Conceptually, if one is to own a property of some sort, one would like to feel that no third party will interfere in the ownership of the property in any respect, and the ownership will be respected, be it a house, a paperclip, a computer, a car (we’ll come to that), or a copy of a movie. This idea of ownership is currently at stake, and has been for quite a while. It manifests itself most in modern software. This both actual and perceived loss of ownership exhibits itself not only in software, but also in hardware, consequentially, since the hardware owes much of its utility and meaning to the software it runs.

Software ownership has been gradually lost to either various rights management systems or to the infamous SaaS (software as a service) model throughout the last decade. While some object against them, many are indifferent to the implications behind. Most software nowadays is protected with various DRM (digital rights management) implementations. There are tools to implement DRM in software that will check whether the user have legitimate access to the software (or hardware for that matter) with a valid license or not. I’ll not delve into how DRM is applied to the software; this is about the implications of it.

The most likely culprits are exhaustively long end-user license agreements (EULA) and user negligence. Essentially, the user's extent of ownership (or rather lack thereof) is clearly stated in the EULA for the product. As an example, most games on Steam are non DRM-free, thus cannot be run standalone; games need Steam to be running and checking the validity of the user's license. Even though this is clearly stated in the EULA and the user who made the purchase technically signed the license agreement, it by no means makes the situation acceptable. One should be aware of this and think about their digital purchases thoroughly. This dependance on the storefront itself or on any other software product that’s not a part of what software product user intended to purchase in the first place effectively renders the product as the property of the publisher, and as not free (free as in freedom). Contrary to Steam, GOG has a strict non-DRM policy, meaning all games and all of their subcontent are DRM-free. Users can download and install their games purchased through GOG with no dependency on a launcher. This means even if the parent company or the publisher goes out of business, games purchased are safe, as long as the data files are taken care of.

This was more from a practical standpoint, and there is more to the freedom of the software product, and consequently in the larger scale, the hardware, from my perspective. Even if they appear to be free, some products have forced updates on them. A user buys a product knowing its state at the time of the purchase. Thus, any updates done to the software, even though they are for the improved usability and performance of the software (usually), will alter it and the user will technically end up with a different product. This should by no means convey the notion that no updates should be released to the software. It’s just that the decision to install it or not should be up to the user, the owner.

The term “forced updates” automatically brings operating systems to mind. Windows, the most widely used operating system, is especially notorious for this. When the software, in this case the software which runs every other software the user owns, is having its updates forced on the user, the user wouldn’t be owning the software at all. There is this undeniable uncertainty of what the next update will change and how it will affect the OS, and whether it will break anything or not. So the user’s experience with their computer may change on a daily basis, depending on the updates it receives. The patch notes from the developer should be clear, and the installation of the updates should be totally optional and revertable.

As the operating system is basically the feeling of the computer, as it defines the usage mechanics of the computer, losing the perceived ownership of the OS may very well raise the issue of the ownership of the computer itself. A reader might infer that everyone should use FOSS  (free and open source) operating systems, such as BSD or GNU/Linux. But that is in no way viable, as they lack support for many software, and they are actually quite unpolished regarding their desktop environments compared to Windows or macOS. It will also be quite cumbersome to use for a non tech-savvy user.

So what? Are we doomed? I have actually quite a specific take on this, and by specific I mean that. To own a computer, its motherboard should not have its bootloader locked. That is, I should be able to easily remove and install different operating systems on the machine, without going through hoops and loops (not that I wouldn’t go to make it my own). Not going to mention the ISA (instruction set architecture) since modern CPUs are either x86_64 or ARM, and for both ISAs there are multiple operating systems available. As long as the bootloader is free, my computer is free, and most importantly, mine.

And cars. Since the last decade (notice how everything happened in the last decade) most new cars are equipped with wide screens, many multimedia options, and Internet connectivity. While this may seem fine, and usability-wise it is actually somewhat fine, it inevitably brought OTA (over-the-air) software updates to cars, and of course they are forced. Admittedly, most software updates to cars are for safety reasons, and I’d install them even if they were optional, but they still forcibly change something I own. So nobody owns their cars anymore? Sort of. This is why I brought up the term “perceived ownership” in the first place. Legally the owner still owns the car to its every single screw, but the forced updates take away from the feeling of it, hence the loss of the perceived ownership. Large screens have no business in cars, at all.

Will the next car I’ll buy have a large screen on it? Probably. With a locked bootloader. Just like my next iPhone.