Re: [libreplanet-discuss] [Dev] Misleading information in EOMA68 news

[Ali Razeen]

Hi all,

I’m not even sure that it’s imprecise to say that it is “free from the very 
beginning.” However, since my reasoning may be wrong, let me write it below and 
you folk can point out my mistakes.

To quote Christopher: “Everybody who has the devices has the schematics and 
rights thereof.” Suppose that the *only* ones who have the hardware are people 
within the EOMA68 and ThinkPenguin groups, and suppose that they have the 
designs and source code. That is enough to say that it has been a libre 
hardware from the beginning (which is T1 from Tiberiu-Cezar’s email). Sure, it 
might not be useful to anyone else since it wasn’t released to anyone but it’s 
still libre to the people with the devices and they can release it should they 
wish to.

There are two ways I can think of to defeat this argument.

1) We can ask a person who has the hardware whether they have the rights to 
distribute it and the rights to ask for the PCB designs. If the answer to both 
is “no”, then it is not “libre from the very beginning.” But if the answer to 
both is “yes”, then the project is indeed “libre from the very beginning."

2) As per Tiberiu-Cezar’s email, we can object to this on the grounds that we 
do not have proof of their claim. I don’t have a clear reply to this except to 
ask what kind of proof can we reasonably expect? Christopher has already said 
that “Everybody who has the devices has the schematics and the rights 
thereof.”. I, personally, don’t have any reason to not trust that statement. 
But let’s say I don’t trust Christopher and that I still lack proof of the 
claim. Would that be grounds for me to claim that the statement “libre from the 
very beginning” to be misleading. Some stronger words were used but I will not 
repeat them here. Perhaps the most we can say is that the claim “libre from the 
very beginning” is unverifiable. Such a claim is far less problematic.

What do you think Tiberiu-Cezar? (By the way, how should I address you? 
Tiberiu, Tiberiu-Cezar, or something else? I’m sorry for my cultural ignorance!)

Best,
Ali



> On Aug 26, 2016, at 2:48 PM, pelzflorian (Florian Pelz) 
> <pelzflorian@pelzflorian.de> wrote:
> 
> (I forgot to reply to all lists… Sorry.)
> 
> It seems the problem is the meaning of “libre” in terms of unreleased
> hardware/software. EOMA68 certainly is aligned with libre culture and
> significant for freedom because of its modularity standard. It also is
> GPL-compliant like any unreleased product, but this does not mean much.
> I believe the claim that it is “free from the very beginning” is
> imprecise but not deceptive and *not a problem* if all available sources
> will eventually be released.
> 
> A clear promise to release what is missing would seem fair though.
> 
> Regards,
> Florian Pelz