Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Randy Barlow <randy@electronsweatshop.com>]

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On 03/17/2015 10:55 PM, Duncan wrote:
> (As for chrome, even if I could run closed source I'd not trust it.
>  Google is after all an ad/tracking company at core, which after
> all does own the doubleclick I've NEVER trusted and have blocked
> about a half- dozen different ways, and if they're insisting that
> something stay closed- source, I'm inclined to believe there's a
> /reason/ it's closed source, that I'd not like were it available to
> examine, and that I STILL don't like, hidden in code I /can't/
> examine.  So even if I were to run closed source in general, I'd be
> about as likely to run chrome as I would to run closed source from,
> say, Sony, "The rootkit people!(TM)".)

Hahah, I enjoyed that so much of this e-mail was in parentheses.

I agree with these thoughts. I think people come to open source
software for many different reasons. For some, it's the collaboration.
For some, it's because it's free as in beer. For some, it's the fact
that you can modify it to solve your particular needs. For others,
including me, it's primarily for trust reasons. I think it's important
to be able to trust the software we are giving private information to.
That's what draws me in. I also like the collaboration, and I like
that I can have it for $0 (though I do work professionally on writing
open source software, so in a way it pays me ☺). I also enjoy the many
other benefits. The "freedom" aspect of Free Software is really what
draws me. The freedom to modify is great too!

> (As for google in general, I use their search and I spend quite a
> bit of time in minitube and firefox (with youtube's new html5
> support) on youtube.  And some of my feeds are via feedburner,
> which I think is google's too, but I don't have a google account of
> any kind, third-party cookies are blocked and others are
> session-only (and unlike some I don't have a 50-tab firefox going
> constantly, so session-only generally means only a few hours at
> most), and I'm pretty strict with disconnect/request- 
> policy/noscript policies, such that google generally gets no
> notification when I'm browsing other sites, so while I'm not
> kidding myself that they don't have a profile on me, it's much more
> limited than their profile on most users, for sure!)

I also find their tracking practices to be troubling. I avoid their
links, and I do what I can to educate the people around me about how
nothing they do is "free".

- -- 
Randy Barlow
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