[spokengent]

No, I've had an iPhone, and had android phones. At the moment I mainly use android.

My criteria for buying a phone does not feature "Does it respect my freedom". As usual Stallman is on a different planet to the rest of us, who just want shit to work.

Does Stallman only buy socks as long as he has full manufacturing instructions included? If he buys a bowl, does he insist they include the mould used to create it, as well as all the paints, a DVD documenting how it was made etc.

He's entertaining, but not much more than that.

[icebraining]

* the rest of us*

Speak for yourself, not for everyone else. I rather have free even if it means less functional.

And my socks or bowl doesn't have the ability to record my personal calls or track my location. Comparing the two is asinine.

[w0utert]

While I respect your opinion (everyone is entitled to have one), I hope you realize that it's not hard to come up with other examples of technology that is not 'open' in any way, yet could be used for malicious or undesirable purposes, right?

I mean, I love open-source and everything, but I honestly don't give a sh_t whether the 'firmware' of the plane I'm flying, the playback device and amplifier pumping out my tunes, the microwave oven that heats my lasagna, the ECU controlling my cars engine or the software in my satnav system is 'open' and 'free'. All of those could have potential privacy or safety implications. For probably around 99.9% of all people using cell-phones, the exact same reasoning holds for how they think about them, and how they would prefer it to just work well and have more functionality, instead of carrying this (to them) abstract notion of being 'open'. If 'closed' means they get a better product (which is very often the case), then closed is better for them.

Also, you are fooling yourself if you honestly believe that 'open' is a guarantee for 'safe', 'secure' or 'thrustworthy'. Open-source software has exploits and security holes just like proprietary software. Maybe less, but let's not pretend 'open' is equivalent to 'safe'. You can never be 100% sure the source code you are looking at is actually exactly the same as what is running on this piece of hardware you bought anyway, even though the manufacturer says so.

I kind of agree with what spokengent said. FOSS has many advantages, but RMS is really taking things too far, as he has always done, pretending FOSS only has advantages and no downsides, and proprietary software is always bad and evil. He doesn't seem to understand there are many devices and applications that are simply incompatible with the FOSS way of doing things, for various reasons that have nothing to do with privacy, freedom or security.

RMS is a FOSS absolutist, advocating FOSS like it's a religion, not a way of doing things that works really well for many things, but maybe not so well for others.

Whether FOSS works well for cell-phones is up for debate, personally I don't really believe in it, and the way the Android ecosystem is developing and the strange sem-open development model behind is, is only confirming this, at least for now.

[icebraining]

I hope you realize that it's not hard to come up with other examples of technology that is not 'open' in any way, yet could be used for malicious or undesirable purposes, right?

Sure. And if I could, I'd buy open versions of them too.

mean, I love open-source and everything, but I honestly don't give a sh_t whether the 'firmware' of the plane I'm flying, the playback device and amplifier pumping out my tunes, the microwave oven that heats my lasagna, the ECU controlling my cars engine or the software in my satnav system is 'open' and 'free'.

Well, then we're different. I give a shit. Not enough to refuse to use a closed version, of course.

For probably around 99.9% of all people using cell-phones, the exact same reasoning holds for how they think about them, and how they would prefer it to just work well and have more functionality, instead of carrying this (to them) abstract notion of being 'open'. If 'closed' means they get a better product (which is very often the case), then closed is better for them.

Possibly. But that still leaves 0.1% of people. And that includes me.

And 'better' is hard to tell. How much money and effort was spent rewriting stuff because it was tied to closed platforms? People are usually bad at looking at the long term or at evaluating the far reaching consequences of such decisions, in my opinion.

[spokengent]

> And my socks or bowl doesn't have the ability to record my personal calls or track my location.

How do you know? You're just more trusting of stuff that doesn't look like it has extra functionality. For all you know, bowl manufacturers could embed GPS tracking devices in there.

There comes a point where you just have to trust people selling you stuff won't be evil.

[icebraining]

For all you know, bowl manufacturers could embed GPS tracking devices in there.

I don't carry my bowls around ;)

There comes a point where you just have to trust people selling you stuff won't be evil.

I don't like that word. It oversimplifies the issues. Whether Google is evil is subjective and irrelevant. The fact is that their entire business revolves around collecting personal data, often without being clear to the user about the details.

Is this for evil purposes? Were they discussing in dark rooms on how to fuck the user over? No, of course not. But does it really matter?

[spokengent]

> "The fact is that their entire business revolves around collecting personal data, often without being clear to the user about the details."

BS. They sell advertising.

[icebraining]

They sell targeted advertising. And to target effectively, you need personal data. I never said they sold that data, just that they need to collect it.

[spokengent]

They don't need to.

You search for X, they show adverts related to X.

The extra targeting stuff probably increases their revenue a few %.