> the idea that users shouldn't be developers has lead to a situation in which access to development tools and information are seemingly treated as a privilege

> the idea that users shouldn't be developers has lead to a situation in which access to development tools and information are seemingly treated as a privilege instead of a right Unfortunately, a lot of people have been starting the War On General Purpose Computing[1] for a while now. While many people saw Doctorow's first talk[1] on the War On General Purpose computing, his sequel talk[2] about the upcoming Civil-War On General Purpose Computing is one of the most important talks I've ever seen. The talk is about exactly this point: Turing completeness scares various traditional powers (and some new/upcoming powers), and their instinct is to lash out and try to mandate that someone make a computer that can't run the various programs that scare them. Not understanding what "Turing Complete" means, they end up in a cycle that tries to blacklist anything that allows these scary programs to be written and used. Hiding the dev tools is just one step on a path that - by definition - must end up with the hobbling of computing devices until they are no longer Turing complete. This problem needs to be fought right now, in a big way. The non-technical population is just starting to understand the full impact of what it means to have a General Purpose Computer, and we are only seeing the first skirmishes. The 2nd talk I mentioned above by Doctorow[2] - which I very strongly recommend that everybody watch - points out how modern concerns over "dev tools" (or "copyright") are trivial. We need to start the fight now, because it will be a lot more important when the War moves into areas such as medical devices or self-driving cars. We are already seeing the War start to affect areas like property rights and "first sale"; just wait until someone gets sued for publishing a fixed firmware for some company's buggy medical device. Teaching the next generation from an early age about computers is an important part of the fight to preserve General Purpose Computers, and by promoting "learning by exploring" so kids of the future can learn like we did on older devices would help a lot, at least in the long-run. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nypRYpVKc5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nypRYpVKc5Y