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Re: FSF continuously harms Free Hardware


From: Thomas Lord
Subject: Re: FSF continuously harms Free Hardware
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2022 20:04:35 -0800
User-agent: Roundcube Webmail/1.3.17


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


Example:  I have a small MIDI keyboard controller called
the "Arturia Minilab mkII".

I can use its most basic capabilities with linux music
production software like jack, or pipewire, and
various libre synthesizers, drum machines, effects
stacks, and Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software
like Ardour or QTractor (and many more).

But...  the device has non-volatile memory to configure
its settings and to switch on-the-fly among configurations
that I can not use without running proprietary software (therefore,
I can't use them period).

And the device has very cool seeming LED backlights under
various pads (force-sensitive ("velocity sensative" in midi-speak)
buttons).  If I submit to the proprietary software I can configure
different colors and different triggers to turn the lights on
and off -- but there is no libre software to do this.

Thus, I am blocked from using the full capabilities of the
hardware by the company hoarding the device-specific protocols
that can operate those features and doing that to try to trap
me into using proprietary software.

Cell phones are very similar.  You can not replace the
operating system on any popular model with free software.


-t



On 2022-01-31 13:17, Jean Louis wrote:
* 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

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/



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