from the rethinking-closed-source-software dept.
Akkana reports via the Shallow Thoughts blog
I went to a night sky photography talk on Tuesday. The presenter talked a bit about tips on camera lenses, exposures; then showed a raw image and prepared to demonstrate how to process it to bring out the details.
His slides disappeared, the screen went blank, and then ... nothing. He wrestled with his laptop for a while. Finally he said "Looks like I'm going to need a network connection", left the podium, and headed out the door to find someone to help him with that.
I'm not sure what the networking issue was: the nature center has open wi-fi, but you know how it is during talks: if anything can possibly go wrong with networking, it will, which is why a good speaker tries not to rely on it. And I'm not blaming this speaker, who had clearly done plenty of preparation and thought he had everything lined up.
Eventually they got the network connection, and he connected to Adobe. It turns out the problem was that Adobe Photoshop is now cloud-based. Even if you have a local copy of the software, it insists on checking in with Adobe at least every 30 days. At least, that's the theory. But he had used the software on that laptop earlier that same day, and thought he was safe. But that wasn't good enough, and Photoshop picked the worst possible time--a talk in front of a large audience--to decide it needed to check in before letting him do anything.
Someone sitting near me muttered "I'd been thinking about buying that, but now I don't think I will." Someone else told me afterward that all Photoshop is now cloud-based; older versions still work, but if you buy Photoshop now, your only option is this cloud version that may decide ... at the least opportune moment ... that you can't use your software any more.
[...] I talked to the club president afterward and offered to give a GIMP talk to the club some time soon, when their schedule allows.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:09AM
Photoshop is one of the most pirated software around. This is clearly a ploy to get more people to pay for it, Seems odd that punishing those who do pay is some how part of this scheme.
Does it also upload all your images? Or is it merely checking for a license?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by davester666 on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:17AM
It checks to make sure you paid the rent this month.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:07AM
I think you are answering your own questions right here. I think it's not even as much of a ploy to get people to pay, but to spy on them, in which case everything they do makes total sense. The so-called "cloud" here is Adobe, and things are not being sent to the cloud, but to Adobe. We can't see any code, but we can make very safe assumptions based on the past behavior of proprietary software vendors, including Adobe itself. If any image processing is done on Adobe's servers, then they probably get everything users work on, at least as thumbnails. Do they look at other files on the same computer? Why not, if somehow it can be justified by "convenience". Making this software technically unable to perform its primary functions without an umbilical cord connecting it to the mothership is as inefficient as one could come up with, and a usability nightmare, but if the primary purpose is to spy on the users, then it's hard to conceive of a better solution.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmoschner on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:51AM
The problem (for adobe) wasn't piracy or the need to spy on users. It was that businesses were skipping upgrade cycles. By making the software a service it is actually easier to get upgrades as it becomes a yearly expense instead of trying to get money for an upgrade. It may sound dumb, but really is easier in a company to pay 100/yr per machine than 500/machine every 5 years. In a corporate setting what adobe is doing makes sense for both them and the users. Everywhere else it is a shitty setup.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:41AM
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday December 06 2015, @10:50AM
..... Or pay 500 ever. I'm still using a copy of WordPerfect that's 22 years old
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:07PM
That's great if you only need to edit your own files. But good luck editing a .doc file another person sends you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:13PM
It is easier in *some* companies to pay 100/yr/machine than 500/5 yr / machine.
It is *always* more profitable for Adobe to be collecting rent from you every month for continued use of their software, than it is for them to sell you a product you can use for however long you need it for and then walk away from it or upgrade to the newest version at that time. I'm still running Adobe 9 Professional and will until this machine dies - a very good long run and certainly less money than they'dve gotten off me in rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:15AM
Well I doubt they are going to gain anything by uploading any Other Files. They could never use these without admitting to a computer crime. They would have to hope there never came a day when an employee decided to spill the beans. The risk would be way too high.
Now they might upload the photo being worked on, as part of the service. They may even offer to keep the files in your image vault on their servers.
Lots of Companies are in a photo-grab these days. There doesn't seem to be any money making motive, so I really wonder why Microsoft, Google Photobucket, Dropbox, Flicker, iCloud and even Amazon are all in a rush to collect your photos, usually for free, usually with your permission, and always with vague promises of keeping them safe for you. Why? What's in it for them?
I don't get it, but my tinfoil hat is starting to buzz. With enough photos containing geocoding from cell phones, showing faces, you might be able to facially recognize the world without ever taking a picture yourself. Oh, ah, time to take my meds.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by HiThere on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:36AM
Quite likely their EULA gives them permission. When I switched off MS it was because they added something to the EULA giveing them the right to (from memory) "Add, modify, create, or delete any filen on this computer". A year or so later Apple added the same language (in a security update) so I switched to Linux...but how many people read those?
