How would you guys feel if the EU suddenly demanded that Debian include or not include certain packages in the main repository, regardless of what Debian's contributors and policies (say, the DFSG) said?

That's the thing about freedom. If you are to have it, then so must the other guy.

Dang,

I knew someone who worked for Sony and had a Vaio with Linux on it (he works for a team that actually did Linux kernel work, though).

Yeah, that seems to be the case.

The customer of the mobile phone manufacturer is the carrier, not the end user who actually ends up "buying" the device.

The modems are layer 2 and below devices. They don't know or care.

Routers are the real problem as far as customer premise equipment goes; however, the relevant functionality is typically in software on most consumer routers. Ostensibly this means that manufacturers can release a firmware upgrade.

I find that the turnover on those router boxes is rather high, so I suspect that newer routers will ship with it and the problem will slowly go away.

I am actually quite happy that someone like CodeWeavers can work on an important Free Software project like wine, and is able to get funding to do so by having real customers!

And yes, wine is pretty amazing these days.

Keep up the good work!

How can threats from untrusted code (or vulnerabilities in trusted code) be able to exploit a JTAG header on the board of the device?

Unless, of course, you think that the owner of the device is somehow a "security threat"? I keep meeting people who think this, and I really don't understand it at all...

(actually, Krstic's Bitfrost system is *does* implement some local physical security, but that is to address a very specific threat: theft)

Actually, it may not have been quite as sophisticated as this new one is. Still pretty cool though.

I hope VICE gets a port of this new code. :)

(hmm, I wonder how hard it would be to implement the loud VIC buzz you'd hear on the audio from a VIC-20 or C64...)

What about the Apple ][ screensaver?

http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/screenshots/

I think it did something very similar.

(hey, first post!)