In gmane.os.openbsd.misc, you wrote:

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>

>      There is a free copier of hardware: you, me, or anyone with a certian

>      amount of skill, and the required wires and other parts.  This is how

>      the entire home PC business started, the whole homebrew market.

>

>  That's true for some kinds of hardware, to a limited extemt.  But

>  building copies by hand is very different from having a copier that

>  will copy them automatically.  I don't consider them ethically the

>  same.

Ok, please let me paraphrase this:
  If something is harder to copy, it is ethically ok to have a different

  standard for this piece of technology.
Seriously, that's what you're saying above.  Because hardware may have

to be copied by hand, you consider them ethically not the same.  That's

nuts.  But on a more cool note, RMS considers the copy-protection

cracking I did in the 80's on an ethically different level.  Not sure

what that will mean for my future reputation...
>      Hardware has source code.  Virtually every major piece of a computer is

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>      written and modelled in Verilog or VHDL these days, which is bytes on a

>      disk, in ASCII characters, which sounds pretty much like code.

>

>  "Source code" and "plans" are not the same thing.  What makes software

>  source code special is that a program can compile it into a working

>  executable.  To turn the plans for a chip into a working chip, you need

>  a fab line that costs millions of dollars.

First of all, VHDL/Verilog are source code.  Don't look anything like a

plan.  Also, you don't need your very own fab.  There are plenty of fabs

out there that will gladly take your source/plan and turn it into a nice

chip or two for you.  It's even semi-affordable if you stick to the larger

feature sizes.  I believe if you have a look at the EFF web sites, you'll

even find an early implementation of such a thing.  It was called the DES

cracker.
>  Some day, if we all have personal fabs that can make chips, and robots

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>  that can assemble them into computers, the situation for chips will be

>  much more like the situation for software today.  In that situation it

>  might very well be important to campaign agains non-free chips and

>  non-free computers.  But in today's situation there is no reason

>  to do so.

Again, for a nominal fee, you do have this available today.  There are

companies in various countries that have both the ability and technology

to copy whole designs for you.  Hell, they'll even debug, fix, and upgrade

the design to a new fab process should you care.
>      Technology can allow for "free" hardware, just as well as it can for

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>      hardware.  If there is "open-source" and "free" hardware designs and

>      code, anyone with a FPGA, or availability of various other technologies

>      can take this hardware design, make changes, and make it better.

>

>  You are talking about programs for FPGAs.  Those are software, and if

>  they run on platforms where it is normal to install different

>  software, then they should be free.

Most FPGA vendors have products that allow you to compile your FPGA

into ASIC masks that you can submit to your favourite foundry.  The

restrictions are usually minor, especially if your design was done

properly to begin with.
Have a look at www.opencores.org if you want to see a small part of what

is available out there free.
>  But I think the FPGAs in products are more like the possible computer

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>  in my microwave oven: nobody installs software in them, so they might

>  as well be circuits.

Really?  All those wifi/raid/cpu/etc cards/chips out there that need

"firmware", you think they're not a mix of both microcontroller code and

other binary bits that configure an ASIC or FPGA?  Also, just because

*YOU* don't install software on a microwave oven, does not mean that *I*

do not wish to.
(Feel free to substitute "car engine computer" for "microwave oven", and

think about being able to get 95 mpg by changing your car's programming,

if you need incentive...)
-Toby.

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