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Posts: 634 | Thanked: 3,266 times | Joined on May 2010 @ Colombia
#1511
Originally Posted by joerg_rw View Post
Wicket,
Mr Stallman mailed me, asking about all the FSF rules and if they are satisfied by Neo900. I answered that all are met but the modem firmware update that we will offer (according to what the modem module can do: update firmware via USB), that we can't change that since we can't evaluate the hardware internals to make sure whatever we do will reliably forbid manipulations to the firmware (write-enable pins may not have the expected effect, even if they existed), and that I think the firmware must be considered "rogue" by definition (you never know what's in there, even on genuine firmware) and thus we follow another approach of tight monitoring of the modem's activities from very beginning, which will tell us when the modem misbehaves even with genuine firmware.
I received no answer to that from Mr Stallman yet, after one week.

So that's what you might assume is what FSF and Mr Stallman think about Neo900:
They like our project since it's striving for freedom and openness, but they don't want to further care about it and answer to us, when we can't fulfill their requirements, even when those requirements are impossible to fulfill.

Here a complete quote of my 2 original answers to first and second mail from Mr Stallman (I received and answered 2nd mail first, thus my answer to 1st mail refers to my answer to 2nd):



And here as an example a complete quote of my answer to another mail I received at 2013-12-07 03:58 from "anon" user [color and bold added by me for this post]:
Jörg,

Thanks for the detailed reply and for once again providing full transparency.

> If the modem firmware can't be changed, it is effectively in ROM, so
> it might as well be a circuit. It doesn't need to be considered
> as software. For instance, the FSF can disregard it when judging
> whether to endorse a product.
It's not that I didn't believe you before but I'm really quite shocked that RMS would write and endorse such drivel that goes against most of their principles. I'm looking forward to reading the paper, it should make a good excuse for another Slashdot submission, "FSF criticised for promoting user restrictions".
__________________
DebiaN900 - Native Debian on the N900. Deprecated in favour of Maemo Leste.

Maemo Leste for N950 and N9 (currently broken).
Devuan for N950 and N9.

Mobile devices with mainline Linux support - Help needed with documentation.

"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
 

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