> This is only going to go in circles, but again, complaining about Apple > won't change a thing. What are you going to tell people? Move to another > smartphone that doesn't allow tethering and voip? What are you actually > going to achieve by trying to educate people about Apple?
Raising awareness about the problem. Until people are aware of the problem, there's little hope to see significant competitors that provide the freedom we want. Just becuse there is currently no alternative, doesn't mean we shouldn't critize what there is, right? [ BTW, I'm using a New FreeRunner, so I know there is an alternative, but I also know the problems with which it comes. ] >> >> > The firmware does not have anything to do with Android, only the phone >> >> > makers. Google/Android doesn't control the phone makers, and a phone >> >> > maker is free to make the device as hackable as they like. >> >> At least Google makes no effort to keep the end products free, >> > In what sense? >> In the obvious sense. In which sense have they made efforts to keep the >> end products free? > Which end products? Android, Chrome? What exactly is it you want, search? If > it's obvious then you can give plenty of concrete examples. That's the thing: I can't think of any sense in which they have made such an effort. So, obviously, that means that from my point of view they haven't made any such effort. > If your point is that even if you never sign into the phone, or even > if the entire market place can be removed from the platform, the > platform is compromised, then really there is no point in us > discussing this any further. I don't care about the platform itself, as much as about the specific holes that it has and that we want users to be more aware of them and to learn to treat them as unacceptable. >> I definitely don't buy that argument. Maybe they can use it to protect >> their ass if/when they mess up, but then so what: they could do so in many >> other ways as well. It's not a valid excuse. > Well then I doubt we'll ever agree on this particular point. > I will say that if this didn't exist, and Android did take off, there would > be a lot of people arguing about how insecure Android is because of the > random viruses/trojans/phishing that can be found in the marketplace (which > has no barrier of entry). My point is that there are many other ways to protect it, such as barriers of entry. >> They could have used a license that would make Android code only >> distributable in such a way that the firmware can be replaced (no >> tivo-ization). They could have not written the backdoor code to remove >> apps remotely. ... > But then no one would use it. Not necessarily. If it has sufficiently many other advantages. In practice, the possibility of installing a different firmware doesn't imply that more than a few marginal users will do so. > Your insisting that this is a problem with the platform providers, > when it's clearly not. Not, I don't fault them only, far from that. But they're clearly part of the problem. >> >> Of course, none of this is a big surprise: Google has always been very >> >> supportive of Open Source but not of Free Software. >> > I think this is redefining "Free Software". >> No, it's just insisting on the difference between Open Source and >> Free Software. > So clearly I meant this regarding Android, but what part of the Apache 2 > license is not Free Software? Free Software has nothing to do with a remote > kill switch, or forcing handset providers to use open firmware. I said "Google has always been very supportive of Open Source but not of Free Software". This doesn't say anything about whether it writes Free Software, but whether it shares its goals. Free Software has everything to do with a remote kill switch, since a remote kill switch is opposed to the goals of Free Software, which aim to let end users have control over their data, their computing needs, their computing devices (the Free Software licenses are but one of the tools to try and get there, which happens to be shared with the Open Source philosophy although this latter one doesn't have such freedom as a stated goal). http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html Stefan _______________________________________________ mlug mailing list [email protected] https://listes.koumbit.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mlug-listserv.mlug.ca
