[gentoo-desktop] Re: Sound freezes

[Duncan]

Alex Efros posted on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 21:29:08 +0300 as excerpted:

> Hi!
>
> On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 05:17:54PM +0000, Duncan wrote:
>> skype considers itself master over users and refuses to give them the
>> right to see and modify the code running on their own systems, there's
>> little that can be done, except to choose not to run code from people
>> who refuse to recognize my rights as a user, which is exactly what I
>> do.
>
> I'm 100% agree. I hate Skype and successfully avoided it for years.
> But, thing is, some of my customers and co-workers use it, it's
> "corporate standard" for them, so only choice I have is either lose some
> interesting work projects and ability to talk with several friends or
> start using Skype. :(

While I recognize people need to be able to take their own position and 
that mine won't work for everyone, my own solution to that is simple 
enough -- I simply /can't/ install the proprietary stuff, at least not 
legally, since I can no longer agree to, among other things, various bits 
of most EULAs as well as the liability waiver that's standard for most 
software (including the GPL), when it's applied to "black box" binary-
only software.

Specifically, most software (including GPLed software) essentially makes 
the user responsible for any damage or harm that the software may cause, 
including damage to the system it runs on, etc.  While there's legally a 
good reason for that and I don't begrudge the right of authors to ask 
that users assume that sort of responsibility, especially in the 
freedomware case where user patches that the software developers 
obviously have no control over are specifically supported and encouraged, 
I simply cannot and will not assume legal responsibility for black-box 
software I do not have either the legal right or the literal availability 
of code to examine, in ordered to give me a fair basis of determining 
whether it's reasonable for me to agree to that waiver in the first place.

IOW, it seems to me that software authors who choose to include that 
waiver language should equally be required to make their sources 
available so people can actually determine what the software does and 
whether a user can in all legal sanity actually determine the viability 
of signing those liability rights away.  For me it's relatively simple, 
if I don't have the sources, I don't agree to transfer that liability to 
me.  End of story.

And in all fairness, in the absence of such an agreement, I expect the 
authors wouldn't be comfortable with me running their software anyway.  I 
know I'd not be comfortable with it, were I in their position, anyway.

There actually IS software available that has far stricter proofs of 
functionality applied against it, where such waivers are not asked and 
where they likely wouldn't be granted in any case.  This is the type of 
software used in, for example, flight control systems on commercial jets, 
and for control systems of nuclear reactors and the like.  But this sort 
of software tends to have a **MUCH** higher cost, two orders of magnitude 
higher at least, and the hardware it runs on has similar function-
verification certification requirements.

"In my ideal world" I wouldn't ban proprietary software, I'd simply 
demand a "fair is fair" equality in these liability waiver agreements, 
etc, such that any such agreement or demand for it would be illegal 
unless the sources were actually available under fair terms (that means 
at minimum, no NDAs on sources, no required agreement not to work on 
competing software, etc) for users to examine, before they were asked to 
sign those liability waivers.

The practical effect of such a fairness policy would be to price 
proprietaryware out of practical competition range, since proving and 
insuring the software to such high legal liability standards would price 
them well out of the common market range.  A few proprietary products 
might remain in fringe areas, and of course single-user (including single 
corporate user) software wouldn't be affected as such single-user 
software is either used by the same people who authored it, or the author 
was hired or contracted and such for-hire or for-contract produced 
software normally already has the sources and liabilities questions 
resolved as part of the conditions of the employment or contract.  The GPL 
similarly doesn't normally affect those cases either, for much the same 
reason.

Anyway, when I explain that I /can't/ legally run most proprietary 
software, explaining why in the level of detail required by the context 
(so many time's it's simply that I can't legally run it because I can't 
agree to the EULAs, etc, and that's that, no detail needed), the question 
almost always resolves itself.  Few feel themselves in a position to 
advocate that I put myself in legal jeopardy, and even the BSA and 
similar proprietary software boosters find themselves at a loss when 
faced with such reasoning, effectively using their own arguments of legal 
legitimacy against them, much as the GPL uses copyright law to boost 
copyleft.  And "friends" that don't see the problem there and drop the 
subject concerning what I run, regardless of what personal decisions they 
make about what they themselves choose to run and how they resolve their 
own legal choices, really aren't friends at all.


Of course it's worth pointing out that it's not an employment issue, as 
long as /the/ /employer/ assumes legal responsibility for making those 
sorts of agreements in the context of anything I'm required to use in the 
course of my employment.  If it's the employer's systems running whatever 
software they've assumed legal responsibility for, fine.  And if they 
want to buy hardware for me to run whatever software they might require, 
and then as their representative I am told to agree to whatever EULAs, 
etc, in sufficient detail that it's them assuming liability and I'm 
simply acting as their agent, that's fine too.  As long as they don't 
expect me to install proprietary software on BYOD devices I've paid for 
with my own money, and otherwise myself assume the liability for the 
functionality of, because again, if it's black-box software, I can't see 
/what/ it does, and thus I cannot and will not assume liability for it.  
Should that be required, I couldn't in good conscience work there 
anyway.  There's other places I can work.


So explained in that way, it generally ceases to be a problem.  And where 
it doesn't cease to be a problem, the people involved are obviously 
asking me to either break the law or at minimum, bend my own ethics, so 
it's in my interest to cease being involved with them anyway.

Of course as a practical matter, it does in fact end up being a bit more 
difficult to communicate with some people, and the relationship will 
either survive that reality or it'll ultimately cease to be a problem 
simply due to the hassle factor, but again, either they'll respect me for 
the position I've taken and the relationship will be the stronger for it, 
or... on balance it's better that the relationship eventually goes away 
anyway.  (Note that it's not an exclusive-or.  They can respect me for my 
position, but still find it enough of a hassle that the relationship 
eventually ceases anyway.  Oh, well... such things happen.  Sometimes 
life brings around a second opportunity years later, too, after 
circumstances have changed.)

> I just hope people will start moving from Skype soon, maybe to Tox.im or
> some other open and secure alternative (I just hope it won't be
> Hangouts).

Again, no attempt to make other people's decisions for them here, but 
it's worth noting that such "social apps" have a usefulness geometrically 
related to the number of people that use them, such that by choosing to 
use skype you're another user making it that much more useful to 
everybody else, thus directly supporting its usefulness to others and 
working against the rise of an equally useful competitive alternative.  
It's called the network effect.

Skype is as useful as it is precisely /because/ so many people use it.  
And precisely because so many less people use alternatives, they're not 
as useful.  So if you want an open alternative to skype that's as useful 
as skype is, be sure that at mimimum you're running that alternative in 
addition to skype, thus boosting the alternative's usefulness to others 
via the network effect.  Even better tho not necessarily practical for 
some, stop using skype, so its usefulness to others via the network 
effect goes down.  One person alone doesn't do much, but it's something 
one person alone CAN do, and in combination with many others acting 
similarly, that "not much" can suddenly be a *MUCH* bigger effect than 
originally considered.  That network effect is what boycotts are built on 
as well, and why they work or don't work, depending on how successful 
people are at getting others to make similar decisions, even when the few 
who started the boycott would have been unlikely to use those services 
much anyway.

My vote doesn't count for much alone, but politically it counts enough 
for me to continue to vote, and for the same reason tho my own dollars 
don't count for much alone, I very deliberately vote with them too, as 
well as my online views and what I link, the social apps I use (or not), 
etc.

But that's just my own policy and why I have it.  What others choose to 
do with their own policies and why they have them is up to them.

-- 
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