This is something he mentioned literally a few times between 2003 and 2013 (and he talks about a lot of stuff - check stallman.org) and he doesn't even believe anymore. In 2019 he said that it was something he used to believe, but he realised he was wrong. You can read it on Wikipedia (unfortunately I can't find the original source for the quote right now): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies
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What's the problem? You want people to not discuss things that are offensive? It's a shame he used to believe that, but he changed his mind, admitted to being wrong and moved on.
What would you want to happen instead? That we cancel people, because they have an opinion we don't like?
he was just trying to keep his job
What job? The position at his foundation that he does for free? If he only cared about keeping it, why did he quit 2 days later?
I know, I just wanted to explain the real reason why their UIs often suck. I agree that it has nothing to do with capitalism.
Lemmy is a perfect example of such project, btw. The devs can't design a good UI themselves and they ignore people's proposals, so users make their own themes and browser addons to fix it.
We can have nice software, people just need to care.
That is true and the reason for that is not capitalism, of course. Most projects don't have UI experts and when someone wants to help, devs usually don't listen. Sometimes there are technical obstacles too (old framework, hardcoded UI), but probably not in web or Electron apps.
compared to their paid alternative
Keep in mind that Libre Software can be commercial too, so you really mean proprietary alternatives.
As a UI developer I consider GNOME 4 to be one of the best desktop UIs. But some people prefer to live in the past and use 30 years old designs than try anything new, even if it might be better for them long term.
Nothing prevents Libre Software developers from making commercial products. They can sell their software just like everyone else.
No, you buy a certificate of ownership. That's what NFT is.
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Can I start with Gentoo or is that too easy?
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I would say that security and privacy are also very important. That's something you can't get with Windows.
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Congratulations! Next you might want to learn about the Free Software movement: https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM
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So, yeah, sell me on Linux, please.
Windows has spyware, so that should be enough reason to not use it for someone like you. You will have to spend some time to learn GNU/Linux, but for most office tasks it shouldn't be difficult, especially if you are good with computers. Most popular distros already come with a PDF viewer and Libre Office, so it should be able to do almost everything you want out of the box. VLC player can play all common video types and is easy to install. Libre Office might have issues with some Word documents though, so you might need to look into that. A web browser (usually Firefox) and probably some email client will be preinstalled as well.
You might need to check if your printer and scanner will be supported out of the box or if extra drivers from the manufacturer are needed (then check if they are available on their website). I think printers will probably work fine out of the box, but scanners might require extra drivers (this depends on the model - there are models that don't).
If you need more motivation, look into the Free Software movement: https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM
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GNOME also has an app that lets you do encrypted incremental backups very easily.
You could probably use it for a simple web server or maybe turn it into a crappy surveillance camera.
For automation, you could play around with the pogo pins on the back, but I don't know how easy that is. You can also use a Raspberry PI Pico instead. You can program the board in Python or C and communicate with it over USB (you plug it into the phone). I had an idea to use the PinePhone with the Pico, add 2 motors to it and turn it into a remote controlled car (PineCar?), controlled by a gamepad over bluetooth. I think that wouldn't be too difficult, but it requires some programming. Another idea: turn it into a weather station. Add some sensors like temperature, humidity, maybe air quality sensors and then either display the data on screen or share it over HTTP to access it over the network.
You can install aircrack and try hacking your own wifi. Maybe you could somehow make a map of wifi networks in your area. There is a distro called Nethunter Pro, which is a mobile version of Kali Linux (https://youtu.be/i1bDofmvhNw).
You can buy an SDR (Software Defined Radio) USB dongle and after plugging it into the phone you should be able listen to radio signals on the go (https://youtu.be/ffEGdbXt2Qo).
Since gamepads work, you can play some old games like Doom (https://youtu.be/IhBfy8xfoI8) and Quake 1. Maybe some emulation of very old games? DOS games should work (https://youtu.be/x-LvYEKjX78). Apparently it's also possible to stream games from your PC (https://youtu.be/XgQT5gEkK24).
You might be able to run OpenRGB on it, but I'm not sure how that could be useful. So far I've only seen this mod for the keyboard: https://youtu.be/9DGIwjaXMeI.
Maybe use it to periodically fetch and display information like weather or public transport schedule.
Yes, I do.
I agree, but movie DVDs and Blu-Rays contain DRM. It's probably easy to break it (which is illegal btw) and get regular files out of it, but the practice of adding DRM is unethical and we shouldn't reward companies that do it with our money. It's also possible to record your screen when watching a movie on Netflix (at least when using GNU/Linux), so you would get a copy of that movie, but we need to have higher standards.
I think if anything contains DRM, you should either not use it or pirate it instead.
It is possible to be entertaining and ethical at the same time. Someone else will take their place.
I would venture that the majority of people see it as an investment of one sort or another. I think the insane market cap, and the devestating effect the recent crash had on its reputation and use, are evidence of that.
You are right, but it doesn't matter what most people think. I mean we should educate them about it, but their opinion is irrelevant.
Most cryptos have fundamental problems that I don’t see being fixed, eg it’s deflationary properties, BTC’s wasteful PoW, ETH skirting/crossing the boundary of being a security, etc.
Etherum has already switched from proof of work algorithm to less wasteful proof of stake. So it seems that at least that problem can be solved.
This is like the one thing they are good for, and Monero is the best at it. This is an arguable point though, others may say that this is a negative due to the implications and governments have cracked down on privacy enhancing tools like Tornado Cash for this reason. I personally value privacy to an extent, but do not see the need in my life to use Monero. I certainly wouldn’t fault you for using it, though.
You should be able to buy any of the popular cryptocurrencies anonymously. They won't make your payment history private like Monero does, but you will still be anonymous when paying.
I think adoption has stagnated. And look at El Salvador, they basically had to force crypto on the populace and they use their own proprietary wallet, nullifying privacy benefits. And again, it is treated as an investment by the government there who are buying BTC to speculate.
I don't know exact stats, but it's bigger than I expected before I started looking into it. There are a lot of crypto ATMs now in cities, which you can see at https://coinatmradar.com. There are also some stores and restaurants that accept crypto, especially in the US (https://coinmap.org/view). You can also find some online services on https://cryptwerk.com. El Salvador is certainly messed up. Bitcoin probably isn't even a good choice, because of its big transaction fees. Other cryptocurrencies are faster, can handle more transactions and have smaller fees.
Yeh this is dependant on your country. Here in Australia every crypto transaction is a capital gains event 🙄
Damn, that's crazy. So you can't even buy something without paying an extra tax?
I see, that makes sense. But I also think that every content that you have paid to access should be DRM-free, so even in a streaming service.
That's not exactly what happened.
1. In 2019 he was misquoted by a blogger and then by the press:
Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing
What he really said was:
Source: https://stallmansupport.org/explaining-events-that-led-to-stallman-resignation-csail-emails.html
There is no "Epstein friendship" that I know of. He called him a "serial rapist" before that (source).
This is what he was criticized for at the time + unconfirmed rumors (some of them debunked now) of allegedly creepy behavior around women. You can read more on https://stallmansupport.org.
2. Some people dug up his old blog posts.
Between 2003 and 2013 a few times he expressed his views on pedophilia. It was literally a few times, but yes this is something he actually said and used to believe. He hadn't mentioned that topic again until it was brought up in 2019. That's when he said that he had changed his mind since then and that he was wrong. You can read about it on Wikipedia (can't find the link to the original quote at the moment): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies
As far as I know that was the last time he mentioned this topic.
So now that we got the facts right, the question is if he should be punished for having a wrong/stupid opinion on something 10 years ago. I think no, but apparently some people disagree.