why free?

[Simo]

On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 03:09 +0200, Markus wrote:

> If i understand it, many people argue with the influence of software on our
> life. But other things has also great influence on our life. For example
> before email and instant messaging, the phone was (and maybe is today too)
> the most used way to communicate. But no one has access to the "source code"
> of this communication and can change it, copy it and so on. Is the phone
> therefor a bad thing?

If you speak about the classic landlines phones, you do not need any
source, as no software is necessary for your own device. Land line
phones are very simple and you can understand how to "fix" it by just
opening it and looking at how it works if you do not know it already.
You can also change it so you can have a phone that blinks lights
instead of ringing for example.

For cellphones things change, they are full of software and proprietary
(even if communication protocols are known).
Is it bad?
Imho yes, I would like to be able to customize my phone (mostly
stripping out unnecessary buggy crash prone software), assure nobody can
access my phone without my consent etc... There are some Linux based
Cell phones now, but they are far from free and most of the devices
underneath use proprietary "firmware".

Simo.

-- 
Una scelta di liberta': Software Libero.
A choice of freedom: Free Software.
http://www.softwarelibero.it