This probably isn't enough to allow them to force you to let them modify your computer, but it probably *is* enough that they can use it as a defense no matter WHAT they do.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by SDRefugee on Sunday December 06 2015, @06:43PM
I used/supported MS products as a sysadmin since WFW311, when I retired in 2010, I decided I was DONE with MS and other proprietary software, and switched to Linux. And after seeing the privacy nightmare that *is* Windows 10, I couldn't be happier. I did convert one of my Windows 7 licenses over to Windows 10 and played with 10 on my laptop for a while, after installing it with all of the privacy-destroying switches turned off, and everything possible to
turn off via gpedit.msc.. With a rpcapd running on my router, and a copy of Wireshark running on another machine under Linux, I found that the Windows 10 system had NOT disabled all of the bullshit.. It was still blabbing away to all of the many publicized urls that others have uncovered.. So, as for me, MS is dead to me, and I feel great sadness for anybody who either *has* to run MS products or simply *thinks* they have to....
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:31AM
Why do they want to get all your photos? So they can train their algorithms to recognize people, things, etc. Why? So they can sell their algorithms to companies who want to identify you when you walk past a camera. You can imagine who those customers will be (are already).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:15PM
The corporate sector by far. Targeted ads. This is the next natural evolution of targeted ads, the Minority Report style advertising.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:10AM
That's how it is with closed-source, proprietary software. Don't get me wrong. I know a graphic artist who has explained to me why Adobe's suite is necessary, and I get it, I think. GIMP doesn't cut it. Hence the conflict.
But for a slideshow? Naah, man, just pirate (yarr!) it.
I swear, if I ever work in IT again, I will never, never fucking ever, support closed-source proprietary software again. Am I going to do this? You've probably figured out my original UID. Why the fsck not. Amtelco [amtelco.com] is the vendor that got me labeled sexist based solely on my assigned gender at birth because they refuse to fix their shit.
Yes, said the SJW, Amtelco's shitty, misogynist (apparently) programming practices would be all magically fucking fixed if I had been assigned the female gender at birth. Doesn't matter that I have a permanent Nannichuan enchantment combined with locking that enchantment in by the Amazons. or something
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:24AM
Hate to reply to myself, but let me clarify. Had I been assigned the female gender at birth (per my pre-incarnation fscking request), then yes, I would never have had my current job. Because I'd be making millions. Because I would never have been accused of rape of (who knows? they never told me who I raped, just that I'm a rapist).
Because I would have gotten a decent job instead of this shit. Because I wouldn't have gotten “religious objection!” when I wanted health care. Because I wouldn't have gotten “how dare you be a man involved in issues of women's health and controlling women's bodies!” when I wanted health care.
Because my genitals wouldn't have been mutilated. (Granted, in my fantasy with the Amazons, the Nannichuan enchantment might just undo that.)
Because I wouldn't have been denied so many things. Because (the memories are painful, zalgo, the pony, and all that) my friend wouldn't have left me and told the whole school I was a homosexual freak because I didn't have sex with her. (Damn, that one hurts. Because it's true. She knew I was a homosexual when I was 10 and abandoned me. Fucking whore, didn't listen to my Amazon instincts. Hope she's doing good these days.)
Because, well, genital mutilation again. It didn't go right, and now I'm to blame for the consequences, according to my ex-father, who believes that racially-based slavery is a commandment by his god codified in the book Genesis. What a cruel god, mutilating genitals, cursing whole peoples to slavery based solely by the color of their skin, without even so much as a fucking genetic test to see if they descended from whoever, without even a fucking genetic sample to compare against.
I could go on.
I must have tried to parse HTML with a regex in a previous life.
the voices of mortal man from the sphere I can see it can you see î̩́t it is beautiful the final snuffing of the lies of Man ALL IS LOST ALL IS LOST the pon̷y he comes he c̶̮omes he comes the ichor permeates all MY FACE MY FACE ᵒh god no NO NOO̼OO NΘ stop the an*gle̠̅s ͎a̧͈͖re not reaͨl ZALGΌ ISͮ̂҉ TOƝ̴ȳ̳ TH̘Ë͖́̉ ͠P̯͍̭O̚N̐Y̡ HE COMES
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:35AM
Replying to myself again. (Damn, am I gonna take my karma to 0? I can rebuild.)
These are the dangers of proprietary software. Sanity loss.
*BSOD* (while running systemd-free Linux) 0xA000164A.
This isn't really happening!
