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The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

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Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#101

Post by pa7ch »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #49

A couple years ago I saw a version of this talk from the chaos computer club on youtube and really loved it. I think its an important issue. So I emailed Cory and asked if I could interview him for a podcast. He responded almost immediately and said yes. At the time he was doing interviews on major network programs about a new book, and I figured he would never respond. He was basically like you would expect Cory Doc…

I saw Cory Doctorow speak at Clemson Uni in South Carolina of all places sometime around 2008. The room was only partially filled. I was already into computer security, but I was really impressed by him and have followed and read his work ever since. He had a big influence on me. I went on to see him at security conferences on the west coast many years later.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#102

Post by geocar »

grawprog wrote: post #53

Phones, consoles, Chromebooks and other unrootable hardware, restrictive hardware licensing, arm's business model, abstraction over abstraction, SAAS, corporate cloud infrastructure, web apps over local, streaming over storing, walled gardens, signed binaries, nearly everything about 'modern safe computing' is all about taking control and responsibility away from users and handing it over to somebody else to be paid…

I think I can agree with a lot of this, but I feel it’s a lot like blaming the government, when we live in a democracy so we are the government, and so I think programmers themselves deserve the blame.

Any time I try to tell someone how to tell a computer what to do, I can guarantee someone will tell me how unreadable it is. Or how important it is to use java or python because there are lots of java or python programmers (what a sucker move!). Or maybe someone will tell me I can’t manage memory so I need rust to tell me how. Or I need libraries because I can’t (or shouldn’t) be “trusted” to write certain kinds of code. And so on.

Most programmers (people really) are downright toxic to anyone not like them, and maybe it’s really the fault of the bullies who came before you, but it is you, the reader who can help stop it.

It’s like in 1984 how they reduce language so it is harder to express yourself, so it is with software. But we are truly free so thoughtcrime is only a crime if you let it be one. Of course there will be people (programmers) looking down on the others and will use their doublespeak to lock people down and prevent anyone from getting the idea they can do something else with their stuff.

What if we simply stop telling people how not to code — and call those that do out for their bad behaviour — then maybe more people will start coding. And maybe just maybe our “government” will demand an end to the other walls and ceilings in software.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#103

Post by pabs3 »

samatman wrote: post #48
mjevans wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the course of my life the tinfoil to warranted concern has been the general trend. Mostly in areas where unchecked ambition for control, power, and influence have allowed greed to convince people to do evil unto others. The natural cost of information is the marginal cost of copying. It's the creation of new, useful information that needs to be incentivized; that's where UBI or some other hire more public works…

We need to do a lot better than UBI for FOSS to keep advancing. A caste of code monks who forgo a comfortable life to write free software from their Mom's basement, or a cabin in the woods, isn't nearly good enough. Might not be able to pay out a quarter million a year like the FAAAM crew does, but we need a bunch of jobs paying half that to write and maintain open source. If it isn't competitive with the other optio…

There are a number of resources for FOSS funding listed here:

https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#104

Post by est31 »

dehrmann wrote: post #99
Conan_Kudo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though we have Linux, I would love to see more dominant GPL projects out there. It is an excellent license when used strategically and I think it's dismissed as too extreme too often. Unfortunately, the startup/business world has largely taken over most forms of open source development, and they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL. That change enables a…

> they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL How have they put pressure? I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back. If you're talking larger projects, a lot of the big, recent…

Google literally can't even use something that's AGPL licensed due to internal policy. Apple has a war on GPL, shipping outdated versions of GNU tools that still have GPLv2, and funding clang development which has a non-copyleft license.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#105

Post by ywei3410 »

geocar wrote: post #102
grawprog wrote: post #53

Phones, consoles, Chromebooks and other unrootable hardware, restrictive hardware licensing, arm's business model, abstraction over abstraction, SAAS, corporate cloud infrastructure, web apps over local, streaming over storing, walled gardens, signed binaries, nearly everything about 'modern safe computing' is all about taking control and responsibility away from users and handing it over to somebody else to be paid…

I think I can agree with a lot of this, but I feel it’s a lot like blaming the government, when we live in a democracy so we are the government, and so I think programmers themselves deserve the blame. Any time I try to tell someone how to tell a computer what to do, I can guarantee someone will tell me how unreadable it is. Or how important it is to use java or python because there are lots of java or python program…

An insight I had recently while thinking about language, is that the terms commonly used by the developer community can have some unintended and far-reaching consequences.

