and you're back. Just because somebody picks abrasive plays-on-words doesn't make their rhetoric any less rational. Unpalatable and annoying, yes, but that's got nothing to do with the argument structure and statements themselves.
When people revert to name-calling it really rubs me the wrong way, and makes me less likely to take their objections seriously. Like when people write "Micro$oft", "Microshaft", "CrApple", etc. If you have rational objections to something, you don't need to resort to such childish tactics.
...Frankly, I'd prefer more rationality from Richard Trollman.
;-)
Oh, I absolutely agree about picking childish names! It's not particularly effective, and it does tend to lose your audience.
Made-up names can be done with a wink-and-a-nod when punching up for great effect ("We had particular issues integrating with a vendor who we won't name but are a bit fruity--we'll call them Orange for the sake of comparison"), but usually it's done by people who aren't particularly bright.
At the same time, there is kind of an open question as to how much power a name has. If we only ever use the proper trademarks for these folks, are we not always granting them a certain amount of legitimacy and respect?
I think legitimacy and respect go along with making a strong argument. If you resort to name-calling, the rest of your argument must not be strong enough—that's the perception, anyway.
Amazon and Kindle are legitimate whether Stallman likes them or not. And I don't think—given the tone of the rest of the article—that anyone would confuse using the proper name of the product in question as respect.
Barring a point-by-point analysis, his interesting points include:
- Non-ethical corporate compliance with surveillance activities.
- Pay-for-placement allegations. (Especially interesting given recent lawsuit for ratings spam.)
- Warehouse worker treatment.
- Monopolistic pricing power, particularly against small publishers. (Also ironic, as Amazon has given self-publishers a great platform.)
Note that this is just a list of allegations: this isn't a particularly investigative piece. (Though several have been linked and/or published elsewhere.)
Less valid arguments/rhetoric include:
- Calling the Kindle a Swindle. (Cute, but I can't take your argument as a serious, objective view.)
- Broad "freedom" arguments about file formats (PDF, MP3) and rights associated with same not originating with Amazon.
- Auto-update as a "back-door".
- Hosted content vs. owned content and the pros and cons therein.
- Workers "walk all day under the orders of a computer". (Like Uber drivers drive all day under the orders of a computer?)
- General competitiveness against bookstores and differences in business models.
So I'm saying that Stallman makes N interesting points (albeit without much in the way of reasoning), another N points I find to be logically unsound, and that combination of factors lead to an overall "article" that isn't very impactful.
Interesting that calling the Kindle a “Swindle” is vilified, yet an entire generation of techies called the TRS-80 the “Trash-80.”
My conjecture is that if you are inclined to agree with someone’s negative point of view, rhetorical tricks like insulting nicknames will be well-received and will help frame the idea emotionally. But if you already disagree with someone, you’ll be even more annoyed by arguments that aren’t really arguments at all.
My guess is that his nicknames won’t pay well to this audience, and also that they do better in some places than others. For example, blog post titles are usually so bad that people have very low expectations.
“The Great Kindle Swindle” would probably fly as a post title, while calling the device an Amazon Swindle repeatedly might not.
> an entire generation of techies called the TRS-80 the “Trash-80.”
There's no double standard in my view. Calling it that in a persuasive essay about why you should avoid the TRS-80 is similarly childish and imprudent.
> My conjecture is that if you are inclined to agree with someone’s negative point of view, rhetorical tricks like insulting nicknames will be well-received and will help frame the idea emotionally.
Almost certainly so. But this is clearly framed as a persuasive essay.
Just being Stallman doesn't make for a rational argument.
Edit: In much the same way that closed source software denies freedom. What I mean to say, is he has a reputation that might make things like rational argument more difficult.
Classic RMS: going out of his way to alienate people who might've ended up allies if not for his godawful tone, and then pitching a hissy fit about how the public isn't following him.
It's very childish, which is sadly a recurring occurrence with Stallman at times.
All of the tech giants (Apple/Google/MS/Facebook/etc.) are as shady as the Amazon described here on a regular basis even when it's completely unnecessary, unfortunately. Amazon has drawn a lot of bad publicity to itself due to the poor treatment of its blue collar workforce (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184 ), but I can't imagine the rest of the big players being any better... Only difference is that due to the nature of its operation, Amazon is forced to operate its sweatshops in U.S. soil.
