Re: [Fsfe-uk] Explanation of Tivosiation and problems - comments sought

[Nic James Ferrier]

>I see nothing in there which says who got started because of Free
>Software, 

Sorry. I didn't say there would be.

I just did this on the changelog on just the 4.1 release:

   grep -E '^2' | sort | uniq | wc

There are 882 different contributors. That's 1 release of 1
project. There are 1000s of contributors to GCC alone. There are 100s
of thousands of contributors to open source / free software. Probably
millions.


>most of the names I recognise seem to have been software
>professionals long before there was any such thing.

I am not questioning your powers of recognition.


> Hmm, perhaps there is a comparison there.  Cars started off as
> complicated things which only a few people understood, then became
> common enough that a lot of ordinary people did their own servicing, and
> then regulations came in with the mass market and most people not
> knowing how to use (let alone service) them properly.  Yes, I suspect
> that we are indeed seeing the end of the mass market general-purpose
> computer and a rise of more specialised machines, but I also see this as
> inevitable (and given the time wasted by the millions who don't know
> anything about their PCs this is not a bad thing in my view).

Kind of what we're talking about.

We, the consumer, have let that happen to cars. I would be far happier
if my local mechanic (who I trust) did not have to take my Range Rover
to the dealership (who I don't trust) to get computer diagnostics.

The issue of trust is important and has been ignored by the
legislation.

But like all legislation, if it's bad people will eventually go round
it.


> I mean why would anyone want to run Linux on an X-Box, apart from the
> challenge?  I can buy a much faster PC for the same price.  If I want
> the challenge there's plenty of other platforms which are more useful
> (or I could back-port it to a MicroVAX, which would be fun although not
> very useful).

So why don't you ask "why use linux at all? the operating system that
came with the computer is fine for me". Many people will not notice
what operating system came with the computer. 

But it should be no suprise to you to find that most of us on this
mailing list would advocate a change in that operating system. We
belive that change should occur to make people free-er. 

If you're new to these ideas you should try www.gnu.org as a starting
point.


Soon, many of us will not be consuming any electronic devices but
making our own (are you aware of fab labs?) I don't really want the
mobile phone that I own. I put up with it. When fab labs are cheap
enough to be in every high street I will make my own and run my own
software on it. I think it is likely that this will change the whole
nature of devices.


Having said all that I don't care about "tivoization". I think if a
company does that in this day and age we have the tools to simply go
round the problem.

-- 
Nic Ferrier
http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk   for all your tapsell ferrier needs