Re: reiser4 non-free?

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> wrote:
> On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 07:41:48AM -0400, Walter Landry wrote:
> > It's not that contrived [1].  In any case, are you saying that you
> > don't care whether people can use software to do extreme ironing?
> > Debian makes sure that terrorists, nuclear bomb makers, wall street
> > analysts, and the IRS can use the software, but we suddenly don't care
> > about elections and extreme ironing?
> 
> The question is not whether simple-interface voting machines are plausible
> or useful or posses some other virtue.
> 
> > [1] http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/vtp_WP2.pdf
> 
> I don't see anything in that report indicating that the voting machines
> should be tuning or creating the file system underlying the files.

That is what "initializing the frog" might do.

> More generally, I do believe that there are practical problems created
> by the "must display credits" license.  For example, consider a general
> purpose OS environment designed for the deaf (where reducing the number
> of phonemes spewed by programs is a driving issue).
> 
> The problem with the voting machine example is that voting machines are
> special purpose devices -- they should have any file systems (possibly
> redundant file systems) created before they're deployed, and if something
> goes wrong with the file system it should NOT be manipulated in the field.
> That kind of manipulation could lead to fraud, and so should be conducted
> in a highly controlled and auditable environment.

This is not the voting machine.  It is the frog (small hardware token).

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu