Bonum Certa Men Certa

Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 26, 2025

Richard Stallman

2023: Google Becoming More Like Apple (User-Hostile Lock-Down, Users' Software of Choice Maligned as 'Sideloading'), Not the Other Way Around

June 2025: Google Restricts Android Sideloading—What It Means for User Autonomy and the Future of Mobile Freedom

Today: Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited) | Android Becoming More User-Hostile With Lock-downs and Digital Restrictions (DRM)

People used to say that RMS was "paranoid", but as it turns out he was right. He predicted what would happen. This is what RMS wrote almost 30 years ago [1, 2]: "It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that." (The Right to Read by Richard Stallman; Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman)

We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading" (some Lenovo laptops would not boot anything other than Windows) and UEFI 'secure boot' is another "Anti-Sideloading" mechanism, as more people will find out on 9/11.

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