*countable infinities only

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2012-06-18 at 14:27 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
> On Jun 18, 2012, at 11:21 AM, Reindl Harald wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > Am 18.06.2012 19:18, schrieb Adam Williamson:
> > 
> >> I hesitate to put words in people's mouths, and correct me if I'm wrong,
> >> but it reads to me as if Jay and others are arguing from an incorrect
> >> That premise is to assume that there is a God-given right for
> >> people who own computing devices to retrofit alternative operating
> >> systems onto those devices.
> >> 
> >> I want to put it out there that this is _not true_
> > 
> > it is true
> > 
> > i buy a computer
> > i do not rent it
> > i pay money, i own teh device after giving my money
> 
> Yes but you might own a device that disallows by design applying an
> alternative OS.  You don't have a right to own a device that allows by
> design applying an alternative OS. If you agree to terms of use that
> proscribe the means by which you'd apply or use an alternative OS,
> then you're violating the agreement. So you kinda need to know what
> you're buying before you own it.

I think we're headed off down the side alley again.

Re-reading my paragraph above, I admit I phrased it somewhat badly. A
convincing case could at least be made, under the first sale doctrine,
that you have the right to _try_ and retrofit alternative operating
systems onto any device you purchase. As I said later in my mail, the
question of whether doing it when the manufacturer has made no provision
to let you do it or has actively tried to prevent you doing it can ever
be illegal is really kind of a side issue to the main debate in this
thread, and I'm trying to avoid it.

What I should have said is that we have no God-given right to demand
that any computing device offered for sale must be explicitly designed
to accommodate the retrofitting of other operating systems or software,
or indeed to demand that any device available not be designed expressly
to prevent it. What I was trying to correct was an impulse to assume
that the x86/BIOS world where systems are explicitly designed to make
execution of arbitrary code easy is the One True Way for things to be,
rather than an accident of history, and anyone doing anything different
must inevitably be guilty of some kind of crime or immorality and must
be fought to the last ditch.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net