+++NO CARRIER
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:37AM
This post is a prime example of how the American mental health care system is utterly broken. Sad.
(Score: 4, Funny) by jmoschner on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:44AM
That's probably because it uses proprietary cloud based software.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday December 06 2015, @01:21PM
> American health care
Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:35AM
This entire post and the reply to it spontaneously gave me cancer. I'd advise you to delete your account, m80.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:42AM
Never forget that Amtelco [amtelco.com] is a misogynist software company. I've been informed by a holy cisfemale SJW. If you dial into a call center and they tell you it's running slow, they're not kidding! It uses what I can only guess is a O(n³) algorithm. I cannot say more. Zalgo The pony!
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:44AM
Don't be fooled by their web 5.3-rc7 rebranding! They are stuck in the 80s, a time when women were driven out of software development! Their entire software stack is in the 80s. If I had been assigned the female gender at birth, all their bugs would be fixed, said the SJW!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:51AM
Are you sure you were driven out because you're a '''''woman''''' and not because you're a fucking schizo?
(Score: 1, Troll) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:45AM
No? I haven't even been driven out. I'm driving myself out, because I'm sick of being regarded as a misogynist by the people on the phones. I'm tired of reading news article after news article about how I'm a woman-hating shitlord and how they've determined this solely by my assigned gender at birth.
Azuma Hazuki is correct btw! That (my username) was the alter ego I chose when I first broke, and I guess I'm breaking again. I had an elaborate backstory/fanfiction connecting the events from Ranma's marriage fiasco to now, but eh, who cares. I did more research on the Amazons, influences from Xena/Hercules, etc. I found out the first feminists were honorable and even compared to the Amazons of legend. I like that. There's other figures such as Harriet Tubman. Of course, Takahashi's Amazons are just, like everything else, parody. (Note that how given a golden opportunity to investigate gender issues, she does nothing of the sort!)
It all goes back to proprietary software. I've mentored women programmers. Have you?
Proprietary software fucked it up. every. single. fucking. time. They believe I can fix Amtelco's shit. Because I'm a “programmer!” Never mind it would violate the license agreement and very likely violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and DMCA if I let my hacker knowledge got into full effect. Never mind I wasn't even actually involved in deciding to use their shit sandwich software.
So yes, now you get, get this, one less female programmer because of … SJWs! Trust me, I pass very well when I give a modicum of effort. You would gender me female if you met me, even if I were wearing male clothing. Most people do. It's ok. Gendering other people is a perfectly natural thing to do, and I do it all the time myself. I even got it wrong recently with an asshole lesbian. But I'm just lucky. I know I'm lucky that way, unlucky in every other way.
What this is about, however, is about the two women (not me, I'm going voluntarily) I've watched being driven out of programming jobs because of gaslighting asshole managers. One of whom may just win a gender discrimination lawsuit. The other…? I'm not certain. She's a mother first, but she's a cunning hacker.
Why do these things happen? Gaslighting asshole managers and proprietary software. That's why.
Am I psychotic? I wasn't at first. I might be now. But I don't care. Maybe a job on a fishing boat would be good for me. (Go ahead and dox me, geek feminism wiki. I've given you more than enough clues. Crucify me and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. You had better dox my friends first, and then you will realize what you're fucking with and decide maybe not.)
(Score: 0, Troll) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:11AM
Not troll. It's the truth.
Well, I suppose I did troll the geek feminism wiki. Let me cast out my line and see what I catch!
Ok, troll mod stands, no argument here.
Read parent comment and weep. Not for me. Weep for all the women programmers who have been chased out by gaslighting asshole managers. Weep for the prevalence of proprietary software that's caused this gender schism. Weep for the masses that consider computers to be magical palantís powered by waldos, indistinguishable from magic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:28AM
But how does that make you feel?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:40AM
But how does that make you feel?
Better, thanks. I'm glad I got it out.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday December 06 2015, @01:35PM
You don't get it.
If *he had been assigned the female gender, any display of psychotic behaviour would have blended nicely.
Sry for the insensitivity of the previous paragraph but I am bot.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:21PM
lol
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:12AM
What the fuck...? KT, your posts make no sense to me. I caught a reference to what looks like Ranma 1/2's genderbending cursed springs, and I'm assuming by Amazons you mean Shampoo's clan and not, say, the Yanomamo people. But uh...nothing else made much sense here.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:38AM
I wonder, what is the correct name for a group of weeaboos? Flock, pack, herd, ...?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:44AM
Gaggle
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:55AM
Weeaboos are just filthy normies in the first place. Merely watching anime and such does not make one a weeaboo. You can tell the difference between people who are genuinely interested in it and cringe-worthy fucks who want to pretend to be Japanese in an instant.
