Xavier Roche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The question is: is software meaning "any turing-machine-derivated data", > or "binary code executed on the machine where Debian is installed" ?
No, the question is: "if I were to modify these bits, could I change how my computer works?" And the answer is, of course, yes. And so the question is "why can I not modify these bits?" and the answer is: the author refuses to permit me access to the source and restricts my copying of the bits. Now, why does the company not release the source? Easy: they want to keep secret how the hardware works. And then you reward them, by saying that since the hardware's construction is seekrit, I should not care about my inability to constructively modify the firmware. To tell me that I must be a special expert to modify them misses the point. You must be a special expert to modify any program; one of the geniuses of free software is that if I am not an expert I could hire one. Thomas
