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Death of the General Purpose PC
phil reed writes "This article at The Register provides a deeper view of what has started out as the discussion about copy protected hard drives. Basically, the author is saying that the end of the general-purpose PC is in sight, and we're likely to end up with special purpose appliances (witness Tivo) with all kinds of built-in copy protection. He does a good job of justifying his view, and it's depressing. Comments?"
YouYou nerd. ;-) You're outnumbered a thousand to one. :(
No I am not. Look at all the people that bought beta video tapes. Look at how memory sticks (Sony proprietary) are fairing versus SmartMedia cards in digital cameras. The market rewards open standards time after time.
-josh
I'm going to have to buy 8 machines to do what my one little 166 can do? I think not...
How Jaded Are You?
I agree; if people aren't happy with a situation, they will find something that will make them happy.
Besides, for me (and most of my friends) the trend has been the opposite; replacing all this specialized crap with the PC. I watch movies on it, listen to music, play games, and do work. Maybe i'll even get a tv card some day.
While that is exactly what the entertainment industry is trying to do, capitalism is not the problem. The only way the MPAA and RIAA can "arrange the market" to bring about their controlled-content/rent-everything/produce-nothing dystopia is to use government power to eliminate their competition. In a real capitalist marketplace the crippled hardware they're trying to foist on us would never survive.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Stupid laws cut both ways.
-- Linux Consultant
apple has a protection in place in os 9 that blanks out part of the screen when a screenshot is taken while a dvd movie is playing.
This is not actually true. The DVD software that comes with Mac OS uses a technology called "direct screen blast" (also used in some games) to dramatically accellerate the framerate. All the OS knows is that there is a blank space there. The traditional Command-Shift-3 keystroke goes through the OS, and since there is no data there (to the OS's knowledge) the screenshot turns out black. Same thing, incidentally, if you try to use a projector on certain laptops to project a DVD (using certain software, I don't know the details). It's not the fault of the OS, it's a way of getting you (the user) a better quality picture.
BTW, if you must capture DVDs while they are playing, there is a utiliy called Snapz (for the Mac) by Ambrosia Software can capture even direct screen blast images.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes.
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of American people.
The point isn't that the PC as we know it is still popular, it's that the market is no longer profitable.
Oh, bullshit. Complete and total hogwash. The PC industry is extremely profitable. The problem is that companies such as Intel, Dell, etc. got used to 50 percent profit margins during the late 80s. Getting by on what a normal company would get (10 to 20), seems like bankruptcy to them now.
How much profit do you think a printer makes? My brother-in-law ran a printing company for years. It's generally considered a good year if you have anything left over after paying employees and all the rest of the bills. Do you see any lack of printers?
Someone will always be there to make money from me when I want to buy a PC. Even if it is some guy working out of a garage.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Your Ultra 60 isn't a general purpose PC.
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
There's a difference between going out of your way to circumvent copy protection, and not going out of your way to enforce copy protection.
---
It seems to me that this is similiar to what occured during the inception of the US..specifically the Boston Tea Party. Once again we find ourselves having something forced on us without due representation, without being heard. But I suppose things are different because we do have a "House of Representatives". We don't have to dump a shipment of proprietary devices into the ocean, but we can make sure our voices are heard on this issue. I for one am going to do something about it and will write letters to my congressmen today. Please let your voices be heard!
You touched on another important point.... the computer provides a medium for instant, easy digital exchange of information between all these apps. Just save it as a file and load it up in app 2. If you have a word processor, and an image editing studio, and a video editor, well, you have a lot more trouble moving data around, since they all have to speak the same formats over some sort of plug system. It's more work to wire those damned things together and get them to understand and incorporate each others data than to use your image editing app which does image editing quite nicely on your peecee and then load that into your video editing app, etc. You get the gist. I don't know how general this is, but persisting data and sharing between apps in pure digital format en masse in a hard drive is a pretty killer function of a PC.
Technology is one of those fields where "public awareness" is next to zero. However, there is no such thing as a machine that cannot be altered, and given the implications that this type of control policy could have, we could see a definite shift in the paradigms of computer scientists world wide.
We'll always have innovative computer scientists, and I think that what we do as consumers, and computer enthusiasts is very important. We cannot sit by like sheep without informing people about the actions that they can take to prevent this type of thing from becoming widespread.
The music industry lobbying groups, computer manufacturers, and software companies are all feeling the bite from a decline in consumer spending right now. We have the power, not them. If consumers don't feel the need to support the companies that are inclined to impose these types of restrictions on machines that we pay for, these companies will be forced to change their policies.
More and more I'm seeing a defeatist mentality coming from a lot of people who are supposed to be very involved with the industry of computers. The power of the DOJ and the corruption of congress are so prevalent because the people have become like sheep.
SubtleSeer
True, but the major hardware manufacturers are still represented throughout the world. Just because your nation of residence has sane IP laws and and economics doesn't mean that your new IBM hard drive will all-of-a-sudden cease to have copyright protection built into it.
Bow before my sig, for it is good.
