I've read a lot of stuff by RMS and am certainly aware of his concerns.
I have an iPhone and Mac so I guess you would consider that I "ignored" him. This is a ridiculous conclusion. I considered the risks and trade-offs of non-FOSS software, and regrettably accepted them, because the FOSS alternatives had trade-offs that cumulatively (for me) were much worse. Unlike RMS, I am not a one-dimensional person that only evaluates tech on the single dimension of freedom. Tech is not a religion for me; it's just a tool.
RMS pontificating about FOSS does not magically bring iPhone comparable FOSS software and hardware into existence. If the FOSS community wants consumer adoption, ratio of pontificating about to building consumer products needs to be much lower.
After emancipation, there were plenty of slaves who wouldn't leave the plantation, and became slaves-by-another-name in the sharecropping system. I don't think any of them were so up their own asses that they blamed the slaves who left for not making it easier to leave.
Also, RMS didn't talk about "FOSS." He talked about the inevitable future if we continued our trajectory, and suggested Free Software as the solution.
I'm also not going to make lowering your carbon emissions just as easy and convenient as using all of the carbon you want. Take responsibility for yourself, or at least don't actively denigrate people for being right.
All I said is if the FOSS community wants consumer adoption, the path forward is making things consumers like, NOT blaming us for "ignoring" RMS, because no one ever did that.
Basically everything your post implies (that I think I am entitled to something, that I think everything should be easy, etc...) is not true.
As I keep pointing out again and again, all I'm saying is that people don't use FOSS, but it's not because they don't value privacy, not because they don't value freedom, and for the love of biscuits not because of anything to do with RMS or ignoring him.
The options are use an iPhone (not freedom), use an Android phone (not freedom), or use something like LineageOS. Using something like LineageOS is major commitment that most people don't have room in their lives for, because they have different priorities, which might also be very good.
EDIT: Here's a metaphor, it'd be like if you asked your friend who owns a car with an ICE why he keeps ignoring Al Gore's warnings about the climate. It's like, Al Gore can be right, your friend can believe in Climate change, and he can still decide he needs an ICE car because he's barely making ends meet and is trying to support a family. You can claim that your friend has made bad choices, but there is no argument that he "ignored" Al Gore.
I think humans - having been nomads for the most part of their existence – just aren't equipped to care for their habitat (say: ecosystems). It's rather recent that became important, <8k years compared to 250k before.
No, it's because FOSS has no economic model.
it always some one else that is to blame, the rich, the evil corporation, the right wing, the left wing, china,.... etc etc etc
> RMS pontificating [...]
Uh, no. RMS was right all along and you're still not getting it.
You bought devices you can't upgrade, you can't run software on, that oppress indie devs, that tax 30% of the market, that sell out freedom fighters in oppressive regimes, and that now spy on you. And now you realize the problem.
The only way out of this madness is to get the sensible representatives in Congress to move forward with an antitrust case. Breaking up the power monopoly will perhaps get us back to a place where we have rights. The way it is now, Apple is a central point of failure.
Again, everything RMS spoke was truth, and it's here again rearing its ugly head.
Our government isn't one person or one party, and that's a strength.
One of my local reps is leading the big tech breakup movement, and I'm incredibly proud to have her representing me.
Can you help me with a few? Maybe 5? I'm pretty low on the US government at the moment. I can name quite a few things we lead in that are horrible.
>One of my local reps is leading the big tech breakup movement, and I'm incredibly proud to have her representing me.
I think that's great but I doubt that will ever be allowed to happen. Too much money will be thrown at congress and they will either do nothing, or do nothing in a way that makes them look like they did.
I might agree with parts of your list, but I think that people are way too down on the US and its accomplishments. I wouldn't want to live elsewhere.
25th most democratic country ("flawed democracy") [1]
Which metrics? Defense spending? Healthcare cost?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country
I have yet to see a phone with the build quality and value add that I need a mobile phone to have from Free Software endeavors. These are the table stakes for the majority of people. Not the list you just rattled off. You aren't even in the running to compete on the other value adds if you can't do the above.
What are you looking for out of this anti-trust case? Apple is not a monopoly. There are numerous privacy-focused phones and Android distros available. I think there just isn't a huge market for a privacy-focused phone (no, 1000 people on a HN and twitter is not a huge market.)
Actually it's not like FOSS community is fighting for your adoption, you know? It's you who should do something in order to make good things happen.
Ok, it is a "tool", but it's like an axe controlled by another person, not you. Maybe you trust that person with such a tool; I don't.
Not trusting Apple doesn't magically bring a trustworthy iPhone competitor into existence.
For example, say US government. I trust the US government not to kill me (Dutch citizen, not a terrorist, not a criminal, etc etc). Does that mean I trust the US government with my personal data? No, that's a different discussion. And if I were to trust them with my personal data, does that mean I believe the US government has integrity? No. I've been very disappointed with the US government with regards to a recent war (I'll refrain from details as its irrelevant), so they need to earn back credibility. In my language there's a saying 'vertrouwen komt te voet, maar vertrekt per paard' which translates to something akin to 'trust comes on foot and goes on horseback'.
Well, purchase a Pixel 5, install CalyxOS or Graphene, lock bootloader again. Job done. Probably you'll lose some convenience, but you know, you may always ask some FOSS dev to bake a feature for you and pay for it.
The amount of money needed to bring CalyxOS to the iPhone level of polish and to get the same sets of popular apps on there is probably in the millions.
But spending your money on Apple products certainly won't either.
I'm afraid that'll never happen, at least, until most people don't care about their privacy and are willing to accept one-sided tradeoffs with phone vendors. BUT, there are alternatives like LineageOS that do a pretty good job. They only need more acceptance by public to be able to compete at the level of a trillion-dollar company like AAPL.
