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

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Am Dienstag 30 Dezember 2008 13:21:21 schrieb 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.

That is not what I meant. 

I meant that the software with which I interact with the camera uses DRM to 
keep me from copying the pictures from my system to some other system, so the 
unfree camera makes my own system betray me. 

Best wishes, 
Arne
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