In fact the morons might even take on the head-up-the-ass attitude that Microsoft has adopted when it was ruled against... or the same arrogant attitude Steve Jobs had when he was ursupped from the company he founded by his own people.
-----
"In order to be effective artists you have to steal" --paraphraze of Steve Jobs on the creation of the Apple II (or was it the Mac..DOH! don't blame me...I was only four when it came out)
"The lowdown dirty Bastich stole from us!" --paraphraze of Steve Jobs on Bill Gates's creation of Windows 3.0
A stable of appliances isn't going to replace general purpose PCs because of the cost.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
The prospect of this nightmare scenario makes you wonder which side really won the Cold War. We may have beaten the Stalinist dictatorships in the short term, but giving the powers that be control over the technology available to us will eventually gravitate us towards Orwell's "1984" scenario.
Now, what's next? That we'll be required to use only devices that not only honour copyright protection, but also control content, as decided by our authorities, corporate and government? How about mechanisms to monitor our activities as well?
Needless to say, this will tremendously retard advances in computer science, the physical sciences, and many other fields, but the powers that be don't give a fuck.
Not only that, they'll love it. Imagine, limitless monopoly-assured profit for very little money spend on R&D?
Yeah, 40,000 sysadmins with influence on the buying decision of 40,000 corporate accounts, no big deal.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
And do you actually see our friends at OSDN suddenly changing their policy? "Oh, you want Linux, do you? Well, you'll have to rent a license for it..." The day that happens is the day I switch to BSD for good.
Ceci n'est pas un sig
The general purpose PC will never die. Maybe never is a little too strong but the end is no where near in site. Question: How many of you reading this would be able to put together a computer without looking at a book? With spare parts from a "Purpose" PC? Probably every second person to read this, I'd say. You going to have a machine for gaming and only gameing? Not likely. A machine just for wordprocessing? Not anytime soon. Ans what about all those old computers you've got. Those don't disappear into thin air. They'll be around somewhere. A couple hundred million PC's are hard to get rid of..... and I think the general purpose PC will be around for a lot longer than most of us, even if large compnies stop makeing them, smaller companies or individuals will find a very, very large niche market......
*Thank*you for fully formulating the exact reason why I still keep coming back to slashdot. The OS and software credo thare are constantly "preached to the chior" here can at times be annoying, but your explanation pretty much sums up how I feel. I may not always use linux nor open source software (heresy, I know :) but damn I'm sure glad it's there.
- It is simple to make something complex, and complex to make it simple
The fact is, there's no incentive for corps. to come down on the side of copy protetion, especially after the napster "thing" goes away. Napster use, by recent estimates, takes up upwards of 5% of bandwidth - it's the massive driver of broadband sales, according to some.
How happy are @home and RCN going to be when it turns out they can't pawn cable service off on users because there's no content they need?
The same thing come up here. Would you buy a hard drive with *optional* copy protection? No. A CD burner that didn't allow mp3's to be burnt? No! The only reason DVD's are how they are is because the format was defined by content creators rather than hardware creators.
But, you might ask - what if all the software vendors banded together to demand copy-protection? Fact is, they won't. Because if the software dosen't work on heritage machines, Corps. won't buy it, and there will be no sales. Thus, copy protected hard drives will never make it. Period.
Yeah, they might make an easy to use personal home controller internet applicance xbox. But that's not going to replace what wageslaves use at work, and you'll sill be able to get those. FUD about copy protected hard drives is bull untill one hits the market, sells well *AND* has software that can only be used with it. See anything requiring the "secure audio" on windows yet? Neither have I.
As long as there's legacy hardware with new software and PCs on work desks, I have no fear.
I'm the best IRC client ever.
Only problem with your theory is that you are assuming that most consumers are smart enough to make an educated decision. Trouble is, they aren't. Most consumers will happily go wherever Uncle MegaCorp, Inc. wants to lead them. Why do you think AOL is the country's most popular ISP?
The problem is, when companies combine, merge, or form partnerships, they gain a lot of protection against consumer dissatisfaction. A company with ten customers has to work it's butt off to please all ten of those customers, or it stands to lose a fairly large percentage of it's income. A company with ten million customers can sit back and laugh at the 100,000 or so informed consumers who decide to "boycott" them.
What will happen is that these companies will create copy-protected media and flood the market with it. Most consumers will buy it because they don't know any better. This copy-protected media will refuse to talk to any media that's not copy protected. Now, your boss can't open your Word document you sent him on his new Gateway, because you created the file on an unprotected computer. Guess who has to upgrade their drive? Open PCs will always be around, I'm sure...but they will no longer be useful. I still use my Commodore 64, but how many people can read files I create with it? How many ISPs would let me connect to the Internet with it? It's obsolete...just like the "open" PC will be someday...
