My fear with IBM and AI, Linux could go down this path.
I remember seeing KDE and GNOME already have their "stores", we need to keep a close eye on Linux.
What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
141–150 of 315 posts
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#142People are perfectly happy with a walled garden. The question one should always be asking is what is the difference between that and a panopticon? What happens to me if I start seeing faded flowers and no-entry signs? Can I escape? With my stuff or friends or family?
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh wow... The idea of losing general purpose computing is a terrifying thought I've never considered before.
"The Coming War on General Computation", Cory Doctorow (2011). Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg Transcript: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com... (Of course, Stallman warned of this type of thing much earlier as well.)
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Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh wow... The idea of losing general purpose computing is a terrifying thought I've never considered before.
"The Coming War on General Computation", Cory Doctorow (2011). Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg Transcript: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com... (Of course, Stallman warned of this type of thing much earlier as well.)
Stallman is always right eventually. It's actually quite incredible.
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#145I believe that in the depths of the cold war, when personal computers were just showing up, it was decided, deep within the National Security Agency,that it was more advantageous to let them continue to proliferate without fostering secure Operating Systems, though they were available.
We all now live with the blowback from that decision. Most people don't even realize that actually secure computing is a possibility now, even here on HN.
This general insecurity means that anything exposed to raw internet will be compromised and therefore significant resources must be expended to manage it, and recover after any incidents.
It's no wonder that most people don't want to actually run their own servers. Thus we give up control and this .... Situation .... Is the result.
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#146I was there, 3000 years ago, when we started ringing the bell about “trusted computing”. Honestly it’s not as bad as I expected
Alternate take: it's exactly as bad as you expected, but your timeline was off. And even so, perhaps it's later than you realize. Device attestation in the browser is the final nail in the coffin, and it's a question of "when" not "if" major sites start requiring it in the name of "safety" from bots.
> and it's a question of "when" not "if" major sites start requiring it in the name of "safety" from bots.
I recently found a plugin that can alert to JS doing shady "fingerprint-like" activity. I did not expect it to go off quite as often as it does now.
It would seem that some sites are already asking _very_ probing questions about the browser so it's only a matter of time before they go one step further and demand proof and gate on furnishment of that proof.
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The Coming War on General Computation", Cory Doctorow (2011). Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg Transcript: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com... (Of course, Stallman warned of this type of thing much earlier as well.)
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He didn't assault anyone.
He said a bunch of things. They've all been collected here: https://stallman-report.org/
What I love about that report is that the author created it with the intention of making Stallman look bad. And if you look at the author's summaries, he looks bad. However, the author also made us the favour of collecting all the statements in one single place. And if you look at the things that Stallman actually said (as opposed to the author's summaries) he doesn't look bad, he looks strictly correct.
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mobile is where it’s bad. It never took hold fully on desktop since desktop is used for development and too many other things.
PC was an anomaly thanks to IBM not being able to go with their plans. On UNIX, Sun was the vendor that introduced the concept of SDK SKU, thus for having developer tools, an additional SKU had to be bought, and the until then largely ignored GCC sundenly got a new focus of attention. Mainframes and micros always needed having a group of folks from the vendor professional services for specific kinds of configurations…
An anomaly from some corporate pov, maybe, but at home the PC was definitely not more open to general purpose computing than the alternatives. Most early home computers booted straight into a BASIC prompt, and the line between being a programmer and a user was far more blurred than it is now.
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
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He didn't assault anyone. He said a bunch of things. They've all been collected here: https://stallman-report.org/ What I love about that report is that the author created it with the intention of making Stallman look bad. And if you look at the author's summaries, he looks bad. However, the author also made us the favour of collecting all the statements in one single place. And if you look at the things that Stallma…
And there's a reply to that: https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/09/30/in-defense-of-richard-stal... via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113414
Re: What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?
#150It doesn't increase shareholder revenue. That is the second highest calling. The only thing more important is marketing and advertising, and this also helps that, so hey, two birds one stone.