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Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

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Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#81

Post by ZeroGravitas »

bad_user wrote: post #79
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that they want to control the proliferation of 3.0 devices . The stated reason was that 3.0 code was somewhere between broken and terrible on phone form factors. That's a much more understandable motivation for keeping things closed, both from a developer not wanting to embarrass yourself and as a platform builder not wanting to give the over-enthusiastic (or their customers) a bad experience of Android.…

so many pixels are wasted examining exactly how open source Android is From my perspective, Android is this kickass open-source technology that Google released with good intentions. I would be pretty sad if that changed. Android in its current state (talking about 2.x) is disruptive. I hope they'll continue releasing the source code / keeping it open-source. But "open" has become a battleground between Apple and Goog…

I don't consider genuine questions noise. I personally could talk all day about the ins and outs of free software/ open source community management and the ethical implications thereof. Similarly for RMS's article, while I think he's got a couple of facts wrong, he's putting across a fairly nuanced argument.

But just like a Creationist discussing the flaws in an evolutionary theory, or a tobacco baron discussing how hard it is to actually prove cause and effect in science, I find most discussions of the openness of Android to be agenda driven to the point that they're actively reducing (the geeky subset of) the population's understanding of these issues rather than expanding them. That's noise.

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#82

Post by icebraining »

spokengent wrote: post #78
icebraining wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* the rest of us* Speak for yourself, not for everyone else. I rather have free even if it means less functional. And my socks or bowl doesn't have the ability to record my personal calls or track my location. Comparing the two is asinine.

> And my socks or bowl doesn't have the ability to record my personal calls or track my location. How do you know? You're just more trusting of stuff that doesn't look like it has extra functionality. For all you know, bowl manufacturers could embed GPS tracking devices in there. There comes a point where you just have to trust people selling you stuff won't be evil.

For all you know, bowl manufacturers could embed GPS tracking devices in there.

I don't carry my bowls around ;)

There comes a point where you just have to trust people selling you stuff won't be evil.

I don't like that word. It oversimplifies the issues. Whether Google is evil is subjective and irrelevant. The fact is that their entire business revolves around collecting personal data, often without being clear to the user about the details.

Is this for evil purposes? Were they discussing in dark rooms on how to fuck the user over? No, of course not. But does it really matter?

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#83

Post by cube13 »

0x12 wrote: post #17

This thread has some people attacking RMS as a person without taking on the (guardian) article on its merits. Please read the article http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-fre... , the man raises some interesting points and is not just about your inability to inspect the source. The points that were specifically made (for those that want to rail against the article but that refuse to read it for so…

This statement confuses me:

>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

There are a few things that I find odd about this argument:

1. Phone network firmware is supposed to control the hardware. That's it's purpose. It's supposed to be able to turn the microphone on and off. On CDMA networks like Verizon, it should stop the user from attempting to access data when they're making a call. It should be able to be updated when the carrier makes changes to the underlying protocol(s). I don't see how this is "malicious" use, especially if it's a technological restriction on the carrier.

2. Also, Stallman seems to be attacking the OTA update capability, which one of the main features of the Android OS. I can understand why he's ideologically opposed to it, but as a practical matter, it's a great feature of the OS. Plus, this is only done at the user's request.

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#85

Post by xentronium »

Tichy wrote: post #69
ashishgandhi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say anything about that but I would bet my money on gnaffle's point.

It's very difficult to not have the opportunity to become a millionaire. For example I could have bought a lottery ticket and won the lottery. But I didn't. Likewise, Google hasn't published the Honeycomb source yet. Also, it is strictly logic, you can follow everything from a false statement (false => anything). So, if Google had released the source for Honeycomb I could have been a millionaire is a strictly true st…

What point are you trying to prove?

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#86

Post by icebraining »

w0utert wrote: post #70
icebraining wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* the rest of us* Speak for yourself, not for everyone else. I rather have free even if it means less functional. And my socks or bowl doesn't have the ability to record my personal calls or track my location. Comparing the two is asinine.

