2008/1/9, Paul de Weerd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 02:06:56PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > | Yet, this firmware can be upgraded and OpenBSD will > | automatically do this if it detects older firmware on your NIC. You > | can choose another operating system that does not upgrade the firmware > | and the hardware may work fine for your use case. Should the firmware > | be free software ? It's inside the hardware and on your other > | operating system you are not installing software on it. > | > | That is a borderline case. One possible resolution is that it is ok > | to use this hardware, but updating the firmware is a bad thing. > > This can not seriously be what you really believe. The non-free > firmware that comes pre-installed on the hardware is OK, but updating > it yourself is not ? If you wanted to use this newer version of the > firmware, you would buy another piece of the same hardware with the > newer version installed ? > >
In that case, buying a Windows computer would be Ok, as long as you don't update the version of Windows software that is on it... when you want a newer version of Windows, just get a new computer. That's what the average consumer does by the way, they don't 'usually install their own OS on the computer', and that they simply buy a new computer with Vista preinstalled... so much for badvista... -- Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
