Conversation

@vertigo@hackers.town @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange @gsuberland@chaos.social Agreed on most counts, but there is another side to this: hardware.

Hardware is extremely difficult to design, and even more difficult to manufacture. When it came to Amiga, sure.

But then you have modern hardware which is on an entirely different level of complexity. How could anyone address that when it's pretty much all proprietary?

Linux, I believe, couldn't function effectively if the corporations chose to withhold participation, because hardware support would be a much more difficult task than it already is.

Then there's all the black-box software that we can't get rid of in our physical CPUs... and while I vaguely understand its utility, I don't think it's justified considering the privacy ramifications. "Trust me bro" isn't good enough when it comes to accessing all my personal files and information.

So... what's the alternative? How can a person have actual freedom in the way they compute and use software, if not on these (shitty) terms?

Hell I'd be stoked to have a fully free and open source little machine which runs (an arguably bloated) Emacs and a web browser.

But it doesn't seem like there is anything like this. Even the 'very freaking secure' Talos II has a pile of proprietary hardware and software that it relies on...

What's the way?