Group: Giving Guide Suggestions

Latest revision as of 12:07, 10 February 2017

Note: This page is not the guide; The guide is at fsf.org/givingguide. This page is for giving recommendations of products we should consider for the guide. The items listed here should not be taken as FSF recommendations.

Each year the FSF publishes a giving guide with recommendations of products that respect your freedom. This group is a place for you to provide your ideas for the buying guide.

Thanks for helping your fellow FSF members make ethical choices this holiday season. Happy holidays!

Guidelines

Make a new category if necessary, but please check existing ones first
Provide links to detailed descriptions of the products when possible.
If it's not obvious, provide an explanation of why you chose the product(s) for the section you put it/them into.
For "greater than" pairs, the items should be relatively interchangeable as far as functionality is concerned.
The FSF may curate this list by removing suggestions that have been incorporate into the guide, and any that are not in keeping with the spirit of the guide.

Ideas

Hardware

A bootable flash drive with free software as an inexpensive gift
Devices with free OSs preinstalled from ~~http://swappa.com/~~ <= Find a different site please. That one is jailed in CloudFlare's walled-garden and thus inappropriate for any freedom-respecting projects.
If you can't find a device with a free OS preinstalled, get one and install the OS yourself, then give it to your friend. This makes an even better present than something you paid for but didn't work on.
a dreamplug for beeing used as a freedombox?
Acoustic guitar from your local music shop > Squier by Fender USB Stratocaster Guitar for iBad from Apple Store
TV-Recorder: MythTV > TiVO - Does someone sell ready-to-use no-tinkering-required MythTV boxes?
BookLiberator Beta BookLiberator is a device for scanning and digitizing books, using all free software. The Beta version is on sale now at the QuestionCopyright.com store.

device	freedom-hostile/unethical	relatively civil-liberties-respecting alternative	notes/references
CPUs	Intel, AMD, Marvell	MediaTek (ARM)	Intel is worse than AMD and Marvell, but avoid all.
DiY embedded systems	Raspberry Pi	OLinuXino, Arduino?, Beagleboard?
e-book readers (w/e-paper)	Sony eReader	OLPC tablet or OLPC laptop (dual-mode displays; free-OS preinstalled)
gaming (full console)	wii	?
gaming (portable)	PlayStation Portable (PSP)	Pandora (console)?
mobile phones	Apple, HP, Sony, Samsung	Fairphone, Blackphone, list of OSS phones	All mobile phones are tracking devices and thus a bad idea to have at all. They're all unethical to different extents. This row exists only to indicate the lesser of evils to consumers not disciplined enough to avoid mobile phones entirely.
PCs/laptops	Apple, Dell, HP, IBM, Samsung, Sony	OLPC, Asus (AMD-based).	Clevo & Librem are almost ethical, but they feed intel
printers	all others	Oki	For detailed ethical rationale, see which printer and scanner brands are ethical.
scanners	all others	Umax, Mustek, Doxie, Avision	For detailed ethical rationale, see which printer and scanner brands are ethical.
tablet PCs	iPad	OLPC tablet

note: OLPCs are hard to buy, but if you can get one they are far more ethical than the alternatives.

See the long list of freedom-hostile brands.

Other

homebrew vorbis players based on arduino and mp3-shield inside fritzing black box (link to store?)
Donations to the FSF or free software development projects in friend's names
Gifts from the shop.fsf.org
Give your friend a homemade coupon promising to set up their computer with a free GNU/Linux distribution, help them learn to use it and help them maintain it.
Clothes from this http://www.freewear.org/ . You'd have to mention that freewear donates some money to the FSF. <= okay, but everything is 100% cotton, thus bad for the environment.
DRM-free ebooks, including books about free software
Real, paper books - for instance normal books, or books on free software, preferably under a free (software) license (depending on the kind of works such as documentation, views of an author etc.)
Recommending a hosting service that respects people's freedom to be in control of their machine
A trip to free software conferences such as FOSDEM?
Buy a product from or donate to fritzing.org, download the free software

Software

(Note: giving someone software might be more inconvenient for that person than if they just got it themself in their preferred way.)

Electronic Design Tools: download gEDA ( http://www.geda-project.org ) or Kicad ( http://www.kicad-pcb.org ) > Eagle ( http://www.cadsoftusa.com )
3-D CAD/CAM: download FreeCAD ( http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page ) > CorelCAD ( http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4120067&cid=catalog20038&segid=752 )
Animation: download Blender ( http://www.blender.org ) > Adobe ( http://www.adobe.com/products/flash.html )
Music: LMMS ( http://lmms.sourceforge.net/ ) > Ableton Live ( https://www.ableton.com/en/live/ )
Games: GOG ( http://www.gog.com/games ) > Steam ( http://store.steampowered.com/ )
Movies: GOG ( http://www.gog.com/movies ) > Netflix ( https://www.netflix.com/ )

Similar guides and other resources for inspiration

"issue" is not in the list (interest, location, project, school) of allowed values for the "Organized around" property.

This page was a featured resource in January 2016.