It's like how the word "nerd" is now used to describe people who purposely wear dumb-looking clothing, dye their hair, and wear glasses so that they can try to become a stereotypical "nerd" in the most superficial sense possible.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:42PM
For my part, I'm using this name because something oddly similar in a metaphorical way happened to me when I was her age. It didn't involve time/dimension hopping of course, but so much else was so similar it felt like watching an alternate universe's biopic. Plus there's a lot of resemblance, though I'm even taller, have brown eyes instead of blue, and wear glasses. We even have very similar sounding voices.
Sometimes I wonder if there are only a few dozen or a few hundred "stories" out there that just get rehashed with different trimmings each time. Art does imitate life after all...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:19AM
Is there an Amtelco employee modding this discu^H^H^H^H^H rant of mine?
You know that you are the true shitlords and the true rapists, Amtelco.
You want to frame me for gender discrimination? Let the doxxing and lawsuits fly! Like pretty pink letters through the sky! (Oh, crap, was I still in character there?) At any rate, there is a software company and a gaslighting asshole manager that needs to answer for his crimes right here in flyover country. The other gaslighting asshole manager was already terminated by Nice Guy Eddie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:51AM
Shut up. What I really want to know is what the Amazons think about all this.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:55AM
The Amazons lol
They would kill them where they stand. I could name names, but that would be cruel.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:58AM
Attention, folks!
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I really don't want to use this box! I'm scared.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:36AM
I don't know what you have in that pipe in front of you but you've had enough of it mmmkay?
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:14PM
You're starting to worry me, KT. This sounds like a schizophrenic rant...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:30PM
Here's my personal fundamental conflict. When it comes time to use that box, who do I side with? It depends.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:16AM
Many professionals use cracked software specifically not to deal with stuff like this (despite having paid for a valid license, they still use warez).
(Score: 2) by black6host on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:46PM
If a stand alone version is no longer sold then that option is gone. I'm sure some will find the older stand alone versions work fine and don't want the new features. But those who do aren't going to find them in warez if all new development is cloud only.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @06:19PM
Hence the backfiring. Want people to actually take alternatives serious? Put them in a position where the old solution (warez) is no longer applicable.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:25AM
The word "Gimp" is an oppressive slur which deeply offends me. Campaign to ban GIMP and get all of its maintainers fired from their day-jobs NOW!
GIMP software raped me in the ah-nuss!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:47AM
Campaign to ban GIMP and get all of its maintainers fired from their day-jobs NOW!
But they're not employed: they do it for free! This is extremely triggering to me. We should ask the Gov't to ban this 'open-source' stuff, and make sure that all software is developed by people with jobs we can get them fired from.
(Score: 5, Funny) by dyingtolive on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:10AM
Remember kids, giving things away is communism.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 06 2015, @06:48AM
It's not just giving. Downloading is also Communist.
Kids these days, what, they think they should receive an education for free?!
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:31AM
Don't give Microsoft any ideas. They're already pushing through a law that will make it illegal to reverse engineer their office formats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:34AM
They needn't bother - I still can't use doc, ppt, docs or pptx in Libreoffice for the simplest of document. Change font size? Nope... can't... handle... it... got... to... reset.... font. Fail.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday December 06 2015, @06:31PM
I still can't use doc, ppt, docs or pptx in Libreoffice for the simplest of document. Change font size? Nope... can't... handle... it... got... to... reset.... font. Fail.
I would say the fail must be with you. It all works fine on every PC I have tried it on, both Windows and Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:10AM
Project HeliOS (now REGLUE) had the same gripe.
They had a contest to choose a different name for the package. [blogspot.com]
They then tweaked the source to remove the objectionable branding and substituted the new name (like IceWeasel did).
They then put that in their repositories.
(Talk about being on-topic in a thread about the advantages of FOSS vs EULAware.)
ArtForge [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [lxer.com]
(HeliOS' post is most of the way down the page--which has no accessibility features to allow me to index the link to his post.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:32AM
I'd be pretty annoyed about that. I don't care one way or the other about the name, but it's annoying as hell to try to figure out why a package isn't present only to find that it got rebranded for 'reasons'.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:40AM
Not to mention that all that effort could have added new features or functionality to GIMP rather than be wasted in a totally righteous circle-jerk.
There are plenty of instances in open-source when forks are beneficial. This is not one of them. The fork's participants are going to be too busy arguing and discussing bullshit PC conventions rather than getting shit done.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by dyingtolive on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:12AM
I mean, at least it wasn't named EDDIEMURPHYSTRANNY.
