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Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

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Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#31

Post by EGreg »

irq-1 wrote: post #22
such_a_casual wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His views only seem radical because of the way he presents them. Easily his biggest mistake is naming his movement Free Software instead of something like Software Liberties or Software Rights, and then refusing to change the name at any point after the realization of this error. Then he says things like, "They're trying to put a cloud inside your head." Which is just laughable. Most of the time he's speaking very ge…

Here are two of Stallmans' writings addressing "Free" and "Cloud". > Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software > When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.” https://www.gnu.org/philosophy…

It is a false dichotomy for Stallman to keep saying the only alternative to the word Free is Open Source. I have written to him and suggested terms such as Liberating Software, which is more accurate. Or at least Freeing Software. But he never even responded.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#32

Post by such_a_casual »

irq-1 wrote: post #22
such_a_casual wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His views only seem radical because of the way he presents them. Easily his biggest mistake is naming his movement Free Software instead of something like Software Liberties or Software Rights, and then refusing to change the name at any point after the realization of this error. Then he says things like, "They're trying to put a cloud inside your head." Which is just laughable. Most of the time he's speaking very ge…

Here are two of Stallmans' writings addressing "Free" and "Cloud". > Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software > When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.” https://www.gnu.org/philosophy…

What do any of those things have to do with my thesis? Can you restate the main point of my argument?

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#33

Post by shmerl »

Yep. Add to that all kind of attempts to erode the ownership of digital goods by all kind of stores which pretend they sell you something, while really they only rent it (for no good reason). DRM and its kin come along with that. Support DRM-free stores and boycott DRMed ones to vote with your wallet.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#34

Post by EGreg »

tbrownaw wrote: post #24
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason he doesn't browse the web is that non free software javascript would somehow hurt him. Not using social media is considered a badge of honor by many. Not using the web (although that's not entirely true in RMS' case, he just heavily limits it [1]) should be considered a commendable feat, too. Since it's RMS, though, it's just another opportunity to disparage him. He thinks that non-copyleft licensed projec…

Not using social media is considered a badge of honor by many. Sure, but why ? Because it's difficult? Because it's useless newfangled morally-corrupting stuff? Not using the web ... should be considered a commendable feat, too. Again, why ? The web is useful . Is it also commendable to cook all your own food from scratch, do all your laundry by hand, avoid use of electricity, etc?

Yes, maybe if it wasn't marketed so much from economies of scale we won't be using up so many resources on this planet and making so much garbage.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#35

Post by bobajeff »

nextos wrote: post #26
dajbelshaw wrote: post #13

It was my first time meeting Stallman at the Indie Tech Summit (where I also met the CloudFleet guys). He's a little eccentric, but he's one of the reasons I'm now on a Linux machine instead of a Mac!

I hope Stallman focusses on mobile now. Desktop, laptop & server are pretty satisfying free software platforms. But mobile is incredibly dissatisfying, and it's quickly getting a decent share of users. Incidentally, FSF is running a vision survey to establish strategic goals: https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=403&reset=1

In addition to phones. It's obvious hardware should be tackled as most mobile hardware has firmware that is proprietary. Plus some hardware has features that is hard or impossible to turn off.

Outside of phones there is router hardware.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#36

Post by such_a_casual »

crististm wrote: post #10

Do you have an agenda or you just can't think on your own? By your own description you should up your game a little before writing off some argument as "laughable".

Did you actually read my post? What is my thesis? What was the argument I was presenting?

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#37

Post by bcrack »

autoreleasepool wrote: post #27

If BTsync ever goes open source or SyncThing ever achieves the quality and functionality of BTSync, then achieving autonomy over our data will be easy. I use BitTorrent Sync with my FreeNas box. It's absolutely amazing. I am able to completely subvert the cloud and have all my data synced across devices. The mobile app is a user-friendly delight. I was able to share 15 GBs of vacation videos with 10 of my non-techie…

In what ways do you find SyncThing lacking when compared to BTSync? I started using it for work (cautiously) a couple of moths ago and have found it to be very similar (with respect to stability and ease of use) with BTSync, if not superior. Note though that I haven't used BTSync since its first days.

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#39

Post by shpx »

pmoriarty wrote: post #28
nextos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope Stallman focusses on mobile now. Desktop, laptop & server are pretty satisfying free software platforms. But mobile is incredibly dissatisfying, and it's quickly getting a decent share of users. Incidentally, FSF is running a vision survey to establish strategic goals: https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=403&reset=1

Another frontier that the Free Software community should set their sights on is virtual reality. The potential impact of VR is enormous, and one of the leading VR development and content creation tools (Unreal Engine) recently open-sourced thier product (though I'm not sure if it was done with an FSF compatible license). Unity, the real giant in the VR arena, and Oculus' own code are closed, if I'm not mistaken. I'm…

Google is working on an Android based virtual reality OS [0], hopefully that will be free. Google Cardboard has a repo but it's just binaries. Valve/HTC are ostensibly working on opening their Vive headset through OpenVR, but the repo [1] is a bunch of binaries as well. Oculus freed the DK1 firmware [2] (not the sdk though), Linux support is coming after launch (probably not free though). Slight aside, Palmer said in an interview that they've noticed that people spend more time watching movies than gaming on the GearVR, so there's definitely tracking code in there. Finally there's OSVR, which seems the most promising, though the actual hardware maybe not so much[4].

Ultimately, I think there's enough to be optimistic about. Someone definitely should work on extending X11 or Wayland/Mir to VR, though I'm not sure how doable that is at the moment. Plus things are moving quickly right now, which complicates things even more. Probably will be good to wait for standardization, which Palmer has said will happen eventually, or build a mobile os for vr.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/2016-google-tracker-e...

[1] https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr

[2] https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1

[3] https://github.com/OSVR/OSVR-Core

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbiIy4_6lMM

Re: Richard Stallman on Data Autonomy [video]

#40

Post by artlogic »

bcrack wrote: post #37
autoreleasepool wrote: post #27

If BTsync ever goes open source or SyncThing ever achieves the quality and functionality of BTSync, then achieving autonomy over our data will be easy. I use BitTorrent Sync with my FreeNas box. It's absolutely amazing. I am able to completely subvert the cloud and have all my data synced across devices. The mobile app is a user-friendly delight. I was able to share 15 GBs of vacation videos with 10 of my non-techie…

In what ways do you find SyncThing lacking when compared to BTSync? I started using it for work (cautiously) a couple of moths ago and have found it to be very similar (with respect to stability and ease of use) with BTSync, if not superior. Note though that I haven't used BTSync since its first days.

My guess is this:

> I was able to share 15 GBs of vacation videos with 10 of my non-techie friends by sending them a read only key to a shared folder. All of them got it right away with no technical questions or issues.

I appreciate SyncThing's security first stance, but it would be incredibly helpful if it was a bit easier to share specific synced things with non-techies.

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