From 1ae0306a3cf2ea27f60b2d205789994d260c2cce Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christian Grothoff Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:29:45 +0200 Subject: add i18n FSFS --- .../blog/articles/en/computing-progress.html | 171 +++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 171 insertions(+) create mode 100644 talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/computing-progress.html (limited to 'talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/computing-progress.html') diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/computing-progress.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/computing-progress.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e50f707 --- /dev/null +++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/computing-progress.html @@ -0,0 +1,171 @@ + + +Computing ‘Progress’: Good and Bad +- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation + + +

Computing ‘progress’: good and bad

+ +

by Richard +Stallman

+ +

+The BBC invited me to write an article for their column series, The +Tech Lab, and this is what I sent them. (It refers to a couple of +other articles published in that series.) The BBC was ultimately unwilling +to publish it with a copying-permission notice, so I have published it +here.

+ +

+Bradley Horowitz of Yahoo proposed here that every object in our world +have a unique number so that your cell phone could record +everything you do—even which cans you picked up while in the +supermarket.

+ +

+If the phone is like today's phones, it will use proprietary software: +software controlled by the companies that developed it, not by its +users. Those companies will ensure that your phone makes the +information it collects about you available to the phone company's +database (let's call it Big Brother) and probably to other +companies.

+ +

+In the UK of the future, as New Labour would have it, those companies +will surely turn this information over to the police. If your phone +reports you bought a wooden stick and a piece of poster board, the +phone company's system will deduce that you may be planning a protest, +and report you automatically to the police so they can accuse you of +“terrorism”.

+ +

+In the UK, it is literally an offense to be suspect—more precisely, +to possess any object in circumstances that create a “reasonable +suspicion” that you might use it in certain criminal ways. +Your phone will give the police plenty of opportunities to suspect +you so they can charge you with having been suspected by them. +Similar things will happen in China, where Yahoo has already given the +government all the information it needed to imprison a dissident; it +subsequently asked for our understanding on the excuse that it was “just +following orders.”

+ +

+Horowitz would like cell phones to tag information automatically, based +on knowing when you participate in an event or meeting. That means +the phone company will also know precisely whom you meet. That +information will also be interesting to governments, such as those of +the UK and China, that cut corners on human rights.

+ +

+I do not much like Horowitz's vision of total surveillance. Rather, I +envision a world in which our computers never collect, or release, any +information about us except when we want them to.

+ +

+Nonfree software does other nasty things besides spying; it often +implements digital handcuffs—features designed to restrict the +users (also called DRM, for Digital Restrictions Management). These +features control how you can access, copy, or move the files in your +own computer.

+ +

+DRM is a common practice: Microsoft does it, Apple does it, Google +does it, even the BBC's iPlayer does it. Many governments, taking the +side of these companies against the public, have made it illegal to +tell others how to escape from the digital handcuffs. As a result, +competition does nothing to check the practice: no matter how many +proprietary alternatives you might have to choose from, they will +all handcuff you just the same. If the computer knows where you are +located, it can make DRM even worse: there are companies that would +like to restrict what you can access based on your present +location.

+ +

+My vision of the world is different. I would like to see a world in +which all the software in our computers — in our desktop PCs, our +laptops, our handhelds, our phones — is under our control and +respects our freedom. In other words, a world where all software is +free software.

+ +

+Free software, freedom-respecting software, means that every user of +the program is free to get the program's source code and change the +program to do what she wants, and also free to give away or sell +copies, either exact or modified. This means the users are in +control. With the users in control of the software, nobody has power +to impose nasty features on others.

+ +

+Even if you don't exercise this control yourself, you are part of a +society where others do. If you are not a programmer, other users of +the program are. They will probably find and remove any nasty +features, which might spy on or restrict you, and publish safe +versions. You will have only to select to use them—and since +all other users will prefer them, that will usually happen with no +effort on your part.

+ +

+Charles Stross envisioned computers that permanently record everything +that we see and hear. Those records could be very useful, as long as +Big Brother doesn't see and hear all of them. Today's cell phones are +already capable of listening to their users without informing them, at +the request of the police, the phone company, or anyone that knows the +requisite commands. As long as phones use nonfree software, +controlled by its developers and not by the users, we must expect this +to get worse. Only free software enables computer-using citizens to +resist totalitarian surveillance.

+ +

+Dave Winer's article suggested that Mr. Gates should send a copy of +Windows Vista to Alpha Centauri. I understand the feeling, but +sending just one won't solve our problem here on Earth. Windows is +designed to spy on users and restrict them. We should collect all the +copies of Windows, and of MacOS and iPlayer for the same reason, and send +them to Alpha Centauri at the slowest possible speed. Or just erase +them.

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