Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

Re:Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes by blueflow on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @10:34AM (#43173221)

I can speak for german law: If you buy something, it becomes your property, and you have full power of disposal ("Verfügungsgewalt") over it. If vendors deny you from exercising this right, they are violating their part of the purchase contract.

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Re:Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes by skybrian on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @10:43AM (#43173355)

Rights are of limited use if there's no practical way to exercise them. Hiring a software developer to change an OS or an app is rarely a practical option for most consumers.

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Re:Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes by Ajedi32 on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @11:01AM (#43173577)

Correct. It's not practical because those apps usually aren't Free Software and because the hardware or firmware they're running on often aren't Free and include anti-features that prevent you from installing Free alternatives.

If they were Free, users wouldn't necessarily even need to hire a developer to change their app or OS; those changes would most likely already exist in some form somewhere and the user could simply purchase the modified version.

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Re:Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes by blueflow on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @10:49AM (#43173430)

You can install Linuxor a custom ROM. And if the manufacturer has DRM like SecureBoot in place to prohibit that, you can file for damages and basically get the device for free.

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