“Defining Libre Hardware” – Мартин Сотиров

Can we have free/libre hardware, which is in the same spirit as free software? Why do we such libre hardware, and how do we define it? This talk will present the issues behind making a libre hardware definition and will try to propose solutions. It would also go over the reasons of why we need libre hardware. Free software gives us complete freedom over the software we use, and the definition of free software, along with the reasons and results are very practical and hard to dispute. On the other hand, modern hardware gets more and more, restrictive, controlling, and freedom unfriendly. It's an issue affecting many spheres, from computers and cell phones, to cars, video cameras, and washing machines. We can hardly even say we own our devices. During the talk, we'll take the philosophy of free software and try to apply it to hardware, and from there we'll try to define what libre hardware could be. This is not very cut and dry or obvious, because of the fundamental differences between software and hardware...