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 -- One does not make peace with enemies. One makes peace with former enemies. My own blog is at http://tddpirate.livejournal.com/ My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone. They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which I may be affiliated in any way. WARNING TO SPAMMERS: at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]