Proprietary Parts in OLPC Project Draw Criticism 247
An anonymous reader writes "The Jem Report is running a story about the recent controversy surrounding the hardware used in OLPC laptops. Some devices require NDA's to write drivers, and some parts require firmware that cannot be freely redistributed. Richard Stallmann and Theo de Raadt oppose the use of such devices. Jim Getty defends OLPC's choice (de Raadts response). Jem Matzan has interviewed all sides and published the answers."
OLPC = One Laptop Per Child (Score:2, Informative)
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I did have working sanitation, an electrical grid, viable farming and transportation infrastructures and there were no wars or genocides going on. Seems like the're going about it a bit backwards.
Re:OLPC = One Laptop Per Child (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course you are right, but the point is that we hope to get a lot of bang for the buck with the OLPC project. The laptop could be a great educational tool. Also, books could be provided electronicaly, thus saving on the costs of books and paper, which after a few years of schooling, is not negligeable.
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Not if you amortize them over an entire village, state, or country of children and you don't insist on the highest technology to provide it. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the children being talked about here could also use the same $100 for food for six months.
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Get my point? If the world is to advance technologically, we can't really afford to have a set of people who aren't educated and equipped to the level of everyone else. The greater the division, the worse things become.
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If they don't like the fact that they have no technology perhaps they should stop being leeches and invent their own instead of flying planes into buildings because they can't compete.
Having all people educated to the same level means a) a massive waste of resources or b) not educating people who really need it. Smart people need education, dumb people don't.
African and Arab nations seem to import western weapons just fine. Perhaps one day they will realize its better to buy farm equiptment, et
Encouraging peace can be good business (Score:2)
You can make a lot more money off of a country as a trading partner than just as a weapons market. In the former case there's actually wealth created there,
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This is not an undocumented phenomenon. War can easily be carried out without guns, look at most of our history. However, once somebody has guns, unless oth
Great analysis (Score:2)
I don't see a problem with *firmware* blobs - provided they have an eternal and unlimited license for use. Blobs are a security problem when they run in the kernel (e.g. nvidia, wireless drivers). Firmware blobs are just a way to save the cost of a ROM. (High speed chips typical copy ROM to RAM rather than run from ROM, because RAM is faster.) I still haven't figu
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I think that you are overlooking the part where people had to learn how to build for you that working sanitation, an electrical grid, viable farming and transportation. Most countries have the people and natural resources to better the lives of all their people, but what they most lack is communication and the bas
Theo's right (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Theo's right (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, Theo has critized intel for not releasing specs and releasing instead just open source drivers for lots of their products. There're tons of companies that will even sue you if you try to reverse engineer their hardware devices but hey, because we're the OSS leaders and we've nothing better to do, let's critize the companies that do release opensource drivers and no specs, instead of wasting all your efforts into the ones that don't do even _that_.
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Its not like there is only one wifi chipset vendor, Marvell was picked probably because they offered the lowest price at the beginning of the project. But I can see others offering even lower prices just to be able to profit from the good PR that comes from helping this project.
As Theo pointed out, there are several vendors that offer chipsets with similar functionality AND support open drivers.
And its important to keep this project as open as possible, because it should be like an standart platform
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I don't think you can apply typical 1st world hareware replacement norms to this case. I think every attempt will be made to keep using things long long past when they would be trashed in a 1st world country.
What is asked for by OpenBSD (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a common misunderstanding on Slashdot as well, and is seen every time OpenBSD uses public pressure (after months and years of private e-mail correspondance has failed) to get hardware vendors give hardware documentation (freely, not under NDA) and reasonable distribution rights of firmware. Actually, it is quite sad to see so post extolling the glory of GPL and in the next sentence demands the latest binary only driver.
Make a good contract (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, good or bad, the part is NOT replaceable without harming the end product significantly.
If there's concern that Marvell (the chip maker) will randomly drop support for their product at one point of time, things should not be left to guesses but this should simply and plainly be covered in the contracts.
I also am susprised at the opinion that OLPC is targeted at OSS community. It has never been isn't and won't be. The goal is efficient, capable product using efficient solutions to solve a concrete proplem, of children having laptops with network connectivity for education, discussions, information exchange, communication and so on.
Don't forget: not everything proprietary is evil. If WindowsCE would provide much better and cheaper solution, OLPC would use it without thinking twice about it. Windows CE in fact *was* considered briefly at a point.
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If it's not, than why aren't they using OS X [wsj.com]?
