> “There are people out there who are giving their lives just to try to make our elections secure [...] And these vendors are lying and saying everything is alright.”
When are we going to admit proprietary software has ruined our network infrastructure and security of the U.S.?
Our school systems suffer. In addition to maintenance costs, more money must be allocated to upgrading the proprietary operating systems that we've come to rely on. This usually always means allocating yet more of the budget for hardware upgrades -- no one seems to care that Microsoft's sweet deal with OEMs leaves our education system in a monetary sinkhole.
The same goes with military and defense, public systems such as transit, utilities, health, even down to the systems that count and determine our next governing officials. How long can we pretend the government-granted monopoly of Microsoft was nothing more than a *nudge nudge wink wink*, under the table deal?
I don't give a shit if an individual or a private company wants to sink money into companies that willingly abandon security in favor of profit; that's your prerogative. But the fact that the U.S. government fell for the proprietary meme is starting to have some tangible consequences.
It's shit like this that make me realize Stallman is right. He's philosophical because it's not just Microsoft that's the problem. It's the entire philosophy -- and to understand the problem, you have to understand the philosophy. Free software values innovation, security, and combined effort. Proprietary software values profit and consistently abandons all else in favor of such.
