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Almost every hardware device has one or more CPUs on it. As Foone joked, "USB is a standard to let you connect 8051 microcontrollers to PCs." Given the choice b

by mastax 5y ago

Almost every hardware device has one or more CPUs on it. As Foone joked, "USB is a standard to let you connect 8051 microcontrollers to PCs." Given the choice between burned-in firmware and externally-loaded firmware, the latter seems clearly superior from an openness perspective. The firmware binary and the loading mechanism opens up the opportunity for reverse engineering, modification, and replacement open firmware. We currently have a strange situation where the devices that are easy to use are the most open and the most locked down ones, and the middle-ground is punished by policy. If that policy were successful at promoting open firmware I think that would be acceptable, but I don't think I even need to argue that is not the case.

diffeomorphism 5y ago
> if that policy were successful at promoting. Not disagreeing that policies should be made with success in mind. But by the same reasoning "vegan" should include the top 5 most popular meat dishes as exceptions. This would easily make it more popular, more accessible and probably much more successful at reducing meat usage over all. The issue is that the definition of "success" might be entirely unacceptable. Just like "entirely free but...." might be unacceptable.
- MrJohz 5y ago
  In all fairness, flexitarianism is a thing, and I know a lot of people who would never want to go fully vegetarian or vegan, but who want to reduce their meat intake significantly, generally for environmental reasons. The change in messaging from "a single animal death is murder and unacceptable" to "any reduction is good, the more the better" is probably significantly not effective in this context at actually reducing overall meat consumption (although I unfortunately don't have any evidence for that hunch).
- trashburger 5y ago
  If you consider the fact that veganism/vegetarianism is very unhealthy without taking the nutrients you're missing as supplements (which could be argued as being "reverse engineered meat"), then I would suggest that yes, until we reverse engineer the "meat" we should include it in the "diet" (along Free software).
- pid-1 5y ago
  That's what I did. The first time I tried becoming vegetarian I failed. I often had no reasonable options in restaurants nor social events. Also I live in a country where meat is cheap and barbecues are a key social activity. Nowadays I still eat meat 0-2 times per week when my choices are limited, but that's much better than eating 14 times per week.
zajio1am 5y ago
> We currently have a strange situation where the devices that are easy to use are the most open and the most locked down ones, and the middle-ground is punished by policy. Yes, but that is a result of legal framework, where handling and using independent firmware requires accepting appropriate licences, while handling and using burned-in firmware does not.

by mastax 5y ago

diffeomorphism 5y ago

> if that policy were successful at promoting. Not disagreeing that policies should be made with success in mind. But by the same reasoning "vegan" should include the top 5 most popular meat dishes as exceptions. This would easily make it more popular, more accessible and probably much more successful at reducing meat usage over all. The issue is that the definition of "success" might be entirely unacceptable. Just like "entirely free but...." might be unacceptable.

MrJohz 5y ago
In all fairness, flexitarianism is a thing, and I know a lot of people who would never want to go fully vegetarian or vegan, but who want to reduce their meat intake significantly, generally for environmental reasons. The change in messaging from "a single animal death is murder and unacceptable" to "any reduction is good, the more the better" is probably significantly not effective in this context at actually reducing overall meat consumption (although I unfortunately don't have any evidence for that hunch).
trashburger 5y ago
If you consider the fact that veganism/vegetarianism is very unhealthy without taking the nutrients you're missing as supplements (which could be argued as being "reverse engineered meat"), then I would suggest that yes, until we reverse engineer the "meat" we should include it in the "diet" (along Free software).
pid-1 5y ago
That's what I did. The first time I tried becoming vegetarian I failed. I often had no reasonable options in restaurants nor social events. Also I live in a country where meat is cheap and barbecues are a key social activity. Nowadays I still eat meat 0-2 times per week when my choices are limited, but that's much better than eating 14 times per week.

zajio1am 5y ago

> We currently have a strange situation where the devices that are easy to use are the most open and the most locked down ones, and the middle-ground is punished by policy. Yes, but that is a result of legal framework, where handling and using independent firmware requires accepting appropriate licences, while handling and using burned-in firmware does not.