[Discuss] OSHW & Economics

[Matt Maier]

On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Michael Shiloh <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com
> wrote:

>
>
> On 11/24/2013 01:07 PM, Matt Maier wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Javier Serrano <Javier.Serrano at cern.ch
>> >wrote:
>>
>>  On 20.11.2013 21:48, Matt Maier wrote:
>>>
>>>> If someone is "free" to
>>>> do something, but can't afford to, they don't consider the freedom
>>>>
>>> relevant.
>>>
>>> Let's agree to disagree on that. I do consider the freedom relevant, and
>>> I am not the only one.
>>>
>>
>>
>> I finally found this thing where Richard Stallman talked about "free
>> hardware" specifically. As you can see, his impression of "free as in
>> speech" hardware is that the freedom isn't relevant since it's so hard to
>> exercise the freedom.
>>
>> http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999062200505NWLF
>>
>> "*Because copying hardware is so hard, the question of whether we're
>>
>> allowed to do it is not vitally important. I see no social imperative for
>> free hardware designs like the imperative for free software.*"
>>
>
> But he wrote that in 1999. The reason that OSHW is an issue now is that
> the cost and difficulty of copying hardware has plummeted, and will
> continue to do so.
>
> I wonder if Richard Stallman feels his statement above needs to be revised.
>
> Me too.

This is the only thing I can find that's recent and it implies that his
perspective hasn't changed in 10 years.

http://www.processmakerblog.com/uncategorized/the-processmaker-developers-meet-with-richard-stallman/

"*All in all, the conversation was very interesting for all involved, but
Stallman was pressed to keep up with his email, so he pulled out his
famous Lemote Yeeloong
<http://www.lemote.com/english/yeeloong.html> laptop, a small-screen
portable whose entire specs and firmware code are available for free
download on the internet.  The appearance of the legendary device provoked
a rumination about what this new type of hardware should be termed.
Reacting to our use of the term “free hardware”, Stallman observed that it
wasn’t really “free” in the same way as software since only companies with
access to sophisticated equipment have the ability to create the hardware
from the specs. Perhaps in 20 years Stallman mused that the average person
would be able to create hardware from the specs, but at the current time it
wasn’t in the same category as free software from the point of view of the
user. Even thought hardware increasingly is developed as software
with Verilog and otherhardware description languages, Stallman argued that
that fact didn’t make much difference for the average user of the hardware.
Therefore, he suggested that we use the term “hardware with published
specifications”–certainly a mouthful compared to “free hardware” (or the
taboo term “open hardware <http://www.openhardware.net/>**“), but useful
for provoking thought about the future of hardware development.*"
[emphasis added]

Although the Free Software Foundation has certified some hardware as
"respecting your freedom." So there's that.
http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.oshwa.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20131124/7f759e4b/attachment.html>