On Thu, Jun 07, 2012 at 06:20:25PM -0400, Tom H wrote: > The shim boot loader that's being planned by Fedora would be signed by > Microsoft but is open source [1] - it wouldn't be accepted in Fedora > otherwise.
>From the Free Software Foundation: A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: • The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). • The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). • The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The bootloader might technically be free software, it meets the above four freedoms. I can get the source and modify it. But I can't exercise my freedom by actually running it. I can't *use* it. Not unless I pay some money for a special key. And get "authorised" to run my own code on my own computer. Let's be clear what this is. I have to get *permission* from someone else, to run a program on my own computer. To actually use my computer to do my stuff, I have to take extraordinary steps to get someone else to grant me access. That's *fundamentally wrong*. Roger -- .''`. Roger Leigh : :' : Debian GNU/Linux http://people.debian.org/~rleigh/ `. `' schroot and sbuild http://alioth.debian.org/projects/buildd-tools `- GPG Public Key F33D 281D 470A B443 6756 147C 07B3 C8BC 4083 E800 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120607223404.gq15...@codelibre.net
