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by rdtsc 4112 days ago
> Does this make his opinion on Facebook or privacy or freedom any more correct or valid? No.

And whose opinions are correct on the topic? Who should we listen to then?

Opinions are opionions and we can all evaluate them. Hopefully we can evaluate them objectively regardless who came up with them.

> he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies.

He doesn't huh. Ok, if it is so obvious, can you list the things he doesn't understand.

> it's because it leads to a better working social network.

Granted, pretty much every single loss of privacy rule (or law) has been under the guise of "oh but this is good for you actually".

> _viable_ company that wants to provide a service that a consumer other than Stallman himself will use will "infringe" on those two idiotic requirements.

Really? Ok let's see, I launch my editor, I type in some code, then save it and compile. I just got a service provided to me by the authors of those programs and it might seem idiotic, but I value that service and value that I ran free software and didn't have to send my name to anyone to register that I did that.

1 comments

You said that your editor is free software, meaning that no one made money on you using it. I'm not sure how this refutes the point about a "_viable_ company." (Given that viable necessarily includes making money.)
I suspect rdtsc meant free as in freedom. There are several companies successfully founded and running on free software. An example I saw recently is the French telecommunications provider Free. Much of the software running on their set-top-boxes is licensed under GPL and they provide the source code as required by the licence. They have dealt serious damage to more traditionally minded companies.

Invasion of privacy is not a requisite for company viability.

RedHat is a very _viable_ company that uses and writes free software for example.
I wasn't claiming that viable companies can't use or produce free software. I was just claiming that the fact that one can use a free editor to write some code has nothing to do with whether the company producing the editor is viable.