I had a $20 flip-phone for some years in the early 2000s but never used it, and at some point apparently "2G" went away. Bizarrely, even most of the free software advocates I know have gotten one of those pocket-spy-computers. Never had one, never will, can't understand what people want one for. Why would anyone want a computer you can't control? I do live a perfectly ordinary life without one, same as always, and am so disgusted by folks who seem to stare incessantly at that absurd little screen without even a proper keyboard. Not sure what you are talking about here.

Pedantic yes but grammar note: It is a program, a piece of software, or a system. You cannot have "a software" just like you do not have "a clothing," "an information," or "a hardware." Same should go for the awkward and wrong "a firmware" too. It's a piece of software, or just a program. Dr. Pedantic signing out.

What's most amazing is that so many alleged free-software advocates, and so many folks who have at least a clue about freedoms and security, have no problem continuously giving Google, Apple, and Microsoft their hard-earned cash, instead of refusing to use or own a computer they cannot control. This is one point, anyway, Mr. Stallman is correct on.

They mean "Computers." What kind of "device" can run Windows other than a computer? Those gadgets that folks have somehow been hornswoggled into calling "telephones" that are really computers -- are computers (computers you are locked out of controlling or writing your own programs for or even accessing the filesystems, such insanity!). Along with calling programs "apps" -- ugh. The amount of euphemism engaged to stop folks from recognizing they are being abused by the companies who control their computers is incredible, isn't it? Almost as incredible as how so many otherwise technically savvy folks have been taken in by it too, instead of refusing to use such insidious computers... any technical person should be advising friends, relatives, and everyone to jettison those handheld computers with the attached abusive relationships. Stop being enablers!

Don't have a mobile phone at all, and have no interest in having one, so guess it's impossible to visit Russia now?

"We scarcely know whether to smile at its wit, or to sigh at its wisdom." --- From the last paragraph of Volume 3, Chapter 12 of "Paul Clifford," the novel which begins "It was a dark and stormy night..."

I was among the two hundred or so of the first freshmen to Northeastern's College of Computer Science, which was, we were told, the first separate CS college anywhere.

Most programming courses were in Pascal, with C, COBOL, and FORTRAN as elective 1-credit "lab" courses. Our primary systems were the networked (wow, networked!) Corvus Concept workstations (over a 1-Mbit single twisted pair... super slow!) and then a VAX-11/780 that was used for the entire enrollment of 30,000 students.

Just a bit of perspective!

No room for bicyclists, motorcyclists, horse-drawn carriages, or manual-transmission automobiles. Folks like me who have zero desire for a pocket-spy-telescreen (even if they try and make us think they are merely "telephones") will be effectively imprisoned. Papers, please!

text should be "...a widely used software *package*" ... there is no such thing as "a software" just as you do not have "one information." You have a piece of software. Grammar. *sigh*

Look up "Centronics 737" for a model that was popular in 1979, in the early days of Apple and Radio Shack, when CP/M and proprietary BASIC-ROM based computers, with 8080, 6800, and 6809 CPUs still ruled the industry... about the same time, or a little before, when Epson introduced the first MX-80. Centronics' first printer, in 1970, was issued when the company was still controlled by Wang - another forgotten name in computer history.

Which is utterly baffling. Even more regrettably, it seems almost all free-software advocates I have known are mindlessly following along instead of rejecting such absurdly invasive Big-Brother brain-damaged computers under the euphemisim of "smart something."

Current "Artificial Intelligence" has little risk of creating anything new. All it can do is slice, dice, and blend. Garbage in, garbage out. Prove me wrong with a counterexample.

> Masks did nothing. Yes, they got millions to breathe their own filthy spit, to touch the paper or material with their dirty hands thereby rendering the masks themselves breeding grounds of bacteria, resulting in sickness, and untold psychological damage. It's almost like your body ought to come with its own natural defenses -- oh wait, it does!

Next thing you'll be complaining that carbon is a building block of life and that your breath, which is what plants inhale, isn't a pollutant. Insanity.

Why would any sensible person want to pay to use a computer where someone else controls what programs you can run? It is beyond belief that anyone tolerates constantly being brass-knuckled by Microsoft, Apple, or Google. Free software isn't about price, it's about freedom: Quit hurting yourself by using such malicious proprietary software.