Stallman strongly believes that the language you use in large part frames the debate you have. This belief is supported by a century of marketing research. Stallman's limitation in this regard is that he's not a marketing genius, and lacks the funds to hire one, so he's forced to resort to clunky puns like 'Swindle'.
> Stallman strongly believes that the language you use in large part frames the debate you have.
And he is correct: for instance, if you replace the names for things that your audience uses with your own hostile epithets that insert the conclusion of your arguments into the names you use for the things they refer to, you will have no debate at all, because the only audience that will bother to pay attention to you is the audience that already agreed with your conclusion when they encountered your argument.
> Stallman's limitation in this regard is that he's not a marketing genius, and lacks the funds to hire one, so he's forced to resort to clunky puns like 'Swindle'.
If the FSF can't afford to hire someone even modestly capable in the realm of communication and advocacy to advise its public faces, including its President, on their public advocacy efforts, maybe it ought to close up shop as an advocacy organization.
Facebook slightly relaxed its policy of requiring accounts to carry people's real names, under pressure from cross-dressers. The company feared they would leave the site, and then it would be unable to do drag net surveillance.
I sometimes make a point of saying "copy prevention" rather than "copy protection," or "digital restrictions management" rather than "digital rights management," but I don't go for stuff like "Swindle" or "Losedows."
Awesome link. Difference between subverting a proper noun (Kindle) and subjective word choice. The first is clear cut: it's a proper noun! The second can be a fine line: you don't make a compelling argument about abortion by calling pro-choicers "pro-murder".
SaaSS and SaaS:
"... the term “Software as a Service” doesn't explain why the practice is bad. So we coined the term “Service as a Software Substitute”, which defines the bad practice more clearly and says what is bad about it"
Bare in mind the FSF is poor, it doesn't have a marketing department behind.
That whole thing about the tor keyboard intercept by nsa was never proven afaik. The common conclusion is that they wouldn't be so stupid as to let the customer tracking show the keyboard passing through them so they can bug it.
And as for Amazon reducing the price of books from publishers, this quantitatively has shown they will sell more and make more money despite the lower price tag.
The Tor develop made it practically impossible to verify by complaining about it on twitter.
If they actually thought it was tampered with it seems like the correct approach would have been to keep quiet and then do a forensic tear down of the entire thing to find it. There are plenty of people who would be more than willing to take a look at what could potentially be a real TAO intercept device.
Not quite sure what your point is. I was referring to one of Stallman's points which was basically that they are "dodging taxes" in the US. They're not and are increasingly collecting sales taxes as they are opening facilities in more and more states as they expand their offerings, just as the law dictates.
Walmart's political action committee is vigorously campaigning for laws to enforce sales taxes on all online sales, seemingly as a direct result of Amazon. I would imagine if Amazon were doing anything overtly dodgy in that regard, Walmart would likely be fairly vocal about it.
Amazon is on board for online sales taxes, and have been since 2012 [0]. They rightly see it now as a obstacle to future competition, as collecting sales taxes for the thousands of jurisdictions in the US is very difficult.
Without a robust definition of "dodging taxes," I'm not going to buy the argument. A lot of people use phrases like that to refer to completely legal practices designed to minimize taxes.
Yeah, and "dodging taxes" doesn't clearly distinguish between the too. Also note that a lot of people oppose perfectly legal tax avoidance techniques that they consider to be loopholes.
Agreed. I was going to put something in my post like "and that's why a good argument will make it clear which one you're talking about", but I ended up forgetting to put it in.
Also, tax avoidance is just plain smart. Any for-profit business that doesn't practice tax avoidance is just throwing away money.
Paying taxes is not throwing away money, its contributing back to the society that you profit from. Contributing as little as legally possible is not 'sensible' it's greedy.
I'm finding there are a growing number of very good reasons to never buy anything from anybody. Some companies I boycott myself, for some of those reasons, but I can't fault anybody on their choices of whether or not to participate in any boycotts.
Edit: That said, I think posts like these are necessary so that consumers can make the sort of informed decisions they need to make regarding whom they purchase from.
