You can trust @aral — he's shown long-term consistency, addressed his own issues (moved toward fully-FLO away from Apple).
But the rage-machine concerns are valid. It's one way to reinforce tribalism and manipulate activists. Purism is a witch-hunt style eat-your-own approach. The whole idea of badge-beliefs and of checking whether someone is "one of us" leads to all sorts fo dysfunctions.
That tribalism is exploitable by actual bad actors.
@wolftune @oshwm@mastodon.social @aral @Shamar @cwebber @conservancy
So, I've begun to think about what you might call the "freedom curve", plotted on an axes labelled "freedom" (y) and "reach" (x). I suspect it looks something like an exponential decay, with high freedom plotted at the far left, but with very little reach (let's just say for sake of argument that's where RMS and TdR and a Gideon's Band of others sit). As you move to the right, freedom falls away, but you cover more people.
@deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber
I like the approach but you definitely need more dimensions to describe the system.
Yet if @aral is a saint or not is totally unrelevant here.
Is he right about #SurveillanceCapitalism?
I think so.
Is he right that @conservancy should not accept #Google money?
Again I think so, but we can discuss this.
Yet for sure NOT for a conference on #Copyleft!
1/
@deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @aral @conservancy
Can #Rifle sponsor gun regulation?
Can #Malboro sponsor tobacco regulation?
Can #Monsanto sponsor GMO regulation?
The answer is no, simply because their business model is in direct contrast with such regulations.
Can #Google sponsor #Copyleft?
No. It's totally the same.
So, even beyond #surveillance, this decision is either incredibly naive or plain malicious.
We can see how @aral handles Apple
in these sorts of discussions--is his stance yours also?
@wolftune @oshwm@mastodon.social @cwebber @conservancy
@deejoe @aral @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @conservancy
What do you mean?
He seem pretty critical about Apple's hypocrisy too. I don’t like Apple but I don't care much about what they do: I simply don't buy their over expensive products.
Today they are not that threat to #FreeSoftware: the worse they are doing against freedom is #LLVM, but this turned to be relevant only because of the stubbornness of RMS with GCC.
1/
@deejoe @aral @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @conservancy
Even #Microsoft, in this time and age, is a secondary threat to free software.
They were a problem in 2000, under #Ballmer direction when #FreeSoftware was not mainstream yet.
But now they are surrending.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a opensource #Windows in a decade or two.
2/
@deejoe @aral @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @conservancy
But #Google is a totally different enemy.
They are not just trying to defend their market and business model as Microsoft used to do.
They are trying to co-opt #FreeSoftware.
They are not working against a present threat to them, but to orient the future.
They are an existential threat to #hacker #freedom, though "embrace, confuse, corrupt and extinguish".
I totally disagree about Microsoft being not-so-bad a threat.They remain powerful, they aren't embracing software freedom, and their approach to Google is to *try* to outdo them in surveillance-capitalism even.
All these entities, Google included, are mixed in some ways.
My main disagreement was with your framing that Microsoft's threat has reduced compared to years ago.
They were more obvious bullies before and are more nuanced now, but we're not going to see an Open Sourcing of Windows. And if that ever happens, it will be because Windows has become just a thin-client front to "cloud" computing SaaSS and such.
Microsoft's legal threats to software-freedom and embrace-extend-extinguish strategy are all still here today.
Yes, maybe... but they are secondary if compared to the smartest and more subtle strategy of Google.
They have lost ground, even as a threat! :-D
Look at WSL. Look at Edge.
(Nokia? no it's like shooting on the red cross)
They are surrending.
They are coping Google without being Google.
They might become a serious issue again in the future, but right now they are trying to grasp what they got wrong.
My take on what's occurring with Microsoft is that they're transitioning to a new business model. So far as they're concerned the personal computing era is over. From here on out the Azure cloud will manage all the desktops and your OS will be ad supported and monitor your behavior to optimize your user experience. Windows and Azure will remain proprietary, since that ensures the telemetry and content delivery pipeline, but anything else can be "open source" to cut developer costs. You'll be able to tweak some settings on Windows, but everything else will be managed from the cloud. No manual updates. Think ChromeOS, but moreso.
Microsoft will remain hostile, but as a different kind of threat. They'll be nice as pie so long as your open source project runs on Windows, or in a Linux VM running on Windows, Delivered by Azure(TM). Anything else they either won't care about or will be hostile towards.
