I suppose your right about education. it can be frustrating that this is all we can do at times. I suppose educate and hope that the internet of things is implemented so bad it's a horrible failure. I am sure however that they will keep trying until they get things to catch on. But this is quickly becoming no longer a question of if you can use your computer in freedom. It's becoming if you can use anything in freedom.
On 03/10/2015 10:00 pm, J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote: > rysiek wrote: > >> Rather, "Internet of Broken Things": >> http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/26722r/the_internet_of_broken_things/ >> [1] >> >> But yes, the question of retaining software freedom in a world of computing >> things is a valid one, and a hard one. There is no silver bullet, and the >> market will not solve this one (not that it solved any other important >> problems). I think our best bet is (*shudders*) regulation. > > It seems to me that that reddit.com discussion all too quickly gets > distracted in a side issue of complexity. People have long lived with > complexity greater than most people understand (depending on what you look > at, humans have never really understood everything we work with). But this > complexity discussion quickly distracts attention away from treating each > other ethically. Perhaps that's the real value of the complexity argument if > you look at this from an "open source" perspective (the open source movement > was founded to distract attention away from software freedom in order to > speak to businesses[1]). We don't need to understand everything so deeply to > understand how to treat each other ethically. In software, software freedom > is a prerequisite for ethical treatment (I imagine I hardly need to explain > that here on libreplanet-discuss). > > The problem of the NSA scandals and Snowden's revelations isn't that things > are more broken than we realize. It's that people are being spied on > constantly in ways they don't realize and spying has long been known to have > powerfully ugly consequences. The spying itself is a direct contradiction of > the brokenness argument -- spying works quite well and that's why so many > spies are interested in it. This spying can sometimes require nonfree > software (such as with DRM); when people have software freedom they can and > do improve software so programs obey the users and no longer obey the spies. > > I think the best approach is an old one -- educate everyone, including the > young, to appreciate software freedom for its own sake and keep on doing this > for generations. I can't think of anything significant that was obtained with > a quick ("silver bullet") approach or by placating a set of rules engineered > to reinforce the rule of the currently powerful (aka "the market"). > > [1] See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html [2] and > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html [3] for more > on this and on how the older free software movement differs from the younger > open source movement. -- support computing freedom and join the FSF: http://www.fsf.org/ [4] Links: ------ [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/26722r/the_internet_of_broken_things/ [2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html [3] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html [4] http://www.fsf.org/
