From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.comp.gnu.lightning.general,gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: The Free Semantics Foundation Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:34:27 -0400 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1409837726 27540 80.91.229.3 (4 Sep 2014 13:35:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 13:35:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-devel-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org To: lightning-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Original-X-From: lightning-bounces+gcglg-lightning=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Thu Sep 04 15:35:21 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcglg-lightning@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XPXC1-0003gU-Ge for gcglg-lightning@m.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 15:35:17 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51088 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPXC1-0007Uy-5U for gcglg-lightning@m.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:35:17 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39584) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPXBj-00074p-90 for lightning-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:35:06 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPXBb-0003FW-R6 for lightning-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:34:59 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:38110) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPXBb-0003FO-LR for lightning-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:34:51 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XPXBZ-0003Ly-Pv for lightning-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 15:34:49 +0200 Original-Received: from 69-165-145-6.dsl.teksavvy.com ([69.165.145.6]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 15:34:49 +0200 Original-Received: from monnier by 69-165-145-6.dsl.teksavvy.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 15:34:49 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 20 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet-dbVV3NMTNubNLxjTenLetw@public.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 69-165-145-6.dsl.teksavvy.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:nvKnAWar82SjP6cjKIQOES/IsSI= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: lightning-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: lightning-bounces+gcglg-lightning=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Original-Sender: lightning-bounces+gcglg-lightning=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.gnu.lightning.general:561 gmane.lisp.guile.devel:17397 Archived-At: > Focussing on free source code is pointless, we need to focus on free > semantics. There I lost you. I'm quite aware of what "semantics" mean in the context of computer science (and programming languages in particular), but I really can't see what the above means. Last I checked, all semantics is described "in some other language" (whose own semantics is assumed to be known). So there's still always the same loophole: the program's description is "source code" and its interpretation is vulnerable because the semantics of the language in which the description is written may be modified. And of course, I agree with William that it's probably easier to get that kind of control nowadays from SMM or one of the many "security" hardware "features", some of which are even designed to be used remotely. Stefan