Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
On Tue, May 04, 2004 at 04:45:41PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> "Francesco P. Lovergine" <frankie@debian.org> writes:
>
> > I'm just saying that by a practical point of view who thinks so is
> > pretending that hardware is free too.
>
> No, I'm not pretending that hardware is free. It may well not be,
> which is why we don't distribute it.
>
> > Your point of view is that firmware is software.
>
> *Real* firmware is not software. But *real* firmware is *firm*, that
> is, you can't change it easily: it's in a ROM. And nobody is asking
> us to distribute it.
Now there's a bizarre twist on the idea that everything is software.
Are you saying that firmware in ROM, which in most cases IS "programs,
routines, and symbolic languages that control the functioning of the
hardware and direct its operation"[1], is NOT SOFTWARE?
[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=software
It seems that we have now redefined software totally; it is no longer
either equivalent to or a strict superset of computer programs.
It is now defined as a set of any bits that some entity (person or
company) gave us on disk or via computer network. Storage in ROM chip is
not enough.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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