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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: March 10th, 2024

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  • AHemlocksLie@lemmy.ziptoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldWho is this for?
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    23 days ago

    While I definitely think there’s truth in what you say, I don’t think it’s the real reason. The posture car seats try to put you in is just not good sometimes. If the seat itself lets you sit up straight, the headrest juts out, or the headrest is okay but the seat is curved into a bowl. It’s comfy for lazy sitting, which is what most people will want to settle into, but if you try to be mindful of your posture, you’re doing it without real support from your seat.






  • As you’ve phrased it, this seems to me to be a question of how to balance the rights of the developer versus those of the end user. The developer wants to monopolize commercial usage while the end user wants full control and authority on their machine.

    Some would argue that the developer’s goals are unethical, but I think it’s an unfortunate consequence of a societal system that would see them starve on the streets if they didn’t earn with their work. In an ideal world, end users would prevail unquestionably, but so long as developers must operate under capitalism where ownership is critical, concessions will have to be made.


  • In the case of libraries, the users of the libraries are not the end users of the program. The users of the library are the developers.

    Except the end user does inevitably become the user of the library when they use the software the developer made with it. They run that library’s code on their machine.

    It claims that it’s freedom for the users, but that’s not true.

    In light of the above, this is incorrect. By using GPL, you preserve the end user’s freedom to understand, control, and modify the operation of their hardware. In no way does the end user suffer or lose any freedoms.


  • When I see a GPL license I don’t see freedom. I only see forced openness, which makes me immediately avoid that library, since I can’t statically link to it.

    One of the arguments in favor of GPL and other “forced openness” licenses is that users should have the right to understand what their own device is doing. You paid for your computer. You own it. You should dictate how it operates. You should at least have the option of understanding what is being done with your machine and modifying it to fit your needs. Closed source software may provide utility, but it doesn’t really further collective knowledge since you’re explicitly refusing to publicly release the code, and it provides obscurity for developers to hide undesirable functionality like data collection or more directly malicious activity.

    I’m not personally sure how I feel about that argument myself, but I can at least readily acknowledge it as a valid one whether I agree with the decision to force openness or not.




  • I have no idea why you’re being downvoted because you’re right. You don’t really own hardly any of the software you buy. You don’t buy the software, you buy a license to use it in almost all commercial cases. It would be financial suicide for companies to revoke those licenses in most cases, but it still is what it is.