According to their manifesto [laptop.org], they are indeed targetting OSS. Maybe not the OSS community, but that community's ideals.
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Sadly, NDA and binary drivers are accepted by a large part of that community.
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I understand your point about the utility of the Marvell part. The contract idea is also good, but I'm not sure it's doable. Setting aside whether or not the chip maker would be willing to be so encumbered, there are plenty of issues that a contract won't remedy. The biggest in my mind is t
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It's proclaiming that it is OSS. All the while, they are including lots of proprietary stuff in it. They are riding on the OSS coattails. If they weren't harping how the were Open, I don't think they'd be getting the flak they are.
If you are proclaiming being 'Open' is one of the big bonuses and selling points of what you are doing, you probably really ought to put in some real effort to actually being open. Otherwise, I think I'd shut up about proclaiming how 'Op
I'd also like to note... (Score:5, Interesting)
- Jim Gettys
Locking in a new market (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does MS have a de facto monopoly on the OS market? Because their software is the best? Don't make me laugh. Because it is the most stable? *smirk* Because it is the most convenient? *pets Apple*
No. Because everyone grew up with it, knows how to use it and, well, old dogs don't really enjoy learning new tricks.
Now, in Africa, we're back to base one. Anything or anyone could get a hold of people who have never had a computer before and have no preferences because they are "used" to a certain flavor or appearance of the OS. There, every OS, every piece of hardware is on equal ground, provided it's affordable.
NDAs and CS software would start to build the foundation of yet another monopoly there. With OS, it is way harder, CS gives you an edge over your competitors. And once the people get "used" to having this kind of chip or that kind of software on their PC, the lock in has started.
So even if it means only 90 out of 100 kids instead of all of them get a PC, OS is the right way to choose in the long run. Just trying to push a computer into every hand right now is quite shortsighted, simply because with CS you're just handing over yet another market to vendor lock in.
Not about OS vs CS (Score:2)
While I agree with your post, this debate isn't about open source vs closed source. It's really about open documentation vs closed documentation.
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If your goal is to put computers in the hands of people because it empowers them to explore their world, then that is your goal. If your goal is the spread of open source software, then that is your goal.
Clearly the project is dealing with issues above and beyond "do we use Windows or Linux?" Rather, they're asking "Is there an open alternative to this chipset that doesn't use 5x the power?" And the answer is simply "no." by going with the alter
Re:Locking in a new market (Score:5, Insightful)
When was the last time people felt locked-in by device drivers?
You're kidding, right? Device drivers are one of the largest sources of computer lock-in ever. In fact, it was a device driver (a printer driver, to be specific) that motivated RMS to start the Free Software movement. Until the last couple of years, device drivers were the most oft-quoted reason why switching to an F/LOSS operating system wasn't feasible, and they're still very high on the list.
Device drivers matter. A lot. Maybe only programmers deal with them directly, but end-users certainly feel the pain when they're not available or don't work.
That said, as I mentioned in another post, this conflict isn't about device driver availability or even device driver source, it's about device documentation. Theo wants it, Marvell won't give it, Getty and company have found a way to work around the issue by getting it under NDA so they can write open source firmware and drivers.
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The goal isn't to promote OSS. Well, it is, but not for the sake of its own. The reason to promote OSS is simply that the people there are not going to be dependent on the goodwill of
Good intentions, faulty reasoning. (Score:2)
IMO its a bit different with computers. OSS just isn't up to par yet with Windows and Mac OS X from a regular user standpoint. There's also a bit of pride and prestiege. Just because these people are the poorest people on Earth does not mean they want to use what to them are "second class operating systems" that can't run the software that their friends and fa
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Obligatory (sorry) (Score:2, Funny)
They're right to oppose them (Score:2)
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I think we can safely say that led fans, clear cases, and useless aluminum wings are not in the cards for these machines...
I'm mixed on this (Score:2)
Lack of compromise can be messy. But in the wide world o' technology compromise can often equal crap...particularly with regard to corporate interest, marketing, and profit motive.
On the other hand, the things discussed here are a)documentation and b)distribution rights.
These are both things very easily
Crazy Architecture (Score:2)
So this thing has both an ARM and a souped-up 486 (aka Cyrix 5x86 aka National Semiconductor Geode aka AMD Geode)?
Why not just ditch x86 and go ARM exclusively? Is x86 binary compatibility that important?
