Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Although the literal meaning of "proprietary" is simply "owned by someone", I had more in mind the area of patented technology. I don't believe there are any tablets on the market which don't contain patented hardware.
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Proprietary hardware isn't really an interesting discussion from the standpoint of consumer freedom, because consumers are not generally sharing hardware designs and modifying/reproducing hardware. Even when 3D printers evolve to a stage where this occurs, patents do not limit what consumers can fabricate for their own use. Unlike copyright, anyone can study a patent, and make full deliberate use of the patent to construct something they don't resell -- and they can do so without interference from patents.
Consumer freedom is impacted much more heavily with proprietary software/firmware that imposes restrictions on users and developers. Arduino has software elements that are open, and this is most likely what tompe was referring to when the irrelevant hardware chatter sidetracked him (in what I believe is a neocon attempt to take the spotlight off the more important aspect of devices that support/hinder consumer liberties, as promoters of big business can only lose ground in such discussions).
The
X0-4 Touch is perhaps a better example of an e-reader that's FOSS, because it's not a garage project but rather a functional fully featured e-reading device that has been released and is ready to use. It's also a netbook, but that's beside the point.