Re: FSF continuously harms Free Hardware

[Jean Louis]

* Thomas Lord <lord@basiscraft.com> [2022-01-31 23:53]:
> Wait, I think we are onto something useful today:
> 
> Jean writes:
> 
>    > - Freedom 0: The freedom the use the hardware
>    >   for any purpose
> 
>    > Did anybody prevent you to use hardware for any purpose?
> 
> YES!  Two examples:
> 
> In the music making world, it is distressingly common to sell
> hardware such as MIDI controllers (think: fancy game controllers
> but for music making) with capabilities that can not be accessed
> without difficult feats of reverse engineering, or else having
> to use proprietary software.  Often, the proprietary software
> further requires users to provide economically valuable
> personal information to the hardware making corporation.

I have tried, but I have not seen in the above paragraph how anybody
prevented you to use the MIDI controller for other purposes.

Which other purpose did you want to use it?

Was there any legal document preventing you to use it for other purpose?

> The space of "smart phones"[sic] and related devices, the situation
> is analogous and much, much more intense.  Customers buy hardware
> whose capacities they can not access at all without agreeing to
> use software that spies on them relentlessly (such spying often
> being the main product the software makers are selling to 3rd
> parties).

I cannot see how is hardware buyer prevented to use it for any purpose
one wants? 

You can take a stone and use it as knife, you just need good
imagination.

If your phone has some hidden features which don't work, it does not
mean you are not legally free to use those hidden features if you know
how.

What is important is if anybody is preventing user legally to use
hardware how they wish and want? Maybe I wish to use a keyboard as
mouse (living mouse) trap and manufacturer wanted me to sign agreement
that I am allowed to use keyboard only as keyboard, but not to catch
live mouses in my house.

The fact that keyboard maybe does not work or that it is not quite
suitable for mouse traps, does not mean that I am legally prevented to
use it how I wish and want.

Jean

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