You could even labe
Am I missing something here? (Score:5, Informative)
"A GPL Linux device driver for the Marvell wireless chip, the Libertas driver, still under development but also fully functional can be found in our GIT tree.
We are having open firmware for the Marvell wireless chip developed by Meraki. I don't know yet what license that code will be released under, though would expect it would likely be one or more of the MIT, LGPL or GPL licenses; but we'll have to think through the usage cases and needs of the communities involved before we can make that choice."
So yes, open and free drivers and firmwares are being developed as we speak. So is this an issue not about what OLPC will use in the future, but about what they are temporarily using at this very moment?
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Theo is right, the long tail. (Score:2)
Theo's response was a very short incisive critique that exposes the guts of the hardware argument. On one side, manufacturers and their shills all want disposable hardware. Is it OK if every child has a laptop but the parts from their old one are leaching lead into their water supply and they are too dumb to use them? Driver maintenance helps keep hardware out of landfills. If the service life of a piece of hardware is extended, the cost of recycling its toxic parts becomes affordable. Software (long term d
The real goal of OLPC (Score:3, Interesting)
By the way, hasn't the Slashdot population learned yet that the overwhelming majority of humans in any nation are never ever ever going to be programmers?
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Computers existed in the United States before Windows you know but their usage didn't explode until Microsoft created an operating system that was easy enough to use for just about anyone to pick up.
Historical revisionism. Computer use was exploding with the Apple II, CP/M and assorted other home computers. M$ was just one of many players. M$ was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and rode the wave when IBM decided to join in.
Thus it being open source or not is irrelevant.
It's
marvell documentation (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway I'm sure there are hardware vendors who can deliver the needed hardware and do it without holding back information, for such a big order as OLPC will make. Missed chances and such...
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Re:Just because 'they' oppose it... (Score:4, Insightful)
But then the OLPC project should say so and not piggy-tail on the percieved value of open source. Understandably, several are disappointed.
Re:Just because 'they' oppose it... (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS and Theo are trying to use this project as a soapbox to further their own political views, and that disgusts me.
Those political views created open source, without which the OLPC project could not achieve its goals.
These are all good people doing good things, and they mostly share the same goals. There's a disagreement over which of the goals is most important, and some of them (Theo) tend to be a little bombastic, but there's nothing to be disgusted about.
Just because 'they' oppose "the one true way". (Score:2, Insightful)
They couldn't? My how full of yourselfs, you all are. The straightest path for the project may have been OSS, but I seriously doubt that OSS is the ONLY WAY.
Re:Just because 'they' oppose "the one true way". (Score:5, Informative)
The straightest path for the project may have been OSS, but I seriously doubt that OSS is the ONLY WAY.
Yes, it is the only way, because OSS is *part* of the OLPC project's goals. The project not only wants to provide laptops, it wants to provide *open* laptops, so that kids in impoverished countries can poke into the internals and learn how their computers work, and how to change how their computers work. The project wants to help educate a new generation of programmers and computer scientists as well as provide all of the other educational benefits. OSS is critically important to that goal.
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It would seem that, once again, we should be subjected to inflamed egos rather than concentrating on the task at hand. Perhaps RSM and TdR should reconsider their positions in light of the real goal.
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The ability of these kids to hack the internals is precisely one of the key ways in which this laptop improves their educational prospects through the availability of affordable computing resources.
The great thing about Free So
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Re:Just because 'they' oppose it... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course you were sharing, just like RMS.
You are right, they didn't create "open source", but they are key to its continued existance.
The problem is that there was a point in time where corporations decided that it was a bad thing, and they started imposing restrictions on that, like NDAs and tough licenses on code.
The FSF was created to protect what you did with your friends, and has the consequence of being useful globally.
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I agree with you, for all I find the comparison with the Pontifex Maximus problematic.
RMS is someone whose reasoning I disagree with fundamentally, but still admire. He's played an extremist hand quite consistently, and has achieved much good.
Stylistically, I like TdR better. RMS's attempt to base his thought on ethics, withou
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Not True at all (Score:2)
check this out [olpcnews.com]
Intel's Classmate PC is beefier than the OLPC - faster processor (900MHz), 1GB of flash (double the current iteration of half a gig), twice the RAM, XP embedded SP2, and costs about $100 more due to the larger processor and memory.
AND you don't have to buy them a million at a time like the OLPC.
