211–220 of 238 posts
[1] https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_March...
The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting…
Stallman is very much on one of the far ends of the technological spectrum, with, say, normal people with Android phones and Gmail and a Windows laptop on the other. I think most people, given enough explanation, would recognize that Stallman and the FSF are 100% correct in their extremism and zealotry - but most aren't able to live without the convenience they've come to know and love. It's important to have him on…
Oh, yes, I'm very much of the opinion that they are right; the only reason I'm not joining them is because my Mac works well ;) I have nothing wrong with their "extremism"–the issue I have is that their attacks come across as childish, especially when they give things stupid names, and often they are pieced together by people who aren't actually experts in what they're complaining about and so they end up with evidence like "$NEWS_WEBSITE says this is bad", when the actual issue is something much more fundamental.
The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting…
Once you get over that hurdle, he really is a valuable resource. Like, we all kind of have that problem with him I think, but the guy still earns his seat at the table. In fact, buddy sorta set the table... I just don’t see him as the type that needs to be publicly polished. Why does he have to be? He’s a character, I like it.
The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting…
How is giving examples of misbehavior 'cherry-picking'?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He‘s the annoying vegan of free software...
"Annoying vegans" are usually associated with baseless moral grandstanding by their detractors. Someone who meticulously cites their sources and allows those citations to do the arguing for him seems like the exact opposite.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your Android phone is compatible[0], you might enjoy the result from installing LineageOS on it. If you wish, you can continue to use the Google Play Services package (which is where Google does all the tracking, and is also the only way to get the Play Store). I chose not to and use F-Droid and directly downloaded APKs, which saves me from running any proprietary code that I haven’t vetted carefully. It also solv…
I haven't really checked out LineageOS before. Just briefly browsing their site gives me a bit of skepticism. It doesn't seem to be very professional. For example, their about page, and one of their most recent blog posts. I'm definitely looking for an OS to move to from Android. I suspect Librem will have its own flaws, but they inspire more confidence in me than my first impressions of LineageOS from their website.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your Android phone is compatible[0], you might enjoy the result from installing LineageOS on it. If you wish, you can continue to use the Google Play Services package (which is where Google does all the tracking, and is also the only way to get the Play Store). I chose not to and use F-Droid and directly downloaded APKs, which saves me from running any proprietary code that I haven’t vetted carefully. It also solv…
LineageOS is pretty nice, but it's a bandaid and they dropped a huge amount of older devices from support when they left the CM brand. Hopefully postmarketOS will become more usable in the future, and we'll be able to use that on existing hardware, perhaps in combination with something like Halium when needed to make the proprietary driver blobs usable with a custom, non-AOSP userspace.
> Apple practices tax avoidance using loopholes and lobbying. He’s cherry picking things here that really don’t have anything to do specifically with Apple. Amazon paid zero taxes last year and they had more income than nearly any company in the world. Google is also quite famous for the loopholes it finds. I’m not sure it’s fair to single out Apple specifically for this.
This is called whataboutism. This article is not about Amazon or Google. He likely has a similar opinion about those companies. But this is about Apple and the tax avoidance point is valid. (At least according to https://itep.org/fact-sheet-apple-and-tax-avoidance/ )
Hmmm...
The problem that I see is (inputs welcome from others on this) there are no mass produced goods (hardware and software) that are also easy to use and secure and private that conform to his requirements (leave alone cheap or being friendly to the environment, to workers, against censorship, and many other factors). It would take quite a bit of effort (to set things up) even for technical people to live as he does.