DennyK
People have been foretelling the doom of the pc for ages. I personally don't see it happening. Maybe ist the general uselessness of all the current information appliances when compared to a nice pc, or the fact that I have been hearing, "don't buy a computer, they aren't gonna be around in a year," since 1992, but I just don't buy it. Hell, even Bill Gates has stated that the pc is far more useful than pundits give it credit for. One of the few things I have ever agreed with him on.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
I don't think that "the General Purpose PC" is going anywhere anytime soon. Even when we've got toasters that'll check our email and refrigerators that'll order more ketchup when we're running low, and have appliances that each do one/some of the things that computers do, I really can't see people giving up computers entirely. Sure, gramma might want that email-checking toaster, but people like myself aren't going to give up PCs just because we've got a toaster to check our email and a pen that re-orders itself when its nearly out of ink. The great thing about "the General Purpose PC" is that it's so dang flexible. Want to send some email? Go ahead. Want to play a game? Go ahead. Want to read send email, find porn, play a game, code some apps and order books all at the same time from the same machine? Go right on ahead. Maybe you'll give up yours, but I won't give up mine.
terradot, growing awareness
"No one will manufacture user-control free media if they RIAA/MPAA/IDSA/BSA get their way."
What is the common feature of all those acronyms? The 'A' at the end, refering to 'America.' These people dont have much power outside the States; if they make force chrud on us that doesn't do what we think it should we won't buy it. They won't get the sales(just like DivX) and we can still buy hardware from outside the States.
I think alot of us computer nerds have at least a few japanese inport games, so how would getting some japanese harddrives be any harder? Yeah, a normal person may not go that far, but they probably wouldn't want to do things that were locked out anyway.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
But how about academia? If someone's running a server or a database, or if someone just has tons of MS Excel (excuse the swearword) files with data in them, then copy-protected harddrives and stuff like that will only be a hindrance...
In my opinion, this will never fly... and if it does, I'm pulling out my old 105 MB HD from where it has been for the past 7 years: under one of the legs of the coffee table, preventing it from wobbling too much...
Veni, vidi, vici.
ten years ago people were doing a hell of a lot more than "text editing, programming, and a few simple games." I think I at the time I was playing TW2002 on a few BBSes, Ultima VI locally, and talking to folks on IRC, not to mention MUDs, etc, all of which set the stage for your WONDERFUL UNTERNET. mp3 and DVD have, yes, effectively, encouraged a bunch of what i swear i will no longer be referring to the "non-elite" as soon as the X-Box or whatever the next flavor of the week is permits internet access and we have the next wave of idiot users to piss away the collective internet IQ.
however, it's good to see your (apparent) ignorance has not hindered what is generally a reasonable conclusion: more audio/video/pc "convergence" (i cringe at using such an internet buzzword -- i am not a consultant.) Will it get to the gee-whiz jetson level you propose? i think only after we have an interface revolution. you have a PC at home, but do you watch movies on it? no, because MONITOR MOVIE == SUCK (because of their nice fat beige border that reminds you that you're suppose to be working.) instead, you have an OUTPUT to your tv, wireless keyboard, and all manner of geeky jerry-rig setup that "regular folk" would not bother with. will we see more of this sort of thing? sure, as soon as we change the interface -- dramatically. do i have any constructive thoughts about how to do this? no. i'm just here to bitch people out.
fisfhcuekcer.
"dude, 10 years ago, was like.. AGES!"
There is something important to remember about all of this. This only applies to low end "consumer/home PC" market. The high end area will still need the general purpose flexability, and since there is still money in that market they'll get it. The bottom line is that you're not going to loose the ability to do what you do now with your current PCs, but you'll have to pay alot more to get a machine to do what you want because it will be labeled "Server class". Now the software end of things is another story, and hopefully free software (The RMS definition) will save us.
Not to echo the other responses, but what is it you want to do that a $5 cable from Radio Shack or Fry's or some online retailer wouldn't take care of?
Just to be troublesome, I actually use my MiniDisc player to record LPs and 45s and tapes, then output the analog from a portable MD into the mic jack on my Macintosh. Then I rip to AIFF/MP3, burn CDs as needed. In fact, this is about the only use I get out of the MD unit now that CD burners and blanks are easier to come by.
I do not have a signature
"Normal" people think the same about this; where are the copy protected CD drives? Except in a few specialist areas, there aren't any. Same with videos, same with audio cassettes. It isn't because copy protected systems hard to make, it's because few people would buy one except where a monopoly exists that forces them to.
;-)
Still, even though the schemes aren't hard to make, ultimately they always fail. As soon as you have hardware designed to protect something placed in an environment where it can be taken apart by the owner, or the output recorded in some way, you soon have a non protected thing IMNHO.
Besides, don't underate the POWER OF SLASHDOT!
The number of times I have seen a story in slashdot and then later seen the same story somewhere else- I think some journalists read slashdot. It's only sensible.
Journalists do have significant power over the thoughts of population. Slashdot is all powerfull.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!""...the typical slashdot reader..."
Yeah, but is the typical slashdot reader in any way representative of the general population of consumers? I think not.
"Who wants to fool around with 10 different systems when you can control everything from one device?"
Someone who doesn't want to learn how to use a new device. Why don't we combine cell-phones with TV remotes (the phones already have all of the necessary hardware) or TV remotes with Palm Pilots? (note: I know that both of these have already been done, but they're not market realities and thus don't matter) Because for Joe Sixpack, learning a new device is too much hassle.
z
Linux wouldn't be circumventing copy protection, unless it were taking copy-protected data and breaking the protection on it. All it would be doing is not IMPLEMENTING copy protection.