Initial prototypes have generated a great deal of interest, and Intel claims that orders h
Re:Not True at all (Score:5, Informative)
Intel's Classmate PC is beefier than the OLPC - faster processor (900MHz), 1GB of flash (double the current iteration of half a gig), twice the RAM, XP embedded SP2, and costs about $100 more due to the larger processor and memory.
And due to the closed-source operating system, does not provide the same educational potential as the OLPC. Allowing kids to tinker with the guts of the software is part of OLPC's goals, and the Classmate does not achieve them.
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Filesystems, network protocols, etc are all modular.
Assuming you're willing and able to start from scratch, or perhaps from some example code. Having existing, working code to use as your starting point is incredibly empowering. Not only that, there's nothing that convinces you that there's nothing about your computer that's out of your control or beyond your understanding like being able to read, understand and change the code running it.
That second point is one that's difficult for Windows users to
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Anyway the other response on knowing "how it works", is summed up nicely if you go read the progress of some of the ReiserFS on Windows projects.
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Only on slashdot would "programmers getting paid" be equated with a "tax".* So does that mean that you advocate programmers not getting paid for their hard work?
Strawman. Most Linux developers are paid for their work.
It's not a "tax" because I and others can purchase computers that don't have Windows.
Thanks to the DOJ, yes. At least from a few vendors.
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That really adds up after millions of laptops. Sure, you don't *have* to buy them millions at a time, but when you're aiming at selling them to governments to redistribute them you wind up doing that anyway, so I don't see how that's a big deal.
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So in part I have only respect for RMS for what he did, I have less respect for him if he comes and tells me (or anybody else) what license to use.
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It's exactly what I said in my previous post: there's one thing what you chose for yourself and it's another thing when you ask other people to make some choices and what kind of licenses to use and if they should sign a NDA or not. When you ask other people to do something there is a high standard for the language you use, it's not like anybody owes you anything. Also, people have diffe
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Pot. Kettle. Black.
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"I hope that in time you are made to feel ashamed of the choice you have made." Highlighting the benefits of one idea.
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Dedication to their principle is exactly what disgusts me.
You don't really mean that, do you?
Principles should not stay in the way of being polite and fair.
This I can agree with, and I would point out JG's post in which he said that RMS has been civil throughout. Theo has not, of course, but I don't think that's so much an issue of Theo's principles overriding his politeness so much as it is a major flaw in Theo's personality. From what I've heard, Theo can't order dinner without sneering at the w
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You don't really mean that, do you?"
I usually mean what I say. The problem with people who are dedicated to principles (I'm talking in general not about the two guys) is that they tend to ignore other "mere details" such as truth, fairness, decency, etc in order to promote some principles that may or may not be general acceptable or even worth the sacrifice. My problem is that I don't know where to draw the line between "dedication to principle" and
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If there is a security problem with a blob, you can't fix it.
Which is very interesting in this case, because Theo has no problem with the firmware being a blob, as long as he can get documentation without NDA and can redistribute the blob, while the OLPC people are focused on replacing the firmware with an open source version, and are willing to sign an NDA to get access to the source and documentation needed to do it.
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I think the rationale is that the firmware is considered to be part of the hardware, and therefore doesn't need to be open for the same reasons that hardware manufacturers don't have to provide complete schematics. Even stronger, if that same firmware were embedded in a ROM on the device, rather than downloaded to the device by the computer during initialization, no one would complain about its not being open, because it would really be seen as just part of the hardware. Even RMS has been seen to waver a
Re:Just because 'they' oppose it... (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS and Theo are good folks to have, to keep us from wandering down a blind alley. In the case of OLPC, their position has caused the launch of a subproject to create free replacements for the proprietary bits.
At the same time, those replacements don't exist yet, and OLPC is constrained (by power and mesh-networking issues) to use the proprietary bits in the meantime, to be able to ship product.
Sounds to me like a good plan: they know they want both laptops and free software, so they're working on a plan to have both. Which is a very healthy approach!
--dave
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http://locustworld.com/modules.php?set_albumName=a lbum01&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include= view_album.php [locustworld.com]
Those are pictures of a mesh networking product/project that runs on Linux and doesn't even USE that
Marvell chip.
There's other low-power options that do this sort of thing- sure, it may be "harder" without the assist from
the Marvell chip, but don't play the "It's the
Re:Just because 'they' oppose it... (Score:5, Informative)
We already had the alternate firmware project underway.
Theo has not helped the situation in the slightest.
