safety-critical systems can use ROM

safety-critical systems can use ROM

Posted Oct 19, 2006 1:46 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
In reply to: safety-critical systems can use ROM by bignose
Parent article: FSF should separate GPLv3 changes (Linux.com)

> No. It's the contract with the service provider that determines *whether and how the service is provided*. If the device owner decides they still want to have changes made to the device, that's their choice.

Again, not necessarily. Contracts can contain all kinds of promises asked from the user. They can even ask that the user not be allowed to modify the device *at all*, but they would probably ask that user cannot modify the device and then connect it to the same network. The effect (for the provider) would be the same.

Attempts to cirumvent technical protection measures may be legal in some countries and illegal in others. In any case, an attempt to connect such a device to provider's network would be a violation of the contract, if that was one of the conditions. An attempt to connect any other device to such a network would probably be some sort of trespassing.

> To put it another way: The service contract gets to say things only within the bounds of the service. The device can be used for a much wider range of things not included in that contract, and the service provider has nothing to say about that.

That also may not be true. A contract can contain the language that prevents the user from using the device for any other purpose.

Contracts are private agreements between parties. They can contain all kinds of "surrender of freedom", as they are entered into voluntarily.

> The legal owner of the device should be allowed to do anything they want with the device, *including* breach their contract, and wear the consequences. It's not for the device vendor to second-guess the legal system and deliberately make it technically impossible to do things the vendor doesn't like.

They would not be second-guessing the legal system at all. They could do it through contracts. In some countries they may even have out-of-contract protection through DMCA and such.

> Not with free software, anyway.

Well, that's the issue here, really. I don't have a definitive answer to that. I'm just trying to present variuos points of view that parties involved may have.

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