Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/16/guadec-2016.html

Last Friday, I gave the first keynote at GUADEC 2016. I was delighted for
the invitation from the GNOME Foundation to deliver this talk, which I
entitled Confessions of a command line geek: why I don’t use GNOME
but everyone else should.

The Chaos Computer Club
assisted the GUADEC organizers in recording the talks, so you can see
here a great recording of my talk here (and
also, the slides).
Whether the talk itself is great — that’s for you to
watch and judge, of course.

The focus of this talk is why the GNOME desktop is such a central
component for the future of software freedom. Too often, we assume that
the advent of tablets and other mobile computing platforms means the laptop
and desktop will disappear. And, maybe the desktop will disappear, but the
laptop is going nowhere. And we need a good interface that gives software
freedom to the people who use those laptops. GNOME is undoubtedly the best
system we have for that task.

There is competition. The competition is now, undeniably, Apple. Unlike
Microsoft, who hitherto dominated desktops, Apple truly wants to make
beautifully designed, and carefully crafted products that people will not
just live with, but actually love. It’s certainly possible to love
something that harms you, and Apple is so carefully adept creating products
that not only refuse to give you software freedom, but Apple goes a step
further to regularly invent new ways to gain lock-down control and
thwarting modification by their customers.

We have a great challenge before us, and my goal in the keynote was to
express that the GNOME developers are best poised to fight that battle and
that they should continue in earnest in their efforts, and to offer my help
— in whatever way they need it — to make it happen. And, I
offer this help even though I readily admit that I don’t need
GNOME for myself, but we as a community need it to advance
software freedom.

I hope you all enjoy the talk, and also check
out Werner
Koch’s keynote, We want more centralization, do we?, which
was also about a very important issue. (There was
also an
LWN article about Werner’s keynote if you prefer to read to watching.)
And, finally, I thank the GNOME Foundation for covering my travel expenses
for this trip.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/08/13/does-not-kill.html

The time has come that I must speak out against the inappropriate rhetoric
used by those who (ostensibly) advocate for FLOSS usage in automotive applications.

There was a catalyst that convinced me to finally speak up. I heard a
talk today from a company representative of a software supplier for the
automotive industry. He said during his talk: putting GPLv3 software in
cars will kill people and opening up the source code to cars will
cause more harm than good. These statements are completely disingenuous.
Most importantly, it ignores the fact that proprietary software in cars is at
least equally, if not more, dangerous. At least one person has already been
killed in a crash
while using
a proprietary software auto-control
system. Volkswagen decided to
take a different route; they decided to kill us all slowly (rather than
quickly) by using proprietary software to lie about their emissions and
illegally polluting our air.

Meanwhile, there has been not a single example yet about use of GPLv3
software that has harmed anyone. If you have such an example, email it to
me and I promise to add it right here to this blog post.

So, to the auto industry folks and vendors who market to/for them: until
you can prove that proprietary software assures safety in a way that FLOSS
cannot, I will continue to tell you this: in the long and sad tradition of
the Therac
25, your proprietary software has killed people, both
quickly and slowly, and your attacks on GPLv3 and software freedom are not
only unwarranted, they are clearly part of a political strategy to divert
attention from your own industry’s bad behavior and graft unfair blame onto
FLOSS.

As a side note, during the talk’s Q&A session, I asked this company’s
representatives how they assure compliance with the GPLv2 —
particularly their compliance with provision of scripts used to control
compilation and installation of the executable, which are so often
missing for many products, including vehicles. The official answer
was: Oh, I don’t know. Not only does this company publicly claim
security through obscurity is a viable solution, and accuse copyleft advocates
of endangering the public safety, they also seem to have not fully learned
the lessons of making FLOSS license compliance a clear part of their
workflow.

This is, unfortunately, my general impression of the status of the
automotive industry.