// TODO: fix this code

No worries, he can optimize it later.

You can always write code for Free Software projects in your free time and contribute to a good cause.

I bought The Orange Box, so I had the same problem. All physical copies of games are like this now and Valve is the reason. That killed the used games market on PC. You used to be able to sell your game after you got bored of it, but not anymore.

GOG’s client is proprietary just like Steam and Epic, which is bad, but the difference is that their client is optional. You can get offline installers of games directly from the website, because games there are DRM-free. So that makes GOG better than those platforms. There is also a Free Software alternative client developed by the community - Heroic Games Launcher. It works with Epic Games Store as well.

Another store is itch.io, which sells DRM-free games and their optional client is Free Software. But this store only has indie games.

This is all true, but it’s interesting how people often forget another simple option: the software is commercial - it is simply sold on some website/store. Just like you can buy the game Mindustry on Steam, but it is Libre Software and even though you can get the build for free on GitHub and its itch.io page, people still pay for the Steam version. I wonder why people forget about this option, since it’s probably the simplest one.

Of course, Steam is a proprietary, unethical platform, so I’m just using it as an example - I’m not saying we should sell there.

It’s super weird to me that pirates aren’t advocating for the Free Software movement. Being able to control their own devices should be like one of their main goals.

Even The Linux Foundation has a twitter

Because Linus Torvalds doesn’t care about the Free Software movement and user freedom. It’s why his kernel is still on GPL2.

Perhaps you are right, but it’s way more difficult, takes a lot of time and requires a different set of skills. If there is spyware in it, it would be illegal to remove it and distribute a patch for other users. So even if you find something, there is not much you can do about it.

It’s not very practical to add spyware into Libre Software though, because it wouldn’t be hard to find and it would be very easy for users to remove it.

This is not about price. Nobody is saying that authors can’t charge for their software. It’s about freedom.

Your computer/smartphone is controlled by the software that runs on it. Libre Software like Jerboa gives you the source code and the right to study it, modify it and distribute it. This means that anyone can verify what the program does and change it if needed. It means that users actually control the program. If the authors added malicious functionality, it would be easy to remove it.

Proprietary software doesn’t give you those freedoms. It’s very difficult to verify what such program does or change it. You can’t really control it, but it controls your device. If it contains malicious functionality, usually you can’t do anything about it. That’s why proprietary software is unethical. It gives developers power over their users and they often abuse that power.

I’m not touching it with a long stick until someone does some proper security analysis on it

How would that happen? It’s proprietary software, we don’t have access to the source code. And that’s the whole point. We can’t verify what it does and we can’t modify it.

The alternative is Free/Libre Software. That’s what Lemmy is, Jerboa and many others. Their authors publish the source code and let their users study it, modify it and distribute it. Because they are not trying to hide anything from us. That’s the ethical way to make software.

It’s about having the freedom to control your own devices. Proprietary software like Sync takes away that freedom, so it’s unethical. We should be complaining about it.

I don’t understand why this gets so much talk

Because proprietary software is unethical.

You are right, but I see no reason why you couldn’t sell Libre software. People never have to pay for software, they choose to do it. It doesn’t matter if the app is proprietary or not.

The Free Software movement has nothing to do with price. It’s about freedom. We deserve to have the freedom to control our own devices. Proprietary software takes that away, so it’s unethical.

It’s a discussion about ethics. Proprietary software is unethical.

Ah, I see. So you are an expert in psychology, marketing and statistics. That is truly amazing. It’s completely irrelevant to the topic of our discussion (which is about privacy and software), but very cool.

People wait for him to be resurrected, but nothing happens. He dies for real.

Garbage that’s designed to alter my mood to keep me longer on the platform. Please, give me more of that!

Yeah, for some reason there will always be people who are willing to use software that harms them.

But people using those platforms is not good for our society. Of course if they cared about freedom a little bit of extra difficulty wouldn’t really bother them. But the goal should be to make the switch as easy as possible.