Re:Just because 'they' oppose attention. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most disappointing would be a project which managed to get many kids to have access to laptops and then start them developing towards doing things.. and then left them with software for which security patches were no longer available, effectively cutting them off from the world they have just been shown. That's exactly the kind of thing which leads directly to social problems with no benefit.
We often think about our laptops as two year investments, in which case unmaintainable software doesn't matter. For this kind of project, which may eat up a large fraction of the education budget for a long time, it's not possible to demand constant upgrades. The use of proprietary hardware without a long term (20 year?) guarantee of support is irresponsib;e.
Worse; this destroys much of the value of the project by making it difficult for the kids to fully learn how their laptops work. Something which could really have spread computer literacy becomes much less valuable than it could have been. We begin to see that the Indian government may have had a point that there are better things to spend money on.
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I doubt that laptops are going to magically educate people, and even if they do help somewhat, maintaining them won't be feasible.
give a man a program... (Score:3, Informative)
No, seriously, the OLPC (and other development projects) should be about empowerment. And for this goal open source is the way to go.
If you take a look at e.g. agriculture, you see a lot of (probably) well meant development projects that ended in dependence from some major company and did in the long run as much (or more) harm as they helped.
(And, by the way, OLPC is - intended or not - a political statement though not about free
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But they turned down Steve Job's offer of $0 OS X for the OLPC, saying that it was important that the OLPC be free in the "free software" sense.
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Re:Just because 'they' oppose it... (Score:4, Informative)
If you think you are right, I think you should tell that to the web site management:
The MIT Media Lab has launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop--a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been created, which is independent of MIT.
It's not the standard for-profit corporation as you suggest.
Re:Given the choice (Score:4, Informative)
RMS even states that some OSS developers signing NDAs (a big no-no to him) so that they can see the specs in order to write Free firmware may be a solution. Hmm, sounds like a COMPROMISE.
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Uh, no. Sounds like a VIOLATION of the NDAs.
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It's not the hardware that is proprietary, it's the current firmware that works with it. Marvell is okay with developers writing Free firmware for the hardware, but to do so the developers would
Re:Given the choice (Score:5, Informative)
Theo de Raadt, on the other hand, has not been civil in the slightest.
They can always fork it :-) (Score:2)
Maybe then they'll get busy coding and stop whining. It's all well and good to point out that something's not open, but don't just whine about it. Do something: go find the manyfacturers willing to side with your cause. Then start another project
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So your definition of COMPROMISE is that he should put up AND shut up? When did compromise start meaning "don't argue your side" or "do what I say"? Just because you think that someone who disagrees with you is "spewing" doesn't mean that their arguments a
How the heck does this get modded up Interesting . (Score:2)
It didn't pick propriatary, the project picked a Linux-based [laptop.org] laptop. All the hardware manufacturers have to do is provide the source code. NDA's and firmware that cannot be freely redistributed are a clear breech of the GPL. It appears that Marvell were unable to provide the firmware due to the use of a third party's embedded OS. Richard Stallmann and Theo de Raadt are correct in this instance as to allow this
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To treat a non-free program as a legitimate thing is accept a situation where a developer has power over us. Once you treat this situation as acceptable, it tends to grow.
Yet he sees nothing wrong with shackeling his program with restrictions that inflict his view upon the world. He craves the power to make over the world in his ideology. If it's not public domain, it's not truly free. I really wish he'd stop abusing that word.
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The GPL protects rights, by only outlawing the outlawing of sharing and modifying more.
Restricting a "freedom" to restrict freedom is not restricting freedom - it is protecting it.
As for public domain, someone could modify it and without copyleft, make the new work unfree.
How about something that will always be public domain? Not possible, because modifica
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My skepticism about OLPC has just been captured by someone looking at the numbers [olpcnews.com] (from the Jem report article cited above.) At first, I tho
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Theo, like many others, thinks that accepting NDA is a sell-out.
You really seems to be missing the point. One of OpenBSD goals [openbsd.org] is that "We want to make available source code th
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Yes, they will. It is called a "discontinued product", also known as "obsolete".
Theo is asking for documentation on the underlying hardware, in case Marvell decides to no longer support the chipset. That happens all the time, as new products are built and older ones are discontinued. When -- not if -- Marvell decides to no longer provide driver/firmware updates, who is going to support the chipset?
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OS X? Are you mad? Do you honestly believe you can get OS X slimmed down enough to work -- not crawl -- in 128 Mb of RAM and 500 Mb of flash? Would there even be enough left to call it "OS X"? The box specs of Tiger call for 256 Mb of