On 25/09/17 21:35, Bill Kontos wrote:
On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 9:49 PM, Isaac David <[email protected]> wrote:
as a cellphone non-user and die-hard libre software acolyte, i don't
see the Purism people as enemies. they only need to reword their
marketing to be a bit less disingenuous. they speak the language of
the purists; this is how we know they _are_ aware that their products
will fall short of something like a RYF cert.
First of all congratulations for not using a cellphone. I literally
can't do that. People expect to find me on the phone. I have to follow
facebook teams for announcements and stuff. And yes their marketing
pisses me off a lot. I wish it was more honest but at the same time
they are not spewing lies right and left. They do have a timeline on
what they want to do, they just don't know how fast they will get
there. As it stands right now, purism laptops are the only laptops
that now come with coreboot preinstalled, automatically making them
the second most free platform after the libreboot x200s. Think about
that.
This has been such a fascinating discussion I can't help but chip in. :)
> congratulations for not using a cellphone
I envy you for being able to live without a cell phone (which are sadly
all not-100%-libre atm).
A common refrain of free software advocates is that if a product is
non-free, just don't use it. This way you don't lose your freedoms and
you also protest the lack of it in said product.
However, I've been reflecting on this and I think the unfortunate truth
is that software freedom is currently a *privilege*. Of course it should
be a right, but right now it isn't.
Digital technology is so intertwined with our lives that so many of our
livelihoods depend on it. So many people would literally not be able to
do their jobs if they refused to use every single piece of technology
that's not 100% free as in freedom.
I think this is where the likes of Purism can come in. Like mike.valk
said, "It's much better than the rest. And if we're successful we might
generate enough money the do even better next time." If we don't support
- or even villify - attempts at *improving* and *getting closer to*
freedom, they we are not moving at all!
And like what Jonathan said with the slavery and civil rights examples,
in some cases it is simply more realistic to take it one step at a time
(or, I guess in software's case, removing one blob at a time).
We can talk about the huge leaps needed to reach 100% software freedom
everywhere, but we need a realistic way of doing that in one step. If we
don't know how to make that huge leap yet, then taking many of those
smaller steps (even if they don't take us all the way) **is** definitely
better than waiting for the huge leap to happen!
I admit I don't know all the details and intricacies of Purism's
activities, but I know there was a lot of vitriol thrown its way for its
laptops during development. But if absolutely no one supported their
laptop campaigns, Purism might not have had the resource to come so
close to freeing the Intel MEs that they are working on now. And isn't
freeding the Intel ME something worth doing?
If we think Purism's communications are not 100% accurate in saying
their products are not 100% free, that's a fair criticism. But rather
than vilifying them and saying they're terrible people, shouldn't we try
our best to engage them and suggest a better way to communicate that?
Again, I haven't been following Purism super closely so maybe I missed
something, and definitely correct me if I'm wrong. But my bigger point
is that sometimes even small steps are valuable and we shouldn't throw
the baby out with the bathwater!
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