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0 pointskilburn7y ago0 comments

RMS is an extremist, openly and unashamedly. He doesn't try to hide it, he tries to argue that his extremist position is the morally correct and long-term best for society though.

> from a personal bias he has against Apple. Many of the points he is specifically isolating for Apple are quite true of most of the big tech firms.

He bashes all big techs for most of those points too. See the links at the top where he complains about Airbnb, Amazon, Amtrak, Ancestry, Apple, Discord, Ebooks, Eventbrite, Evernote, Facebook, Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Lyft, Meetup, Microsoft, Netflix, Patreon, Pay Toilets, Skype, Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Uber and Wendy's.

If there are missing companies there it is probably because he didn't have the time, not because he does't want to complain about something regarding that specific company ;)

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ken7y ago

So by this standard, is there a computer that I should use, or is all computing in 2019 unethical?

I see he's using a >10yr old Intel CPU, presumably to avoid the Management Engine, so presumably he thinks it's OK to pay money to these companies in certain circumstances?

kilburnOP7y ago

By RMS's standard, it seems that it is ok to reuse old systems (irrespective of which company built them originally) provided you can use them without binary blobs (irreplaceable built-in no-source firmware is fine though). Quoting his "how I do computing page" [1]:

> I use a Thinkpad T400s computer, which has a free initialization program (libreboot) and a free operating system (Trisquel GNU/Linux). It was not sold that way by Lenovo, however; small businesses buy them used, recondition them, and install the free software. This is one of the computers endorsed by the FSF.

Of course I'm pretty sure he would also approve buying and using any open hardware product [2] (provided it can run using only free software). There are some initiatives popping up in this space, such as:

- The siFive HiFive's [3] (Risc-V based), that can get you a fully open, slow system for $3k (1k for the base board + 2k for the PCIe-and-others expansion board).

- The Talos™ (Power9-based) systems [4], that give you 2019-grade performance at ~2-3x the usual price.

All in all, not a pleasant stance to make, but definitely doable for some folks.

[1] https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_computing_hardware... [3] https://www.sifive.com/boards [4] https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html

derekp77y ago

This is the thing that gets me, is that if a piece of hardware has firmware that you can't replace then it is OK to use. But if they add the functionality to replace the firmware, then it all of a sudden is not OK to use that hardware. Or, is it the case that if the firmware is pre-loaded, but replaceable, instead of needing to download the firmware to the board every time you boot, then that would still be acceptable. Not sure where he stands on that last point.

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slfnflctd7y ago

> presumably he thinks it's OK to pay money to these companies in certain circumstances

When they're behaving in what he considers an ethical manner, or at least offering some ethically designed products, I think so. He's hoping to help catalyze a revolution of sorts regardless, and AFAIK is still waiting for the hypothetical ideal entity to arrive (which probably isn't going to happen any time soon).

I look at Stallman's lifestyle as a form of performance art at this point. It's more than this, for sure, but that's the best way to describe its immediate impact much of the time. However, we will likely be chewing on the thoughts he has brought forth for generations to come.

fghtr7y ago

https://fsf.org/ryf

gist7y ago

He is a bitter and unhappy person. Most likely because he sees others making money in the way that they do vs. how he feels the world should operate.

The fact is though many of the modern day benefits we have as a society came as a result of the less than pure pursuit of money and power.

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