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 * Devices with free OSs preinstalled from <s>http://swappa.com/</s> <= Find a different site please.  That one is jailed in CloudFlare's walled-garden and thus inappropriate for any freedom-respecting projects.
 * If you can't find a device with a free OS preinstalled, get one and install the OS yourself, then give it to your friend. This makes an even better present than something you paid for but didn't work on.
-* [http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Products Arduino boards?]
 * a dreamplug for beeing used as a freedombox?
-* OLinuXino > Raspberry Pi
 * Acoustic guitar from your local music shop > Squier by Fender USB Stratocaster Guitar for iBad from Apple Store
 * TV-Recorder: MythTV > TiVO - Does someone sell ready-to-use no-tinkering-required MythTV boxes?
-* E-bookreaders (with epaper): OLPC (dual-mode display; free-OS preinstalled) > Sony eReader
-* Tablet PC: OLPC > iPad
-* Portable gaming devices: Pandora (console)? > PlayStation Portable (PSP)
-* Gaming devices: ? > Wii
 * [http://bookliberator.com/ BookLiberator Beta] BookLiberator is a device for scanning and digitizing books, using all free software.  The Beta version is [http://questioncopyright.org/bookliberator.html on sale now] at the QuestionCopyright.com store.
-* Printers: '''Oki''' is the short answer.  Long answer in [https://steemit.com/liberty/@apertus-cogitari/which-printer-and-scanner-brands-are-ethical-get-your-boycott-on-the-evil-has-been-charted which printer and scanner brands are ethical] article.
-* Scanners: '''Mustek''', '''Umax''', '''Doxie''', or '''Avision''' is the shortlist.  For detailed ethical rationale, see [https://steemit.com/liberty/@apertus-cogitari/which-printer-and-scanner-brands-are-ethical-get-your-boycott-on-the-evil-has-been-charted which printer and scanner brands are ethical].
+{| class="wikitable"
+! style="text-align:left;"| device
+! freedom-hostile/unethical
+! relatively civil-liberties-respecting alternative
+! notes/references
+|-
+|CPUs
+|Intel, AMD, Marvell
+|MediaTek (ARM)
+|Intel is worse than AMD and Marvell, but avoid all.
+|-
+|DiY embedded systems
+|Raspberry Pi
+|OLinuXino, [http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Products Arduino]?, Beagleboard?
+|
+|-
+|e-book readers (w/e-paper)
+|Sony eReader
+|[http://one.laptop.org/about/olpc-tablet OLPC tablet] or [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-4_Touch OLPC laptop] (dual-mode displays; free-OS preinstalled)
+|
+|-
+|gaming (full console)
+|wii
+|?
+|
+|-
+|gaming (portable)
+|PlayStation Portable (PSP)
+|Pandora (console)?
+|
+|-
+|mobile phones
+|Apple, HP, Sony, Samsung
+|[https://www.fairphone.com/ Fairphone], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackphone Blackphone], [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_phones list of OSS phones]
+|All mobile phones are tracking devices and thus a bad idea to have at all.  They're all unethical to different extents.  This row exists only to indicate the lesser of evils to consumers not disciplined enough to avoid mobile phones entirely.
+|-
+|PCs/laptops
+|Apple, Dell, HP, IBM, Samsung, Sony
+|OLPC, Asus (AMD-based).
+|Clevo & Librem are almost ethical, but they feed intel
+|-
+|printers
+|all others
+|Oki
+|For detailed ethical rationale, see [https://steemit.com/liberty/@apertus-cogitari/which-printer-and-scanner-brands-are-ethical-get-your-boycott-on-the-evil-has-been-charted which printer and scanner brands are ethical].
+|-
+|scanners
+|all others
+|Umax, Mustek, Doxie, Avision
+|For detailed ethical rationale, see [https://steemit.com/liberty/@apertus-cogitari/which-printer-and-scanner-brands-are-ethical-get-your-boycott-on-the-evil-has-been-charted which printer and scanner brands are ethical].
+|-
+|tablet PCs
+|iPad
+|[http://one.laptop.org/about/olpc-tablet OLPC tablet]
+|
+|}
 note: OLPCs are hard to buy, but if you can get one they are far more ethical than the alternatives.
+See the [https://steemit.com/shopping/@apertus-cogitari/tech-brands-that-progressive-buyers-should-avoid-some-gifts-take-away-more-than-they-give long list of freedom-hostile brands].
 ===Other===
@@ Line 43: / Line 94: @@
 * Gifts from the shop.fsf.org
 * Give your friend a homemade coupon promising to set up their computer with a free GNU/Linux distribution, help them learn to use it and help them maintain it.
-* Clothes from this http://www.freewear.org/ . You'd have to mention that freewear donates some money to the FSF.
+* Clothes from this http://www.freewear.org/ . You'd have to mention that freewear donates some money to the FSF. <= okay, but everything is 100% cotton, thus bad for the environment.
 * DRM-free ebooks, including books about free software
 * Real, paper books - for instance normal books, or books on free software, preferably under a free (software) license (depending on the kind of works such as documentation, views of an author etc.)
@@ Line 66: / Line 117: @@
 * http://www.defectivebydesign.org/holiday
 * http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printer_buying_guide
-* https://uniluug.org/wiki/2012_libre_gift_guide
 [[organized around::issue| ]]
@@ Line 72: / Line 122: @@
 [[Category:DRM]]
 [[Category:LibrePlanet]]
+{{featured resource|month=January|year=2016}}

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