alt Hacker NewsOwnership is rarely absolute. It can be partial, segmented and with different degrees of control.
Think about music rights ownership - there are mechanical rights, performance rights, sync rights, derivative rights, etc. I'm not defending music industry ownership system, but it shows clearly that binary view of ownership is far from reality.
You own the flat, but you can't remove the wall. You may own the house, but you can't build a factory there due to zoning regulations. You can own electric car, but you can't put diesel fuel there.
I see that main disagreement here is whether phones are "general purpose computers" or not. I have no idea why anyone would call these ultra-packed cameras on steroids a "general purpose computer". Framed like this, this is a debate about OP demanding private companies to transform their product into something very different and urging governments to step in. And the thing is those products exists – Libreum 5, Ubuntu Phone or PinePhone phones, or already mentioned Maemo/MeeGo phones (N900/N9/N950). If they were a better product on the market, we would have them everywhere, but industry and market decided otherwise (PinePhone was discontinued just couple of weeks ago, sadly).
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> I have no idea why anyone would call these ultra-packed cameras on steroids a "general purpose computer".
Why not ?? They have even more built-in 'peripherals' and are much more portable than a desktop !
Also, PinePhone wasn't discontinued, only PinePhone *Pro* was.
>Think about music rights ownership
What are we talking about exactly? Ownership as in IP, or ownership of a copy?
>You own the flat, but you can't remove the wall.
Of course I can, as long as the wall is internal and non-structural. Everything inside the inner surfaces of the external walls is mine.
>You may own the house, but you can't build a factory there due to zoning regulations.
Well, zoning laws exist because plots of land don't exist in isolation, and affect each other. If I choose to run software X on a computer I own, how does that per se affect anyone else, that I should not be allowed to do so? Not that I should be punished if I do it, but that I should be stopped technologically from being able to attempt it? As I see it, there should be a very compelling reason to infringe on property rights in such an invasive way.
>You can own electric car, but you can't put diesel fuel there.
Literally what's stopping you from opening the charging port of your electric car and pouring in a can of diesel if you really want to? Or, for a more realistic example, what's stopping you from modifying your car by installing a diesel generator in the backseat that continuously charges the battery as you drive?
>I have no idea why anyone would call these ultra-packed cameras on steroids a "general purpose computer".
If you really wanted, you could build an APK yourself to use an Android phone to host a website. Is it good idea? I don't know. That's for you to decide. But in what way is a device that's capable of doing this not a "general purpose computer"? What more does it need?
>Framed like this, this is a debate about OP demanding private companies to transform their product into something very different
No. Phones are already this. They have processing elements, memory, stored programs... They're just computers. No one should get to decide what my computer runs over me. If I want to run something I should be able to run it, and if I want to stop something from running I should be able to stop it. Whether that causes problems for myself is my own business. I don't understand what's so complicated about this, or why anyone would argue against this.