What stands out to me about your post and the grandparent post is how both of you malign someone with no evidence. I'm certainly not taking you seriously about speaking for "many people [in Seattle]" either.

The microphone on the TV stays off until you command it to listen. You do that by pressing a large VOICE button on the remote.

Ah, the flames from someone without much finesse: Premature declaration of failure to discourage further examination ("The masses have spoken..."), misidentification of fault ("If Apple could have continued using gcc...", "[The FSF] should have gone into the hardware business..."), citing trends with no backing and overvaluing business interests ("...then corporations wouldn't have run away from any GPLv3 software..."), and outright lying about intention and execution ("...weighing the costs of the walled garden (censorship etc) vs the benefits (no viruses)...", "...the attempt to take over the Linux kernel by renaming GNU/Linux..."), your post has so much flamebait to choose from it's almost as if you were taking instruction from an open source proponent who is eager to convince licensors to pick non-copylefted software licenses so they see their work become charitable contributions to software proprietors.

If there's so little interest in protecting oneself from international spying, malware, and other forms of user abuse Glenn Greenwald and other journalists would find it hard to get articles on the Snowden revelations published anywhere, world leaders wouldn't be holding meetings about the Snowden revelations, and people/organizations around the world wouldn't care about encryption. Don't confuse a non-technical user's inability to do better than running proprietary apps from a walled garden with not caring about these issues. They get both no software freedom and plenty of malware in their choice. Most computer users are weighing options where freedom is not available; they're suffering from the myth of choice where all of the readily-available options they know about deny them loyal computers.

Speaking of proprietors, Apple is no victim here. Apple wasn't forced to switch to LLVM and Clang, they chose to because they're proprietors eager to rob users of their software freedom in derivative works. If any organization with the means can be accurately accused of not writing their own stuff, it's Apple not writing their own compilers but instead relying on other compilers. This goes back to NeXT which was the first big GPL copyright infringement case (according to Brad Kuhn, former Executive Director of the FSF which holds the copyright on GCC in his discussion on his OggCast "Free as in Freedom"). NeXT got caught distributing a proprietary derivative of GCC which contained code to compile Objective-C. When Jobs spoke with the FSF about the matter, the FSF informed him that they would enforce their license (GPLv2). Jobs never liked that and never forgot. Apple doesn't mind the GPL they just don't like to be in a position of equality with their users unless they can pull out of that relationship when it suits them (see Apple's purchase of Easy SW which originally developed CUPS).

The FSF never tried to "take over the Linux kernel" and isn't doing so now by properly identifying Linux as a part of an operating system. They have said for years and continue to say they would like the GNU Project to get a share of the credit (1, 2). They also acknowledge that there are systems that don't include GNU and therefore should not be called "GNU slash" anything. No doubt, it would be equally unfair and erroneous to call GNU/kFreeBSD or GNU/HURD a "Linux" system when Linux isn't a part of that. This has nothing to do with capability of writing a kernel; a Linux kernel without the blobs is available so there's no pressing need for a fully-free system to have its own original kernel written by the FSF or the GNU Project. The core of the issue was and is a "greenwashing" (as Brad Kuhn aptly put it) open source movement not bringing to mind a user's software freedom (mirror) and the intended effect (older essay, newer essay) that has on people not understanding what software freedom is for its own sake.

See Brad Kuhn's talk about the future of copyleft (mirror) for the cure to non-copylefted free software—to keep software freedom in derivative works, license with strongly copylefted free software licenses (the AGPL version 3 or later being the best choice now) and then enforce the license.

Jailbreaking a device doesn't mean one has software freedom, a critical factor in making sure the device is loyal to its owner. It's good that you donate to the FSF and EFF despite your disagreeing with their goals to let people control their devices. I think people are rightly concerned about global spying and I encourage more learning about software freedom for freedom's sake. People were quick to dismiss the free software movement from the beginning, talking about how it wasn't (to use your words) "realistic or even a good idea" to have software freedom and that we'd never have a completely free OS. We have a lot of free software now (more than anyone can inspect on their own) and we're all better off for it. History shows the doubters were wrong to be dismissive of such concerns back then too. Holding every product to a standard that allows people to fully control their devices is a prerequisite for making software freedom the default in people's lives.

You should explain what you mean lest people read something into your hit-and-run argument that you don't mean. As it is, yours is an inarticulately defended counterargument which suggests you're not aware of the problems of arguing against software freedom by claiming that if one is free to become a slave, one isn't really free. That merely tries to turn freedom into paradox wherein proprietary software (the software that restricts your freedoms) are equivalent to respecting a user's software freedom. It's not a good argument.

In fact, nobody is restricting you from choosing non-free software or non-copylefted Free Software. The point remains with what you choose—what freedoms are you getting from your choices? With Free Software, particularly strongly-copylefted Free Software, the choices you are free to partake of are a lot more clear and beneficial to you, even if the strongly-copylefted Free Software program doesn't currently implement what you want. Because adding the missing functionality is an option and you don't have to fear that you trade away valuable freedoms in return. Convenience is simply overvalued to the point of giving up on liberties and that's a major problem.

I believe you're making a gross assumption by picking apart a minor error in my post. Most people use IP as shorthand.