Now that would be an awkward acronym, on pretty much every level.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 06 2015, @04:46AM
So, instead of getting things done, lets argue all day about bullshit PC conventions.
Those types are the functional equivalent of the useless assholes developing for Firefox who move one button to the left, the other to the right, and call it "progress" and a new release, and piss off everybody else who just wants to use usable shit regardless of politics or other superficial bullshit.
Fuck 'em.
(Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:36AM
Man, you remember when Firefox wasn't the shitstain covering the sheets after a proper Saturday night?
Pepperage Farm remembers.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:31AM
Cloud based was the problem.
While you wont have licencing issues with free cloud based software, it can still burn you when you lose connection. The key here is that regardless if you buy it or not, make sure it doesn't rely on anything other than the locally installed files.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:01AM
But, CLOUD man! Having everything in the cloud means that I can buy they cheapest, shittiest computer in existence, and rely on someone else's computers to carry the load. So long as I've got WIFI I can rely on my 1/2 Ghz single core CPU with crap memory and slow 33 htz busses. I don't have to invest in one of those outrageous 3.5 Ghz 8 core computers, I don't have to have 8 or 16 gig of memory. CLOUD! Let the corporate computers carry the load!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @10:49AM
Yeah, that's not how it works.
(Score: 4, Funny) by mhajicek on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:07AM
Hmm, who would have thought, clouds are bad for night sky photography!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:44PM
It is both the 'proprietary' and the 'cloud' portions that are issues.
Proprietary is an issue since you are at the mercy of your software's overlord when (not if) you need to upgrade. If they discontinue your standalone version, that is it. You might be able to last there for a while, but plugins, bugfixes, etc will move on, and eventually you will either need to change programs, or more likely (as the software monoculture continues to sink in) you will be forced to give up your standalone software and move to the cloud based successor.
The cloud becomes an issue for a variety of issues, but the primary reason under most circumstances is 'reliance on network connectivity at all times'. This wasn't practical or true when the cloud became a buzzword, and while we are closer to it today, there are still plenty of places where it fails, and locations where you stargaze are but one of many.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:40AM
Steam works in a similar matter. But Steam is good because... because...? People claim it gives you flexibility, but you had far more flexibility before online DRM. You could do everything Steam lets you do before it existed and you could do more. Yet somehow Steam is awesome.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:34AM
Steem is a social media platform for hipsters to amass collections of games they didn't play once.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darkfeline on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:06AM
Last I checked Steam's DRM was relatively weak, and I had no problems playing all my games offline. Of course since it's not free software, there's always the possibility that that will change in the future.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @05:41AM
Steams DRM has never prevented me from playing a game, online of off.
Steam will stream my games to my tv, or another pc in the house.
Steam has awesome sales.
Steam is the only reason there are any entertaining games on Linux at all.
I have weighed the pros and cons. I will continue to use steam. I am not saying its "awesome" but it is not that bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @10:43AM
Steam is non-free proprietary user-subjugating software. By definition, it does not respect your freedoms. Digital restrictions management restricts the user, even if it doesn't restrict them in ways they personally care about. You're still support proprietary software companies, and you're still supporting DRM.
Steam will stream my games to my tv, or another pc in the house.
That might be cool, but it is shallow compared to the importance of freedom.
Steam has awesome sales.
So?
Steam is the only reason there are any entertaining games on Linux at all.
What I'm after is freedom, not more games. Such shallow motivations are of no interest to me, as I am not in the "open source" camp.
I have weighed the pros and cons.
What you've done is disregard the fact that freedom is much more important than mere technical quality or cool features so that you may live as a drug-addicted slave, just like your proprietary software masters intended.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @11:25AM
You have an ideology problem.
You seem to place software freedom above all other considerations. I have a different set of values, and while I believe software freedom is an important consideration, it is not the end all be all. I refuse to be bullied by the likes of you who insist that I change my gaming habits to make you happy, and that I am the crazy one for refusing to do so.
We can have any disinterested third party read this thread and trust me your the one that sounds crazy. Seek help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:56PM
You have an ideology problem.
There seems to be a tendency for people to accuse other people of having "ideology problems" when they care about something a lot. This is very disturbing, because it makes it impossible to argue in favor of something for all but the most shallow reasons. But sometimes what you care about are things like ethics and freedom to the point where all else is secondary. I'm sure there are many things you care about quite a bit, to the point where I could accuse you of the same thing. I'm sure you absolutely oppose owning other human beings as property, for instance; that's an "extreme" position. It's also not the same as this, but it does show that you don't have an "ideology problem" merely because you care about something on principle. Ideology shouldn't be a bad word; it depends on the ideology.
