Freesoftwareenjoyer @ Freesoftwareenjoyer @lemmy.world

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231

Joined

2 yr. ago

I think you still need the proprietary drivers to use the scanner.

The problem for me is scanners. I need a printer with a scanner, but scanning seems to require installing proprietary drivers :(

So I realized I probably need a printer that doesn't require a computer to use. It's ridiculous that it came to this, but there are printers that can print from USB and scan to a USB device. They seem to be rare though.

This is not about price. Nobody is saying that authors can't charge for their software. It's about freedom.

Your computer/smartphone is controlled by the software that runs on it. Libre Software like Jerboa gives you the source code and the right to study it, modify it and distribute it. This means that anyone can verify what the program does and change it if needed. It means that users actually control the program. If the authors added malicious functionality, it would be easy to remove it.

Proprietary software doesn't give you those freedoms. It's very difficult to verify what such program does or change it. You can't really control it, but it controls your device. If it contains malicious functionality, usually you can't do anything about it. That's why proprietary software is unethical. It gives developers power over their users and they often abuse that power.

I’m not touching it with a long stick until someone does some proper security analysis on it

How would that happen? It's proprietary software, we don't have access to the source code. And that's the whole point. We can't verify what it does and we can't modify it.

The alternative is Free/Libre Software. That's what Lemmy is, Jerboa and many others. Their authors publish the source code and let their users study it, modify it and distribute it. Because they are not trying to hide anything from us. That's the ethical way to make software.

it’s a smaller target and that hackers aren’t spending as much time trying to attack it

It's the most popular server system, so I'm not so sure about that.

GNU/Linux is Libre Software, so that already makes it more secure, because anyone can actually verify what it does and modify it if needed. This means that users are really in control of what the operating system does. It's difficult to verify what Windows does, but we know that it contains spyware, which isn't easy to remove.

Installing software from a repository is also safer than downloading it from random websites.

When some library like OpenSSL has a vulnerability, you will get a new version with system updates and all programs will start using that patched version. On Windows usually each program has to have its own update mechanism or it will be stuck with old libraries.

Nah, but proprietary software is often malware.

It's about having the freedom to control your own devices. Proprietary software like Sync takes away that freedom, so it's unethical. We should be complaining about it.

I don’t understand why this gets so much talk

Because proprietary software is unethical.

You are right, but I see no reason why you couldn't sell Libre software. People never have to pay for software, they choose to do it. It doesn't matter if the app is proprietary or not.

The Free Software movement has nothing to do with price. It's about freedom. We deserve to have the freedom to control our own devices. Proprietary software takes that away, so it's unethical.

It's a discussion about ethics. Proprietary software is unethical.

Ah, I see. So you are an expert in psychology, marketing and statistics. That is truly amazing. It's completely irrelevant to the topic of our discussion (which is about privacy and software), but very cool.

People wait for him to be resurrected, but nothing happens. He dies for real.

Garbage that's designed to alter my mood to keep me longer on the platform. Please, give me more of that!

Yeah, for some reason there will always be people who are willing to use software that harms them.

But people using those platforms is not good for our society. Of course if they cared about freedom a little bit of extra difficulty wouldn't really bother them. But the goal should be to make the switch as easy as possible.

No algorithm designed to keep you addicted or run experiments on you.

Try to convince them to move here. Maybe eventually they will.

Fun fact: both facebook.com and twitter.com have a Tor site to make it harder to censor them.