Re: Niches for the Hurd: evaluation method; was: DRM musings, capabilities and stuff

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Am Dienstag 30 Dezember 2008 11:51:05 schrieb Michal Suchanek:
> And how is the computer ever going to not allow sending the photo?

For example because the camera is a test version where you have to pay to 
unlock the photo-sharing feature. 

You can't think of further examples? 
If so, you definitely aren't evil enough for this world ;) 

> If you are running a free system you can do whatever you wish.

Which isn't the case if someone gave me a locked down device running on free 
software. And a "design feature" of Coyotos is that you can very easily do 
that lock down. 

> However, you have to buy a camera that does not refuse to work with a
> free system which you cannot enforce by any technical features or
> legal licensing terms of the system your computer runs. You have to be
> educated about the possibility of DRM and avoid it in devices and
> services you use.

I fully agree, except for the legal licensing part. Naturally you can use a 
device which forbids you by legal means to share photos on a free system. You 
just aren't allowed to distribute such a device with a free system. 

But I'd like to add: 
You should avoid contributing to projects which make it easier to create 
applications which refuse to work with a device built on free software (locked 
down free software is quite similar to unfree software with opened source 
code, so I don't consider a locked down device as "built on free software").  

The freedom of software has a value in itself, and devices which require an 
unfree system deny people their freedom. 


Besides: I just realized that you might have meant your sentence as describing 
problem of free software. I see it as an advantage that treacherous 
applications can't function with free software, so for me your paragraph is a 
a simple statement: Yes, you have to be educated about DRM, regardless of the 
question if you use free software or not. 

Best wishes, 
Arne
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