Am Dienstag, den 27.06.2006, 12:12 +0200 schrieb Alfred M. Szmidt:
Can you change the CPU microcode (I'm not familiar with new CPU's)? If you can't, then there is little point in having it as free software since you wouldn't be able to update your microcode. Kinda like wanting the source code to your toaster, but the software is on a ROM chip.
This is actually an interesting point: even if I can't change it, I would really be interested in the source code of my toaster software. Modifying the software is only one aspect of Free Software. Being able to understand how it works is another one.
I might, for example, want to build my own toaster and look at some algorithms used in that toaster software. Or I might encounter a bug in the toaster software, and while still not being able to fix it, the possibility to look at the source code might help me to find a way to work around it. Or I might just want to check whether the toaster collects information about its usage and sends it to the producer over the internet (there are internet enabled toasters, aren't there?).
Thanks, Reinhard
P.S. As I send this mail with an @fsfeurope.org address, let me state explicitly that I express my personal opinion, like everybody else here. Just to avoid misunderstandings :-)