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Reasons not to use Facebook

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Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#201

Post by pionar »

jeswin wrote: post #152
MCRed wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example? For instance, I was aware of Stallman in the 1980s, read his writings back then, didn't think they were correct, and the future he predicted has not come to be. Yes there are some of us who are that old. Specifically, he said that without the virility of his license, there would be no free/open source software and that all software would be locked down and proprietary. The entire open source…

> Specifically, he said that without the virility of his license, there would be no free/open source software and that all software would be locked down and proprietary. If I were to guess, without GPL the Open Source movement may have looked very different. It might seem that GPL isn't essential today, but it may have been when the FOSS was learning to walk. Again, I don't see GPL as diminishing in importance, we'll…

> If I were to guess, without GPL the Open Source movement may have looked very different.

One could argue the other way, that the GPL seriously hindered the movement until more permissive licenses started becoming favored (like the Apache license).

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#202

Post by facepalm »

notum wrote: post #179
facepalm wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why your comment is voted up so much because you only seem to provide an opinion ("I don't understand...") and take 10 paragraphs for it.

Flawed ranking algorithm. It's the replies that vote him up.

Oh, didn't know that replies also count as votes - are you sure?

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#203

Post by facepalm »

MCRed wrote: post #95
kragen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People value Stallman’s opinions on these matters so highly because he has a remarkable history of being right about them ten or fifteen years before it becomes clear to everyone else that he was right, and he takes the risk of saying what he sees even when it will offend people. In fact, that’s why he’s famous; he’s certainly a good hacker, but the world has quite a number of good hackers who aren’t famous because t…

Can you give an example? For instance, I was aware of Stallman in the 1980s, read his writings back then, didn't think they were correct, and the future he predicted has not come to be. Yes there are some of us who are that old. Specifically, he said that without the virility of his license, there would be no free/open source software and that all software would be locked down and proprietary. The entire open source…

Superfish, of recent times. Google it (Superfish Lenovo since you seem to have missed it).

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#204

Post by keithpeter »

_ak wrote: post #147
tree_of_item wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstood, he's calling the cops thugs, not the protestors. If you read the rest of his website you will see that he refers to police as "thugs" regularly: > US citizens: call on Obama to curb militarization of thugs. > Everyone, call on Pasco to fire and prosecute the killer thugs > "Flood Wall Street" protesters have been acquitted of charges; the thugs' order for them to disperse was ruled unconstitutional…

And that is one reason why he is so terrible at communication. Nobody understands what he really means in that particular case, unless you were able to derive his specific meaning of "thug" from his previous writings. Inventing your own private sociolect and using it in published texts is a bad idea.

UK note: I had to check the reference to work out that the thugs mentioned had uniforms.

I found the playful use of 'used' along with other vocabulary changes to be reasonable and engaging. This playfulness with language may create problems for readers whose first language is not English.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#205

Post by notum »

facepalm wrote: post #202
notum wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flawed ranking algorithm. It's the replies that vote him up.

Oh, didn't know that replies also count as votes - are you sure?

Nope! But I suspect reply owners, even if in disagreement, hit the upvote button to buy more eyeballs.

I may or may have not upvoted your comment.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#207

Post by jcrawfordor »

_nedR wrote: post #154
joeyspn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a funny one: Stallman came to my uni to give a speech to CompSci alumni 10 years ago, and he told the audience that he didn't own a cellphone, cos phones were being used to track people. He also talked about the backdoors in several OS's. Everybody was laughing at his words. We're talking 10 years ago. Few months ago remembering this speech with old uni mates we talked about how damn right that excentric man w…

This, exactly. Stallman is taking a stand here. We might think that he is a dangerous extremist for his actions and stances (Not using proprietary software, mobile phones, javascript-enabled websites). But what he is actually doing is sacrificing his life to make his points (which are for the most part completely valid). I would guess, even he knows that most of his ideals are impractical in today's world, but he is…

As someone who interacted closely with RMS for several days recently, I think I should set the record straight on one important fact. RMS absolutely uses cellphones. He just doesn't own one himself. Instead, he borrows the phones of the people around him, and his assistant collects those people's phone numbers in order to call him.

What this says about his philosophy probably depends significantly on how irritating you find it.

That said, it's worth noting that it's certainly not that he doesn't care about the privacy of others. I had to pull him away from lecturing innocent bystanders about paying at the grocery store with CCs.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#208

Post by domenzain »

michaelmior wrote: post #183
rdtsc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does this make his opinion on Facebook or privacy or freedom any more correct or valid? No. And whose opinions are correct on the topic? Who should we listen to then? Opinions are opionions and we can all evaluate them. Hopefully we can evaluate them objectively regardless who came up with them. > he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies. He doesn't huh. Ok, if it is so obvio…

You said that your editor is free software, meaning that no one made money on you using it. I'm not sure how this refutes the point about a "_viable_ company." (Given that viable necessarily includes making money.)

I suspect rdtsc meant free as in freedom. There are several companies successfully founded and running on free software. An example I saw recently is the French telecommunications provider Free. Much of the software running on their set-top-boxes is licensed under GPL and they provide the source code as required by the licence. They have dealt serious damage to more traditionally minded companies.

Invasion of privacy is not a requisite for company viability.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#210

Post by krapp »

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #45

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics. Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRI…

Richard Stallman does have a cult of personality around him who seem willing to defend his prescience and infallibility to the detriment of critical thinking and common sense.

However, while I think he is off base on a couple of points here (the "Psychological Harm" argument, in particular, seems like a cricitism of the vanity of youth and gamification, the latter of which is worth criticizing,) one doesn't need to be paranoid to see that much of what he mentions is at least worth considering.

And he doesn't mention much, it's basically a list of links about Facebook's business practices, and many of the issues he presents apply to social media in general since so many sites want desperately to be as Facebook-ish as possible (see: G+ and anyone who found their real name, profile and G+ comments forced on to Youtube.)

Not taking as gospel because he's RMS, but at least considering. Most of what he points out are true, and not that controversial.

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