Take the term user-friendly; which is insidious term in that it labels everything which isn't in that bucket as user hostile. That we now co-opt the term to mean any software which is easy to use for certain users, means that we, as developers steer away from creating software not in that particular bucket.

We do a disservice to people to hide these tools away; software should enable users, not dictate what they do. I love this particular example of a Professor in French studies extending Emacs to do medieval transcription [1].

[1] https://josephrjohnson.georgetown.domains/posts/emacs-transc...

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#106

Post by heavyset_go »

est31 wrote: post #104
dehrmann wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL How have they put pressure? I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back. If you're talking larger projects, a lot of the big, recent…

Google literally can't even use something that's AGPL licensed due to internal policy. Apple has a war on GPL, shipping outdated versions of GNU tools that still have GPLv2, and funding clang development which has a non-copyleft license.

For reference, here is Google's AGPL policy: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/

As an advocate of the AGPL, and someone who releases software under it, I think Google's argument is pushing FUD.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#107

Post by jimktrains2 »

dehrmann wrote: post #99
Conan_Kudo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though we have Linux, I would love to see more dominant GPL projects out there. It is an excellent license when used strategically and I think it's dismissed as too extreme too often. Unfortunately, the startup/business world has largely taken over most forms of open source development, and they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL. That change enables a…

> they've put a lot of pressure to change the default license for new projects from (A/L)GPL to ASL How have they put pressure? I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back. If you're talking larger projects, a lot of the big, recent…

> I've written some libraries personally and licensed them under the Apache or BSD license because I want it to be helpful for anyone who needs it. I'm really not concerned if they make money off it or not or if they contribute back.

It's not about getting contributions back, but ensuring that everyone who needs it can use it includes end users.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#108

Post by hilbertseries »

arexxbifs wrote: post #86
preommr wrote: post #51

The only thing that brings me solace in regards to doomsday scenarios like this is that they're extremely unlikely because of human incompetence. We are so far away from companies creating and embedding computers everywhere for this to be an issue. Let alone for sophisticated means of interaction. And lets say we somehow exceed all expectations and companies start creating marvelous products that are all on par with…

> We are so far away from companies creating and embedding computers everywhere for this to be an issue. Apart from those in TV:s, loudspeakers, phones, light bulbs, doorbells, cars, airplanes, watches, trains, billboards, medical equipment, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, thermostats, elevators, vending machines, kitchen appliances, lawnmowers, musical instruments, cameras, bathroom scales, thermometers and a few…

> there's almost no computers at all in most everyday objects.

This is true, without your qualifier. Go into a random house in America and you won’t find many smart appliances. Internet of things devices are more of a hobby for those with disposable income, than some thing greatly taking over. There’s not a real problem that smart lightbulbs are solving to be worth the time and hassle for most people. There are a couple of exceptions, like internet connected TVs that can play Netflix for you, make a lot of sense. But go look at Home Depot, not many fridges, ovens and microwaves are being advertised and sold as smart.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#109

Post by geofft »

eruleman wrote: post #67
samatman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to do a lot better than UBI for FOSS to keep advancing. A caste of code monks who forgo a comfortable life to write free software from their Mom's basement, or a cabin in the woods, isn't nearly good enough. Might not be able to pay out a quarter million a year like the FAAAM crew does, but we need a bunch of jobs paying half that to write and maintain open source. If it isn't competitive with the other optio…

Good news: Crypto created the new business model for open source software. Naval: "Ironic that the most monetizeable code in the world is now open source (running on blockchains). OSS has the best business model." https://twitter.com/naval/status/867860551522598912

They created a new business model for a new type of open source software. It doesn't do anything for all the existing types of open source software. Nobody is going to turn glibc into a blockchain.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#110

Post by bigbubba »

heavyset_go wrote: post #106
est31 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google literally can't even use something that's AGPL licensed due to internal policy. Apple has a war on GPL, shipping outdated versions of GNU tools that still have GPLv2, and funding clang development which has a non-copyleft license.

For reference, here is Google's AGPL policy: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ As an advocate of the AGPL, and someone who releases software under it, I think Google's argument is pushing FUD.

Google refusing to use AGPL software actually makes the license more appealing. The way AGPL wards off corporations like google is almost as though it has a 'do no evil' clause.
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