Proprietary Software Is Often Malware | Hacker News Reader

Proprietary Software Is Often Malware

gnu.org

23 pointsaamederen14 comments

I also am reminded about FTDI's (edit: Windows Update - pushed ) malicious driver/firmware update that bricked the VID/PID of what the driver detected as "counterfeit" FTDI serial to usb transceivers. The resulting change made was to set the VID=0000, PID=0000 thus unbinding the associated drivers from being able to identify the hardware.

Torvalds, within a few days, allowed a kernel patch of usbserial.ko to allow usage from 0000:0000 to rewrite the firmware to fix the devices.

This was an example of a chip company destroying hardware arbitrarily, thus showing another treacherous computing in proprietary software.

Well sure. If you basically redefine Malware to be "Anything other than GPL software", then you're going to consider most software malware. That doesn't mean it's the definition of Malware that most (i.e. all) other people will use, and it doesn't really advance the discussion. It mostly continues to make GNU look like fringe lunatics.

Moreover, whilst I don't really object to hyperbole in pursuit of a crusade, I don't greatly appreciate this type of cross-talk. It's hard enough to keep family members free of actual malware without confusing them with comments like "iOS itself is malware".

GNU seems to define anything that works against the interests of the user as malware. That's a broad but by no means crazy definition, and it it interesting that a lot of "legitimate" proprietary software is malware by that definition.

And, in this case, they seem to be using an even narrower definition than that. The things listed on this page are considerably worse than just using the wrong license.

I think it's very important to note the source of this document, as well as any biases that source may have.

For example, this piece was written by GNU, which is by and large a proponent of free software.

I contribute to the FSF and agree with the sentiment, but the text has a very opinionated tone and I would prefer to see the author's name and title with the text.

I'm gonna guess rms.

I think proprietary software certainly has much potential for harm, particularly when it's unmaintained or defective by design, but that's kind of a jump to get to outright malicious. I think most people would define malware in that sense.

My general impression is that RMS' definition of malware is anything that is bad, by any measure, for the user.

Mal, bad, in the latin.

"A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice."

This seems to be slightly ideologically loaded.

Absolutely, there's some shady stuff going on in a lot of places, and they do post some good examples, but I'm not sure that their argument for free software is supported by their evidence.

I'm not sure what the alternative is - 100% free, non-monetized software? Is every piece of software to be developed gratis, and for every developer to rely on the generosity of strangers to make a living?

>>"A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice."

>This seems to be slightly ideologically loaded.

It is, until it happens to you. Then the recourse is HN/Twitter/Reddit. If you let yourself have your data exfiltrated, then your final answer is primarily bad PR and/or begging.

One example that sticks out in my mind is the Firebase debacle as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14356409 where costs went from $25/mo to $1700/mo . Because of the extraordinary bad reporting across tech media, their C*O positions responded in kind. This could have ended in a multitude of much worse outcomes, since this is software as a service (aka: data ransom)

https://startupsventurecapital.com/firebase-costs-increased-...

> software as a service (aka: data ransom)

Isn't it understood that that's what that potentially could be? I have my photos in the Google Cloud knowing that they'll stay there only as long as I can pay for the service. I trust they won't raise their prices like that, but I have no control over it, and if they do, yeah, that's something unethical going on. What is the alternative to SaaS though? SaaS is not only the software, it's also the cloud, and I have a real hard time arguing that charging someone to use the hardware is some sort of physical malware.

The entire argument rests on the understanding of malware ("Malware has a malicious intent, acting against the interest of the computer user" - Wikipedia). Most of the arguments against Microsoft, Apple, etc. point to features of the software that make certain processes possible (e.g. control over an app after it has been installed)

How often?

In what way? Format lock in?

TFA is a list of examples.

GNU/FSF has a perhaps broader-than-average definition of malware, but the lists are thought-provoking to peruse.

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