Matl

> I find the GPL to be hypocritical in the way it restricts freedom while talking about promoting freedom. If I'm giving a gift to the commons, then I want it to be a true gift, not something with strings attached.

The right to free speech is a freedom too, yet it has strings attached. Namely it's no longer a freedom the moment it crosses a certain line into endangering someone else and their freedoms. That's sort of the view the GPL takes, but it gets into how different political philosophies view the concept of freedom. Is it freedom to pay whatever the free market (in practice monopolies) demand for commodities critical to survival (BSD view of freedom) or is it freedom not to have to worry about not being able to afford commodities critical to survival (GPL view of freedom).

I do agree the BSD freedoms is simpler to grasp.

> It hurts nobody if someone chooses to make a closed source fork - software is a non-rivalrous good, so whatever someone else does cannot take away the free version that I have provided

True in theory, trickier in practice. 'It hurts nobody' only goes so far because if a closed source fork starts collecting telemetry then it actively hurts its users, unless very much opt in. Now how many average computer users are going to know that there's an open version that doesn't do that? A small number. Trickier still, because the fork is closed, it's likely going to be quite hard to replace it or block the telemetry, at least without loosing some features. So again, the difference is in what is viewed as the commons. BSD views the commons as everyone, including capital interests best in a position to take that the software and twist it into a tool in the ongoing war on general purpose computing, ability to repair etc. GPL views the commons as the users, so it aims to grants freedoms to them, even at the cost of restricting the freedom of capital in the process.

In short, I do understand and even appreciate the BSD concept of freedom and its simplicity, yet I find it insufficient to protect my freedom in a system full of monopoly power, corruption and exploitation.

In an ideal world where the behaviour the GPL aims to protect doesn't exist, I'd agree the BSD is more free. In the current world, I'd argue that BSD gives freedom to exploit computer users to those with the means to do so.

However in the context of the constant restrictions of general purpose computing, GPL has my back. BSD at best doesn't care about restrictive forks and at worst even welcomes them as 'good business'.

Two different approaches, they both have their place but as a user, I feel GPL was written for me. BSD (license) was written for the developer.

The laptop mentioned is fine. But it is hardware that is just at that mark where I'd normally replace it.

As I said, I think it's still OK if my goal is to run FreeBSD. But if my goal is to get the best hardware now that will last me the next 3-5 years then it's dated and I'll have to compromise just to be able to use FreeBSD with it. I don't have to do that with Linux.

I think if I am going to compromise on hardware because I want a particular OS on it, it'll probably be Haiku over one of the BSDs because I don't get the sense BSD offers enough of a difference vs Linux to justify that compromise.

- The bad press was because the initial public release on GitHub did not implement most of the things seemed like they're implemented, (Rust like memory safety etc.)

- Over time it actually saw contributions from a lot of people and is kind of decent now, be it not as polished as Go, Rust, D etc.

- It is super easy to use, so kind of attracts an audience.

The 'threat' was also the reason many working class Americans had generally higher standard of living than they do today

Yes, depending on the level of autonomy of the weapon, how it was being marketed etc. If it was being sold as an 'AI' that is supposedly very smart so who's a mere mortal to question it, then yes.

I would of course hold the human culpable too, but this is why precisely even selling Claude for military use is immoral. The way the US conducts war means there's always a need for more targets. More and more targets, quickly. If the goal then is to hit as many targets as possible then each 'review' of a LLM suggestion is going to be more and more sloppy than the last one. If there's no 'AI' suggesting targets then the list is forced to go via more human review by the very nature of humans compiling the target list.

It's the same as using a LLM for code; the vast majority of programmers do not understand everything they're accepting, but they'll accept as long as it 'looks correct' and only examine more closely after something doesn't work, (in the military use case - after a strike).

LLMs are unreliable for anything more than reciting jokes, let alone picking targets. So yes, absolutely.

It's the same as Facebook being held liable for causing teens harm; they did not force any teen to use it and yet they knew what would most likely happen if they did.

> Saw another video where a big channel talks about why TVs are so cheap now, and they then explain it that it's because they sell your data. In the real world, the selling data bit, ACR, and so on

> is absolutely tiny dollars business. TVs are cheap because massive factories are pumping out these almost entirely plastic products in enormous numbers,

Right, and Windows Recall is not technically spying on what you're doing etc. etc.

It seems to me like you're being pedantic but essentially end up seeming like shady corporate practices are fine with you over somewhat inaccurate claims that nonetheless point to a real problem?

Yes, TVs aren't cheap because of (only/primarily) ACR but the points stands that ACR shouldn't be a thing on a TV I fully paid for and nobody but me, who paid for the TV, should 'own the glass'.

and you know, that use case doesn't even violate their terms

That's apart from the general fact that he continues to race towards the very thing he claims he's afraid of, because that's where his net worth comes from.

OpenShot is however significantly easier to use and does what you need for casual editing. If you want a step above that and still FLOSS then Kdenlive is a better choice.

What makes your original comment useless is that it reads like an American saying, 'I bet our GDP is bigger than Nauru's' - like what is the point? You know the answer already. An open source video editor is unlikely to be as good as DaVinci Resolve. DaVinci has multiplicity of the resources OpenShot/Kdenlive etc. do.

So again, what is your point?

Which makes me pretty sure yours was a useless comment.

I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic. We may have saturated the current approach, but I think there's a lot still left in terms of compression, attention, active parameters, caching etc. etc.

Did it ever occur to you that politicians signing a 'binding agreement' may not be the same as public interest? That they are often paid to hide the full implications from the public? Do you understand that some people actually want to live and raise family in a livable environment?

I understand that Ayn Rand fans who do not have to suffer the consequences of that philosophy or 'futurists' who think purely in 'make AI go brrr is cool' do not understand this, but some people place value on other things in life besides this and yes, they do deserve a place at the table.

As generally a tech optimist, but also someone deeply aware of the awful trajectory modern tech is on, such as their waste, war on general purpose computing, ownership, privacy and repairability, I think a lot of this needs rethinking and perhaps of brute forcing your way to stripping people of their livehoods by polluting, straining the grid and depriving people of places they'd want to live in, slow down and consider if there's not a smarter, more efficient, more humane way to move forward.

Failing to do so may produce a backslash that will harm even the things we love about our space.

The 'contract' is not sacred above everything. Especially when that contract affects a lot more people than those who signed it as 'binding'.