Hi Duncan, Duncan Patton a Campbell wrote on Mon, Apr 08, 2019 at 05:53:31PM -0600:
> One of the significant reasons behind my own espousal of open systems has > had to do with my reading of the Microsoft EULA and subsequent concerns over > the ownership of data stored. It would appear that these sort of issues > are starting to be considered in a wider context: > > https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html That author is framing the issues in a misleading way making facts which are blatantly obvious to common sense sound new and astonishing, such that they have something to write an article about - whereas in fact, it all boils down to these three obvious points: 1. When you buy a book, carry it home (either the printed copy or a file that you store locally on your own computer). Don't accept buying a book under the condition that it must remain in the bookstore and you can only read it there - which will obviously only work as long as the bookstore exists, maintains appropriate opening hours, treats you fairly, and as long as you live close by. Yes, i may want to read a book i have bought while travelling in places where there is no network access. 2. If it is encrypted, make sure you decrypt it before storing it on your disk. You wouldn't accept getting the printed book delivered in a locked box, having to lend the key from the shop each and every time you want to read in it, right? 3. If the result of decryption is encoded, make sure you have free software which is able to decode it. You wouldn't accept getting the book delivered in a foreign language you cannot understand, such that you have to ask the shop for translation help each and every time you want to read in it, right? If any of the three conditions is violated, you are not "buying", you are merely *renting*. And yes, when i rent a car, even with a long-term contract, then i fully expect that i will have to return it in the future, at the latest when the rental company closes shop. All that said, even if you run said decryption and decoding software on OpenBSD, this is at most tangentially related to the topic of this list. ;-) Yours, Ingo