> "Amazon quit ALEC after public pressure in May 2012, but I am sure it still supports the same nasty policies and is waiting for a new tool to achieve them."
Corporate membership in an organization whose purpose is to impose market and private mechanisms on whole populations by writing these into state and local law (this is precisely what ALEC does) should be interpreted as an irrevocable announcement that the management of the corporation does in fact endorse imposing its interests on whole populations using state and local law.
Amazon left ALEC but did not also replace its leadership at the same time, so its leaving can't be construed as a change of perspective on the imposition of legislation as a business strategy. At most you can say that Amazon's execs decided that the costs of openly associating with those aims were high enough to end open association.
Large corporations are members of many groups. The idea that the entire leadership of Amazon should be replaced because Amazon was a member of ALEC is nonsensical. Jeff Bezos should step down because Amazon was a member of ALEC? Really? What about Steve Jobs and Apple? They were a member too.
ALEC isn't some super nefarious group, but I do understand it was the target of three minutes of internet hate, so people seem to ascribe some super evil to its intents.
>The idea that the entire leadership of Amazon should be replaced because Amazon was a member of ALEC is nonsensical.
That's a ridiculous reading of what I wrote. I said, effectively, that the same people who joined Amazon to ALEC are the same people who still run Amazon. This fairly suggests the same people still support the aims and work of the group, which is to spam state laws and impose market and private structures on entire populations.
You also ridiculously scoff at the idea that ALEC membership presents any problems or costs, even though Amazon itself left the group.
I really don't understand how it's ridiculous reading of what you wrote:
> "Amazon left ALEC but did not also replace its leadership at the same time"
Amazon's leadership includes Jeff Bezos. Apple's leadership included Steve Jobs and Tim Cook.
In fact, what you said first mirrors what you just said:
> "I said, effectively, that the same people who joined Amazon to ALEC are the same people who still run Amazon."
The leadership of Apple is still mainly in place as well. Should they all be gotten rid of? Or is there just a specific list of people who should be dumped?
> "You also ridiculously scoff at the idea that ALEC membership presents any problems or costs, even though Amazon itself left the group."
No, I didn't in any way say that. I just said they weren't "super nefarious". Amazon left ALEC precisely because they determined it was presenting a problem.
> "Then you completely ignored ALEC's purpose as I accurately described it."
In what way? By saying their weren't "super nefarious"? I guess you think they are "super nefarious", but I just think they're sub-optimal.
>I really don't understand how it's ridiculous reading of what you wrote:
Let me help: I indicated that a corporate culture exists that openly accepted and endorsed what ALEC does, which necessarily indicates that said culture is capable of accepting and endorsing the imposition of private and market structures on entire populations by writing and passing state laws to do so. That is exactly what ALEC does.
Amazon's reversal of a decision to join ALEC without a concomitant reversal or update of that same corporate culture should not be read as a repudiation of that organization's aims and goals.
I think you're scoffing in the wrong direction: Amazon conducts itself repeatedly as antagonistic to regulation and taxation in every way and just about as intensely as a corporation can. The idea that they really don't want their business aims written into state law just because they backed away from ALEC fails every test of plausibility. They're the same boardroom. They act in their own interest exclusively. It's far more plausible that they saw that being an ALEC member (and taking the public relations costs associated with that) wasn't necessary to benefit from what ALEC does on behalf of business interests generally.
That is probably one of the most reasonable disagreements that can be made.
Take some random person and say they use to be a member of some bad organization. Let's pick the WBC (but you can pick many others). Now, say they quit, not because of a change of heart, but because of political pressure that was costing them money. Is this someone you would consider a decent person? I wouldn't.
> "Amazon cut off service to Wikileaks, claiming that whistleblowing violates its terms of service. It had no need to go to court to prove this, because if you rent a server from Amazon, you have no rights."
I find it highly amusing that RMS doesn't seem to agree with Amazon's restrictive ToS agreement but his GNU software license is one of the most restrictive licenses out there. If I include a GNU licensed library I accidentally lose all my rights too. Funny that.
> "A study found that people who read novels on the Amazon Swindle remember less of the events."
