Stallman at Fisciano (freedom 1 and freedom 3)

Stallman talks about the risks of proprietary software and the freedom 1 and 2, more precisely:

FREEDOM 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs . Access to the source code is a precondition for this

FREEDOM 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits . Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• stallman
• fisciano
• gnu
• free
• software
• freedom
• unisa
• informatica
• mala
• educacion

[Sillybillydilly]

How do you know that a modified version is not malicious? There needs to be a central congregation area of verified stuff. In this sense a bug laden but 10 year old thing that has been verified and built reputation up may be much safer to use than the latest and greatest. New hardware should be mandated to adapt to something trusted and verified of 10 years ago, for people who wish to run secure stuff without caring about features. Also small is good - it's easier to examine 50 KB than 3 GB.

[Sillybillydilly]

Also, how do you trust modified versions distributed to you, when there is no piles of money backing it that you can sue against. In this sense proprietary software is safer, inasmuch as the owner has an interest in not being sued. However if they are not making a profit, or there is a new better competitor in the field, on the way out they could get extremely malicious, just to make those extra few dollars, squeeze the last lemon drops. Without access to the source code it's still blind faith.

[Sillybillydilly]

Also, you can't just say "thank you" to somebody, because, at least in America, they are in desperate need of cash. Everyone is so cashstrapped and loaded with artificial expenses of housing, insurance and taxes, they have to scream and claw for more cash simply to make it to the next day. Those few lucky who have a comfortable income and lots of free time on their hands, like Newton had, will appreciate a thank you and be more than satisfied by it. Such a society is hard to control centralized.

[Sillybillydilly]

Security is not there without a generally accessible programming language like BASIC. C is hard. If you could get even Vista speed, or even lower performance, but the architecture were very simple and transparent, that would be a worthy sacrifice.

Wikipedia has quality because modifying it is easy. When the base of people who know how to correct source code is very small, malicious attempts are harder to correct. Under many eyes all bugs are shallow, but how do you get many eyes?