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After reading this, I'm reminded of a famous Ben Franklin quote, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither li
by 16s 14y ago
After reading this, I'm reminded of a famous Ben Franklin quote, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
DRM and walled gardens are often said to reduce malware and provide safer computing, but at what cost? As technologists, we can change this and have a say. I'm concerned though that it may already be too late.
- sliverstorm 14y agoAs I understand it, Franklin was talking about policies of appeasement. He was not, after all, a stone-cold anarchist- yet folks insist on interpreting that quote as if he was.
- CapitalistCartr 14y agoAppeasement is what we'd all be doing if we allow locking down the BIOS. It isn't to solve the malware problem; it isn't to make computing "safe"; its to put OUR computers in the ownership of a few large corporations. These same corps have long used bureaucracy, paperwork, a maze of rules, large costs to shield their business model from real competition, and that's how they'll do this. Getting the privilege to have access to our own property will be obstructed by all these barriers. Barriers which are minor for a large corp, but insurmountable by private citizens or open-source programmers. To be suspicious of those who have long shown a disregard for the greater good isn't promoting anarchy; its plain good sense.