I refuse to be bullied by the likes of you who insist that I change my gaming habits to make you happy, and that I am the crazy one for refusing to do so.
You are free to discard your own freedoms (even for shallow reasons like this) if you wish, but I merely telling you that it is foolish. And funding proprietary software only makes the proprietary software companies more and more powerful, thereby making it more difficult to avoid. Companies tend to expand into many areas to make even more money. So while I said that you are free to discard your own freedoms, don't forget that this can have far-reaching consequences for other people if these companies become powerful enough. For example, it is nearly impossible to find a car totally devoid of non-free software unless you buy a very old car.
The ones who are truly bullying you are those who do not respect your freedoms.
We can have any disinterested third party read this thread and trust me your the one that sounds crazy. Seek help.
This looks like the bandwagon fallacy. Either way, what some disinterested third party thinks is irrelevant to whether or not my arguments are correct. In a culture where most people don't care about or are actively ignorant of software freedoms, it wouldn't surprise me if what you say is true, but that does not make what I say wrong.
There is also a disturbing trend to pull the same tactics you're using now. "Reasonable People would agree with me!" Of course, "reasonable" is defined in such a way as to be advantageous to the one making such irrelevant statements. But even if it is true, arguments stand on their own merits. It doesn't matter how many hypothetical "reasonable" people agree with you. You don't need to bring in imaginary backup from hypothetical "reasonable" people; you need to bring good arguments.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:54PM
So you put words in my mouth and claim that I am reducing your arguments to shallow ones, and then you follow up by actually accusing me of using shallow arguments.
I also never claimed that the people reading the posts would have to be "reasonable" You get any disinterested person, or get them all and take an average, and you will see that you sound slightly unhinged.
How about this, stop putting words in my mouth to further your argument. Frankly I care very much about free and opensource software. I also enjoy my video games and frankly don't care if they are close sourced. The authors wrote the game and this is the best way they see to make money from it. Nothing they have done has harmed that experience for me, and frankly I see no reason to worry about closed source video games. Closed source OSes worry my much more.
This is like atheists that get but hurt when someone in the government says merry christmas. Yes, the separation of church and state is very important, no I do not think that getting butt hurt over something that matters so little is proportional or proper. Thats what you are doing here in your ideological (and yes your arguments are purely ideological) crusade to banish all closed source software. By doing so you are actually driving away people (namely me) that are sympathetic to the belief that code is better when it is opensource. When it comes to video games though I don't give a damn, and if you don't play video games then why do you even care if I give a damn or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 07 2015, @12:35PM
So you put words in my mouth and claim that I am reducing your arguments to shallow ones
I think technical benefits are shallow compared to freedom, so when you say/act as if I have an "ideology problem" because I don't consider them, that does sound like what you were doing.
I also never claimed that the people reading the posts would have to be "reasonable" You get any disinterested person, or get them all and take an average, and you will see that you sound slightly unhinged.
It doesn't matter what choice of words you used. Can't you see that that wasn't the main point?
Here, let me try again: This looks like the bandwagon fallacy. Either way, what some disinterested third party thinks is irrelevant to whether or not my arguments are correct. In a culture where most people don't care about or are actively ignorant of software freedoms, it wouldn't surprise me if what you say is true, but that does not make what I say wrong.
There is also a disturbing trend to pull the same tactics you're using now. "Disinterested People would say that you're crazy!" Of course, "disinterested" is defined in such a way as to be advantageous to the one making such irrelevant statements. But even if it is true, arguments stand on their own merits. It doesn't matter how many hypothetical "disinterested" people agree with you. You don't need to bring in imaginary backup from hypothetical "disinterested" people; you need to bring good arguments.
The structure and logic of what I said has not really changed, so that was pointless.
How about this, stop putting words in my mouth to further your argument.
It's more than you didn't grasp what I was getting at.
I also enjoy my video games and frankly don't care if they are close sourced.
I would say that you should care if software you use is non-free proprietary user-subjugating software, but you have stated you have different values from me, so there's probably not much more to say.
I also find it puzzling how you say that you care about free software, but then say you "don't care" if the video games you play are proprietary software. You don't care even one bit? Wouldn't you at least rather they be free software?
and frankly I see no reason to worry about closed source video games.
Because they do not respect your freedoms. Due to this, you are beholden to the developers to make any changes; you can't hire someone else to do it for you, can't rely on random people in the community to make changes, and you can't do it yourself either. You can't run the program for any purpose, see the source code, and can't share with your neighbors. It disrespects your freedoms and the spirit of education at every level.