That's like the difference between a VCR (illegally) ignoring Macrovision, and simply recording a copy of something that was never Macrovision-protected in the first place.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Let me toss out my Ultra 60 for this "new enhanced, Mac OS X ready toaster." :)
Capitalism has nothing to do with encoraging free markets; it is a the description of a system whereby people inves capital and obtain a return on that capital. If fostering a healthy market maimises return on investment, individuals and companies will do so. If not, they will act against customer choice.
Free market theory is concerned with maximising value, usually to the consumer, through competition. Capitalism is interested in maximising value to the owners of capital. The entertainment industry is lousy at markets, but great at capitalism.
Are you kidding? PCs are already sold pretty much at razor-thin margin -- if anything this increases the value of marketing (as well as support). Just as with long distance service, you have to convince the consumer that a Dell really is better than a PartsBin 2000, when they really are the same thing.
In fact, "special-purpose" modifications are already becoming the trend to push the margins back up. People will pay more for a computer with a volume knob on the monitor because that's a doohickey they can see (just like the consumer stereo market!) Who cares if it's got the world's crappiest sound card inside?
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
The RIAA and the MPAA are spending millions lobbying Congress. How much are us consumers spending? How many consumers think independently enough to believe us technology types, when Brittany Spears (or some such) is telling them "To copy is to steal. You're hurting me!", over and over again in media outlets?
:^(
This is a policital battle, not a marketing one. I think we're in trouble and mostly too complacent to see it coming.
RS
I can see people downloading freeware 'encryption emulators' that trick software into thinking it is on a secure hd. How it would work would depend on how exactly they implimented such a protection, but I dont doubt such countermeasures would be produced.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I'm interested in seeing how long will it take to develop a black market in non-protected (read old) components to use to upgrade your existing PC's....can ebay supply those who refuse to be lambs led to the slaughter of fair-use??????
Bryan "BJ" Hoffpauir
I fully agree with this statement: "There will always be an underground for this stuff."
Although this next quote was on a different subject (sort of, Tipper Gore and the PMRC '-p), I think it applies here now:
Ice-T
From the album "Home Invasion"
Ban me, try it
You might cause a riot
What the radio won't play
The underground will supply it
I'm an 'MC' pirate that's loud, not quiet
Radical as they make 'em, make a rule I'll defy it
Critics may say I'm wise
Some may call my words lies
I've lived more in one day than they will in their lives
Cops hate kids and kids hate cops
Cops kill kids with warning shots
What is crime and what is not?
What is justice I think I forgot?...
No matter what technology is created, there will always be a way around it. No matter what laws are made, when they are stupid and made out of greed it will merely force the law-abiding citizen to choose freedom(s) vs. conformity and comfort. Personally, I hope the majority of people are non-conformists and free thinkers...
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
You appear to be labouring under the delusion that you operate in a demand driven market economy. I have news for you: you don't.
I don't want stupid region protection and MacroVision on DVDs, and I doubt many consumers d, either. People are prepared to pay premiums to get Macrovision removers, out-of-region disc releases with all the things they want. The market response to this is to come up with more elaborate zoning mechanisms, lobby for laws to make anti-Macrovision tools illegal (and to hell with people who want to play their legally aquired DVDs through projectors), and so on.
We live in a capitalist system. The sioal goal in such a society is to maximise income. What customers want is irrelevant if one can arrange the market to deny customers choice, and this article is discussing how the entertainment industry is pressuring manufacturers and standards groups to ensure that happens.
Even if there is a general PC, its price could rise substantially.
I think that the market for the general purpose computer is to large to be ignored, too many people use computers to do to many things and not all of them are prepared to buy 10 different devices to do that. I think that Hale is somewhat paranoid in his views. But who knows, it might just happen, after all, Micro$hit did.
Impatiently waiting for my popcorn to pop in the microwave
How is CPRM going to keep people from copying stuff?
:)
I mean, I just don't understand it, it's been explained to me several times, but my thought is, if my PC can figure out how to execute the code, I can figure out how to copy it. Its just a thought, so if I'm wrong, enlighten me.
I'll change professions. Open a bar. Teach Math. Whatever. Heck, I'd rather live on 25% of what I make now than help murder people's freedom. I'm serious.
but the general purpose PC will always live on in small communities of hobbyists and computer enthusiasts... just like "Buckaroo Bonzai".
//
--// Hartsock
Live to Code, Code to Live!
They talk about people buying dozens of niche devices to service every need they have? Nonesense, I want a laptop that makes coffee and toasts my bagel in the morning.
"All that has to happen for this to work is for hardware manufacturers to quietly insert these features for one generation of PCs -- and we all know how long that is -- and it's done. Everyone upgrades to get the latest and greatest, and it becomes the new "standard." "
Many people aren't upgrading to the latest and greatest because the current stuff does what they want. Most people go years between buying computers. They may be able to slip this in over the course of a decade or more, but not in just a year or two as you seem to imply.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
So what's going to happen? I'll need a box for DVDs, a console for games, a pr0n box and an internet box? What happens when some zealot script kiddie decideds to make a virus in assembler to burn out the pr0n box BIOS?
