Subject: Re: bug#12621: Emacs 24.1 crashing on Windows 7

From: Daniel Colascione <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 18:19:45 -0800

On 12/16/2012 6:03 PM, Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> Hello Mr. Stallman,
> 
> Richard Stallman <[email-masked]> writes:
>> You've made a false accusation when you call my criticisms of Windows
>> "FUD".  The references for these criticisms are in
>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/digital-inclusion-in-freedom.html.
>>
>> You can't have had any evidence for your false accusation.  You must
>> have leaped to the conclusion.  This bespeaks hostility towards me.
> 
> I think the burden of proof is on you here. You said that Windows
> contains spyware, DRM and backdoors, and only presented an article that
> discusses the DRM.

To be fair, the "backdoor" to which RMS refers involves an incident in which
Windows Update updated itself even when users had specifically turned off
updates from the OS configuration facility for such things. I don't mean to
speak for RMS, but I believe he's suggesting that Windows still has these latent
capabilities. Nobody can prove otherwise.

The "spyware" claim refers to Windows Update sending a list of installed
programs along with its "do you have an update for me?" chat with the update server.

That said, Chrome also transmits usage statistics and (in its default
configuration) updates itself silently. rms, I don't see how you can claim
Windows contains "backdoors" and "spyware" without similarly accusing Chrome.
Many other programs do the same thing.

I prefer to live in a world where the vast majority of programs I use are not
morally reprehensible.

[1] http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96817
[2]
http://www.esecurityplanet.com/browser-security/google-silently-updates-chrome-as-mozilla-preps-.html