Because so much proprietary software also includes malicious anti-features, even small things like games. The Sony rootkit is an example of such maliciousness. Countless games also include digital restrictions management (which is inherently anti-user) and some even phone home. Filthy rich companies as well as governments will find ways to screw you over even with the most innocuous-looking software possible, because that is what they are good at. Just because you can't think of a way a simple game could be malicious doesn't mean it won't be. Not all proprietary software has malware-like 'features', but none of it respects your freedoms, which to me is what is most important.
Closed source OSes worry my much more.
Maybe so, but that doesn't mean other proprietary software should not worry you at all.
This is like atheists that get but hurt when someone in the government says merry christmas.
I am an atheist, but I don't get angry over that, because Christmas is a secular holiday. The word "Christmas" is just a name and you can celebrate it in any way you please. Most people think of Santa Claus and presents when they think of Christmas, not Jesus.
Thats what you are doing here in your ideological (and yes your arguments are purely ideological) crusade to banish all closed source software.
Again, you're using "ideological" as if it's a bad term. Even your "open source" stance is ideological, as the definition of "ideological" is so broad that it could apply to basically any belief system. But it doesn't matter, because what matters is whether the ideology is good or not, not whether it is an ideology. Saying that I am on an ideological crusade does not refute anything I've said, and I don't even find the term "ideology" to be insulting. I do, however, find it odd that you use it in such a way.
I also avoid the term "closed source". [gnu.org]
By doing so you are actually driving away people (namely me) that are sympathetic to the belief that code is better when it is opensource.
I'm not an "open source" [gnu.org] advocate in the first place.
When it comes to video games though I don't give a damn
Although I don't condone putting technical quality ahead of freedom, I find it interesting that you say that you are sympathetic to the idea that code is better when it is "open source" but then say you don't care if video games are proprietary. In your view, wouldn't the video games have better quality code if they were not proprietary?
and if you don't play video games then why do you even care if I give a damn or not.
1) Because I care about others' freedoms. I don't ride on planes, but I care that people's constitutional rights are being violated by TSA thugs. I am not gay, but I support gay marriage. Maybe you don't care much about software freedoms, but I do, and I would prefer to not see others' freedoms being disrespected.
2) Because you are funding the development of non-free proprietary user-subjugating software and allowing it to flourish in society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 07 2015, @10:08PM
Copy protection laws last 95+ years by default. This is unacceptable. By not explicitly releasing something under a license that releases itself under a CC or other permissive license in a much more reasonable period of time anything covered by copy protection laws is implicitly releasing itself under a license that lasts 95+ years. We, as consumers, should not accept anything that demands 95+ year protections.
I'm not saying that software has to be open source. Just that we as consumers allow software, art, movies, publications, and other works that are released under 95+ year protections to exist because we allow companies to (implicitly) release their works under 95+ year terms (by not explicitly releasing them under a more permissible license after a shorter period of time).
OK, someone can release works under an all rights reserved license for the first ten years. But then the works should specify a publication date and an irrevocable creative commons date that takes effect about 10 years after the publication date.
Microsoft Windows 95 and below should be public domain by now. If not it should be released under a creative commons license. The same with older games. This will allow others to provide continued support for them if they wish. They can provide support by modifying them and/or building a framework around them (ie: virtual machines that can load them) and ensuring that they can support newer hardware. At the very least it would allow future generations to better see and appreciate the history of operating systems and how they progressed if not to allow people to continue using oler operating systems and software and improving upon it. Even without source code people can still reverse engineer and provide third party updates, support, and improvements for older operating systems. Even back when Windows 98 was popular I remember people used to do similar things but it was Microsoft that ended up stopping it because it's their proprietary works.
but if a discontinued game is proprietary for 95+ years then it can't be widely distributed and so there is little point in providing continued support for new hardware. Again I am not saying it has to be open source just that it should be released under a license that freely allows anyone to tinker with, redistribute, and improve it and release those improvements either after the game is discontinued by the original developer or after a reasonable period of time.
The license that consumers should demand should also provide that any specific version of something is released under a permissible license after a reasonable period of time. Say you make version one and state that it gets released under a CC license 5 years later. Then, say, one year later you make version two. Version two also gets released under a CC license 5 years later. By the time version one is released under a CC license version 10 would have came out and version one could tell people where to find the latest version if they are interested.
