11–20 of 110 posts
If we'd follow everything Stallman said we'd all be "surfing the web" one email at a time ( http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134336/focus=1... )
Instapaper, much beloved in these parts, is a fancy modern take on the same idea as RMS's web-to-email system.
"On most Android phones, this firmware has so much control that it could turn the product into a listening device. On some, it controls the microphone. On some, it can take full control of the main computer, through shared memory, and can thus override or replace whatever free software you have installed. With some models it is possible to exercise remote control of this firmware, and thus of the phone's computer, through the phone radio network."
I think we need phones with free and open source GSM/UMTS aka Baseband stacks.
One project helping with this is OsmocomBB http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/
If we'd follow everything Stallman said we'd all be "surfing the web" one email at a time ( http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134336/focus=1... )
i want to like rms but you get the sense that he doesn't live in the real world whenever you read his stuff. I mean, seriously, Android is about a lightyear more open than iOS and there are super good reasons Honeycomb is not out. An OEM in China would promptly put out some sort of crappy phone that uses it and wrecks the Android brand.
They're totally free to do that right now, they don't need a more open version of android for that.
It's not as if google is limiting who has or does not have access to the platform.
The issue that RMS is trying to address is one that matters to a small subset of those that buy the phones, your ability to modify the code and improve it.
The price of the lowest end android smartphones is dropping so fast there won't be any room left at the bottom for a hypothetical even lower end phone.
As for android being 'more open than ios' RMS makes that point in the article.
And Richard is right - the real threat to open systems is not so much the obviously closed systems like Apple but the almost open systems like Android that are open enough to release the valve on community pressure but that aren't open enough to give us real freedom and control.
On the plus side, things are still in flux. For example, Inferno is now available to run on top of the free Android Linux kernel: http://www.android-dev.ro/2011/09/17/hellaphone-inferno-os-f...
As for locking the devices, unfortunately "free" also means that device vendors are free to lock the devices. If you care, don't get such a device (my philosophy: stick to the Nexus line to be safe).
The points that were specifically made (for those that want to rail against the article but that refuse to read it for some reason):
- "Google's Andy Rubin put up a proof that Android was open, then subsequent releases of android were put out in a way that this proof no longer held, so by googles own definition android is currently not an open platform"
- "Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple."
- "Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. Even though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your freedom."
- "The phone network firmware comes pre-installed. If all it did was sit there and run, we could regard it as equivalent to a circuit. When we insist that the software in a computing device must be free, we can overlook pre-installed firmware that will never be upgraded, because it makes no difference to the user that it's a program rather than a circuit.
Unfortunately, in this case it would be a malicious circuit. Malicious features are unacceptable no matter how they are implemented.
On most Android phones, this firmware has so much control that it could turn the product into a listening device. On some, it controls the microphone. On some, it can take full control of the main computer, through shared memory, and can thus override or replace whatever free software you have installed. With some models it is possible to exercise remote control of this firmware, and thus of the phone's computer, through the phone radio network."
Take issue with what the man said, not with the man.
My personal take on all this is that if you base your offering on a huge amount of open source that you should keep the spirit of those whose code enables you to run your business alive and respond in kind.
If we'd follow everything Stallman said we'd all be "surfing the web" one email at a time ( http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134336/focus=1... )
Are you trying to discredit him by making fun of the way he organizes his reading to optimize his productive time and spotty Internet connectivity when traveling? Instapaper, much beloved in these parts, is a fancy modern take on the same idea as RMS's web-to-email system.
...Do Not Respect Your Software Freedom. Note that (pretty important) word left out there? Yeah. Linkbait.