Free Software Foundation Announces 2013 Holiday Giving Guide

An anonymous reader writes "On Cyber Monday, millions of Americans will take to the Internet in search of the newest gadgets to bestow upon their loved ones. Most of these 'gifts' are trojan horses that will spy on their recipients, prevent them from doing what they want with their device, or maybe even block access to their favorite books or music. The Free Software Foundation is proud to introduce a map through this minefield: our 2013 Giving Guide. The Giving Guide features gifts that will not only make your recipients jump for joy; these gifts will also protect their freedom."

Really?

[Spritzer]

After reading through the list it seems they want me to give my non-techie family a bunch of shit they'll never figure out or have no use for anyway. How cute

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

So give the gifts to your techie friends. Or give the list to your non-technie family and say 'buy something from that list for me for christmas, family'.

Who wouldn't want a 3D printer, libre laptop, or non-NSA-compatable internet file storage?

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly; the guide should be called, "How to make your family hate you and cause even more tech support calls for yourself." Those gadgets are not something that the "normals" would want or ever get working.

Re:Really?

[MightyYar]

This is a list for your paranoid delusional friends and family. I have a few of those.

Re:Really?

[BitZtream]

The reality of it is, anyone who uses this guide to give gifts doesn't actually have any friends.

Its a list of crap that is wrapped entirely around RMS's silly political agenda.

Anyone who gives Linux as a gift is a such a douche that I can safely say they don't have ayn friends. Well, they may think they have friends, but no one thinks of them as such.

Anyone who would use that Linux distro ... isn't going to want the one you're giving them, and can just go download it themselves ... and to make matters worse, they're going to know that you as such a fake fuck that you didn't even put any effort into getting them a gift. Its not price, its thought, and giving Linux shows you put no thought into it.

The AC above me says 'give the gifts to your techie friends'.

No, asshole, I will not force RMS's silly political agenda on someone else. I will not presume to be able to determine which techie gift my techie friends want because I'm smart enough to know that my friends will want very specific techie gifts in specific configurations that I'm not going to know so the best I can do is give a gift certificate so they can pick something out themselves ... in which case, I don't need this retarded list from RMS.

Re:Really?

[Spritzer]

The non-techies in most families who actually use computers and smart phones are typically already accustomed to a particular OS/device. It's much easier to support their occasional need than to spend countless hours explaining how to make this new thing do what the old thing did. Now, if the FSF membership came with tech support for FSF supported items, I'd buy them one of those in a heartbeat.

Propoganda at its best, more RMS lies

[BitZtream]

When you can't beat them ... lie.

Why is it half the shit on that list of comparisons is flat out lies or exaggerations beyond acceptable?

Even if you take the GNU fanboy side, its just full of flat out lies.

Pretending Linux some how magically doesn't even need upgrading ... but windows does.
Pretending this 3d printer is open source/libre ... when it isn't even actually available.
Pretending a Mac can't run Linux for some reason, and that somehow Apple laptops are prone to planned obsolescence but magically the Linux laptop isn't because?
Pretending everything on iTunes is DRM'd ... EXCEPT the biggest part of the iTunes store. (not that there isn't plenty of DRM on there in all the other stuff)
Giving the gift of a donation to the FSF? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SMOKING? Thats about the most fucking selfish thing you can 'give'. You aren't even fucking giving anything, just tell the person you don't give a fuck about them, you're more concerned with getting your chance to suck RMS off next year. (its a long line)

Re:Really?

[exomondo]

I can see what they're getting at but every single choice there is only better if you value "software freedom" above all else, and even in some cases they seem to be acting deliberately obtuse. For example you can install GNU/Linux on a Macbook Pro and not only will you have far superior hardware than the thinkpenguin solution but you have the choice to use whatever OS suits you for a particular task.
Then there's Google Drive, sure it's free and your data is accessible to Google but if you want "cloud storage" you can't guarantee that data will always be private no matter who you host it with and if need further protections you will obviously encrypt it anyway.
And what does mediagoblin vs youtube have to do with "gift giving"?

The idea that most people will value software freedom above all else is idiocy so instead they need to focus on making good products, products that appeal to most people and compete with non-free products. At the moment many (not all) things in that list are examples of free (as in freedom) resulting in a crappier product. "Free" needs to result in an equal or better product in comparison but also have the advantage of being free.