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We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

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Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#581

Post by stavros »

divan wrote: post #431
Aerroon wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“Hardware I own” sounds like you bought a pan and demand the right to cook any food you want. Because I did. How come I can do what I want with my computer, but not my phone? Why are phones so inferior in this area? My phone is more powerful than many of the computers I've had in the past, yet I need to jump through a million hoops to use it as a software development platform. Why?

Your smartwatch is probably more powerful than some of your past computers too. Same with your DSLR camera. Even your smart fridge. These are specialized hardware+software gadgets designed to a particular purpose, which is very different from being a development platform. Same with a phone.

Yeah, this is the sleight of hand. They used to all be computers, now we have reduced freedom to "development platforms". No. It's hardware, I bought it, I should be able to run any code I want on my DSLR (and I do), my fridge, my oven, my smartwatch, anything I own.

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#582

Post by MangoToupe »

ghosty141 wrote: post #333
vbezhenar wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are basics of capitalism. Company aims for profit. Bigger scale allows for better efficiency. So companies naturally grow big. The bigger they are, the easier for them to compete. Big companies have access to tremendous resources, so they can push laws by bribing law makers, advertising their agenda to the masses. There's no way around it, not without dismantling capitalism. Nations will serve to the corporatio…

> There's no way around it Yes there is, the population passing laws to regulate this. The problem is though, that most people don't understand and don't care enough until its too late.

Or forcibly taking over a factory.

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#583

Post by elric »

divan wrote: post #31

> It should be possible to run Android on an iPhone and manufacturers should be required by law to provide enough technical support and documentation to make the development of new operating systems possible As someone who enjoyed Linux phones like the Nokia N900/950 and would love to see those hacker-spirited devices again, statements like this sound more than naïve to me. I can acknowledge my own interests here (ha…

> As someone who enjoyed Linux phones like the Nokia N900/950 and would love to see those hacker-spirited devices again

Why haven't we seen a spiritual successor to the N900? It's a little strange to me that it's cheaper than ever to produce hardware, even in relatively small quantities, but no one (AFAIK) is producing any geek-oriented phones like the N900. Linux hardware support gets better every year. It shouldn't be terribly hard to have a factory produce a small number of open phones that can run Linux. They wouldn't be any good without significant investment in phone-specific usability, but still.

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#584

Post by BiteCode_dev »

the_other wrote: post #470
SilverElfin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google and Apple have more power than most nations. Yep. They control our information - how we make it, what we are allowed to find, and what we can say. And they are large enough to not face real competition. So let’s treat them like the state owned corporations they are and regulate heavily. Smaller companies can be left unregulated. But not companies worth 500 billion or more.

> So let’s treat them like the state owned corporations If they were state owned, we could vote for how the profits get used and we would have larger budgets for healthcare and education.

But if they were, they would never have become what they are in the first place, including the good things.

States are neither good at innovation nor dynamism.

But they are very good at telling you what you should and should not do.

The latter part has some wonderful consequences for consumer or worker protections, but it has some terrible ones for creating new stuff or improving the old.

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#585

Post by lotsofpulp »

the_other wrote: post #470
SilverElfin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google and Apple have more power than most nations. Yep. They control our information - how we make it, what we are allowed to find, and what we can say. And they are large enough to not face real competition. So let’s treat them like the state owned corporations they are and regulate heavily. Smaller companies can be left unregulated. But not companies worth 500 billion or more.

> So let’s treat them like the state owned corporations If they were state owned, we could vote for how the profits get used and we would have larger budgets for healthcare and education.

The US federal government alone (not including state and other local governments) spends north of $1 trillion dollars per year on healthcare.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

Another $1.3 trillion on wealth transfers from workers to non workers (including disability). And another $608B on wealth transfers from people with higher income to people with lower or no incomes.

Alphabet and Apple, combined, earned $193B in 2024, from the entire world.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/net-inc...

How does your suggestion make any difference, other than destroying 2 of the very few organizations driving demand for US assets, and hence help support the US dollar's purchasing power?