My beef is just with statements like "people ignore RMS," as I have yet to see any evidence of this. Everything I have observed is that anyone who has heard of RMS is fully aware of his concerns, but most of those people just have different priorities.
I'm pretty sure that most go with habit and convenience. I mean.... Apple could lock MacOSX down tomorrow and charge you $100 for terminal access and "informed decision" people would still argue how good MacBooks are (they aren't that good)
I literally have to have an app to make my bluetooth mouse scroll in the opposite direction than the trackpad, because there is "Scroll Direction" checkbox in both mouse and trackpad... but it's actually one config option. And with every update I hope that they don't screw up that app... OSX has less and less of "less is more".
It's a mutually-beneficial trade-off, it's just that one party gains individually, and the other gains by quantity. Advertisers wouldn't care a lot what restaurants you like, but they care a lot about what restaurants people in your city like.
Well it would mean giving up the phone entirely.
Doesn't make him wrong.
RMS is as close to the opposite of hypocrite as it gets. He definitely practices what he preaches to the degree that he used a slow Loongson when he couldn't get an Intel machine with free BIOS, for example.
He might not act diplomatic, be way outside social norms, or not people-please, but that does not make him a hypocrite.
No electric meter at his house, no internet (even if his router is running open source, the ISP he's connected to certainly isn't), no transportation of any kind, no entertainment of any kind, no shopping of any kind (inventory management, cash registers, logistics). The equipment used to manufacture all the pieces of his precious decade old laptop was running proprietary software (not to mention all the small firmwares like wifi and Ethernet controllers).
You cannot escape it.
So, we should be pragmatic about it. We should push for it, but realize that it's impossible to live in society without interacting with closed source software.
> I firmly refuse to install non-free software or tolerate its installed presence on my computer or on computers set up for me.
> However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this. Of course, I explain to the local people why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because annoying them is not the way to convince them.
> Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue, which would arise just the same even if they did use free software. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me.)
> That's my policy about using a machine once in a while. If I were to use it for an hour every day, that would no longer be "once in a while" — it would be regular use. At that point, I would start to feel the heavy hand of any nonfree software in that computer, and feel the duty to arrange to use a liberated computer instead.
> As for microwave ovens and other appliances, if updating software is not a normal part of use of the device, then it is not a computer. In that case, I think the user need not take cognizance of whether the device contains a processor and software, or is built some other way. However, if it has an "update firmware" button, that means installing different software is a normal part of use, so it is a computer.
How do you figure this. Cars did not always have computers in them, and you can still find older cars available.
>The equipment used to manufacture all the pieces of
Who actually cares about this? The consumer should only care about the thing produced.
And yes, he is concerned about microcode--he still uses a Core 2 Duo laptop that can work without the microcode blobs in firmware, as opposed to more modern processors, for that exact reason.
Like the Amish.
Both condemn certain tech, but then use it. Both are not being honest, but hypocrites.
It's also a poor characterization of the anabaptists, for that matter - they are not in general against technology but against the impacts of particular technology (nothing to do with RMS's concerns, theirs are about community).
For example, some anabaptist communities disallow cars, some allow them in limited ways, some allow them completely - but this is decided based not on a doctrine but on their communities evaluation on the impact of peoples housing spreading apart...
You are vastly mischaracterizing the few sentences I wrote.
In the case of RMS it is non-free software tech. In the case of the Amish it is many kinds of tech and depends (as the child comment mentions) on the community. One community I lived among they weren’t allowed to own phones, but they would borrow them all the time.
To call everybody to stop using non-free software phones while depending on thise same people to own them and let you borrow them in order to live is hypocritical. Sorry if that bothers you.
I thought I remembered other instances, but none of them come to mind and obviously googling has turned up a ton of opinion pieces without a lot of actual substantative points made, so I'll leave it at that; not enough to argue that he is, by his nature, a hypocrite, but also not 100% pure to his principles in every circumstance.
In fact, he has stated his principles/policies publicly and clearly, and someone posted it here as well. He never says "You are not supposed to use someone else's cellphone, but it's okay when I use it." That would make him a hypocrite.
Thus your example is a strawman here, with the implicit assumption that he has said "you ought not to use any cellphone" which he never said.
I think most misunderstandings of RMS come from the fact that people project on him what they think he would say and how he would act, not what he actually says and how he actually acts; while assuming he is merely some sort of activist engaging in civil disobedience and boycott, just trying to make a point and show the world a pure example of how to live. The way he should actually be thought of is he is fighting a war against people building proprietary software that, based on his theory, inevitably will lead to unjust power over users' lives through control over their devices. He is very pragmatic in that sense and willing to take any strategic advantage he can get in that fight, not deprive himself of that just to make a point. My understanding is at the beginning he used proprietary UNIX compilers to build GCC, for example.
Maybe he's not being hypocritical, but that position -- I will pragmatically use others' phones for my convenience, but I will not retain one myself -- just seems shitty. Not sure why, maybe because it's even less of a universally applicable tenet than "phones are bad, mmkay," it's just "I'll use the systems as convenient for me, no matter how others may suffer under them."
I think he makes a pretty big tradeoff that nobody else would, without completely shooting himself in the foot. Even if he had a fully FOSS phone, the people he called probably wouldn't. He's drawn the line far enough out that I don't doubt his sincerity.
It's the well dressed, well socially adjusted people with their silver tongues that convinced the masses that giving up privacy is in their interest. People like that are the people responsible for the shitshow we're now observing.
RMS is strongly opinionated, and without that kind of strong conviction, we would be far worse off. I do agree he's taking an extreme position, but when you're standing against giants with money and power, being extreme is sometimes the only way to stand a chance.
For whatever failing RMS has, hypocrite is obviously not one. There are few people on the world who are so consistent in their message and actions as RMS.