[Arm-netbook] need help! getting a bit overwhelmed on lists.oshwa.org

[Russell Hyer]

I think this talk of atoms that treats physical things like they exist
and information as if it were a figment of reality misses the
fundamental physics of it that information does exist (unless it gets
recorded and output on TV)

Russell
If failing were hard it would be called falling

On 25 August 2016 at 14:35, Stefan Monnier <monnier at iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>>> For me anything hard to change is hardware, anything easy to change is
>>> software. Hence the sensible FSF position on software on ROMs
>>> being like hardware and software in EEPROMs being like software.
> [...]
>> A definition that I like comes from Renzo Davoli and is basically that
>> hardware is made of atoms, software is knowledge.
>
> ROMs are made of atoms whose internal organization defines the behavior.
> And while you can pass to someone a copy of the "source" (or binary) for
> that ROM, it's not the same as the ROM (the person has to build the ROM
> based on that code), so I think Renzo's definition very agrees that ROM
> is hardware.
>
>> Of course, under this definition, today in 2016 it is impossible to buy
>> a computer¹ whose software is completely free.
>
> I think the usual A20 boards qualify: they have some ROM holding
> proprietary code within the SoC, but since that's hardware it's OK, and
> you can run pure Free Software on it (you may need proprietary software
> if you want to use MALI, and you may also need proprietary firmware to
> use surrounding wifi chips, of course).
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>
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