Its a very loaded and picturesque description to use, but is it an wrong description?
The goal of book burning is to remove information, private owned books in this case, from the public by destroying them. While one could smash them and disintegrate them through the use of massive force, burning was the practical tool used.
If kindle suddenly create a goal of removing information from the public, in this case some private owned books, and goes through this act by destroying the information from private people own devices, doesn't that act align itself perfectly with book burning, through instead of using fire, they used electronic means.
Sure, its not something I would like to see on Wikipedia. Its not neutral, and there are better, impartial wording one could use to describe, but is it wrong to use in a blog?
> doesn't that act align itself perfectly with book burning,
> through instead of using fire, they used electronic means
If that was the primary purpose of Kindle, you'd be right. However, for that to be true you constructed a scenario which is opposite to the real and intended use of Kindle.
Of course its not the primary purpose of the Kindle to destroy information. They have however made it their goal once before in regard to one book.
The original blog post could be interpreted as claiming what the kindles main purpose is, but I doubt RMS would defend such interpretation. A one time act, while notable, does not equal primary purpose, and he and everyone else knows that.
I found it merely confusing. In the context of computers, "burning" means "saving to disk" (as in "rip, mix, burn" or "we burn the documents as a secondary cache"), which is exactly something that Kindle tries to make harder.
I think you may intend somewhere towards the 3(b) definition but even that doesn't quite fit. Maybe another dictionary has a definition for your intended meaning.
It's actually not rhetoric - it's a play on Bradbury's comment about e-readers "smelling like burned fuel" (read Fahrenheit 451 for the background of this).
I own a Kobo, but it's been seriously hacked by myself so it doesn't call home and only talks to SD cards. It also only gets non DRM epubs on it. Anything more would be considered virtual book burning on my part as well.
It's actually not rhetoric - it's a play on Bradbury's comment about e-readers "smelling like burned fuel" (read Fahrenheit 451 for the background of this).
