[Replicant] OT: Open source GSM board
Tiberiu
tiberiu at tehnoetic.com
Sat Oct 29 07:16:29 UTC 2016
Hi,
On 29.10.2016 09:18, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> There is a group of people (called TI) who decided to keep the sources private
> and not make them open. Why is your (or my) privacy more important than theirs?
Private software is software not distributed to the public in any form
(for instance, binary-only). If TI has distributed to the
public/customers modems preinstalled with this firmware, then this
firmware is public software and we can't talk about privacy.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#PrivateSoftware
With our current copyright system, we in the free software community put
public software in two categories: free/libre software or
nonfree/proprietary software. In their case, it's the latter.
If TI has distributed their public software as proprietary, they have
wronged us, the users. IMO, violating copyright to correct this wrong is
a lesser evil than that proprietary software. However, correcting this
wrong by not violating copyright is the best and permanent solution to
this problem.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nit-india.html (look for "dilemma")
Thanks,
Tiberiu
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