Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Stallman movement failed Citation needed
How many applications, phones, computers do people use that are Stallman compliant?
More than none:
The boiling frog of digital freedom
51–60 of 467 posts
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#52There is one interesting force acting against that though (or it would probably already have happened). It is the simple fact that most people that are competent enough to actually implement these things also understand the problems with doing so. For the most part anyway. If we could just agree to not do that... well, what are "they" going to do? And of course: we owe it to the web to use Firefox. The Chrome clones…
What about Safari too?
Safari is WebKit based too since a few years back
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The banking system does not care. The banks don't need your money.
That same logic says you should not vote either. If even some 10-20% of IT professionals (with salaries to match) up and leave for a less shit bank, trust me, they will care.
No, that logic says you can vote or you can not, it makes effectively zero difference.
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#54Important topic, absolute garbage article. It's more fiction than facts and 1. on hn ofc because the headline sounded nice. I get the intention of exaggerated fiction and landing on what is happening now or before but that's propaganda 101...FUD at its best. Disgusting.
Obviously everything that's in the future is not a fact - or "wildly speculative and hypothetical" as the article itself puts it. See it as a call to action to ensure that it remains fiction.
Call to action? The author did nothing to encourage engagement on the topics only on his article. No information about how you could get active yourself or how you could approach the topic politically just FUD.
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#55The other day I read an HN comment that thought that when you buy consumer PC hardware, it comes with a ToS that limits your property rights as the owner. It's the kind of uncanny experience I run into more and more often lately: talking with people so immersed in our new normal of cyberpunk dystopia, they seem not to remember how things were in the before-times. So accustomed to exploitative corporate gaslighting, we're forgetting the basics of civilization, like, what are ownership rights?
In the before-times, when you bought something, the seller relinquished all claims to it, as an established legal principle (and a social norm and a moral obvious-ity). You can do whatever the fuck you want to your own PC, in your own house! Who would step into your home and tell you "no"?
Stallman was right: if you erode the norm that you control your own software, you lose the hardware, too. Free software is sort of a consumer right that enshrines what ownership of computing hardware means.
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#56I think it is notable that all the stuff that happened is fairly minor and all the stuff that is going to happen is going to economically devastate anyone who brings it in. Freedom does amazing things for an economy.
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#57There is one interesting force acting against that though (or it would probably already have happened). It is the simple fact that most people that are competent enough to actually implement these things also understand the problems with doing so. For the most part anyway. If we could just agree to not do that... well, what are "they" going to do? And of course: we owe it to the web to use Firefox. The Chrome clones…
What about Safari too?
It is the one Chrome fork that sees some development.
(Yes, of course the forkage was the other way). So while they do have a seat at the standards table, i can't say i see much potential (or results). They also don't offer it outside their own locked-down platform by the looks of it. I.e. they have permanently kneecapped their market-share to near-pointless levels.
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#58Needs a prediction on when censorship of legal content by network infrastructure companies like Hurricane Electric becomes normal.
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#59We need a new philosophical movement for computer technology. The Stallman movement failed because it was not practical for business applications. At the end of the day, coders & hardware manufacturers need to eat just like accountants, plumbers and doctors. Technology can't rely 100% on altruism. What we need is something close to the Ethical standards of the Stallman movement, but also compatable with business owne…
> The Stallman movement failed The stuff you read on hn... Seriously, you think it failed? I think it succeeded wildly beyond anything anybody imagined at the time, to the point that very large entities threw everything and the kitchensink at it to try to make it fail. Which exposed them for the criminals they were. We don't need anything that is more compatible with 'business owners' than what we've got. What we nee…
Given your last paragraph, what is the net trend in society of that happening with enough speed to outpace other negative developments?
Would it be more accurate to say that the Free Software movement is in need for an update, or making next steps, to provide a better outlook in this regard?
Edit: Changed "Stallman movement" to "Free Software movement". I am a FOSS advocate myself, but not interested in deeply engrained notions around Stallman himself.
Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom
#60We need a new philosophical movement for computer technology. The Stallman movement failed because it was not practical for business applications. At the end of the day, coders & hardware manufacturers need to eat just like accountants, plumbers and doctors. Technology can't rely 100% on altruism. What we need is something close to the Ethical standards of the Stallman movement, but also compatable with business owne…
> The reason is that there is no ethical-philosophical compass guiding computer technology.
The reason is that there is no ethical-philosophical compass guiding people in the greater part, computer technologists included.