 So I want to answer a question I get relatively often and that is why do I use and support free software? And when I say free software, I'm not talking about software that you get for free I'm talking about software that is free and open source Libre meaning the source code is open to the public and people can change modify distribute it in whatever way that they want and I think that this is very good not just for Developers, but for normal people who have no knowledge of computer computers whatsoever So I'm gonna freeze this video actually as a response because last week or a couple days ago At least I got a question from someone and I think it's a good question He's basically asking me why I use free software. So I want to phrase this video as a response to this now This is from Michael. This is actually a donation. He sends in $20. Thank you for your donation But I'm gonna read his question. Hi Luke. Love your vids despite using Linux and being a C plus plus dev for a pro C++ dev for 15 years now. I've never managed to take my rising to your Chad level. Thank you Michael I send you this donation with a question I love Phos because it make it gives me what I want suckless Crashless BS less user experience But why do you care so much about the Libre or free part for instance? Thinkpads with no proprietary code or parabola with no proprietary codecs and firmware Back in the late 90s Windows wasn't that bad in T4 worked quite well visual studio was really good The MSDN library was six CDs of documentation I'm not ashamed to admit that I liked proprietary software and I pirated all of it My philosophy is if I can get my hands on it. It's mine, especially when it comes to intellectual property That's in quotation marks. I simply don't recognize it So philosophically, I wouldn't hate Windows if a it worked and the UX didn't the user experience didn't suck including no privacy issues And B it was free or obtainable via piracy now the the question goes on I'm gonna go ahead and say some stuff in response to this so First off, why does the Windows user experience suck now? Now one thing that's inherent to proprietary software is that it doesn't really have a direct Interface with the people who use it that is you don't really have a control of How Windows is going to look in the future or how it's gonna look in its next update? I actually agree with this guy and that when I was a kid, you know in the 90s. Hey, I liked Windows I liked Windows 95. I used it in 98 or whatever it is and I actually liked the user experience. I didn't find it frustrating I didn't find it infuriating in the way that I find Windows 10 But one thing inherent to proprietary software is that users just in terms of superficial things Like the user interface really don't have that much control Windows in particular is made for sort of everyone out there So if someone wants something particular or if someone wants the ability to customize it They really don't have that ability and since it's proprietary software a lot of the design decisions are now being made For the good of the proprietors So now Windows 10 has ads all over the place it give the hey buy candy crush all this kind of stuff all the time So saying something like oh, I like proprietary software, but I just want to get rid of that stuff You can't do that. You don't really have a choice. That's one of the reasons that proprietary software is Such a pain Additionally, you know, he says oh well if only there were no privacy issues the same thing is with privacy The same problem is with privacy. You might say oh, I'd use proprietary software if it didn't have privacy issues But when you can't see the source code to something or even if you can't see it and you don't have control over it There's really nothing that you can do about it. You just got to sit there and take it That's what proprietary software is you just got to sit and watch what it does to your computer and you have no say about it In fact, you might not even know about it. It's going on behind your back So anyway, I'll go on so keep reading despite considering myself a Linux veteran I don't see the problem with say Nvidia drivers non-free video codecs or CPU firmware blobs. I download them. They work For me. I never had a problem and I get 4k at 60 FPS on Linux So what's the problem? Sure if they're sending my keystrokes of my porn queries back to Nvidia corporate I'd be to be upset, but they don't so one thing it's very assumptive assumptive Assumptionist of for him to say that they don't send his keystrokes back to Nvidia corporate because one aspect of proprietary software You just can't avoid is the fact that if you don't know specifically what's going on Which you don't in the case of proprietary software You don't know if they're sending your queries back to Nvidia corporate You don't know who knows what porn you're watching And in fact, it is so easy to do something like that with a simple line of code You have every reason to think that people are doing it. In fact, we know that people are doing stuff like this take Let's actually take the most abstract uh Well, let's take the the most universal Proprietary software and that is the proprietary software in your computer's bios Um, we know that the intel management engine and a lot of not just intel but other cpu companies Will have these extra processors on your board on your computer board that run proprietary software And they have network access and they can access your computer's memory. It's very easy. In fact, it has been demonstrated You can look it up. It's been demonstrated that you can very easily easily get any kind of thing that's in your memory just By having these firmware blobs, you wouldn't even think of them as doing something you wouldn't even think of them as Oh, they're watching what porn i'm watching or they're they're sending that data somewhere But it is so easy to do that You should expect that basically it's everywhere now one thing you need to remember about You know free software versus proprietary software is the crazy conspiracy theorists that have always said about How terrible proprietary software is they have always been proven right 100 percent of the time richard stolman has a 100 percent accuracy rating Okay, in terms of the damages that proprietary software can cause I mean take back when the snowden things were going on where You know the week before the snowden revelations happened, you know people were like, uh, well, it doesn't matter man Just it's proprietary software. Oh, this is big companies. They're not going to steal your data. They have no reason to I mean the government doesn't care about you. They're not going to put it all together in some nationwide Really global database. It doesn't matter And then the cope changed once it was revealed that literally all of that crazy conspiracy theory Conspiracy theory stuff is true. The