Replace 'Swindle' with 'Kindle' then with any ebook reader ever. I doubt there is anything about the Kindle in particular, over other ereaders, that causes people to remember less. This is attacking Amazon with everything and hoping some of it sticks.
I'm trying not to defend Amazon but RMS's arguments are painfully bad at times.
Playing devil's advocate here, as I whole-heartedly support OSS and the myriad license under which it is distributed, including the GPL. But ...
That's a really interesting argument. One could argue that the GPL is like the snake eating it's tail on the far side of liberalness. I'm sure this is not a new argument, but I'd never considered that the "polluting" of code with the GPL actually decreases individual liberty for the sake of communal liberty.
Again, not making a judgement one way or the other, but the world is nothing if not a series of bad compromises, and I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the GPL and OSS in general is included in "the world" :)
The GPL is not ouroboros. Restricting the freedom to restrict is not at all comparable to the PATRIOT Act. It is more akin to the Bill of Rights, or other such laws preventing certain types of laws from being made.
> "his GNU software license is one of the most restrictive licenses out there."
Of "open source" licenses perhaps. In the grand scheme of software licenses, it is pretty fucking permissive. Most software licenses don't let you anywhere near the source, don't let you modify the code, and don't let you redistribute or share the software.
I wager so. Many commercial video games have plaintext script files buried in their installations. I am not in the habit of reading licenses very carefully, but I suspect more than a few of those do not lay out the right to view or modify those files. (Although 'modders' do anyway of course.)
Software licenses which allow you to view the code but not to modify it are fairly common.
Typically, software licenses grant none of these rights.
I can't think of any where you can't view it, but there are several licenses that allow you to view but not modify.
Microsoft is in the habit of letting development partners view their source but not publish or modify it, and then there's software like UW Pico that have licenses that allow viewing by the general public but not modification.
Microsoft is certainly not the only one who did this. Many business to business deals involve read only access to source code (usually by platform providers).
You'd have to go to court to actually enforce that though. If the law didn't give you the right to license your software that way, there's nothing you could do about it. Amazon gets to make up their own rules and enforce them on their own hardware, even if there's no law against what you're doing.
> Restrictive in that it prevents you from fucking people over.
Restrictive in that it controls how you must license derivative works and release source code. It imposes an ideology on others.
> This is like saying laws against slavery restrict freedom (freedom to own slaves).
No, really, it's absolutely nothing like saying that, and if you care about free software (however defined, but in particular along the lines RMS endorses), you should stop using such a fantastically stupid analogy.
If you build something you should definitely have something to say about what others can do with your work, especially if you give it away for free. And nobody imposes something on you - you are perfectly free not to use GNU licensed things.
I don't recall arguing otherwise. But compared to the BSD license, it's definitely more restrictive about derivative works. Also, the slavery analogy is stupid.
I think it would be helpful to be clearer as to why you disagree with the analogy rather than simply calling it stupid.
If I had to guess, I would suspect that your real issue is that you do not find the things being restricted to be comparable (i.e., human life/will vs. the use of software), rather than believing that the comparison is somehow invalid for other reasons.
First of all, it's not a good analogy. Software licenses are a contract that you can choose to agree to, whereas laws give you no choice.
Second of all, it is highly debated wheter the restrictions imposed by the GPL are a worthwhile tradeoff; while noone in their right mind claims anybody has a right to own slaves...
And lastly, by comparing the GPL to laws against slavery you are trying to evoke certain associations, much like stallman uses the word swindle instead of kindle -- those are just cheap tricks that distract and make fruitful discussions hard.
Really, the only thing the GPL restricts is your ability to restrict.
(Incidentally, this is comparable to restricting the freedom to enslave; it is a restriction on restriction.)
If you think the GPL somehow "imposes an ideology on others" but literally any other license does not, I am curious as to how. (Hint: a license cannot "impose an ideology"; if you do not agree, you are free to avoid it and stick with BSD code, or whatever else might suit your fancy.)
Whereas you are forced to use an Amazon Kindle (sorry, Swindle)?
Your options there are similar, acquire a license for a commercial book (that you like), hit Project Gutenberg for an open source book, or write your own book...
