Free Software Foundation Endorses a "Truly Free" Laptop 340
An anonymous reader writes "The Free Software Foundation announced today the first laptop they have been able to certify as-is that respects the user's freedoms. The laptop is free down to using Coreboot in place of a proprietary BIOS. The OS shipped on the laptop is Trisquel, the Ubuntu derived Linux OS that removes all traces of proprietary firmware, patented formats, etc. The only issue though for new customers is this endorsed laptop comes down to being a refurbished 2006 ThinkPad X60 with single or dual-core Intel CPU, 1GB+ of RAM, 60GB+ HDD, and a 1024x768 12.1-inch screen, while costing $320+ USD (200 GBP). The FSF-certified refurbished laptops are only offered for sale through the Gluglug UK shop. Are these outdated specs worth your privacy and freedom?"
Privacy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Your privacy can be compromised with open hardware, just as easily as with closed.
Freedom I see, however.
Umm, okay, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
...what can you do on it besides run gcc?
Mind you, I'm not being a troll, nor am I dismissing the principles behind what they're doing. However, I am wondering how long it'll stay 'pure' before the user realizes "hey, I can't run $favorite_item, even though it normally runs fine on Linux!"
I suspect that those few who bother will likely give up and park Ubuntu/Fedora/SomethingElse on it in very short order.
(won't even touch on the fact that it's an older spec...)
Re:Bang-per-Buck (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, "the Market" means "whoever has the most dollars," which are concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite of anti-freedom oligarchs. If you want to keep your privacy and freedom, you'll need to find better allies than "the Market," because Gates, Zuckerberg et al. "outvote" you (likely millions to one). Markets do not protect freedoms, aside from the freedom of oligarchs to rule unimpeded.
Re:"Truly free", but with Intel inside(tm) (Score:4, Interesting)
...but with Intel inside..I laughed...
Why does that make you laugh? Please, do tell, what's the open alternative.
I think the fact that it has Intel inside, but is called "Truly Open" is what makes it funny. Until I saw the hardware, my first impression was that they had sourced open source hardware, to be truly free and all.
Just because there is no open alternative, doesn't mean that it is "Truly Open".
Re:FSF does free; they do step one, others step tw (Score:4, Interesting)
> no understanding of the importances of "just works"
That's not their part of the job.
Various entities can label something as user-friendly. FSF is pretty much the only entity that can label stuff as free.
This is one laptop. Hopefully next year there'll be twenty, and then someone can take on the job of announcing which is the most user-friendly of the twenty free laptops.
I'd take issue with them nominating themselves as the one true source, but that's neither here nor there. The real question is whether people will be willing to pay exorbant prices for relatively ancient hardware on the grounds that it very slightly increases the amount of "freedom" they have. Given that 99.95% of people will have no idea what this is about and further wouldn't care if they did (as we're talking about an increase that is difficult if not impossible to measure and arguably doesn't exist) I wouldn't hold your breath on this becoming anything more than an isolated instance.
In short, unless one can prove that even a tiny percentage of computer BIOSes and the like are phoning home or contacting the NSA with daily activity reports exactly no one, on the grand scale, will care. It reminds me of all the efforts to create a "free" CPUs or graphics cards in the past. Sure, you could do it and have them as long as you're okay with 10 or 15 year old technology that is incapable of doing anything that is currently useful. But it's Free! :D
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
When was the last time a proprietary video card driver or wifi chipset called home and caused you any problem?
I have no idea, and that's the scary part.
Re:Liberated CPUs (Score:4, Interesting)
In part they are able to get away with living in Fantasyland because they still use computers the same way they did when they were students at MIT back in the 70's, not like the way most everyone else uses computers.
For goodness sake, RMS doesn't actually use a web browser like "normal people do:
http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html [stallman.org]
I spend most of my time editing in Emacs. I read and send mail with Emacs using M-x rmail and C-x m. I have no experience with any other email client programs. In principle I would be glad to know about other free email clients, but learning about them is not a priority for me and I don't have time.
There's nothing wrong with using Emacs... but the vast majority of computer users don't use a text editor to read their e-mail. If one wants to make a free operating system that is of use to people who don't have neckbeards...then perhaps one should learn about Non-Emacs reading of E-mail. It's not that hard to learn a E-mail client...it's not like learning lisp.
I edit the pages on this site with Emacs also, although volunteer helpers install the political notes and urgent notes. I have no experience with other ways of maintaining web sites. In principle I would be glad to know about other ways, but learning about them is not a priority for me and I don't have time.
Not even Seamonkey's composer.
I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (but I make sure I have no net connection, so that it won't fetch anything else).
I sometimes use Google's search engine, and I sometimes use DuckDuckGo. When I use a search engine, it is always from a machine that isn't mine and that other people also use. I never identify myself to the site, of course.
That more than anything else shows the disconnnect in how a Free Software most fervent promoters use computers compared to everyone else. No wonder they seem so "Fantasyland"
I think it would serve RMS or any other hardcore FSFer to actually watch how people who are NOT FSF members actually use computers and then design a free operating system for them...not just bearded guys still using 1970's paradigms who know nothing about modern computer use.
Re:GNOME was launched by FSF (Score:2, Interesting)
GNOME was launched by FSF
GNOME is a GNU project....now. But that doesn't mean they created it other than promoting it.
RMS spent years promoting it and getting people to work on it. He still does.
Why Yes, GNU has plenty of projects that RMS promotes....how is that Flash replacement thing coming along.....
Promotion doesn't get shit done. Take a look at Gnome and the Gnome foundation that runs it... take a look who founded the Gnome Foundation:
It was founded on 15 August 2000 by Compaq, Eazel, Helix Code, IBM, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems and VA Linux Systems.
RMS can do all the advocacy and promotion and Fantasyland Idealism he wants when the grunt work of actually finishing and releasing usable software is done by employees of for-profit companies or universities.
It's easy to be a FSF idealist when you squat at an office that MIT lets you use....yes I know he has an actual place now.
The toolkit is a GNU project, born from another GNU project.
It is...now...but wasn't when it was created at UCB.
You seem to be trying to make GNU disappear by arguing that nothing matters but lines of code
Lines of code matter, what use is software that isn't finished/usable. How are HURD and GNASH coming along? The whole reason we have Linux is because GNU and the FSF are bunch of neckbeards living in a 70's world of computer interaction that are more about their Ideals, taking extreme positions and being blowhards when people don't follow their positions, than actually getting shit done.
I would love to have an open Flash replacement but 10 YEARS after I first heard of GNASH it still isn't ready for prime-time.