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Re:The FSF’s relationship with firmware is harmful to free s... by r283492 on Sunday January 23, 2022 @12:10AM (#30043802)
> Making it inaccessible to tinkering is strictly worse for the user in all respects.

"all respects" is wrong. It also makes it so the proprietary developer can't say "here is a new version, but you must agree to some very nasty license terms, or accept some malicious feature along with it." NOT having a capability does have advantages, a physical book is impossible to be remotely deleted out of existence by DRM, but sure, you can't tinker with the software.

edit: yes, I understand in that the case of sticking the exact same software in a rom vs a read-write memory hurts the ability of a user reverse engineering it, which could ironically decrease user freedom over time. Calling this out for FSF to address is a good thing.

Re:The FSF’s relationship with firmware is harmful to free s... by R0b0t1 on Sunday January 23, 2022 @01:28AM (#30044079)
You're taking the vendor at their word. You can't do this. It has happened before (see Intel vPro) that some feature is not actually impossible to activate, etc.