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I'd say this is the critical distinction that communities focused on "open source" are missing. We've had a whole crop of developers raised to focus on "open source", thinking it implies some be-all end-all, when it was really more of a corporate marketing term that emphasizes the mechanic rather than the goal of end-user computing freedom.

Just because a piece of software has some trappings of libre software does not mean that it is a fully fledged libre software. If most of the development energy comes from a single company, then that company can change its policies overnight and introduce terrible non-libre anti-features to that "open source" code base (see: the ongoing Chromium fiasco). Or in the case of most "web" software, when the main use of that software is from load-every-time distribution via centrally-controlled HTTP(s)/DNS, most of its use is decidedly non-free.

Yes, it is certainly a step up that such projects can be used as libre software - patched to remove the anti-features, or even hard forked and rebranded if the centralized maintainer gets too heavy handed etc. And this should not be taken for granted! However, we have to stop seeing the "open source" label as a synonym for libre software where user freedoms are first and foremost, when it's more like one bullet point in a "pros" column.

(also just a nit. When you say "I do not ever want to run software that I can't read and, if I want to, modify. I just won't do it", I doubt this hardline assertion is true! Even RMS rationalizes running proprietary software as long as someone else has written it to flash and doesn't talk about it too much. I use a more strict-but-pragmatic approach based around an assumption of a Libre/Secure core and then analyzing how specific proprietary bits actually compromise my freedom)

(> I doubt this hardline assertion... )

(I'll cop to having an iPhone, but only because my sister got it as part of a package deal last time she renewed her phone contract. I only use it to communicate with her, and only because we have to coordinate closely on the care of our elderly mother. I have installed no apps, and I removed most of the ones that came with it. Other than that, yeah, I run all Libre/Open software. I rarely actually read it, of course, but in theory I could.)

(⌐■-■) (Sardonic-"I'm so cool" self-deprecatory shades.)

Got you! No seriously, I wasn't trying to call you out as some sort of purity inquisition. Rather my point is this binary "only Libre software" is the wrong way of looking at things, even for free software zealots (myself included).

I was really just betting on you using at least one of the following - proprietary BIOS, non-free network switch/router, wifi, a run of the mill keyboard or mouse, a switching AC adapter, any modern appliance, or a webpage that runs javascript from a remote server you don't control. My point is that it's basically impossible to avoid proprietary software these days. So we're better off analyzing the use of proprietary software in terms of how it can specifically work against you within the context it's being used, rather than as some binary go/nogo thing.

Like my main desktop is a KGPE-D16 running almost blobless coreboot (⌐■-■), apart from the CPU microcode, which I don't have much choice on besides to trust AMD at some point in time. Yet there are numerous domains of proprietary software that support it, without which it could not run. However those domains don't impinge upon my freedom within the CPU domain, as they are appropriately isolated. For example if I focus on my keyboard, its software's lack of freedom seriously destroys my ability to modify it. This is terrible, within that narrow context of modifying my keyboard. However it's not relevant to the larger scope, as the keyboard isn't really able to affect the freedom of the CPU domain.

> I was really just betting on you using at least one of the following - proprietary BIOS, non-free network switch/router, wifi, a run of the mill keyboard or mouse, a switching AC adapter, any modern appliance, or a webpage that runs javascript from a remote server you don't control.

Heck, you don't even have to go that far, I'm running Ubuntu on this laptop right now. It has no ethernet port and only Ubuntu could configure the Wi-Fi (without hand-holding): something to do with proprietary drivers for the chipset or something like that.

> My point is that it's basically impossible to avoid proprietary software these days.

Yeah, but that's the problem, that's the very circumstance with which we should not compromise (in my opinion. And yeah, I'm compromising right now, but I don't like it. It's a long story, but in a nutshell I'm moving and stuck using a cheap laptop at the moment. One day soon...)

I'm almost at the point where I'm going to make my own chips! Quoting myself from the other day on the Zenbleed thread: "Every time I think it's insane to contemplate making one's own chips something like this comes up, and I realize it's insane to let so much of our lives depend on these insanely complicated devices. It feels like walking on a tightrope above an unbounded fractal chasm."

>First, let me proclaim by bias: I'm a Free software fanatic. I do not ever want to run software that I can't read and, if I want to, modify. I just won't do it.

I can relate to that. I guess you're are also having problems developing AI, because it is next to impossible to set up a full FLOSS AI stack [then I have to use proprietary stuff - conflicts of conscience ensue]

>Free software started when RMS wanted to fix his printer and Xerox said, "No."

Is there an AI stack that RMS would approve/use?

> you're are also having problems developing AI

I have no interest in talking computers.

cf. James Mickens' USENIX Security '18-Q keynote speech: "Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k

Anyway, they're just a pile of linear algebra and a massive pile of Other People's Data, eh? (And piles and piles of hype, my god, so much hype. Even in the "academic" papers!)

The difficulty would lie in amassing that data, not in developing software. You would have to solve that "conflict of conscience" first, no?

But more to the point: none of my goals can be advanced by talking computers.

- - - -

> Is there an AI stack that RMS would approve/use?

I have no idea. You could ask him if you're really interested.

I mostly agree... I'm not necessarily dogmatic about closed source software or services, but definitely in favor of always having an exit strategy, even if more painful.

> Now we have companies like John Deere that use computers to lock out their own customers from fixing their own tractors. We have car companies charging to unlock heated seats and extra acceleration. Printers that lie to you about how much ink they have left, and brick themselves if you try to use cheaper unofficial ink. Etc.

Exactly! I believe this issue is becoming a very political one because some companies even lock people out of developer tools with a paywall. And when we are forbidding people from learning that they are being suppressed, very bad things happen.

I learnt programming by rooting my phone and then installing a compiler. Android 12 almost killed it alongwith Termux. Are you telling me that if I was born today, I'll simply give up? (Edit: To answer this quesiton myself, No. Today's kids are probably installing customized apk/ipa instead of rooting. Frida is also interesting. But if history repeats itself, even these tools will be banned (self signing dev packages, and using ptrace as a modding tool). And that affects more than just kids..)

Honestly companies have too much control through DRM and copyright. The public needs a way to fight back. If the laws were to be changed, I hope that companies are not immune from lawsuits through TOS, and I hope to see a few class-action lawsuits causing a company to lose some of its copyrights to the public domain.