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
If we have no choice, will we buy copyright protected harddrives, or will we do without? Do they still get our money even if they do things that #### us off? Think about it...
Why do you think that PC's are needed in order to use email? It's possible to send and receive email via thin clients. It's equally possible for a corporate IT department to block, limit, censor or log email sent to or from PC's. To back up a level, I can imagine a very free, user-empowering workplace where all users use X terminals communicating with big computers. I can imagine (and have seen) very restrictive workplaces where everyone has a PC.
I tried to get my (computer illiterate) sister a couple of gadgets to to word processing and email on, but it was cheaper to buy a low end PC. And even factoring in the support costs ("all my text has gone green") it's cheaper and easier to have the PC sitting there. For $20 they even bought a "fax machine" (software) that uses no power or space (that wasn't already used). Can't beat that in dedicated hardware.
For true joy, read risks digest about the guy who couldn't connect his PDA to anything, then one day... oopsie, no more data. Imagine that when you own a network appliance, a smart phone, a pda, a smartass fridge-freezer that talks to the microwave but not the toaster oven, yadda yadda, then one day you sync (of course, they all have to sync together, otherwise what's the point), and get multilateral data destruction. All your data are belong to us!
spamdot sucks
Do you honestly think as stupid as some may be that any federal judge is going to rule that an entire operating system is a circumvention device? For every user out there that uses it for the purpose of getting around CPRM there are 5 that use it because it is simply the OS they prefer as a desktop/server! Linus would only have to hand a few Netcraft survey results to the judge to prove that Linux is not only used by countless reputable people and businesses, but also serves a very solid purpose in its current incarnation.
The consumer market PC isn't going anywhere. Everytime someone thinks that they have a gizmo that would fit the average consumer's needs (for less) someone else comes up with another killer use for the PC.
It used to be that all a PC replacement needed to do was some word processing, and perhaps a spreadsheet. Then it was office type stuff and web browsing. Now it's all that and be a multimedia center as well. Who knows what will be next, but whatever it is it will almost certainly require a general purpose machine. And you can bet that Microsoft isn't going to think of it first.
Remember, a few years ago pundits were telling us that the future was WebTVs. Now we look back and realize that the WebTV was a total dud, and the reason that it failed is obvious. WebTVs suck! They can only do a handful of things, and they can't do them as fast or as easily as a modern PC (and they aren't even really that much cheaper).
The open nature and the general usefulness of the PC is the reason for its success. For most tasks the PC isn't the fastest or the least expensive solution, but it solves more problems than anything else, and it does it fast enough, and at a low enough price. Companies that try to make the PC less useful are bound to fail. For these CPRM devices to work, they are going to require drivers that trigger their special properties. I personally am hoping that Microsoft builds as much content protection as possible into their OS. I hope that they make it impossible to access a single solitary piece of digital content without someone's approval. The less generally useful Windows becomes, the easier it will be to replace Windows with something else.
I used to think it would be absurd of someone to sue MacDonalds because they spilled coffee on themselves... Then it happened.
That was actually a valid case - you should read up on something before criticizing it. While just saying "she burnt herself with her coffee, so she sued. what a fucking dumbass." and have it sound bad, the truth isn't. McDonald's was cutting costs by keeping the coffee temperature higher than it should have, so they'd have to brew less pots of coffee during the course of a day. The higher temp led to worse burns.. a 'normal' cup of coffee doesn't have enuogh heat to produce a serious burn
never underestimate the geek power...
Who do your non-geeks speak to when they are thinking of buying a computer/digital camera/hdd?
That's right! YOU!
I bought a kodak digital camera partly because they supported gphoto, and now all my windows-using friends have them because I do!
apple has a protection in place in os 9 that blanks out part of the screen when a screenshot is taken while a dvd movie is playing. this is supposedly to comply with some license requiring that users can not take stills of dvds. it is rumoured that dvd movie playback wont be included in the first release of os x because they dont have those protections in place
i believe there are also dmca style restrictions built-in to their dvd recording superdrive
apple may not like protections, but they have to follow stupid laws, just like the rest of us
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
Specialized PC devices have failed in the market time and time again. (Think NC/JavaStation, or i-Opener, or NetPC, or PCjr, or many others.) Why is now any different?
sulli
RTFJ.
Overall I think you are right, most people don't get it, and don't see the danger. However, I do think that it's only a matter of time before people start realizing what's been going on. Chances are things will get much worse before they start to get better, but I think that the realization will happen eventually. I just wish there was someway to give that sleeping majority the foresight that we have, it would stop a lot of this nonsense (like the MPAA and the RIAA) before anyone tried to start it, and it save a lot of people a lot of money.
