jptb

Made it to Denver for SC17! My first SC, very excited. Also very tired. But I have plenty of time to recover before the conference classes start tomorrow.

I've installed Fedora 26 on a 2014 MacBook Pro 13 and plan on using this almost exclusively for the next two weeks. I've wanted to leave the Apple ecosystem for a while. Only Apple's public security stance keeping me in. The not-particularly new info on Apple's tax dodging reminded me that they are not an ethical company. They're just less bad, in some ways, than some other firms.

I'm impressed at the level of support for older Apple hardware on Linux. It's a handy way to give new life to older machines.

Phone suggestions? I am somewhat concerned about changing phones, as (supposedly) every Android phone is already cracked.

After dealing with disappointments and setbacks, I've decided (for the nth time) that Linux is not usable as a desktop operating system unless one really wants it. Apparently I don't want it bad enough.

So I've scrubbed my system of bootable Linux partitions. This requires more work than it should, in part because of how some distros interact with EFI.

But Linux is very usable and useful as a server OS. So my next experiment will be setting up a host OS that will assign a specific video card to a specific VM. I've not decided how this fits into my evolving computer ethics views.

Score so far:

Linux: Pros -- open source, great server OS, great number crunching OS. Cons -- hardware support varies considerably, distros vary considerably.

MacOS: Pros -- often (but not always) "just works", best day-to-day experience. Cons -- native languages are obscure, development environment mediocre/bad, hardware extremely limited and (now) rippingly expensive.

Windows: Pros -- Microsoft adopting bits from Linux and open source, best hardware support, great workstation & gaming OS. Cons -- inconsistent interface, "uncool" reputation, allows focus-stealing.

After succumbing to the lures of my MacBook Pro, it's time to get back on track. The goal for this (short, for some, in the U.S.) week is to not use the Mac. I have some photos to edit from a recent trip. I'm going to try to edit them on Linux. I'm curious how this will go. I usually use Lightroom.

I'm still working on expressing my views on open source. I have mixed feelings about whether or not it is ethical in our current work or starve society. At the same time, is it ethical to pay money to people and/or corporations who wield far more political power than I or any group I belong to will ever have and that use that power to create a world I strenuously disagree with?

As I've mentioned before, one person refusing to go with the flow isn't enough. The only way to rein in the rich/corporations is via sets enforced regulations. But I still need to determine what I wish to do with my own time and money.

Twelve days ago, I wrote:

I waffle a lot on operating systems and my tech environment. I know that, given my view of current world politics and social organization, I should be using Linux and LineageOS instead of MacOS and iOS, contributing to open source, making open source products better, etc. I should be doing my best to get off of cloud-hosted systems where possible.

That isn't going accomplish what I actually want. A tiny number of people refusing to follow current trends isn't going to put the genie back in the bottle. While it may make me feel better about myself, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, et al will continue to dominate.

So what are my concerns and what do I want?

That is a good question. I need to be able to articulate those before I can have a useful to-do list.

Still at 253. Happy not to have gained anything, but irritated at myself for not avoiding sweets on a few days I should have. Will do better this week.

(The examples used in this article are probably specific to the US.)

I'm a huge fan of open standards. Without them, much of what we take for granted wouldn't be possible. Replaceable parts, APIs, standardized sizes and weights all make our lives simpler. Open standards turn bespoke items into commodities. This generally benefits producers (cheaper, more easily obtained components) and consumers (cheaper, more easily repaired goods).

Open standards can be prevented by patents and copyrights. However, there are limits to what a patent covers. Courts in the US [1] and UK [2] have ruled that a patented device created from unpatented components does not allow the patent holder to restrict others from making/making use of the unpatented components.

In short, if I receive a patent for a new type of electric motor, I can't prevent someone from making replacement parts for it unless I create novel, patentable parts for the entire device. This is generally more of a pain in the rear than it's worth.

For physical goods, generally speaking, we have a right to make and use replacement physical components even if the maker of the good doesn't want us to. Open standards are in the best interest of manufacturers and, because of court rulings, we're allowed to benefit from them as well.

