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Free Nationwide WiFi
Renegade:
if it's free, you're not the customer, you're the product
-Renegade (February 05, 2013, 10:02 PM)
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Does this apply to Linux and other open source software?
-mwb1100 (February 06, 2013, 05:13 PM)
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That is an excellent observation/comment.
I think the answer there is "it depends".
There's an intentional component behind any action, and that is an important factor.
I think your observation may apply to Canonical, though you'd be better off asking someone who knows more about them, e.g. 40hz.
For a lot of other FLOSS software, I'd say no. The motivations there are not commercial and there is no real commercial component.
It also applies to some non-GNU GPL licenses, e.g. Mozilla, Apache, BSD, WTFPL, etc. I think most of those kinds of licenses are not conducive to the type of exploitation that you find in the "free as in no money" free software/service world, e.g. Facebook, etc.
You can commercialize even public domain materials. This is in part what Aaron Swartz was up to - taking public domain materials back to the public.
So, it's not like there's anything that isn't open to abuse - anything can be turned to a negative purpose. Some things are simply more prone to abuse than others, e.g. When was the last time you heard about anyone abusing baking soda or dish washing liquid?
Stoic Joker:
When was the last time you heard about anyone abusing baking soda-Renegade (February 06, 2013, 05:23 PM)
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Does cutting you coke with it count?
Renegade:
When was the last time you heard about anyone abusing baking soda-Renegade (February 06, 2013, 05:23 PM)
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Does cutting you coke with it count?
-Stoic Joker (February 06, 2013, 07:14 PM)
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Hahahaha~! ;D
Oh god... sigh... Yeah, I suppose that I'm just not all that up-to-date on self-destructive behaviour...
Guess that really does go to show that you really *CAN* abuse anything!
Edvard:
It happened in my backwater hometown quite a few years ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/opinion/07kristof.html?ex=1124078400&en=ab2bd0a4499e9466&ei=5070&emc=eta1&_r=0
https://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/10/18/high_speed_internet_among_the_onions/
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2004/02/23/story2.html
Haven't heard a peep about it since then, and my folks never knew it existed (big surprise), so I don't know if it's still up or if the whole program collapsed under it's own weight once the watermelon farmer's kids discovered pr0n and Warcraft, dunno. Interesting case study, though.
nite_monkey:
If free wifi appears where I live, I'm not going anywhere near it with any of my hardware. Not after watching hak5! Who knows how many "pineapples" I might run into.
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