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

[Elena ``of Valhalla'']

On 2016-08-25 at 10:23:04 +0200, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
> El Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 09:07:13AM +0200, Elena ``of Valhalla'' deia:
> > In this specific case, additionally, the dividing line is placed in such
> > a way that IMHO gives advantages to state-sponsored attackers (for whom
> > changing code stored on ROM is not exactly easy, but somewhat feasible)
> > and even technical users (that in most case don't have access to the
> > tools needed to do so).
> You mean intercepting postal packets or sabotages in douanes or check
> control points ? I don't know how to protect from that (at least
> without imposing too cumbersone measures to normal use by the
> legitimate user).

yes, stuff like that, and I don't really know how to protect from them
either.

But surely having the code in ROM doesn't really help in that case,
while when the code is loaded at runtime one could in theory just load
new code from a different source. Doesn't really work in practice
because there is something else accepting that code that is stored in
something like a ROM and could have been changed to silently ignore it.

> [...]
> In my message I called software "information", not knowledge, because
> in the uses I've come across knowledge is reserved for the
> interiosation of interrelated information by humans, it is what
> information provokes in you (and let's not get started in strong
> AI). But yes, if you take humans into the picture, software is
> knowledge and it is even culture.

Yes, information may be a better term, altought they can be seen as two
faces of the same entity (and thus, don't change the set of things that
are hardware or software under the original definition)

> So a tivoized device may not hide any
> information or knowledge but it may prevent you from changing the
> representation that the device will use. It won't prevent you from 
> working freely with the knowledge, "just" with the device.

Well, a tivoized device will probably allow me to work freely with some
of the information, but not other (the ones involved with preventing you
access to the device itself, for one thing)

> And your definition has more or less the same problem as mine.
> Knowledge may be secret, so something may be knowledge for some people
> and not for others, just like something may be easier to change for
> some people than others. Compiled proprietary software is software in a
> degenerated way, but it is. And the source is only available for some,
> for the rest of us it is very opaque information, you can hardly call
> that knowledge at all. So it is knowledge for the authors, not for
> the users. 

Yes, software is information/knowledge, not necessarily *free*
knowledge, but in my definition it's stuff for which it is reasonable to
ask the question "is it free?"

> > My personal pragmatic position is that buying (and in certain case
> > using) things is ok from a freedom point of view as long as they
> > have a bit more free software than the current standard (either as
> > sold or after I've changed stuff that is easy — and legal — *for me*
> > to change, depending on the context and the kind of market).
> 
> So your goal is your utopy? Or do you think you could eventually
> achieve it?

In theory, I think that it could be reached, but I'm not sure if the
market forces will ever allow it.

I would be happy even to see constant improvements, even if the actual
aim wasn't reached in my lifetime, so yes, there is a bit of utopy in
it.

> I'm not sure I understand you. What you want is a computer, so a
> certain collection of atoms, that embodies some information and you
> want to be able to freely use all the embodied knowledge. So for you
> that includes software and hardware designs (both are the computer
> software for you, right?). An then the hardware designs have been
> applied to atoms according to some electronics process you may also
> want to know, along with the physical properties of gates, materials,
> and energies. And the physical models that describe how the properties
> interact dynamically, so basically all of chemistry, physics and
> electronics solved for good and finished ?

well, no, I would stop at the process phase, described in a way that can
be reproduced, including the building of relevant tools, even if in
practice some of this information is going to be too expensive for most
people to actually use (and, more importantly, there are serious
practical issues with bootstrapping the equipement required to do so).

In the basic sciences there are significant issues with the
dissemination of information, but at least people working on them tend
to share the principles that knowledge should be available and not kept
secret. And there is no need for them to be solved for good: engeneering
has been working on phisical principles that are wrong for a long time,
and continue to do so with success (afaik e.g. bridges are still being
build while happily ignoring quantum mechanics and relativity :) )
Of course, this is basically to say, that I also want this information /
knowledge to be free, up to the limits of human knowledge, but I think
that as an issue it's transversal to the actual building of free computers.

> So what you call a computer whose software is completely free is what
> I'd call a computer whose software is completely free and its hardware
> follows free hardware designs available to you ?  Or what's exactly
> the knowledge you want to be free to use ? (more than yesterday, I
> guess, ever more).
> 
> I want that too (I just may call it something different?). 

yes

under my definition, you could say that "free hardware" is hardware for
which the "design software" is free.
-- 
Elena ``of Valhalla''