Luke-Jr wrote:
On Tuesday 03 January 2006 00:19, Richard Piper wrote:
Just curious Luke, how far do you take this belief? Do you only run computers which work with a free-as-in-freedom BIOs as well?
If I had that choice, I certainly would. Ditto for firmware and hardware.
I'm sorry, but at this point, you fall off the edge of your own world. You claim it's immoral for an entity, be it personal or corporate, to distribute *their* creation as they see fit, yet you find it reasonable to continue to use that same software/hardware?
You *do* have that choice. You could fabricate your own hardware, and then program it yourself. You *choose* to skip that step and use someone else's piece's and parts, all the while espousing how immoral it all is.
I used NDISWRAPPER because it allowed me to move to GNU/Linux without forcing me to buy new hardware.
Wrong phrasing/thinking: It isn't the move to GNU/Linux that would have forced you to buy anything-- it was the manufacturers of the unsupported hardware.
You are handcuffing yourself to a hard drive. Admirable, but ineffective because no one's going to come bulldoze your hard drive.
The way I see it: the drivers aren't immoral; the company's decision to not open source the drivers was immoral.
And your decision to buy the device and use the drivers is an act of support. Now, obviously if you were given it or had already bought it, that doesn't apply, but you're still sacrificing your rights and piece-of-mind (who knows what backdoors these drivers might have?) by using them.
Are you not, according to your first paragraph, also supporting them? You're obviously using a computer, yet every computer that runs on non free-as-in-beer hardware/software is immoral?