Re: FSF continuously harms Free Hardware

[Richard Stallman]

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  > _Dimmable LED Bulbs:_ This is a practice project for arduino providing 
  > source code, schematics and elaborated documentation on 
  > https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/NIKHIL1916/led-dimming-circuit-8d6c9e

  > It's released under GPlv3+ You can fork it and adjust it to do your 
  > computing as you wish e.g. adding bluetooth or wifi connection for 
  > Internet of Things with some example projects provided with the article.

It is nice that that exists -- but I am not going to make my own LED bulbs.
I don't have the know-how or the time.

They need to screw into the fan/lamp fixture on the ceiling.  In
addition, they may need a special circuit for dimming.  That fixture
has a switch which was built old-fashioned bulbs, which you could dim
just by reducing the voltage.  These dimmable bulbs have to respond to
that signal somehow.

Maybe I could solder the circuit, but I couldn't fit the parts into a
bulb with a screw-in connection, let alone make the bulb.

Anyway, that is a mental exercise only.  I don't have time to build
the physical things I use.

So I buy commercially made LED bulbs in a store.  Their designs are
not free, but I don't see that as an issue _for this kind of
hardware_.  (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.html
for why not.)

  > _Digital Clock:_ I want to highlight here that not everything has to be 
  > electrical such as this digital sundial 
  > https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1068443

There is no direct sun in my bedroom even in a sunny day, let alone at
night or when it's cloudy.  There is no injustice or threat in the
clock/radio.  So it's ok.

It is good to encourage making hobbyist designs for various useful
things, but if we want to make free-design hardware usable for
everyone, it needs to be mass-produced.

When some mass-produced products start to come with schematics, etc.,
that will be the time to start pushing, pressuring for other
mass-produced products to do likewise.  Until then, encouragement is
enough.

This is a crucial place where the analogy between software and
hardware falls short.  Once someone makes a fully detailed software
design (i.e., a program), anyone (even a nonprogrammer) can quickly
install and run it.

By contrast, to use a hardware design, you have to build the physical
object step by step.  Most people don't know how, don't have the
tools, and can't spare the time.

To have a world of free-design hardware comparable to the Free World
of software, we need automated fab machines to make them for us.  (Of
course, we will demand that their hardware designs and software be
free.)  But such machines -- for consumer use -- don't exist yet at
all.  Not even for digital devices alone.

If civilization survives, we will get there, but not this decade I
expect.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)