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
And the obvious things to consider about this point are that:
A) On average people are becoming more computer literate, rather than less. Five years ago, computers were scary to a large percentage of the population; today Grandma has her own web page and
B) Added processing power and software development is making computers generally easier to use on an absolute scale
The combination of those two factors suggests that special purpose devices should be getting less practical over time rather than more practical. The way to think about this is to look at TiVo. Yes, it is a special purpose computer, but then again so is your VCR, and TiVo is much closer to your desktop machine than the VCR is. After all, TiVo uses a lot of off-the-shelf PC components, including a general purpose operating system. TiVo shows that we're quite close to putting TV recording functions into a standard computer- i.e. that the general purpose box is likely to start swallowing up functions that once belonged to separate devices- not that special purpose boxes are going to start taking over from general purpose ones.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
"All of these new PC Appliances require software to be written for them in order to perform anything useful."
And the people who write for them are the very people who have been the developers of all that we have, see and use 'Today'
I don't believe that these minds will be lulled into the senselessness to shoot themselves in the foot either. I think the 'knowing' would revert to the old 're-route around' plan.
I think big business and the governments FORGET who gave them this explosion of technology. One day the developers of both hardware and software around the world might wake up and say "enough"! There well could come a time to remind the puffed up Executives and Govt. Officials just exactly who conceived it, evolved it and makes it do all the spiffy things that pay their paychecks.
Unlike the old Union issues, the fat cats can't use lesser developers to replace those who are or could be the real movers and shakers. The product would be of lesser quality and the real big boys would be able to provide a much superior product either independently or for a more enlightened Company or Govt.
ah! the internet!! we may still screw up the world but NEVER again will we be able to claim IGNORANCE
Possible but I think that even M$oft would be against this one because it would make all current versions of Windoze illegal as well. That could be an interesting battle, M$oft against the MPAA and RIAA. Not sure who would win.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
Especially with 4X FSAA, the rendering is silky smooth. You would swear you're out on the South Pacific in a PT boat, dodging those old WWII mines. I can get 10,000 fps easily, even on a custom game. I haven't tried it out on Solitaire yet, but I bet the result will be mind boggling.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
If given the choice, who would choose a PC that restricts your rights to copy files you rightly own? Nobody. No demand, thus the supply will falter (witness Sun's Network Computer)
Wrong. Anybody who is duped into believing that it is:
1) cheaper
2) less complicated
3) From / blessed by Microsoft, and therefore "better" (these people still do exist)
4) safer, because the company selling such products will eventually, as part of their services, "fend off certain attacks" for you,
4a) safer from $enforcement_agency, because "only hackers" use anything else
will buy it for the above reasons and overlook whatever glaring and obvious flaws that the system has because, of course, any item that provides any of the above can't be perfect.
Computer consumers are conditioned to believe that
1) the systems they have are not, and cannot, be "perfect"
or 2) the systems are "perfect" but the consumer him/herself is not, therefore the computer will naturally not behave exactly as expected.
Either way, the consumer is duped into believing that if a computer doesn't react as expected, it is because the consumer's expectations are wrong.
Failure to do so can result in being sued and being order to pay up all your profits, the "injured" parties losses and/or statuatory damages (i.e. even if you didn't make money, and they didn't lose anything, you can still be ordered to pay them off!), injunctions, destruction or sale of your facilities, and 5 years in prison/$500,000 fine for the first offense, 10 years/$1,000,000 for any subsequent ones.
That's gov't power for ya.
They just need to keeping "renting" (*) Congresspeople and judges to enforce their agenda with government force.
(*) You don't really buy influence and then be done with it, you have to keep paying them off - that is why campaign finance reform is important - once the corrupt money stops, so does the favors). The entertainment industry pays off both parties a LOT of money each and every year. I would not be suprised if Macrovision paid some people off as well.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
In Michigan I have the "right" to refuse to take a breathalyzer test, but if I refuse any cop can and will suspend my drivers license immediately, sans due process.
Can you show me where you have a *right* to drive a vehicle on government roads and highways? Here's a timesaving hint before you go looking: You can't.
Driving in the USA is a privelage, not a right. Part of that privelage in most states is that you MUST consent to a violation of your 5th amendment protection against self incrimination (AKA breathalyzer) if asked by a law enforcement officer.
A *right* is something that you can give away or have taken only by due process. A privelage can be taken away much easier.
How this applies to the Fair Use doctrine (Which could be considered a right under the 10th Amendment) Vs DCMA is a matter for the courts.
If you want to do something different ... Teach children how to code, how to prototype source code, teach them to give a dam about their students.
... From what I hear it's not high
... very high
.... real high
Now does it pay
mental statification
knowing that your helping on the long term sucess of someone
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I disagree. Americans may not be in a demand driven economy (as per alternative fuel source cars), but the world by-in-large is. Demand is irrelevant anyway. If it's technology, I want it, I can build it. General purpose PCs are too useful to simply be obsoleted by an american industry. Are they going to continue to be mainstream? I dont know for sure...but I have not seen nor heard anything to convince me of this theoretical endgame for the PC market.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Maybe we need to push for more "Open Content". Open source everything, not just code. It works GREAT there, but there is more than just code. We need open music, open video, open everything.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Everyone will be required by law to use only and MS/MPAA/RIAA approved device.