@bob @deejoe @cwebber @conservancy @aral @wolftune @oshwm
Yes, this is what I mean when I say they could become a serious problem: I've read your analysis before and it's pretty reasonable.
But there's no way to know if they will succeed with this transition.
They tried something similar with Nokia and now they run Android.
@wolftune @Shamar @deejoe @aral @oshwm @conservancy It's also very strange to me to see Apple presented as "not as bad an actor" in regards to *copyleft* as Google in this thread. Apple has lead the way on most of the anti-copyleft sentiment, especially by the apple store's incompatibility with / banning of the GPL. At any rate, as I've said before, "corporations are hydras"... in general, many heads which may act differently, even if being bit is a general concern.
I didn't see any reference to Apple being not-as-bad about copyleft.
Aral has a history of mild Apple apologism along the lines of: if surveillance capitalism died, Apple would still have a legitimate business model (selling hardware) while Google and Facebook would not.
But I didn't see him or anyone else saying Apple was better on copyleft. Maybe I missed something.
@cwebber @wolftune @deejoe @aral @oshwm @conservancy
As long as their market share remain unchanged, #Apple will be by far less relevant to #Copyleft (and to #Surveillance) than Google or even Microsoft.
They are not our friends and we should be careful to not get fooled to consider them as such.
But we should be aware of the difference between our adversaries: confusion always helps bad players (see #FLOSS vs FS).
Be careful not to allow the ability to avoid conflict-of-interest to become an exclusive privilege.
A great deal of such conflict can be ameliorated with disclosure of the relationship. There's no question about this here, it's been disclosed.
@Shamar @wolftune @oshwm@mastodon.social @cwebber @aral @conservancy
@deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @aral @conservancy
After 20 years of Berlusconi, we are still paying for the demage he did to Italy (on every level, cultural, ethical, legal, economical...) and we will pay the fee for a long time more.
Hell, I'm afraid it will take centuries to resort.
There is only a way to cope with conflicts of interest: to forbid them, to prevent them to occurs at any cost with no exception.
@Shamar @deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @aral @conservancy Bullshit. Are you saying all members of #rifle are against regulation? All Googlers are against software freedoms?
Then you've got nothing to say to Trump when he says all Mexicans are rapists. Why can't _some_ people at google be cool and want to support copyleft (whatever that is, I'm out of the loop there, just pissed at the blanket statement like this).
@zladuric @deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @aral @conservancy
So basically you don't know what you are talking about but urged to interject?
Well you are welcome, but maybe give a search to "copyleft".
Your post is a non-consequitur: whatever single employees think, Rifle (and Google, and Malboro..) are against any regulation that cannot be exploited to safeguard their marketshare and business.
@zladuric @deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @aral @conservancy
Google engineers should be welcome to any Conference according to the relevance of what they have to say.
Google money and brand on a Copyleft conference are worse than Trump money and face on a conference on Immigration, because Trump is highly hypocrital and say whatever please his people while Google is structurally incompatible.
@Shamar @deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @aral @conservancy
not exactly. I didn't interject into the conference taking or not taking money (that's what I dnt know about).
What I had a problem with is this: "The answer is no, simply because their business model is in direct contrast with such regulations."
That basically excludes EVERY business.
E.g You mention Trump's money for immigration. Him by name.
All I'm saying is, not all of Google is that guy.
@zladuric @deejoe @wolftune @oshwm @cwebber @aral @conservancy
No.
Many businesses exist because of regulation.
All businesses have no issues with the regulations that do not affect their business model or processes.
Some are smart enough to turn regulations as entry barriers against their competitors.
So not all companies are at odd with all regulations.
@Shamar
What amuses me the most in this is 'Google won't touch it' is my main reason to use copyleft.
Yes, that's one of the main advantage of AGPLv3 for me too.
But it's not enough to grant users the right to self-host the applications they use... that's why we need to move forward... and why their presence in #CopyleftConf is totally out of place.
@wolftune @oshwm@mastodon.social @aral @Shamar @cwebber @conservancy
Assuming one can influence the shape of the curve, what do you do?
Do you try to increase the overall limits of freedom for the few on the left? I think someone should.
Do you try to increase the integrated freedom, under the curve, by lifting the broad but imperfect freedoms of people further to the right? Yes, that too.
I haven't used this model so much to think about privacy but it might be useful there too.