GNU/Linux World Domination for the Wrong Reasons (Datamation)

>making the incorrect assumption that the existence of free harwardare projects means that
hardware isn't normally free, and a final assertion that is most likely way off base since the
only unfree (not unmodifiable) parts to most hardware is the software. 

While I agree with your overall point, I see a bigger problem here with the post to which you
are responding.  It fails to acknowledge what makes software special in the context of
freedom.  As information, software is (1) non-rival and (2) is both input and output of its
own production process(*).  Considerations such as freedom must be re-evaluated in such a
context, and, indeed, the re-evaluation has been taking place for some time now, such as in
court cases (e.g., software patents).  From the beginning decades ago, Stallman's arguments
have acknowledged the special qualities of software.  

(*)See _Wealth of Networks_, Yochai Benkler.

Notice the use of the word "relative" in my very first phrase.

For the rest, you hair-splitting is unconvincing. While different in different contexts,
freedom, capability and need are not unrelated. You should, in fact, be capable of
understanding the entire operation of proprietary software just by disassembling the code.
After all these are instructions to a CPU. Whether you have the legal freedom to do that or
whether the simple possibility of doing this constitutes freedom to modify it once you
understand it in its entirety are entirely separate from your capability to understand the
opcodes. Of course you would argue that this is not true freedom because you can't make
modifications in your preferred form (source code) and the APIs are unpublished, but then you
could just be called lazy: sucks being you if the "code" isn't available in your preferred
form or if you have to disassemble the entirety of the underlying layers to make your program
work. But it remains that in your basement you are *relatively* "free" to do these things.

With regards to your car example, then you're wrong. Sure I am free to bring my car to any
mechanic I want. Much like any regular user is free to bring their computer to whichever
computer repair store they want. But at the end of the day replacement parts (whether they are
software parts or car parts) are going to have to conform to interfaces which are of no choice
to you. And sometimes, in some key car components, you have no choice but to buy the original
manufacturer's parts, regardless of who's repairing your car. In that specific case, arguing
whether spending the appropriate amount of time to reverse engineer said part makes you
"capable" or "free" is really silly. At the end of the day you just want the car to work.
That's what normal users want from software.

With regards to hardware, then you either didn't understand what I wrote or it serves you to
deform it. The fact is you have no access to the vhdl or whatever "code" was used by the
manufacturer to create the chips you use. In fact while you are "free" to change the chips on
your motherboard, most users aren't really capable of doing that, especially since that would
mean have to reverse-engineer the rest of the board so that the replacement fits perfectly.
Much like the disassembly example above: you are "free" but you likely won't take the time and
don't have the proper equipment, so you aren't really "capable" of doing it in a reasonable
time-frame and, in the end, you aren't really free. Nor are you "free" to uncap a chip,
replace the silicon and "fix" or hack it. Your only freedom then is to ditch the hardware and
use something else. Again, I am totally on the spot of saying with some degree of confidence
that *all* free software advocates use unfree hardware and see no problem with that
whatsoever.

Informing users that they have no "freedom" to have their software modified or fixed has no
bearing on the fact that most users wouldn't consider that such "capability" is any more
important than the "capability" for an auto-mechanic to hack their breaks. It might be of
interest to car mechanics amongst themselves, but not their customers.

There is, as a reply to your post rightly points out, some truth to the assertion that there
is a difference between software and the rest of the wares created by humans. That I agree
with, and that's why I've put a lot of the software I did under the GPL. The intangible yet
tangible nature of software does give it properties unlike other embodiments of human thought.

Personally I've found it astounding that our daily lives are controlled by software that only
a handful have vetted. Surely there's a moral argument to be made about making such code
available for all to see.

Regardless of software's special properties, though, it remains that users have little use for
the freedom granted to them by free software. Only the capabilities made available to them by
software matter. And that's why free software will continue to be chosen out in favor of
proprietary software because capability comes before freedom. Having a free car with no seats
is interesting, but it doesn't provide me with the capability to answer my need to go from
point A to point B.

Karim Yaghmour
Founder and CEO
Kryptiva inc.