Comment by julian37 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by julian37 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Does he have the same moral reservations for other devices in his life?

Yes, as far as I know.

ie; what car does he use and own? All (modern) cars accept software updates which is his definition of a computer.

I am pretty sure he doesn't drive, but this is what he had to say on the topic:

So, what about cars? Free cars would mean you are free to modify them and redistribute copies. Well, as for the modification, you are free to do that-lots of people modify and customize their cars. But when it comes to redistributing copies, the fact is we don’t have the technology to do it. There is no automatic car copier. Cars, today, are like books before the Xerox machine-the only feasible way to make copies was with a special factory. Copying your car is so hard that it makes little practical difference whether you are allowed to do this. Perhaps someday, through nanotechnology perhaps, a car copier will be developed. Then a Free Car Movement will be necessary.

Source: http://www.resonancepub.com/rstallman.htm

In fact, to equate cars and computers in this manner is to commit a Category Error. They simply don't share very many properties (save that they are both sold for money).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

Except that cars contain thousands of microchips and pieces of software that run things like your radio, ABS, and other major systems in the car.

My 1978 Land Rover Series III doesn't have a single computer! It's the mechanical equivalent of the GNU project.

Awesome you still have that on the road. Im guessing you live in the south? Biggest difference I always notice about cali vs northeast is the amount of old cars on the road.

I'm in the UK!

In the south of the UK?

The south of uk is the opposite of the south of the US.

I think the whole of the UK is opposite of the south of the US

Some of it is actually pretty close unfortunately.

For the person who downvoted me, have you ever lived in Slough?

The middle at the moment. There's no point in owning anything with wheels larger than shirt buttons in the south.

You will always see a bevy of antiques on the road anywhere the roads aren't salted during the winter.

By that token, asking RMS about cars in relation to his attitude towards computer would be akin to asking whether he lives in civilization or not, since everything from traffic lights to voting machines don't have open software at all. The category error is one of scale, not technical advancement.

Example of a category error (stolen from Ryle): you are handed both the left glove and the right glove, and you ask where the pair is. The pair is not a separate thing from the left glove and the right glove.

'Category error' does not mean a quantitative or scale difference at all.

Well... I still own (and use, once every couple weeks) a car that runs on ethanol and has an analog electronic injection. The radio is, most probably, its smartest part ;-)

It can be examined and changed, but it's not as easy as recompiling its engine.

Don't forget modern cars are computers with wheels. Every time you drive (or ride) one, you bet your life on the correctness of the software running its various vital components.

Buggy software can cause the Lithium batteries under your seat to overheat and, maybe, catch fire. Perhaps violently.

I think if ever a car was to be copied, the technology to allow it would have it's roots in today's 3D printers. Something that emulates the star trek emulator in a terribly rudimentary way isn't all that far off from what we have now with these technologies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com