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

[Michal Suchanek]

On 30/12/2008, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> wrote:
> 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.
>

If you meant that the camera itself cannot run free software if it
disallows sharing your pictures that might be true for GPL3 software,
not free software in general.

However, the camera software need not be very complex and the
manufacturers have choice of wide range of software with which they
can accomplish what they want so I see no point here.

Also the practical difference between the pictures being
hardware-encrypted and being stored on internal memory chip with the
built-in software not providing the option to get the pictures out is
minimal. If you need the pictures *now* the ability to
reverse-engineer the camera or modify the firmware source and rebuild
it is not very useful.

It would be nice if you could but it does not solve the problem at
hand which is solved by buying a working camera in the first place.

Thanks

Michal