No, I am responding to what you actually said. I do recommend avoiding the term "IP" no matter how popular it is precisely for the reasons I linked to if you wish to avoid the confusions that term raises.

I'm sure we're all grateful for your past and ongoing contributions to our software freedom (I certainly am) but nobody should get a pass for evidenceless assertions such as:

• "The issue with the FSF is that it is a political organization and doesn't give a crap about the quality of the software they release."
• "What RMS doesn't want is a threat to what he sees as his privileged place in the community."

When I hear an RMS talk I hear him give examples of real-world instances to back up his points. He writes with links to news stories to back up his claims. I don't see any pointers to that kind of information in what you write, just your opinion on matters that really need some backing up.

Consider your point about RMS's alleged egotistical involvement in this LLVM issue:

I can't help but hear a note of jealousy in RMS' tone when he fights against tools which are already free for the sake of preserving the FSF's position. The FSF has, quite frankly, sewn the seeds of this for many years by taking the policy that it did with GCC and other projects and making them inferior in order to keep them free. This position BEGS another group to come in and do it right. Some people may argue that he has a problem with the license.... I suspect that even if it were LGPLv3+ or GPLv3+ he would still have an issue since it is NOT gcc. If you make a more useful tool... people will flock to it. This is a lesson that I hope the FSF learns well and takes away from this experience.

I recall RMS saying something to this point:

For GCC to be replaced by another technically superior compiler that defended freedom equally well would cause me some personal regret, but I would rejoice for the community's advance. The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers -- so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us.

In fact much of that post to the gcc@gcc.gnu.org mailing list would be relevant to reply to this story today. And RMS published that post about a year ago.

Quite right, in fact most of what gets posted to /. including this story could be responded to with a phrase Eben Moglen has been saying for years in his talks: "RMS was right". Richard Stallman had it right years ago and, equally importantly, for the right reasons. Not "Open Source" (the younger movement Brad Kuhn rightly points out is built to greenwash proprietary-supporting non-copylefted Free Software (copy 1, copy 2) but strongly copylefted Free Software released and developed for freedom.

The Affero GPL version 3 or later will keep software Free as in freedom and meet the needs of the future. Users will undoubtedly want to know how things work and benefit from software written by programmers allowed to understand how things work. This will help us avoid the very trap the grandparent post referred to (and you wisely advised against).

Only if the data is normally distributed. Vaccination rates in the US, however, aren't. Or shouldn't be, anyway. The median should be somewhere in the 90% range in what should be a highly skewed distribution.

Either in the settings by turning it off, or by putting bogus login information in. Or you can block the TVs MAC address at the router.

No wifi, no networking, no smart functionality.

Insanely Audiophile?

I think you're evaluating RMS' argument according to priorities you're imposing on him (such as talking about offering "choice" as if that's always a good thing) rather than trying to understand what software freedom is, how freedom and power differ, and why copyleft is something worth fighting for. That you would actually use the term "IP" as you do (meaning the phantom "intellectual property") suggests you haven't considered that concept very deeply either.

RMS is not alone in his views on working to marginalize GCC in favor of something that can be made into proprietary software, Brad Kuhn talks about copyleft licensing and around 21m44s in the linked linux.conf.au talk he points out that proprietors (he notes Apple by name) contribute enough upstream to non-copyleft Free Software projects to keep those projects useful to the proprietor. It's hardly a stretch to see Apple doing the same for LLVM "because [Apple and Qualcomm] want GCC to die" as Kuhn points out in his talk. Steve Jobs and NeXT's history of copyright infringement with GCC is very much a part of this story. Being caught infringing the GPL on GCC is something I doubt Jobs or Apple ever forgot and is a big part of the reason why he, like so many open source enthusiasts, think non-copylefted licenses such as the MIT X11 and new BSD license are better than than an enforced GNU GPL.

Eben Moglen is quick to point out in his consistently wise speeches that "RMS was right" (as he did in his linux.conf.au 2015 keynote speech). /. should learn to do the same. If you want to get comments like "RMS is pretty incendiary, eccentric, and often does or says crazy shit but... in this case it sounds like he said something alarmist to get attention and try to get some discussion" you should back it up with specific examples of what you mean. His flavor of "eccentricity" led us to recognize software freedom as an ethical human need well after RMS saw this; another clear example of how RMS was right. When what RMS says looks to you as "crazy shit" you should make it clear to others that you understand his long history of being right on these issues.

Freedom and power are not the same thing. When someone distributes a non-free derivative of a Free Software program, the distributors are exercising power over the users of that derivative.

I am so disappointed in the open source community. It's like they don't care about the very foundation this community was built on.

The open source movement was started to never raise a user's software freedom as an issue. Read the FSF's essays (older essay, newer essay) on how open source differs from free software and you'll get a very clear explanation of how open source's goal to speak to business means accepting proprietary software and whatever other anti-user stuff businesses want to implement with proprietary software (DRM, spyware, back doors, patent traps, etc.). Mozilla's partnering with Adobe, the Linux kernel accepting and distributing proprietary software as part of the project (code which GNU Linux-libre removes), and Mono developers celebrating Microsoft's releasing .NET software under the MIT X11 license without acknowledging the danger of Microsoft's patent promise are just a few examples of how the philosophical differences between the older ethically-minded free software movement and the younger developmental methodology-focused open source movement play out on the ground.