cope changed it. Oh, well, they're doing it, but it doesn't matter man I mean everyone's spied on like they don't care about you. It isn't going to make a difference yada yada et cetera et cetera first off it does make a difference and every aspect of proprietary every Proprietary program you don't use your Privacy is improving. Okay. That's one thing to take away But um, you know the thing to remember about proprietary software is it's so easy for people to Violate your privacy that uh, you know, really anyone could do anything I mean even the scripts that I have that of course are all free software You know, I often think you know Instead of taking this Password and encrypting it and doing this with it I can very easily send it to my web server or something like that and I could get everyone's passwords It is so easy to be able to write software that exploits people And one thing that people like Richard Stallman have been very good at is they recognize how easy this is And they make the very sensible judgment that if it's so easy We have every reason to think that some people writing proprietary software In fact, even if it's just a very small number, but it's probably frankly really big Uh, we have every reason to think that people could just as easily Exploit proprietary software to get your data and they do we know they do but just don't cope with this kind of stuff Anyway, so I'll go on the the comment is almost over but um, oh, anyway, I'm not I'm not trying to like stick it to this guy I think his points are good. I'm just using it because it's a good example Um, anyway to finish it up. He says I click agree to terms of service. I think Uh, regardless of whether I acknowledge their terms or not I use the driver and it works and I move on I would like to hear why using fos and only fos is such a great thing To me it is more beta to think that you're changing the world by reducing the market for proprietary blobs And abstain from restrictive contracts rather than a chat who brazenly violates them and takes what's rightfully his by any means necessary Curious to hear your thoughts. Thank you. Uh, well, again, thank you, uh, michael for your comment and your donation But um, you know, so to make something clear, I don't care about when uh microsoft or apple I'm not trying to stick it to them. I am not trying to change the world. I'm not trying to reduce their market share I don't care about that kind of stuff when I choose what software i'm using I make my decisions based on my user experience. I use free software I mean, I use linux because it's better than windows. It's better than mac. It is I can do more stuff on it It's more extensible. I am more in I have a more indirect control of it And even when I give it to a normie when I give a computer running ubuntu or something to a normie It is better for them to you know, there there are so many things that they Avoid not having to deal with windows or macOS or something like that. So I use it because it's better I use free software because it is better. It might be unfamiliar to you if you haven't used it, but it is better Um, so I don't risk I don't abstain from proprietary software because you know I just have some stupid ethical principle that it consists in me using stupid free software I use it. I don't use proprietary software because it's bad and the other thing to note about this again This guy had earlier said, um, what was it? I love Foss because it gives me what I want suckless crashless bsless user experience the thing to remember about that is Uh, you know proprietary software the incentives are to always write things that are big and bloated And hard to use and need big updates because if you were writing, I mean just take an example Let's say the unix command grep Let's say you made a proprietary version of grep. Who the heck is going to ever use that? No one is going to use even if it had extra features even if all the free software variety varieties of grep disappeared overnight No one is going to use your version of grep because grep is such a simple and reproducible program Someone could write in one day as a homework assignment a grep of their own Okay, they don't need it the incentives for proprietary software is to make software that Enforces a particular user experience and it imprints on people and it locks people into that particular user experience That's why we have a bunch of huge programs like microsoft office that does a million different things And it does all of them poorly Because it's just a big mess that uh, you know, of course there are free software equivalents of it But i'm saying that proprietary software has to be bloated because you know, if it isn't bloated it It's easy to reproduce. So proprietary software and again, I'm agreeing with actually most of the stuff that this guy's saying I don't have some ethical reason. You know, I'm just going to not use it because proprietary software There's just a moral evil about it. I use it because it, you know Or I don't use it because proprietary software places the incentives to make bloated software And also it it always puts the temptation in the developer's face to You know, violate the user user's privacy or do something else and also frankly, I mean if you look at Even people like richard slalman if you look at some of the reasons that you know He originally founded the gnu project and got upset with proprietary software a lot of it comes down to the fact that You for whatever reason proprietary software often just forbids you from doing things You just can't modify this you sometimes can't even fix problems If it were just open source or something like that you could at least At least, uh, you know get on and what's actually going on. So Anyway, that's the view. I want you to come around or come away from this video with I I'm not This isn't some ethical test. It's not a purity spiral I don't believe in free software because I think like uh people who write proprietary code are evil I believe in it because it's better And yeah, if you're new to it if you're new to it as an experience It might be something that is a little Weird and of course as this guy notes, you know, there are things like nvidia or proprietary drivers where people will make You know people or companies that have monopolistic positions. They will write proprietary Codex or whatever just because they can But at every single decision point where I have to choose between proprietary software and free software I go with free software because my experience with it is that it all over the long term It will mean less frustration. It will mean more customizability. It will mean more freedom more privacy It'll just be easier to use. So that's why I use it and that's it. So anyway, uh, thank you, michael Thank you everyone else for watching. That's my view on free software and I will see you guys next time