FSF Issues A Statement Over Windows 10

[Luke_Wolf]

Everything said is true, I don't know where all the hate towards the FSF comes from.

Maybe because in the words of Linus Torvalds

the fsf is full of crazy bigoted people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1Mg5_gxNXTo#t=2841

[eydee]

Problem is, statements like this will convince 0 people to switch, while it will cause masses to frown upon the linux ecosystem/community even more. They just generate antipathy. Working on making linux more user friendly would have more results.

[zanny]

Working on making linux more user friendly would have more results.

The FSF is not about driving GNU/Linux adoption across the board. They would rather you used Ubuntu, but they really want you using Trisquel or Parabola. Its an organization based on strong ethics, not on market adoption.

It should surprise no one that their maintain their ethical stance. Some of us agree with it. They are literally the only people in the world standing by it. So it has value for that. If you want to drive Linux adoption, go get an ad campaign made by the Linux Foundation or something.

[profoundWHALE]

If Microsoft is very far right, then FSF is very far left. As to what left and right means I haven't a clue, but this is how I see it. They are so far on the other side of the spectrum to try to balance things out a little. I have trouble making sense of the comments half the time because regardless of if a person or entity says good or bad there will always be good and bad things to say about them.

Personally, I would rather the open source community say less bad for FSF than say, Microsoft, otherwise they're just hurting themselves.

[Luke_Wolf]

If Microsoft is very far right, then FSF is very far left. As to what left and right means I haven't a clue, but this is how I see it. They are so far on the other side of the spectrum to try to balance things out a little. I have trouble making sense of the comments half the time because regardless of if a person or entity says good or bad there will always be good and bad things to say about them.

Personally, I would rather the open source community say less bad for FSF than say, Microsoft, otherwise they're just hurting themselves.

I disagree. the FSF creates unnecessary factionalization and drama within the OSS sphere, and when it releases statements like these, they hurt the OSS sphere by pushing people away. They also do not represent a stance that most of their supporters would agree with, if they truly understood it. The FSF is effectively an ideological movement promoting what is literally a communist agenda (read the GNU su man page) as regards computing, and places itself in opposition to the Open Source movement.

What we should really be doing is our best to promote OSS organizations like the Linux Foundation, that actually do important promotion and work and not giving attention to the drivel of GNU and the FSF. Thus avoiding signal boosting it and working against ourselves.

[paulpach]

To the FSF, the most valuable feature of a software, is the ability to modify it. This is fine and all, and most of us would agree there is value in it.

The problem is that value is a relative term. Being able to modify source code is more valuable for a developer than it is for a writer trying to write his novel or a kid playing his game. Value only exists in the mind of the person doing the valuation.

What the FSF fails to acknowledge is that other people may value other features more than the ability to modify code. It is perfectly fine for a customer to choose windows over GNU/Linux, if THEY themselves determine that it serves them better. There is nobody else that can do this determination better than the individual customer, not the government, not Microsoft, and not the FSF.

To murk the issue even further, the FSF confuses this feature with ethics. This has nothing to do with ethics. I should be able to offer something I produced in any terms, and whether I include the source is up to me. The customer is equally free to either accept my terms or choose someone else that offers better terms. If the customer does accept my term, it is because he thinks he is better off with the software than without it even when limited by the terms. Nobody is being deceived or forced to accept something they don't want, so there is no ethical dilemma here.

It is like claiming that it is unethical for a restaurant to offer food without providing the recipe.

[Luke]

Two severe dangers noted by the FSF: One is the creation of a unique advertising ID for each user. This can be and will be the subject of subpeonas and NSL's. This will track users across websites, it can be and will be used to put people in jail by tying unpopular posts to their email accounts. The second danger is the mass harvesting of personal information at install time. Yes, you can opt out, but how many people will? How many people opt out of store "discount" cards and demand the advertised ("sale") price without it? Most users will get not only spam and ads but junk mail and telemarketing calls from all this information. Users at risk from police will find that once they have ever activated Windows 10, the machine becomes unsafe to use with ANY operating system due to MS having hardware information from it combined with their identity.

[monraaf]

Windows 10 is wonderful, Microsoft can disclose your data when it feels like it:
"We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services."

[GreatEmerald]

Yea, the privacy thing is pretty silly. The express settings might as well be called "Please take away my privacy". And even if that is changed by the user, that's not at all a guarantee that the user isn't being spied upon.

Then, the add new user wizard is ludicrous: the first thing it does is ask for an email address; when you refuse (by lying and saying that the user doesn't have an email address - and this is a small link-type option, not a button), you are taken to a prompt to register a Microsoft account; and only when you refuse yet again (and yet again via a small text option, not a button) are you taken to the actual prompt to enter the new user's name and password.

Also, OneDrive is officially impossible to uninstall. So even if you're only using ownCloud, OneDrive will be sitting there somewhere, and Windows Update will keep updating the thing. Thankfully, as always, there are unofficial methods of removing all that crap (including the "impossible to uninstall" Xbox, OneNote, etc. Metro apps).

[Luke]

Another danger from the MS privacy policy: If you use their drive "encryption" a backup key is automatically made and exported to Microsoft servers. This is the back door the FBI has been screaming for. If you use Bitlocker as your drive encryption and have a machine siezed by police, expect it to be decrypted within hours, as soon as the subpeona on Microsoft has been served. Possibly just an informal request. Microsoft, you can keep Windoze 10, I'll keep Linux, DC-crypt, and my MATE desktop. You don't know my name, my motherboard serial numbers, or anything except what Google tells you I publish on websites they scrape