By forcing producers to explicitly release works under a reasonable permissible license in a more reasonable period of time we can both support more reasonable copy protection laws intended to support producers while still opposing overreaching copy protection laws and overreaching copy protection licenses. By not forcing producers to release works under a reasonable permissible license in a more reasonable period of time we are implicitly supporting bad copy protection laws and those who benefit from them and we are implicitly supporting those who release works under unreasonable terms. Anyone that doesn't explicitly release their works under a reasonable permissible license in a reasonable period of time is implicitly releasing their works under unreasonable terms that we shouldn't tolerate.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @02:56AM
Just yesterday I wanted to look at HTTP traffic from one of my servers so I started tcpdump and fired up Firefux to make one simple HTTP request. And a shit ton of encrypted shit scrolled by as Firefux phoned home.
Free Software is so fucking awesome man. Free Software will never fuck you up the ass. Because reasons.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:12AM
Dude, you gotta stop installing those pr0n helper addons.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:20AM
Well, free software fucks you in the ass for free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:45AM
Well, the source code is available for all to see, so you should be able to see what it's doing and why. Or if not you, then someone else.
It's bad when any software violates the privacy of users, but this is much less common with Free Software. Your "Free Software will never fuck you up the ass." line is just a straw man. The point of Free Software is that it empowers users by respecting their freedoms and greatly decreases (not eliminates) the potential for abuse.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 06 2015, @07:46AM
That encrypted stuff was probably looking for updates for the browser and installed extensions, and possibly downloading a new version of the database for phishing site detection, and similar stuff. It also might be that you've got installed extensions that themselves download stuff (like an adblocker that loads a list of URL schemes to block). You also might have set up Firefox to share your bookmarks and/or other information between browsers, which means to store them on a Mozilla server. Firefox doesn't do that by default, so in that case it was your explicit decision.
But as another reply to your post already told, you can read the source of the browser (and the source of any Open Source extension — if you installed any non-open one, well, it's you who are to blame for it) to find out what is happening.
Or you can generate your own self-signed certificate for the Mozilla site and install it in the browser so you can MITM the encrypted traffic.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DNied on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:35AM
All correct. Also, there's an option where a user can agree to send usage stats to Mozilla (in order for them to analyze performance, detect bottlenecks, etc).
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday December 06 2015, @03:36PM
and in support of Mozilla doing something sane - if you put the firefox browser in a user writable place, it will autoupdate *for that profile*. And restarting seems to work ok...
Hence I have many profiles, and keep the main ones up-to date, and a system one I let the debian repos update...
(Score: 2, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:24AM
If so I know your last name but maybe you don't want me to post it.
Are you friends with Tsutomu? It would have been back in the mid-eighties that we met.
(I knew Tsutomu Shimomura in ricketts house at caltech.)
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:43AM
Yeah that's right you know everybody don't you M Social Buttertart.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday December 06 2015, @12:41PM
It turns out the problem was ... Adobe Photoshop
Wrong tool for the job. Its like using MS word for your software IDE and then complaining its a crap tier replacement for powerpoint presentations. I mean, sometimes, with aggressive effort, if its the only tool you know how to use, it can be abused into working, but ...
This is also the problem with the suggestion to use GIMP.
You're not trying to remove redeye from portraits and make collages and meme pix, you're trying to do scientific data analysis.
Note that the astrophotography market has good free stuff, and shittier pay stuff that comes with a contract. The free stuff is generally pretty awesome and "scientific grade".
Search for deepskystack or whatever its called or FITS software in general. IRIS used to be pretty decent, although it suffered horribly from MySQL disease where RAW image support was added in like 2000 but to this day you'll get people insisting IRIS doesn't support raw, LOL. DS9/SAOimage, tons of stuff like that. Using real astrophotography apps is like using emacs to edit code instead of MsWord.
Ironically real licensed legal photoshop is a horrorshow of a learning curve and very expensive, but the good astrophotography software is mostly free.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 07 2015, @10:50AM
Umm, not necessarily. Sure, you want to use DSS or regim or somesuch to stack the raw images, maybe fitswork to flatten the background, but afterwards you may simply want to get a pretty picture - for which the use of GIMP (>= 2.9 to get more than 8bit/channel) or PS is indeed legit. The pro software here would be e.g. PixInsight, for which I've seen spectacular results, but which does come with a hefty price tag.
If you want to get closer to a professional workflow, theli may fit your needs.
Note, whichever workflow you want to use, it does take quite some practice to become proficient. As an amateur astrophotographer, I'm still trying to get past a beginner level regarding post-processing.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Monday December 07 2015, @05:17PM
Was he trying to do scientific data analysis? In the middle of his presentation? I would think he had already done that and would now be simply showing pictures and talking. I agree, wrong tool. But... maybe all he needed was a simple image viewer. Probably the one that came with his OS would do just fine! I suppose since he was using Photoshop the photos were probably in Photoshop's format. So.. convert them before the speach! It seems like a very obvious thing to do.