On Sun, 2006-03-12 at 13:14 +0200, Shai Berger wrote:
> On Sunday, March 12 2006 12:39, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> > Hi Nadav, Omer,
> > To release a piece of software under a well-understood license, and then
> > suggest that there might be some philosophical problem when people in fact
> > make use of the software *exactly* according to the license is well... and
> > that's why I say that there is no philosophical case.
> >
>
> Of course there is a philosophical case. The issue here is, who is the user.
> While the service operators, when seen as users, are perfectly within their
> rights, if you think of the end-users as users, then this method strips away
> software freedoms 1,2 & 3, and potentially 0.
>
> To say, facing this, that the GPL is "well understood" and that free software
> developers should have no qualms is -- what's english for התממות ?
1. Suppose you use a WiFi card, which can be programmed to transmit also
in frequencies not allotted to WiFi. Suppose that the software which
limits the card to legal frequencies is GPLed but burned into ROM in the
card so that the end-user cannot modify it. Only the card manufacturer
can (freely) modify it.
Do we nevertheless require the card manufacturer to allow users to
modify the card's software, thereby causing interference with their
neighbors and possibly with emergency services, which use those
frequencies to communicate?
Remember that in today's atmosphere, there are several juvenile-minded
people, who are happy to abuse any system open for abuse (spam, script
kidding, viruses, worms, etc.).
2. Suppose you are end-user of a critical medical instrument with
embedded processor. Should your hacker guest be free to modify ("tamper
with") the software in the medical instrument and possibly harm you?
In both cases, the public interest seems to be to allow manufacturers to
use Free Software in preference to proprietary software in those
instruments, but to prevent unauthorized people from actually replacing
the software being used in those instruments.
Before flaming me, please remember that those are questions which I am
throwing into the debate to be discussed. I do not currently have good
answers. Maybe good answers would emerge from our discussions.
I am cross-posting this to discussions@hamakor.org.il in order to move
the discussion there.
--- Omer
--
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