[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Sgt.Stubby

You don't realize the significance of the the baseband OS (the master OS that boots first) -- a binary "hardware driver" blob that controls all Android phones. The Android kernel is just a virtual "guest" to the baseband. Everything is ultimately under the control of a blackbox that the phone carrier controls. By design, the baseband OS is updated by the cell tower that the phone registers to.

You're assuming a lot about what I do and don't realise.

The baseband OS is there to allow the Android OS to function. If you're suggesting that the phone carrier might update it in a way that stops a user-hacked version of Android working - it's extremely unlikely that they would be able to do that without also disabling Android in general including non-hacked versions.

So if I have an Android phone I can modify the most important bits of software that run on it. There are a few bits I can't get to. But the alternative that rms and apparently you propose is not to use such a device at all because of the small part that I can't hack. That to me is an extreme position. I choose to give up some freedom for utility. As we all do in many areas of life because freedom is not an absolute.

Regarding absolutes- where do you get the idea that rms advocates absolute extremes?

From reading what he has written over the years.

Have you heard any of his talks?

A few.

E.g., with copyright, he doesn't oppose it; he just opposes absurd lengths of time (75+ years for Mickey Mouse, beyond the death of the creator, for example). And regarding open source-- he does not oppose writing code for profit and charging for works, so long as the consumer is free to fully use it.

He opposes the idea of copyright on software. He thinks that in an ideal world it shouldn't exist but that since it does he uses it - in the form of the GPL - to try to promote free software.

By the way, he wouldn't thank you for comparing software copyright with copyright on movies, books etc. He specifically separates them, it's why he doesn't like the term "intellectual property" because it conflates what he sees as different things. I suspect one of the reasons he does this is because his ideas about software freedom applied to creative works would never fly at all, never mind the limited way in which they have for software.

What "compromise" would you propose?

I propose that we do what we do in other areas of life and balance our freedoms against those of others. If I find that it's useful for me to give up the freedom to change some software in exchange for the usefulness it provides that that is a decision I am free to make. I am therefore not against copyright on software. Indeed I am a software engineer and I make money through both open source and proprietary software.

rms' stance is that the consumer has compromised way too much, and that things have changed in the past 100 years, so the "deal needs to be renegotiated" (his words in a talk around 2005). Renegotiating implies that rms supports mutual compromise.

And in many ways I agree. I certainly agree it's time to look again at copyright lengths, especially for creative works. But I'm not against copyright per se, and I certainly am not against it for software.