That's a strawman. It could also be like saying laws against gay marriage restrict freedom. You aren't making a point about reality, you're just comparing two things that have one thing in common.
You lose your rights to your code if any of your code includes GPL code. Many people who write code necessarily avoid the GPL because of this.
You don't lose the rights to your code. The original copyright owner still owns the copyright on their code. That's why you have to follow the rules of the license they gave you. You can still distribute your code under whatever license you want.
> You can still distribute your code under whatever license you want.
That actually isn't true.
> You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.
You are required to distribute it under GPL v3. I don't know enough legalese to determine if distributing the modifications alone as a parallel license is allowed.
This is only true if "your" code is a derivative of someone else's code. Putting code that's actually original into a project that also has GPL code in it doesn't mean you have to GPL your code.
Distributing binaries with mixed sources is where it gets hairy.
I'm not sure what you intend with this. I am using that as a counter example to "laws against slavery restrict freedom", because the person I'm responding to was implying that restriction is inherently good: restricting slavery is generally a positive, but restricting gay marriage is generally a negative. The fact that the same idea in two different scenarios can be good or bad means you can't use it as a maxim.
No, the implication of the post to which you were responding is not that restriction is inherently good, but rather that restriction is not inherently bad.
Laws against gay marriage actively restrict freedoms, if you can somehow make a counter argument specifically specifically related to freedoms, please try.
>This is like saying laws against slavery restrict freedom (freedom to own slaves).
They do. Because at current, corporations (aka private prisons) are allowed to own slaves, but I as an individual am not. We can either increase freedom by banning anyone from owning slaves or increase freedom by allowing anyone to own slaves.
Sweet fucking Jesus, do we need to talk about the GPL here? It's an utter derail here, and the way comments are ranked here means that the top pages of this thread are going to be the same hashing out of pros and cons and it's incredibly tedious.
These discussions remind me of the "old days" of /. Discussing the GPL is like discussing Catholicism, points of view are strongly rooted in ideology, these type of discussions are never constructive.
The only difference for me, is that at the time (when I participated in these on /.) I was young, full of energy to spend on idealisms, and thought everything was black or white. Nowadays, I just chuckle reading how people get their panties in a bunch (for some reason, I like this English phrase) instead of using the tools that comply with whatever license they like.
"If I include a GNU licensed library I accidentally lose all my rights too" That's not true. You can't lose a right that you never had. You could argue the GNU license it's not fear, then write an article titled "Reasons why not to use GNU license".
GNU restriction is in favor of the end user, to make them free to know what they are executing(oversimplifying). RSM's point is always about the freedom of the end user.
About the second quote:
> "A study found that people who read novels on the Amazon Swindle remember less of the events."
Yes, I also see this as a weak argument, but to be fear he is saying "I think issues like this are less important than the injustice of the Swindle." pointing to a pdf titled ebooks.pdf which is not Swindle specific.
lose all my rights? Now lets follow that logic a bit.
If I go outside, I lose all my rights! I can't kill anyone, steal from people, or fire a weapon intro crowds. I am not even allowed to wave a knife around, or stab anyone. Its completely unfair, and people have the gall to claim that I live in a free country. Its the most restrictive country out there!
And parks. They have the most restrictions I know. I can't put it on fire, use it as a garbage dump, or as a dumping ground for my killing sprees. How dare the government spend tax money on parks and claim its for public use. Public use?!? I just happen to walk in there and I get all this restrictions put on me.
(I think "one of the most restrictive licenses out there" is a tad over-exaggerated, but then, anyone is allowed to their view about restrictions...)
> his GNU software license is one of the most restrictive licenses out there
Seriously, enough with this shit. This argument has been refuted time and time again. Tell the little people who sign your paychecks so that you'd post these comments to find another, better argument.
"A study found that people who read novels on the Amazon Swindle remember less of the events."
You only need to make a good point once. Adding additional lesser points just weakens it. A fair few dubious and ridiculous claims here, same sort of claims can be made about any multi-national. No smoking gun here.
This does ring true; I'm sure I remember a study of retention of read material comparing paper books with e-readers which supports that point. I think it was something to do with not having an easy way to intuit position in a book with e-readers.