This device will be called the Xbox.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
The legitimate manufacturers have all signed licenses saying that they'll enforce region coding. Any illegitimate manufacturers are in violation of the DMCA and will get hauled into court. Even if a manufacturer made an unlicensed DVD player and managed to escape the DMCA, they'd have to convince Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or Circuit City to sell it before it would have any real impact.
The "extreme pressure" preventing regionless DVD players is really contract and copyright law, as well as retail realities. Fortunately, there are no bans (yet?) on general-purpose hard drives, and their retail channels are well established. No eulogies yet, please.
Journalists have a habit of marching out with words like "Death" and "Failure" in the hopes that their misuse of language will earn them more readers.
(I guess getting linked by Slashdot accomplished just that.)
Death is a bit of an exaggeration. The general purpose nature of the PC is exactly what will ensure it's longetivity. Sure, a dedicated $800 MP3 machine sounds good, but a general purpose machine can provide that, dedicated NAT and firewalling, a 'vcr' using a TV tuner and software, and much more.
The general public likes appliances, their is no doubt there, but if you think that the average technology-focused individual is going to give up the machine he can tinker with, then you'd be mistaken.
Plus, my father may have a TiVO, and a DSS machine, but he still uses his PC to write letters, e-mail and browse the web. Find me one dedicated appliance that can do that and has any sort of discernable market share.
Quite frankly, the PC is here to stay. Read this comment again in five years, and let me know if I was right. (You'll likely be writing it from an AMD running at 10ghz, but it'll be a PC all right)
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
And further to that it's on a bunch of DVDs too. Which brings up the bigger problem of people legitimately wanting to hook their new DVD player up through their VCR video inputs into their tv (Fine and dandy, although icky image quality)... well the problem being is that on a large number of VCRs will take that signal and apply the Macrovision Gain control mucking around with to it. This means that Joe Bloe who knows no better, and has hooked the thing up in a quite reasonable manner has ended up with a picture that wildy fluctuates in brightness to the point of being unwatchable... and all because the Movie houses don't care about the end user, just their precious product's earning potential... grrr.
Simon O'Connor
------------------------
TCO
Sharinga Networks
www.sharinga.com
People who don't know about the copy protection, or people who don't care. These people include:= \=\=\=\=\
People who use AOL
People like my mom (even though I'll try to explain it to her)
"Normal" people AKA non-geeks
The only people who will refuse to buy this stuff will be us geeks. And face it, the big companies don't care about us because there are not enough of us to make a difference. We will refuse to buy, the standards wil change, then we will be forced to buy. It doesn't matter to these companies that %5 of people won't buy thier stuff when %95 will buy it anyway.
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
What this article fails to realize, as well as many other arguments along the same vein, is that we, the people, ultimately decide what we do and don't want. We do this one of two ways:
1. By voting with our wallet.
If we don't want something, we simply don't buy it. We're not a bunch of sheep that simply go where the "Big Corporate Giants" steer us, as much as some people might like to argue. Those "Big Corporate Giants" have to make stuff that we LIKE and are willing to PAY MONEY for. If the Big Corporate Giants don't make stuff we like, we go buy from the Little Guy. (until they become a Big Corporate Giant, too, at which point the whole, vicious circle starts anew)
2. By voting, period.
Again, something that many people forget or overlook -- we make the laws in this country. Sure, the Big Corporate Giants have a lot of influence through PACs and SIGs, but we ultimately make the decisions. (And, anyone who wants to disagree -- just go out and try to reform Social Security and watch the nice little old lady down the street vote you out of office faster than you can say "pacemaker")
I get tired of the fatalistic, I-have-to-take-it-up-the-ass outlook on life. We DO have the power to change things -- we just need to remember that.
Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
I disagree. Nerds will try to hack the Tivo, non-nerds will just buy a bigger tivo, and cheap bastards will use their PCs to record video.
On the other hand, it seems that about 3 weeks after I buy a piece of audio or video equipment, it's obsolete, and can't be upgraded.
So, instead of a $300 DVD player, or a $600 HDTV tuner, maybe I'd be better off with a $500 computer with a DVD drive and an HDTV tuner card. The pieces would be a lot cheaper, and I wouldn't have to throw the whole damn thing out when the next "progressive scan" or "digital blah-blah surround" specification comes out. Plus, it could be used as an MP3 jukebox and a digital recorder.
Of course, I'm sure the PC companies would love to sell me a web-browser box, email receiver, MP3-player, digital VCR, and dedicated word-processor (which used to exist back in the 80's!). But I'd rather buy one PC.
Somebody will make a harddrive that is not copy protected. We would just have to buy those hard drives.
Also, it would probably be a while before copy protected harddrives hit the used harddrive market, so another option would be to buy sed harddrives.
As long as there is your general purpose computers where sellers sell PC parts at great prices (both new and used), there will be general purpose PCs because we will build them.
