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Very true. The spirit of FOSS has been not just defeated but pushed back by corporate interests. We are more controlled by corporate decision makers today than ever before. FOSS embodies natural laws, namely, that information wants to be free, and that an object in my hands can be controlled and manipulated by me. Common law grants the framework of ownership atop which such that I shall not exercise without due permission such natural rights over objects that I have no ownership of, granting me the right to ownership in return. This framework has been unnaturally and unethically applied to non-personal information. In an ideal world, FOSS would not be needed at all.
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This was a fascinating read and really highlights the many areas where open source has made incredible strides but also the huge gaps where we still face limitations. I love how you pointed out that "open source has won" in certain spaces, but it’s far from the universal reality we need. The example with pacemakers really hit home—it’s wild to think about how many people’s lives depend on software that’s entirely closed off and unmodifiable. It’s not just a tech issue; it’s literally about people’s freedom and safety. The focus on hardware, too, is something a lot of people don’t think about. We often talk about open source software, but when it comes to firmware, drivers, and even simple peripherals like printers or graphics cards, there’s a massive lack of transparency and control. It’s easy to overlook the power that proprietary tech wields over us because it’s become so normalized. Your call to action on political pressure is especially important. Individual action can only go so far, but collective, systemic change—like what we've seen with USB-C—is something that can push the needle in a big way. I also like how you tied it back to culture—many of the things that should be open or hackable are treated like black boxes now. That needs to change, and you’re right: it’s up to us in the community to keep pushing for it. Lastly, your point about "wasted potential" really resonated. When you have the skills and the motivation to make something work better for you, but you’re locked out of the tools you need to do that, it’s frustrating. The world of closed systems creates barriers that we shouldn’t have to fight against. If more manufacturers opened their code, think of all the innovation that could happen. So, yes, let’s keep pushing for software freedom—it's a long road, but it’s worth it.
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Have you sanitized/ratelimited the comments? This looks awfully basic.
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The problem lies in so-called "trusted" computing. In the old days you could jailbreak iphones, but side channels get patched out and now you need million-dollar hardware to break trusted computing chips. It's a matter of economies of scale. Nowadays, you are expected to own an android or ios device in the same way you are expected to have a mailing address and a car. It's totally nessisary to function in the economy, and they are totally-locked down pieces of hardware. Their duopoly on mobile OSes is predicated on network effects (economies of scale). The hardware game is rigged in a way that the software game isn't. The librem 5 and pinephone are based on decade-old hardware that barely has enough computing power to process photos and videos as you're taking them. They can't get a foothold in a market where Apple, Qualcomm and others control the economies of scale. If the american people could wise up to the issue of trusted computing, we would outlaw it by constitutional ammendment. Unfortunately, it' one of those issues like net neutrality that is too complex for the average voter to fit in their head. As technology progresses, the mechanisms of social control advance in complexity.
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If technology is centralized, you will be a slave.
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Even with many people switching to use open-source software alternatives, the most commonly used file formats, like MPEG-4 for video, or MP3/AAC for audio, as well as some document formats, etc. are still patent-encumbered and tightly controlled by corporations. Musicians also still depend on commercial VST/DLL plug-ins without knowing anything about the underlying audio signal processing behind it, most FOSS synths, effects, and even DAWs struggle to compete with commercial counterparts in terms of sound quality, user experience and functionality.
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Wow, so many comments :) > Have you sanitized/ratelimited the comments? This looks awfully basic. It does. But it works! Each comment goes into a review quarantine which I approve manually. Otherwise you would see nothing but spam here. > The problem lies in so-called "trusted" computing. Yes, but no. I didn't transcribe it, but this was mentioned in the Q&A session. It's not trusted computing in itself, but how everyone has been using trusted computing. Namely, manufacturers decided not to trust the users. In the Librem 5, we bucked that trend by leaving the hardware key slots unburned. The user can use the trusted computing infrastructure in the form of TrustZone to install their own keys and gain stronger control over what's executing on their device. If I remember correctly, that can prevent attacks requiring physical access to hardware. We didn't even go that dar out of line. I keep reading that Secure Boot mandates letting the user enroll their own keys. In that case, the user has no choice about trusting the manufacturer, but at least they can add themselves into the trusted pool. The downside is, now you need to do what the manufacturer has been doing: manage that key enrollment and trusted boot chain infrastructure. Judging by how many people use their own keys in SecureBoot, that's not really going mainstream any time soon. And when you lose the master keys, your precious device turns into a brick together with its data. To a lot of people, it's not acceptable, so they prefer the manufacturer to be the custodian of their digital lives. -- Dorota
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Hi Dorota, thanks for reading my first comment. I don't think trusted computing is as benign as you make it out to be. In some cases it may be voluntary, where the original purchaser of the device has control over the master keys, but in the vast majority of cases it isn't and the world would be a better place if it were outlawed completely: free software would return to having a natural advantage due to reverse engineering and the erosion of intellectual property. Systems like Google Play Integrity, WEI, etc. are used by application developers to lock down the environments in which you can use their software, all the way down the software stack to the hardware. A banking app, for example, may require that you are running an "approved" version of android on approved hardware in order to use their servies, and in practice many banks do. I'm already running into the situation where I can't run many apps on grapheneOS (and I certainly wouldn't be able to run them on Librem 5 via waydroid). Free software can't coexist in an ecosystem with mandatory unfree software. It will never gain a critical mass of users if you are de-facto required to own a locked-down device to participate in the economy. Banking apps are just one such example. The choice (or really, lack thereof) of a consumer to allow the manufacturer to control secure boot isn't a harmless individual choice, it has externalities. It creates this environment where application developers can rely on 99% of the users being on locked-down devices, so they can disallow anyone who doesn't use a locked-down device. Imagine a world in which 99% of people have locked-down devices. The remaining minority 1% of edward snowdens can still hide amoungst the crowd and disseminate political information which benefits everyone. Trusted computing is technology for social control that leverages the 99% against the 1% by allowing for their discrimination, and it is enabled by the silent (unwitting) majority.
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Great essay! Regarding Apple "making computers now as if those were appliances"; wasn't that always Apple's – especially Steven Jobs' – idea, to make a computer that was more of a sleek household appliance than any product by their competitors? Even the old Apple II computer had that ethos behind it to some extent, and they perfected it (?) with the Macintosh in the 80s. Which also goes hand in hand with the fact that Apple's computers were always more "closed" and controlled and less modifiable than the IBM compatible computers. But yes, the number of houshold appliances with software has of course exploded since then.
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> I don't think trusted computing is as benign as you make it out to be Well, yes, but no, but yes. I'm not saying that all technology is neutral, because while that's true in the spherical cow sense, technologies are embedded in the real world. In the case of trusted computing, we have a power imbalance between those positioned to be the first ones to put their hands on it and everyone else. The winners are manufacturers. Where are the co-operative computer manufacturers? Where are the non-profit ones? Obviously, manufacturers don't completely work for the benefit of their users. The closest we get is Purism with their Social Purpose status, who's one of the few who open the trusted computing box. So yeah, trusted computing is a tool that fell into the hands of those who already have power and aren't the people who are affected by the trusted computing limitation. We could ask our governments to fix the bank situation, which sometimes does actually happen, but I'm getting the sneaky suspicion that few believe governments act in the interest of the average person, as we get corporations pushing more BS through government's edicts (*cough* digital Deutschlandticket *cough*). Change that, and trusted computing starts being a net force of the good. Although I think you'd need a revolution... --Dorota