Slashdot Mirror
USB Forum Becomes Too Greedy?
I just saw this on the Linux USB Mailing List: Up until a few days ago all the class specification documents were available for anyone for free. Those classes are important for the Linux USB development. It appears now, after the USB group got the Slashdot beany award, that the access for those documents is now restricted to members only, which are required to pay $2,500 per year. Is this just a coincidence? You can test it here.
Before they fix their security leaks, I've mirrored the members only pages at
http://www.geocities.com/usb_dev/.
Feel free to mirror this...
Additionally, another AC has posted a mirror where the docs can be viewed (scroll down if you're interested). [I have personally been fucking with mixmaster trying to send off some mails, damnit] Of particular interest are two particular documents: "Device Class Definition for Content Security Devices 0.9a" and "Content Security Method 4 - Elliptic Curve Content".
The first of these docs outlines roughly why: "Protected Content typically refers to copyrighted content. Content Protection Methods (CPM) have been developed for the controlled distribution of protect [sic] content." and also uses an example of a pair of USB speakers which allow protection of content up until the hardware induces analog playback.
The second document discusses the technical details of Elliptic Curve cryptographic methods to provide authentication, and authentication + encryption. This is no CSS. This is good old fashioned high grade badass crypto. Some of the inline commentary regarding illegal intent there is somewhat chilling.
Anyone still have doubts as to why this dinner is being held behind closed doors and costs $2500 a plate?
I am deisgning a USB device in VHDL and I downloaded some of the Device Class specifications previously - it sucks that the otherwise very open (there are no licensing fees to create USB devices, and you can download the protocol specification from the website for free; they also run a very active and useful Developers Webboard for free) USB site should clam up on the critically important Device Class specs like this.
The Device Class specifications outline standard ways to use the USB protocol for, say, Modem devices, or Mass Storage Devices. If you make your hardware compliant with these Device Class specification ''APIs'' then you don't actually need to write a device driver! The major OSs write inbuilt support for the defined Device Classes, and your new Modem or whatever is recognized as being compliant with the ''APIs'' and ''just works''.
It is a bit numb to publish the physical and transport layer specifications for free but not the higher level ones! I wonder what made them decide to change?
Anyone concerned should email admin@usb.org (this is the correct address from the website) and request that the Linux implementation efforts are allowed a complimentary membership as they are not-for-profit.
-Andy
Frankly a year charge of $2500 can only affect individuals or volunteer groups. Companies and major software development groups may feel this as a bless as it shrinks USB potential market to their products.
Sincerly I am not absolutely against charging such things. Anyway things must be supported, one should pay for common expenses and many people would like to have conferences or meetings to settle up questions. and this demands money.
However USB group makes out of this an elite club. There are no chances. Either pay $2500 or hit the streets. And this does not just end here. If anyone has taken a look at their application form, then they consider ONLY companies as possible members. Besides:
"Renewal and Size of Forum. The Forum Sponsors reserve the right to limit the number of participants or to discontinue the program upon written notice. Upon any such, Company shall receive a refund of a portion of its subscription fee proportional to the amount of time otherwise remaining in its enrollment period."
The Forum sponsors are: Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM PC Co., Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom. So one may well think were this beautiful family of sponsors are pushing us to. Specially if we consider that this membership allows "early access to specifications".
In any case I would highly recomend anyone to read this membership form. It presents some more interesting points that may develope discussion:
http://www.usb.org/developers/data/usbifapp.pdf
It seems to me that the rampant mirroring some people are suggesting isn't going to be particularly effective, in the long term at least.
These specifications are 'in various stages of development' and the folks working on this stuff would probably like to keep up with these developments, not be stuck with what was freely available yesterday.
This needs to be sorted out sensibly and diplomatically, hijacking accounts and mirroring (potentially superceded) documentation is going to win us no friends nor be of much long term use. What it will do is make us look like a bunch of petulant children.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I've read all the comments on this article, and visited a few links. There's quite a few rumors and half-truths going around, so I won't try to address most of them. I will, however, address the simple act of trying to close off the device classes.
