• tonetegeatinst a day ago

    I would argue that either way its in the best interest of a user to be able to have confidence in the product they use. Sort of like a wrench. If I buy a metal wrench, I expect a wrench made of metal not a impact driver or adjustable wrench. You can talk about how quality of tools is an issue with hardware and prices skyrocketing, but even the basic cheapo tools from a hardware store should be able to do the basic task they claim.

    Here a thought experiment. You are a business or government and need some special software product or chemical for who knows what. You just need this so you go out onto the market, and inquire/shopp around. Some random company, which is profit driven, lands the contract or bid. They ship a great product. Sounds good, everything is working fine. Except woops, turns out that software has a backdoor or is collecting tellemetry., you don't know if it is unless your paying for edr software and endpoint detection, and some software might just refuse to run if it detects that stuff as they don't want you snooping on the api or finguring out how their product works. Or imagine your a startup making semiconductor chips but the software that runs on those machines has built in "wear" on the machine so you have to pay for maintenance or celebration or get a new one.

    Software is like the hardware, if you can't trust the architecture then your exposing yourself to risk by using it. Just like Boeing needs to know where the metal came from and that all the screws and bolts went in correctly. A plane handles lives of people, and the computer and its hardware and software stack handle and process sensitive data, its not just about accessibility but being able to verify the claims being made.

    • bdjsiqoocwk 14 hours ago

      Stallman is always right, if you're willing to wait long enough.