[GNUz] How does GLU/GNUz differ from CLUG?

[Rik Tindall]

Nick Rout wrote:
>> Also I do not believe that there are only 6 web pages in the world
>> dedicated to Free Hardware! Thats just not likely, even without googling.
>>     
- Pages that collate references and bigger sources, rather than 
individual articles, and hopefully introduce something new too.

> Actually there is an interesting point here too. When is firmware just
> part of the hardware? There are many devices that have some form of
> embedded software.
>
> <snip>
>
> Where does this firmware thing ultimately lead? Is there a consumer device
> today that doesn't have some internal programming? Is a device FSF
> friendly if it is "pure" electronics, but FSF unfriendly if some element
> of it is changeable by flashing or uploading firmware?
>
> Where is the boundary between hardware and software?
>   
Wetware.

In that there's different kinds of users, looking in completely 
different directions. The minority that use *nix will include many 
hardware designers, modifiers, tweakers - and know and care about what 
you are speaking to. But the vast majority (c90%, if we believe that 
WinXX user statistic) want the 'closed bonnet car'.

In a sense, I'm with the latter - in that the user experience is central 
to choosing Free, and a small selection of O/S + applications can 
deliver it increased productivity and learning. That's a big 
simplification, but I think it puts the electronics question into 
perspective, because we're less concerned with principle to the nth 
degree of disassembly than with principle to a higher magnitude of 
collective good.

Apart from that, probably the electronics have always been proprietary 
and computing is moving off on a new trajectory on top of that, towards 
mass liberated platforms. Back in the valve & switch days, how to 
actually do the computing started out in a very few research brains (all 
but proprietary). Then came training and manuals, later came mass 
production, and now we have 'consumer appliance' (tending fully 
proprietary inside) - unless we unteach that bit, starting at the 
(desktop) start.

That's not much of an answer yet, but a prompt for more input.

And newer than the last find:

"An FSF paper on restriction-free hardware" 1 Mar 2007 
http://lwn.net/Articles/224424/

Cheers

-- 
Rik