On Fri, 2012-06-08 at 18:14 +0100, Andrew Haley wrote:
On 06/08/2012 05:42 PM, Adam Jackson wrote:
And - though it pains me that this next thought might actually be unpopular, though closer investigation might reveal that I'm giving the feature too much credit, and without considering or conceding whether such a machine would be non-free - I'm pretty sure I am willing to sacrifice a minor technical point of software freedom for real gains in human freedom.
I suppose I don't know what minor technical point of software freedom you're talking about. I presume it's not the freedom to change a program so it does your computing as you wish, which is scarcely a minor anything.
It's more like "is building or supporting a machine with this kind of lockdown intrinsically non-free". At least, that's an objection I've heard, from people trying to equate SB with DRM or the DMCA, which is a bit fallacious, or from the "Microsoft is involved so it must be bad" crowd. SB's just a technology, I believe positive use can be made of it, and DFSG 6 cuts both ways.
I didn't intend to make it sound like you were advocating that kind of objection, I apologize if I put words in your mouth there.
- ajax