I find it amazing that recently on a presumably ‘hacker’ forum opinions showing a ‘freedom software’ perspective get a bully response in form of simply downvoting and shutting up the person. I urge the admins to stop this practice. I wish to hear such points of view and consider things from such perspective.
It is very logical to assume that once you have no direct access to the sources of software, that software could do things that malware does. Yet this obviously logical reminder get downvoted like it is irrational or off topic.
It is on topic, it is rational, it is a good reminder and we see Microsoft and Apple consistently disrespect a right of a person to control own _Personal_ computer(PC). On recent M1 you can’t even have own OS without Apple permission, which makes it useless brick for me. Do some people still understand what ‘personal’ means ?
There are very few if not zero modern computers with completely open source firmware and boot loader. Including computers with open source as their primary selling point.
Some people find it psychologically easier to sit in the shit when they discover they are not alone. Some even go further and trying to justify the shit when there is a lot of it.
I am not one of them, so for me shit is still shit and I prefer to see it for what it is.
I am not suggesting it is perfect, but that it may be a little hyperbolic to say any os you load on a Mac is not it's 'own OS' because it relies on closed bootloaders/firmware. If that is the case, then what does every other computer run? Is Linus's own operating system not his own because he loads it on an Intel or AMD processor?
We will know the answer to that question once we study thoroughly all versions of microcode those processors have/ had. Alto had how much? 128k ? and some big part of it was for display memory? And it was a full OS. Just imagine what you can have in firmware/bootloader now days. Is it that hard to imagine for everybody?
You're changing the subject. The discussion is about your implication that one "can’t even have own OS without Apple permission", and that is simply not true.
Am I? Then what ‘closing bootloader’ is if not their form of giving permissions? If I understood correctly they would not “help” with specs and we do not know what bootloader capable of. Why? if their goal to keep it open? Let’s see the tendency.
They have put a complete control over IOS devices since the beginning of IOS, including the apps that were not allowed at all. Since then they are trying to bring this into a ‘personal computer’ domain as it seems.
they started slowly but steady to put more and more control over Mac apps,
then they started limiting root access,
Now the bootloader ...
So where they are going ? As I see it the tendency is to close MacOS completely just as IOS unless they face a strong resistance, then they go for ‘as much as they can get’ or ‘as much as they can get away with’ strategy, feeding some ‘calming pills’ on the way that some perhaps are happy to swallow. They have changed things from, “of course it is not our business what you boot” , to “of course, we may allow unsigned kernels .... for now” (if it’s true at all, we still need to see this in reality) Yes it is not as strong as “we will not allow at all”, but for sure it’s their permission now. You may say, oh it’s just as before. No , it’s not, they have taken some of the existing freedom and intend to take more next year possibly. And who knows what their bootloader does? What if it would be controlled remotely ? What if to load some “unsigned kernels” which are called just kernels by the way, they would still require some online check? Who knows? What of the above is not true or incorrect?
It is very logical to assume that once you have no direct access to the sources of software, that software could do things that malware does. Yet this obviously logical reminder get downvoted like it is irrational or off topic.
It is on topic, it is rational, it is a good reminder and we see Microsoft and Apple consistently disrespect a right of a person to control own _Personal_ computer(PC). On recent M1 you can’t even have own OS without Apple permission, which makes it useless brick for me. Do some people still understand what ‘personal’ means ?