While I respect your opinion (everyone is entitled to have one), I hope you realize that it's not hard to come up with other examples of technology that is not 'open' in any way, yet could be used for malicious or undesirable purposes, right? I mean, I love open-source and everything, but I honestly don't give a sh_t whether the 'firmware' of the plane I'm flying, the playback device and amplifier pumping out my tune…

I hope you realize that it's not hard to come up with other examples of technology that is not 'open' in any way, yet could be used for malicious or undesirable purposes, right?

Sure. And if I could, I'd buy open versions of them too.

mean, I love open-source and everything, but I honestly don't give a sh_t whether the 'firmware' of the plane I'm flying, the playback device and amplifier pumping out my tunes, the microwave oven that heats my lasagna, the ECU controlling my cars engine or the software in my satnav system is 'open' and 'free'.

Well, then we're different. I give a shit. Not enough to refuse to use a closed version, of course.

For probably around 99.9% of all people using cell-phones, the exact same reasoning holds for how they think about them, and how they would prefer it to just work well and have more functionality, instead of carrying this (to them) abstract notion of being 'open'. If 'closed' means they get a better product (which is very often the case), then closed is better for them.

Possibly. But that still leaves 0.1% of people. And that includes me.

And 'better' is hard to tell. How much money and effort was spent rewriting stuff because it was tied to closed platforms? People are usually bad at looking at the long term or at evaluating the far reaching consequences of such decisions, in my opinion.

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#87

Post by lootabooga »

Tichy wrote: post #60
gnaffle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have been, though, if the source code had been released. :)

And I could have been a millionaire.

Yes. And, talking about wild hypotheses, your argument could also be a lot more relevant or even have some point.

The fact that 3.x is not on phones doesn't make an iota of difference on whether Google should have opened it or not.

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#88

Post by erikpukinskis »

At the risk of getting downvoted for being meta-, can I remind people that links like this need to be flagged? The Guidelines clearly state:

"Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter." - http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you see a link to a blog post like this, which is just a bad summary of an original source (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-fre...), please flag the summary link on HN, copy the URL of the original source, and paste it into the HN "submit" page (there's usually no need to fill in a title). That will automatically upvote the original source, giving it exposure and improving the quality of discussion.

Obviously if the secondary source is an important editorial piece in it's own right, it's fine.

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#89

Post by notatoad »

5hoom wrote: post #33

Ahh, the second controversial Richard on HN today ;) Love him or hate him, Richard Stallman is nothing if not consistent. The fact is that he is right on this issue. At this time Honeycomb is not open source software. I'm a big fan of google, and as the story says Android is the best of a bad bunch (with regards to software freedom), but it's good that we have people like Stallman who can give us cause to stop & take…

he's right, but in the wrong way. honeycomb is not open source software, but that does not mean that android is not open source software. honeycomb is a dead fork of the android project, it has no future. the android trunk is as open as it has ever been.

Re: Richard Stallman: “Android Phones Do Not Respect Your Freedom”

#90

Post by ajross »

cube13 wrote: post #83
0x12 wrote: post #17

This thread has some people attacking RMS as a person without taking on the (guardian) article on its merits. Please read the article http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-fre... , the man raises some interesting points and is not just about your inability to inspect the source. The points that were specifically made (for those that want to rail against the article but that refuse to read it for so…

This statement confuses me: >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…

I don't see how your points are responsive. The fact that it's "on purpose" (of course it's on purpose!) doesn't changes RMS's argument that it's unethical and abusable. Your examples aren't "malicious", but it seems awfully naive to believe these are the only applications of that technology.

And I don't think Stallman has anything against network-delivered software. He's been doing that for years. The complaint I read was about the ability of the carrier to install things without user authorization, and to use authorization to remove/modify existing features in a way that cannot be recovered. Both of those have happened in the wild.

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