Interview with Linus Torvalds (LinuxFR)

Posted May 5, 2011 8:55 UTC (Thu) by nicooo (guest, #69134)
In reply to: Interview with Linus Torvalds (LinuxFR) by mikebenden
Parent article: Interview with Linus Torvalds (LinuxFR)

> It'd be like buying a house, but one of the rooms is locked, and the seller gets mad at you (and might sue you) if you kick the door in and have a look around...

But the house has a power/gas/water meter and you will get sued for having a look inside even when it's on your property.

Interview with Linus Torvalds (LinuxFR)

Posted May 5, 2011 14:00 UTC (Thu) by mikebenden (guest, #74702) [Link] (1 responses)

But the power/gas/water meter is the property of the power/gas/water company, and in many cases is even installed on the outside the house. And before you buy the house, you have (the option) to set up your own power/gas/water service contract with those providers (or not), independently of buying the actual house from its previous owner.

What was the point you were trying to make ?

Interview with Linus Torvalds (LinuxFR)

Posted May 6, 2011 1:11 UTC (Fri) by nicooo (guest, #69134) [Link]

My point is that when you buy a house the power meter isn't sold to you and when you buy hardware there may be parts that they didn't sell you either. For example, I know that I don't have the right to hack my satellite receiver so I can get free PPV.

Every piece of electronics you buy has restrictions on what you can and can't do with it. Just look at the all the logos on the back of whatever it is you're using to read this.