[Pan-users] Re: OT: freedomware vs... Was: Building Pan on Windows?

[Duncan]

Alan Meyer posted on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:48:26 -0800 as excerpted:

> On the issue of trust, for example, I trust that the open source
> software that I run is safe. However I have found that a number of
> closed source programs I have installed on my Windows machines included
> spyware.  And those are the ones I was able to find out about. There may
> be many others that I didn't find out about that also include spyware.
> 
> That's not to say that all authors of non-free software are
> untrustworthy, but without the source code we can't easily tell if they
> are trustworthy.

Here's something that's worth thinking about, that was reason enough for 
me to draw the line with the activation tech in eXPrivacy, such that I 
really had no /choice/ but to jump ship at that point.

The issue is really two-pronged.

1)  Activation is an anti-feature, period.  That is, it does NOTHING good 
for the purchaser of the software, while having all /sorts/ of risks in 
terms of breaking things.

One of the things taught in first year Engineering is that there's a 
direct relationship between complexity and failure.  Put simply, the more 
complex something is, the more things there are that can break.  Thus, 
it's drummed into the engineering student's head that you make things as 
complex as they have to be to get the job done, but NOT more so.

Now let's talk software.  All non-trivial software has bugs.  In fact, it 
is said that the bug count per line of code at a particular maturity level 
is relatively constant.  Somewhat surprisingly this holds relatively 
constant across languages and authors (well, authors at comparable 
experience level), as well. The more testing, reviewing, scanning both 
automated and not, etc, that a piece of code gets, with the bugs then 
worked out, the more mature it is and the less bugs that remain, but it 
can never be reliably assumed that no more bugs exist in the code.

This is one aspect of why bloat is such a pejorative term as applied to 
software.  It implies that the software has had features added beyond the 
point at which the use of the new features are worth the additional 
complexity, not just in initial development time and basic maintenance, 
but in additional bugs, some of which are likely to be pretty serious, as 
in potentially fatal to use of the software for some, or security critical 
for others (and BTW, it has been argued rather convincingly that nearly 
any crash in a native coded app is a potential security vuln, just waiting 
for the proper exploit -- consider that the next time your browser crashes 
at some unknown web site!).

But... /most/ of that so-called "bloat" has at least /some/ redeeming use, 
for whatever number of users of that software find that feature useful.  
It can be argued that it's bloat, but as long as it's useful for /
someone/, whether it's bloat or not does rather tend to be in the eye of 
the beholder/user.

So what kind of /possible/ insanity would prompt a developer to add "anti-
features", that is, additional code, complexity and potential for bugs, 
that has benefit for *NO* user, when every bit of added complexity is at 
additional cost in terms of maintenance and additional risk of critical 
failure and/or security vulnerabilities?  With more code comes more bugs, 
GUARANTEED.  And SOME of those bugs WILL be critical bugs, either security 
or function-wise, GUARANTEED!  So again, what kind of INSANE person 
DELIBERATELY adds such things to their code, when it's something NOT EVEN 
ONE user will benefit from, and in fact, it's taken as a given that such 
an anti-feature WILL cause problems for SOME legitimate users?

So with the development of such "anti-features" as software activation, MS 
is demonstrating one of two things: (a) A serious number of devs and 
management have gone SERIOUSLY INSANE, or (b) us "users" are no longer the 
real "users" they are creating the software for.  Well, unless there's 
something strange in the water up there in Redmond, (a) can be pretty much 
ruled out, so that leaves (b).  That then begs the question, OK, if we're 
not the users they're building for now, who is?

The answer must be, MS itself.  Like any monopoly over time, it has lost 
sight of the end users and is now treating them as simply more material to 
feed into the maw of the self-perpetuating monster it has become!

And actually, quite contrary to MS' own claims in the courts, it obviously 
believes it *IS* a monopoly, that a significant share of its users REALLY 
have NO other choice and will thus pay whatever MS demands of them for 
whatever crap they spew out, because they literally have no where else to 
go.  Otherwise, why would it be resorting to these tactics that it KNOWS 
to be customer repellent?  After all, how did it gain market share when 
many of its competitors were resorting to yesteryear's activation 
technology, dongles and the like?  Simply by not using such things on its 
own software, even at the known expense of some piracy.  MS has time and 
again demonstrated itself too good a competitor to get tied up in such 
user repellent tactics when it believes there's other competition out 
there.  Therefore, if they're using them, they obviously believe there's 
no viable competition, that they *ARE* a monopoly and don't have to care, 
because users have no other place to go.  Their actions are conclusive 
demonstration of what they BELIEVE, no matter WHAT they say!

Well, that's the first prong.  MS was no longer customer focused, but only 
MS focused.  Any company deliberately installing anti-features in their 
software, despite what we know about complexity, bug rates, and GUARANTEED 
breakage, isn't a company whose software I'm interested in using.  Once it 
was demonstrated that's what they were up to, I knew I was getting off -- 
they were PUSHING me off!  But I could still, within a limited frame of 
reference, pick my time and place to jump.  And jumping the week that 
eXPrivacy came out was both the right time for me, as by then, I had been 
preparing for roughly two years and it was time, and highly symbolic.