Unfortunately, open standards are actively worked against in software and, as Marc Andreessen noted, software is eating the world.

John Deere, joined by many other firms, claims the software that runs their products is copyrighted and that consumers who purchase a physical good hold only a license to the software that makes it run. [3] This prevents and/or complicates Deere product owners from working on their purchased goods.

Tesla restricts what you can do with your Tesla. They do this based on the license for the software that controls the car, not based on a legal right to tell you what you can do with the physical vehicle. [5] Generally speaking, the maker of a physical good cannot restrict you from using it as you like. For example, Ford can't sell you a car and say you may not make left turns with it.

Oracle is (still) suing Google, claiming Oracle holds copyright on the Java API and that Google has infringed this copyright. [5]

For software, common sense and physical good case law is increasing being thrown out as market leaders work to permanently entrench themselves at the top by restricting the use of "their" "intellectual property". The idea that "makers" have a right to control the use of "their" product post-sale is bad for everyone but the "maker".

Which is why we have to mandate that APIs are not subject to copyright.

Every API is merely a set of method signatures. Is f(list<string, double>) -> double copyrightable? Should it be? Is a set of these signatures copyrightable? Should it be? If so, why? Millions of different functions fit this definition. Should one company control them all?

If APIs are not copyrightable, we can create new implementations that allow us to do what we want with things we own. But we still need the right to install the software.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aro_Manufacturing_Co._v._Convertible_Top_Replacement_Co.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Leyland_Motor_Corp_v_Armstrong_Patents_Co
[3] http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/08/17/432601480/diy-tractor-repair-runs-afoul-of-copyright-law
[4] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-perzanowski-schultz-tesla-software-ownership-20161104-story.html
[5] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/11/oracle_refuses_to_let_java_suit_die/

I waffle a lot on operating systems and my tech environment. I know that, given my view of current world politics and social organization, I should be using Linux and LineageOS instead of MacOS and iOS, contributing to open source, making open source products better, etc. I should be doing my best to get off of cloud-hosted systems where possible.

Doing those things is relatively hard, in that they remove convenience. But, in my view, an obsession with convenience combined with the death of regulation is part of what got us where we are: a small number of people with large piles of money doing their damnedest to increase those piles no matter the social cost. Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, many others. [1]

Since doing these things is hard, I spend mental time trying to justify not doing them. Any machine on the internet is easily hacked -- why worry about whether it's Windows, MacOS, or Linux? Apple is one of the few companies who actively fights government agencies' attempts to require phone makers to crack their phones. (At least sometimes.) C# and .NET are really handy! Microsoft isn't too horrible and, in some ways, is improving. Subscribing to Apple Music at least puts some money in some artists' hands, vs not buying music at all.

But these lines of reasoning ignore the underlying problem: huge firms with little competition that attempt to lock users into restrictive environments[2] work as funnels that take money from a large audience and give it to a tiny one. Add in little to no regulation of markets, laws locking out competitors in many markets, and the decision (in the US) that corporations are political entities means supporting giant corporations is a political position. A political position that, when deeply examined, is one many customers may not actually support.

So I'm trying to do better. First step: minimize my use of Apple's ecosystem.

[1] This isn't the first time society has reached this point. The current situation is, at least in the US, in terms of haves/have nots and regulation, worse than it was 25 years ago. In many other ways, things are better, at least for now. No one has threatened to kill me for being perceived as gay for over 15 years, for example.

[2] This includes Android. Google makes using AOSP harder and puts more restrictions on device makers each year. Android, as installed on the vast majority of phones, is one giant data collector for Google.

It's difficult to focus on writing code in Linux when my everyday machine is running a different OS. I need to change that. I've considered putting Linux on an old laptop, but that generally involves pain and suffering. Perhaps I'll sell my current laptop and buy one from System76 or a Dell XPS with Linux pre-installed. I ran Linux for 6 years as my primary OS. Even now, laptops and Linux can be problematic.

I also need to get in the habit of writing at least three times a week. While I don't expect to be great at it, I would like to be more comfortable and skilled at "whipping" something off and having it not suck too horribly.