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Comment by sjwright | Hacker News Reader

In an ideal world these criticisms would be relevant. The reality is, most people who buy computers aren't RMS, they won't be able to build and support their own stack. These consumers own their computing devices in much the same way as a Nintendo GameBoy or a Thermomix; his principles are contextually irrelevant for anyone looking to purchase a tool to access Facebook.

Most of his reasons fall away when you consider the product an appliance rather than a computer. Heck, I'm a computer programmer and I treat my smartphone as an appliance. It makes me wonder how seriously RMS takes his stance. Does he refuse to drive any modern vehicle with an ECU? Does he refuse to refrigerate his milk in any modern fridge with a microcontroller?

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At the HOPE conference last month, Stallman said he would on occasion borrow a stranger's smartphone should he be in a public place and need to make a phone call.

He also called people who don't agree with his stance fools, and said that he holds them in contempt. I guess that doesn't extend to refusing, on principle, to get the benefit of contemptible foolishness when he finds it useful to do so.

is it wrong to call a fool a fool?

It's not a question of wrong, it a question of productive.

It's certainly foolish to ignore every perspective save one's own.

Personally, I am leery of barrowing anyone's smart phone, but not due to software freedom. From what I have seen, nearly everyone uses their phones while sitting on the toilet. Gross.

> nearly everyone uses their phones while sitting on the toilet. Gross.

That's a common myth. Toilets have virtually no germs. I've seen so many studies that say "ice dispensers have more germs than a toilet", etc.

In a study done on germs on the areas of the body, the area around the nose came in first, the hands second, and the groin near the last. Germs don't come out of your butt.

Do you treat your phone as an appliance because that's what you wanted to do with it, or because you don't have a choice?

I've looked for a good smart phone to use as a portable computer and my efforts have been mostly frustrated. I think this may be because they're built for pennies, but maybe it's their closed nature.

Android allows the user to do a lot with it but many phone services go to great lengths to prevent you from having that access, which frankly, they should not be allowed to do. They own the towers, not the device. Finding success in these closed-proprietary markets emboldens corporations to make presumptive moves such as that.

Between my computers, my family's and friends' computers, and the dozen virtual machines I look after, I've got enough to worry about. The last thing I want is to be sysadmin of yet another freaking computer. A smartphone appliance? Yes please. Hell yes. Gimmie gimme.

Any actual computing I do requires a full sized keyboard and a reasonably large screen. For that I have a full sized desktop computer at home and a small laptop for travel. The only "work" I do on my smartphone is receive notifications.

I understand where your coming from, that is a world I've mostly withdrawn from myself. The only "appliances" I like to own are in the kitchen and utility rooms. I want every computer I own to be capable of launching nuclear missiles like I saw in that movie WarGames. ;)

I don't even like having a phone. They never work as advertised and they're not even that good at being phones, but I'll never give it up because smartphones allow us to record every phone call which is a huge leap forward in protecting the little guy from the hordes of evil people who are every day trying to take advantage of us.

it's the keyboard. Even SwiftKey, by far the best, isn't good enough for Real Work.

    > "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."

https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

Not really an answer to my question.

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