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#586

Post by ACCount37 »

fastball wrote: post #71
saurik wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It being difficult is different from it being possible. If a company wants to raise $50m to read all the documentation and build an alternative OS to run on this crazy piece of hardware, as the consumer I still benefit. If you'd prefer, let's stick with repair? I also need all of that information to be able to repair my phone, but again, it wouldn't necessarily be ME who repairs my own phone: I take it to a third-par…

> $50m to build a modern OS from scratch heh.

In practice, it'll look more like what PostmarketOS or Asahi Linux madmen are doing - porting Linux onto the platforms where the sun doesn't shine.

Of course, having any kind of documentation or driver sources that could be referenced would make it much easier, and much less taxing on sanity.

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#588

Post by dangus »

daniel_iversen wrote: post #564

This might be controversial but I'm not sure you should be able to install whatever you want on "hardware you own". Reason being (and I was trying hard to explore an "other side of the argument" and whether there was/is one) examples like Kindles, where I think originally Amazon had it as a loss leader to sell ebooks. I reckon they brought a great product into the market and established a new category (mass market eb…

Some other examples of why this could be bad:

- Running code on your car that compromises safety, like modifying/disabling legally-required safety features.

- Modifying code on health devices, like pacemakers

- Protective code involving things like overheating protections (e.g., firmware preventing you from disabling cooling fans in your laptop or running your 3D printer so that it catches fire)

- Running devices with parameters known by the manufacturer to damage them (e.g., processor manufacturers will let you overclock their chips but will keep some parameters limited/locked that the designers know will not work)

It’s notable that Google is implementing this change first specifically in countries that are impacted by a specific style of fake app scam. They seem to be responding to a legitimate consumer safety issue.

Should we be able to run our own code on our own devices? Generally, yes, and it’s also already legal to do so even if the manufacturer doesn’t want you to. But it’s also legal for manufacturers to set their own parameters.

Like you said, examples like Kindles and game consoles exist where the business needs to have some level of freedom in defining their business model. Would you be able to buy a $150 4K TV at Walmart if the included Roku software wasn’t subsidizing it?

The issues surrounding anticompetitive lock-down only occur in markets with a lack of competition and I think those issues can be balanced agains the manufacturer’s desires to sell a specific experience.

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#589

Post by fsflover »

judge2020 wrote: post #136
mjevans wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. Choice 2. Empowered user. The end user is free to CHOOSE to delegate the hardware's approved signing solutions to a third party. Possibly even a third party that is already included in the base firmware such as Microsoft, Apple, OEM, 'Open Source' (sub menu: List of several reputable distros and a choice which might have a big scary message and involved confirmation process to trust the inserted boot media…

Consider the possibility of an evil maid type attack before a device is setup for the first time, e.g. running near identical iOS or macOS but with spyware preloaded, or even just adware.

You can have TPM with your own hardware key, which allow to verify the integrity of the BIOS. Works fine on my Librem laptop with a Librem Key.

Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

#590

Post by komali2 »

worldsayshi wrote: post #555
Levitz wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There has never been a utopian past and there will never be a utopian future. I wouldn't call it utopian, but I'd say we are way past "peak democracy" at this point. There was a time in which corporations did get broken up when too large, when we did understand that it's about serving the population first and accumulating wealth after that, when corporations influencing politics was widely seen as a negative. It doe…

There's no reason why democracy can't peak again and reach new heights. But that won't happen automatically. Personally I think there are technological preconditions for stable democracy that have recently been countered by authoritarian leaning technology. We need to invent counter technology to those things.

I disagree that there's a technological solution to late stage capitalism and the slow death of liberal democracy.

New technology doesn't change anything about social institutions - the most powerful groups before the technology was invented simply own the technology after it's invented and use it to further cement their power.

I think the luddites were on to something. We don't need technology, we need humans doing things a little differently, maybe even doing bizarre things like setting factories on fire. Personally I hope we can try other things before setting factories on fire, see Keith McHenry's version of The Anarchist Cookbook for peaceful resistance solutions as well.

The point is though without a restructure, new technology doesn't liberate, in fact it further entrenches existing power structures.

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