If we look back on the path computing has taken over the past two decades, we see it littered with dead technology. What does most of this dead technology have in common? At one point or another, it was closed off. Ridiculous fees were charged for redistribution of specifications. Those who paid were prohibited from sharing their information with anyone but the others who paid, and sometimes not even them.
By contrast, if the steward of a particular technology practices open computing, whether the technology lives or dies depends on technological rather than political (and no, I don't mean governmental) merits. If these stewards need money; it would stand to reason that whomever stood to benefit from the technology's wide adoption should contribute more to it in the hopes that their investments would be returned.
USB's move here could undermine its previously open stance, and that would be a bad thing for USB. I hope they reevaluate it. USB is a very useful technology in its own right and need not be squelched in this manner.
Oh, and I can't pass up contributing to a USB thread without telling you that salespeople in a local electronics store recently told one of my friends that the USB port on some home entertainment equipment was for the brand-spankin'-new ``Universal Stereo Bus''. :-)
- http://www.usb.org/developers/docs.html
- http://electr icrain.com/lists/archive/linux-usb/2000/02/msg010
3 5.html - http://electr icrain.com/lists/archive/linux-usb/2000/02/msg010
5 5.html
Methinks the editor should have done some research himself and put some of these in the story. A slashdot story with no links? Bah!--
Although it appears people are confusing the group that got the award (developers), and the people who are charging for access to docs (USB-IF), perhaps it's time to split the Beanie Awards concept in twain.
- Slashdot Beanie Awards
- Slashdot Weenie Awards
(Slashdot Weenie Awards =anagram> So, what ideals answered?)For laudable service to fellow geeks.
For all the FUD-spewing, patent abusing sorts.
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I've contacted the individual authors of the documents being restricted, and most of them appear to agree with my points. I think we can expect this situation to get fixed with either usb.org putting it back into a publically accessible spot or the same documents being published elsewhere.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
That was the net/net of this situation so if you are concerned with getting at the information there is nothing further to worry about. If you are interested in the background, I will try to explain.
The USB-IF charter has always been to support the development of USB products. It has also always included the FOCUS on members and anything that was made available to the general public was fine as long as it didn't become a support or financial burden. This is based on the belief that USB technology is close enough to "rocket science" that most all individual companies will have trouble if they don't have support from the spec architects in the form of education, information centralization, market message commonality, a compliance program.... These things just ain't free. Ergo the membership organization does most of these things for its members and charges an annual membership fee to cover the cost.
USB-IF is a non profit corporation that spends over 20% of its budget on web information distribution, over %30 percent of its budget on a compliance program, slightly under %20 of its budget on administration. Whats left is now destined for on of the most often requested services from it's members, an improved compliance and logo program. The members feedback has been for a long time (this is an expensive change and it took a lot of effort to make it) that we should have a better way to stop the slipshod manufacturing and design of things that call themselves USB products. I don't know how this will work out, but we are doing our best to accomplish what the members are asking within our budget.
Now the place where this community can help!! As part of our compliance testing we verify product electrical characteristics and protocol capabilities. When it comes to the qualification of drivers and therefore the statement that a product works with a certain OS we only have one set of tests that we can use. They were developed and given to the IF for this use by the promotor companies (yes Microsoft is a promotor company). There were some big costs to develop these tests, by the way, that were covered by the promotor companies themselves. Currently for any other OS we have to simply take the peripheral vendors word for their drivers compliance to the OS. If the Linux community can find a way to judge driver quality for USB products the OS column for Linux on the USB-IF product list would mean much more. We are open to a proposal that would help seperate the functional products from the non functional.
PLEASE NOTE;Our compliance program is primarily a feedback tool to developers. We get more repeat attendees at workshops that come back even after their products have "passed" because the workshops allow them to learn so much and develop so much easier or quicker. As most of us heard in high school or college, "the score is not the goal of the test, it is the feedback on the learning that is of real value".
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