While the first prong is highly technical but very basic and directly 
related to MS itself, the second prong is built on the first but isn't as 
direct and is even more insidious in its implications as projected into 
the future, both from then, and very likely getting even worse moving into 
the future from now.  While the first alone was bad enough that had I not 
already had a decade on MS, I'd have chosen another alternative at that 
point, the implications of the second were what really convinced me that 
MS and I had to part ways, no ifs, ands or buts, /despite/ that investment 
of a decade of time and experience that it was going to cost me.

The second prong is simply this:  If MS, after all the leader on its own 
platform, is doing all the above in spite of all the accumulated 
Engineering (not just software engineering, but civil engineering, 
mechanical engineering, NASA engineering...  the reason the shuttle 
basically failed, despite all the money and engineering thrown into it, is 
that it was and remains an over-complex engineered solution to what was an 
already solved problem -- we'd landed men on the moon, after all!) wisdom 
to the contrary, what are the implications for where OTHERS, those who 
don't have the entire PLATFORM to defend and risk, are going to do.  To 
what extent are they going to take the actions of MS, leading by its own 
example?

You know what?  I was predicting the likes of the Sony rootkit fiasco from 
the moment I understood what MS was doing with activation in XP.  I really 
do not blame Sony for that rootkit; I blame MS for leading the way with 
the anti-feature of product validation and activation.  And the question I 
have is this, why did people get so mad at Sony, when all it was doing was 
protecting its own interests in much the same way MS was doing?  MS lead 
the way.  Sony only followed, extending the principle only very little 
further.

And now MS, with MS Windows 7, is going even further, with more or less 
continuous checks (every 90 days, IIRC), dramatically crippling the OS if 
something goes wrong with the validation checks.  If it's OK for MS, it's 
gotta be OK for all the other software vendors out there.  And with MS 
leading the way and implying permission, what sort of Sony rootkit like 
extensions are coming next?  MS wants to be root on your machine.  Sony 
obviously does as well, and with them, of course, so does everyone else, 
with their own schemes to protect their own interests.  If MS can do it, 
why can't all the others.  And if they're all given effective root access, 
who's running "your" machine, after all?

So what /is/ malware, after all, and who's shipping it?

Foreseeing all this as the implication and ultimate result of where MS was 
headed with eXPrivacy, is it any wonder I call it that, and any surprise I 
describe it as MS pushing me out?  Ten years on MS, and honestly, while I 
appreciated to some extent the ideals of freedomware and wished I'd have 
gone that way, I really don't know if I'd have made that jump if it wasn't 
for MS' own actions, pushing me.

But I'm oh so glad they did! =:^)  Having now discovered the land of 
software freedom for myself, even if it was MS' push that made me jump, 
/especially/ because it was MS' push that made me jump and because I now 
understand even better than I did then the implications of servant-ware 
designed to keep the user as a servant of the master of that software, AND 
I've experienced the freedom, including freedom from anti-features, that 
true freedomware brings... what sort of enticements could servant-ware 
POSSIBLY offer to even BEGIN to make me think of going back?

Now, computing has been my more-than-full-time hobby and a huge part of my 
life for going on 20 years now, and my some-time hobby for over a quarter 
century.  I'd certainly have a hard time giving it up!  But, what /would/ 
I do if somehow the SCOs and the MSs of the world won, and freedomware, at 
least as we know it, was made illegal?

Well, I'll tell you what.  I /used/ to be an avid reader.  I have probably 
over a hundred books sitting around that I've yet to read, and that only 
because I've stopped going to the bookstores to get more.  Even at a dime 
or quarter a copy for used books at the second-hand stores, I now just 
pass that aisle by, as I know if I stop and look, I'll only be tempted to 
buy more books I'm unlikely to ever get a chance to read.  Well, should 
freedomware somehow be made illegal, I may well get that chance! =:^\  

Or, alternatively, perhaps I'd physically emigrate, just as I did 
metaphorically from proprietaryware, or perhaps I'd do it anyway, choosing 
mental freedom and freedom of speech over physical freedom, taking 
imprisonment for my beliefs if it came to that.  Whether I'd die for it... 
honestly probably not at this point, but just as sure as I believe in the 
ethical integrity of the folks on the underground railway here in the US 
prior to abolition of slavery, just as sure as I believe in the ethics of 
those who risked and often suffered death at the hand of the Nazis hiding 
Jews or others, so I believe were I to have equal ethical integrity, I'd 
be willing to sacrifice my own life for software freedom, as they did for 
other forms of freedom.

Hmm...  I suppose that makes me a Free Software zealot, but so be it.

Anyway, it should be abundantly clear why I couldn't /possibly/ agree to a 
EULA and even if I could, wouldn't want to run other than freedomware, by 
this point.  OTOH, there does remain the small matter of that one 
servantware game, which I've not yet given up, which by reason of logic 
pretty definitely makes me a servant thereof, I do admit.  OTOH, I do at 
least console myself with the thought that it doesn't appear to have any 
network functionality at all, nor would it have been likely to given the 
time it was written and its purpose as a game, and the fact that were 
there too much risk in that black-box, someone would have surely found it 
in over a decade and a half...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman