually free. I hope that viable business models that support free software emerge. I have a feeling that the general public will be made to suffer by this surveillance system growing around us, and will learn that like convenient Starbucks, freedom is worth paying a few extra bucks for.
- logn 12y ago
  People pay for free (libre) software because there can still be service offered and sold. And people will pay for a free software TV because it's a physical object.
javert 12y ago
But that's not the argument RMS has made. The morality of RMS is an abstraction that is disconnected from empirical truth, just like any religion is. Maybe he would have done some good (other than the software he's written) if he had actually made the argument that we need open source for privacy reasons.
- Canada 12y ago
  He did. Privacy is merely a byproduct of having the freedom to control your computer. We should all feel deeply offended at not having that control, if we know what's good for us. Looking at the current state of affairs, I'm starting to think RMS wasn't radical and fanatical enough!
  - npizzolato 12y ago
    And you probably feel that way because you're deeply intimate with the inner-workings of computers and so having "control" means something to you. That's not true for most of the population. Let's replace "cars" with "computers" in the freedom slogan. I know nothing about cars, and to be honest, I don't really care to. Cars help me get from A to B, and I would gladly trade freedom to tinker with the inner workings of my car for greater convenience in accomplishing my goal (getting from A to B). I only have so much time in the day, and figuring out how my car works simply doesn't fit into the equation, and it wouldn't interest me even if it did. Now replace car with computer and you have a good idea of what an even larger portion of the population thinks.
    - userbinator 12y ago
      The difference between cars and computers is that people are still relatively still in control of their cars (and they should be if they're driving them...), and there isn't all that much variability in what cars can do - "get from A to B" - nor is there currently much that the manufacturers can do to interfere with that ability to "get from A to B". On the other hand, computers are how we communicate with and consume information from others; they are essentially how we view the world. Thus what power the companies-in-control have to limit, persuade, and otherwise manipulate the population who uses computers is far greater than what they can do with cars. To come back to the car analogy, if the manufacturers had the same type of power those making computers and their software did, they would be able to remotely control your car to make it go not where you want it to, disable it if you tried to drive to "non-approved/licensed" locations or if you attempted to drive faster than they allowed, carried more passengers than licensed for, etc. Of course, convenience and control are not disjoint either - and more control can also lead to greater convenience, as users customise the software they use to make their use of it more convenient.