I think it sounds ridiculous. I read both hard-copy and electronic books on a variety of devices. The only device this would hold true for (sample size of one here) is on the computer. The angle of my eyes is wrong, and I need to hold it in my hands. Once I get immersed in the plot, I don't care what is serving it up.
Regardless of whether it's true, Amazon is hardly the only company to sell an e-reader, nor did they invent the concept. It's a silly inclusion on a list of otherwise ethics-related arguments.
I've only seen rants of this tone, format and length from bona-fide crazy people. There's a line here and I hope stays on the side where I can continue to respect him.
If he wants me to use GPL3 I'll take it under advisement. If he wants to tell me where to buy toothpaste I won't.
I'm a fan of outsiders, the 60s, the whole deal. I love the whole idea of Stallman. I want more Stallmans! I also disagree with nearly everything he says while agreeing almost completely with the results he seeks to achieve.
But posts like this pain me regardless of the source.
People like Stallman (and whoever would be his polar opposite) need to exist in order to establish the boundaries and give us a framework to finding a balance between egalitarianism and greed.
Sabotaging Customers: I have no reason to believe that they would ever sabotage me.
Restricting and Shafting Customers: I have never had a problem with my kindle or any other media from Amazon. If I ever do I'm sure I can find an alternative source in a matter of minutes.
Censorship: They are Amazon's servers and it is their right to enforce their rules on them. If Wikileaks believes that they were unlawfully cut off then they should take Amazon to court.
Exploiting workers mercilessly: good luck finding a retailer that has not done this at some point. This is an unfortunate reality as far as I am concerned and while I support fighting for better worker's conditions, I see no reason that refusing to buy through Amazon helps the problem.
Shafting others in the publishing world: I'm not a publisher, their industry is none of my concern. If Amazon is so bad for them then I'm sure there is another way they can sell their books.
Dodging Taxes: The government should close tax loopholes. I don't blame Amazon for being competitive. If it's legal it's fair as far as I'm concerned.
Other reasons: These all seem to be trivial to me though I don't feel like typing out the reasons why.
I've never had a problem with Amazon particularly and this article seems rather strange to me.
"I've never had a problem with Amazon particularly and this article seems rather strange to me."
I had a problem with Amazon once, they repeatedly messed up a delivery. I emailed Jeff Bezos, got a call the next day from his office and my problem was solved.
Further, Amazon's solution to workers is going to be robotics: the elimination of as many manual labor jobs as possible. This is something Walmart will not be able to pull off easily because their workers are out front, higher profile; Amazon's workers can disappear through firings and few will notice. At a minimum Amazon is going to leverage robotics to drastically stretch (reduce) how many workers they have per dollar of sales.
In ten years Stallman will be telling us not to buy from Amazon because they use robots instead of human labor.
Which is silly, because instead of putting people to work doing meaningless jobs that can be done by robots, we should be focusing more on how we can take advantage of that efficiency to make life more meaningful as a society.
> This is something Walmart will not be able to pull off easily because their workers are out front, higher profile
Even then, they're cutting staff by increasing the number of self-checkout lanes. You still have to have somebody supervising, but you can just have one person watching 6-8 lanes.
At my local Walmart, the self-checkout is far more convenient than the regular lanes. They have more self-checkout lanes open than regular lanes, and people tend to scan their stuff and get out much faster than the cashiers would (seriously, the regular lanes move so slow...). I never use the regular lanes anymore, because they're always so busy compared to the self-checkouts.
I think the main thing holding Walmart back from further mechanization is that their aisles still have to be human-traversable. Amazon can use really efficient layouts when converting their warehouses to 100% machine-stocked because then there will be no reason for a human to ever walk down the aisles. At Walmart, customers still have to make their way through the aisles, and they have to be laid out to a) allow humans to walk through and take stuff off the shelves and b) arrange items in order to maximize purchases (e.g. put the milk in the back, impulse items at the checkouts, etc.).
This is not exactly nuanced. It reads like he disliked Amazon for some reason and then went out and googled around for a while to come up with more reasons to support that belief. Personally, I like Amazon... so of course I'm just looking for reasons to dismiss his arguments without considering their merit. Ha!
