Free hearing aid/cochlear implant?
Do any exist?
It seems strange to me that this area hasn't had any activism from the FSF.
It might be because it doesn't consider those devices computers. Just as with SSDs, HDDs and printers.
But that's just my guess. And even if the guess is correct, I don't mean to judge FSF as doing sth right or wrong (seems too easy to cause a flame war about nonfree firmware here)
I'm not so sure:
> 22. two_front_teeth: Suppose your doctor
> told you that you needed a medical procedure
> to survive but that the procedure would
> require inserting a device inside of your
> body which ran proprietary software. Would
> you be willing to have the procedure done
> to save your life?
> RMS: The only way I could justify this is
> if I began developing a free replacement for
> that very program. It is ok to use a nonfree
> program for the purpose of developing its
> free replacement.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100731111641/http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/rms-ama.html
A hearing aid is not a circuit, it needs software calibration for each individual person (and this is not as simple as a volume switch), sometimes changing over the time of their life.