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A comment on 25 years ago I hoped we would extend Emacs to do WYSIWG word processing. Parent comment

Re:25 years ago I hoped we would extend Emacs to do WYSIWG w... by new299 on Thursday November 21, 2013 @05:18AM (#6773950)
You can choose to be denied a freedom, quite obviously. If you choose to use Skype you are granted the ability to make free Skype calls. You are denied the freedom to:

* Freely distribute * Modify * Read the source code.

Among others, so it's a trade off. One that Stallman disagrees with and believes denies you too many freedoms.

Stallman is a weird guy, and hardly a pragmatist. But I don't think the things he says can be described as Bullshit, they are largely internally consistant. And to be frank, given the NSA revelations, I think we need rather more weird idealists than less.

Dr new299

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Re:25 years ago I hoped we would extend Emacs to do WYSIWG w... by rimantas on Thursday November 21, 2013 @10:55AM (#6775270)
No matter how you spin is, the end result is: installing Skype gives me more freedom than not having it. That'a all. There is no freedom it denies.
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Re:25 years ago I hoped we would extend Emacs to do WYSIWG w... by dllthomas on Thursday November 21, 2013 @11:01AM (#6775304)
You don't, mostly[1], lose freedom by installing Skype. You lose freedom by becoming reliant on Skype, and by installing (and using) Skype you are putting yourself at significant risk of that.

[1] You also may lose some control over your system, which may limit your freedom. At the extreme, consider malware. Recent, relevant Dilbert comic that I assume is an exaggeration: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2013-11-06

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