Regarding the keyboard and "NSA" --- recall, NSA's entire involvement in this story is a shipment tracker that showed a package traversing Alexandria, VA --- here's the previous thread:
most of what he is saying... could apply to any corporation. If the government wants to inspect mail and possibly install malware, for instance, that could happen with any vendor, amazon or manufacturer, as they wont have a choice presented to them. the purpose of the corporation is to make money at the expense of the customer, vendors and anyone else... why pick of amazon alone?
Small point: tax avoidance is legal and sensible. Would anyone or any company seek to maximize its tax bill bar bizarre circumstances? Rather, the reverse. If there's a devastating avoidance loophole it's the job of government to redraft the regulations or let the courts decide.
This is a fair assignment of responsibility only in a world where corporate representation does not extend to that regulatory sphere. But it absolutely does. There is a free market for political results and favorable tax code edits are the deliverables in this cash market.
Amazon in all honesty likely had zero choice but to comply with the NSA. Also it might not even be the one complying, but rather the shipping carrier.
Actually a lot of what Stallman is complaining about boils down to Amazon is a company that complies with US based court orders, and sells things on publisher terms.
I really don't see much that doesn't apply to say Google:
* Distributes books with restrictive licenses (Google Play Books)
* Sells online music with restrictive terms (Google Play Music)
RMS is supporting buying the book directly from the publisher. But what if they are running IIS on the server, or Flash on their front-end? Doesn't this mean that he is recommending the use of proprietary software?
Suppose that RMS supported something like buying organic food directly from farmers. Would you then pose the question “What if a farmer is a mass murderer or a terrorist? Would that mean that RMS is supporting terrorism?”
I think what you miss is that RMS has argued against other things on the exact kind of indirect support for non-free software argument as was directed at his recommendation to buy directly from publishers; it rests on RMS's use of that criticism rather than the assumption that the criticism is valid.
The argument as you descibe it sounds silly, and to believe that RMS used it I would have to see a citation. Even so, if he used it, he would be wrong. I argued against the argument as presented, I can’t be expected to know whether it was subtle sarcasm or not.
RMS has been pretty cut-and-dry about proprietary software. For instance, he won't use document types that encourage proprietary software use (even when free alternatives exist).
So to answer your question, if RMS was a staunch anti-terrorist advocate, and it was guaranteed that a percentage of organic farmers were terrorists, then it would be perfectly reasonable to pose that question.
The analogy breaks down thusly: The non-terrorist farmers are neutral, but the web servers not running proprietary software are, by definition, running free software – i.e. they are not neutral, they are the opposite of proprietary. The web is not something that, inherently, suggests use of proprietary software, so I don’t see a similar reason for RMS to discourage use of the web in the same way he discourages .doc format files. A .doc file or a .swf file very much suggests specific proprietary software, even though free alternatives exist. Not so with .html, .css and .js.
Some of these arguments are just kind of weird, but I did read the study by the undercover worker about working conditions at their distribution plants. They claimed that they are given an impossible workload, are routinely verbally abused, they get fired for almost any infraction, and they are paid poorly for the privilege.
I'm not sure B&N is so much better. I haven't heard anything either way. I usually look up books and review on Amazon, then buy them elsewhere.
I do like that they are trying to make all e-books cost less than $10.
> "Amazon's on-line music "sales" have some of the same problems as the ebooks: users are required to identify themselves and sign a contract that denies them the freedoms they would have with a CD."
I find this amusing, music CDs don't give you a whole lot of freedom, considering the CD itself will eventually stop working (whether due to time or scratches) and they employ copy protection methods.
I find the tax evasion argument the most damning. But it's not just Amazon, it's any sizable American corporation in 2015. You'd be irresponsible to your shareholders for not setting up a tax haven corp in Ireland or some other mostly legal country and funnel your profits through there.
it's nothing corporations haven't been doing since the idea of legally protected business groups posing as faux individuals was invented. But it still doesn't make it not a really bad idea for any half-hearted attempt at a representative democracy.
It doesn't take a genius to realize the impact that tax dollars returned to your community be it town, state or country, have at a least a chance of having a positive impact on your life. Of course, the devil's advocate would say that getting consumer goods for less has a direct positive impact on my life. That's probably pretty debatable though.
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