On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 12:33:02PM +0100, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:

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> On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 03:25:38PM -0700, J.C. Roberts wrote:

> > > I'd love to see how an user who gets a modified binary version has

> > > the freedom to modify it. Go ahead. Prove me that it doesn't allow

> > > some users to loose freedom...

> > Hello again Rui,
> > the US. Over here, if you own a copy of a program, you can modify it as

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> > much as you want

> Good luck doing so without any source code.
> > Of course, you are free to have strong feelings about whatever you like,

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> > and hold opinions based on flawed understanding, but as long as you

> > insist on remaining uneducated about the laws, you are failing yourself

> > and failing your supposed "duty" to make things clear. Please stop.

> You seem uneducated about how powerless someone is without the freedom to

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> change a program because he has no access to the source code.

> You stop.
Nonsense. It's similar to how powerless non-programmer people feel when

they report a bug and get told to fix it `since they have the source'.
Just because *you* can't reverse-engineer stuff doesn't mean other people

cannot.
And don't get me started on all the linux code that is full of magic

constants, was written under NDAs, and is about as useful as binary blobs

for the people who do NOT have access to the NDA documentation...

... or the people who don't care that ATI/nvidia doesn't give their 3D specs

as long as they provide binary drivers that work under linux/i386.