Vote with youe wallet. Buy used CDs and when they start selling harddrives with copy protection, buy used harddrives. Some great advances/ideas came about from reusing old hardware
I think the big companies may find that there will be a significant number of people that will still want a general purpose PC. The big companies will also be watchign and companies that are selling uncopy protrected harddrives closely. If they notice these companies cutting into there profit because of copy protrection, they will start selling harddrives without compy protection.
Either way, we the people, MUST speak with our money. Don't buy these products that infringe on our rights. Buy used CDs and videos. Depending on the source you can get a lot of good used cds. It would be hard for the entertainment industry to sue resellers of used cds. I bought a lot of my cds used when I was in college. $3 a cd is a lot better then $10 to $12 (that's about where they were priced in the early 90s). The same goes for hardware. I know there is at least one company runnig a very good Computer Show in the ME,NH,MA area. I got 128 Meg 168pin 100Mhz SDRAM chip for $45 dollars at the show last time. I still see prices of $99+ (average around $110) in the regular stores.
It comes down to one thing. The big comapies and industries have forgotten the basic marketing classes. Supply and Demand! In the case of the entertainment industry, they are selling products are overly inflated prices. The market didn't like these prices, so the market went else to get the entertainment--ie Napster et. al.. Instead of changing their prices to reflect a better price that the market would except and eliminate the new competition, these companies have decided to take the legal approach. They are trying to legislate the market.
The same goes for hardware. If a company, or companies, start selling a product that the consumors don't like. Then the consumors should turn to another source such as used products. A wise company would then realise they are losing consumors, and they would give the consumers what they want instead of tryign to dictate what they want.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
The problem is that Companies and even Governments (China, India, other Asia, Europe) are competing for markets and customers here, too. They don't work as a monolith.
Just look at the latest Apple TV ad "Rip. Mix. Burn.". The only hardware manufacturer I know of that has a stake in CPRM is Sony and they have a tiny market segment. Hmmm.... maybe that's why MS is doing the Xbox, actually, they would have a big interest in CPRM, too. Tricky business there, they'll have to go head-to-head with all of their customers (Dell, IBM, Compaq, Gateway), eventually.
The hardware manufacturers will do anything to undercut each other, and if that means selling Open computers, then that's what they'll do. There will continue to be a market for general purpose machines with consumers AND businesses.
Competing interests is what markets are all about. Will business stand for lock-in hardware/software solutions (read MS), when they'll be able to deploy Web servers based on Linux/*BSD far more cheaply and effectively. No fscking way.
I do agree that we need to be watchful, if the Governments got together and put together treaties that required this sort of thing then it could be bad. Fortuntely, I think there are a lot of competing interests involved that will make it difficult to build the kind of concensus necessary to put down all general purpose computers.
---
Sorry, but I must disagree with your premise that these organizations have little power outside the U.S. Are non-access-controlled DVD's the standard outside the U.S.? When Napster is shut down (like right now) are not european users just as SOL as american users? When the U.S. entertainment industry provides the product that the world buys, they have nearly as much power outside the U.S. as within it. Remember, we are just beginning to see the tip of the multinational conglomerate megacorp iceberg right now... these will soon be the "good old days".
Not trying to sound ethnocentric(or nationocentric) but the U.S. government pulls a lot of weight (see financially supports) with many other governments worldwide. Therefore who owns the U.S. government by extension owns a chunk of other nation's governments. And the entertainment industry owns a significant portion of our government here in the good old U.S. of A.
Your problems are our problems and our problems are your problems.
wow, i really went off there... must be the Olde English talking
One Bourbon
One Scotch
and One Beer
You can't help being a Consumer in this culture, but don't have to be JUST a Consumer. You CAN be a Producer and Manipulator as well. The tools that allow this must remain accessible, even if we have to make them ourselves. Or smuggle them in under the noses of the Disney Heat.
It's going to be hard, because the current administration just loves rolling on its back, waving its paws in the air, and peeing on its belly when big business comes home angry about something. They'll call the law that embeds copy protection chips in everything the Cultural Heritage Protection Act or the Struggling Record & Bookstore Shopkeeper Relief Amendment . . . something that helps get the rubes and soreheads who listen to Rush all enthused about it.
What we need is a healthy dose of the spirit that went into the old Whole Earth catalogs. A "Fuck this, we're doing it ourselves" ethic.
We are as gods and may as well get good at it." -- Stewart Brand
I bought the cable you wanted (mini headphone jack one side, two RCA jacks the other) at Radio Shack, no problem, just few weeks back. Fry's, I don't know.
Sure, the future holds lots of computing-specific appliances. Put a chip in your TV, your Calculator, and your Toaster for doing all sorts of computation. But how are you going to write software for each of these "appliance-computers"? You need some sort of system that can act like a TV, a calculator, and at least have network access to the toaster. You need a text editor and the option of simulating or stepping through code. The very act of software development cannot be done on your Mr. Coffee.
Consider this... I've spent several months programming a Quake 3 Mod using TextPad and the base Q3 code from Id Software. I can't imagine doing the development on a specialized computer appliance. Even if I had a machine that only played games (eg. a PS2), I'd still need access to the general purpose computer to develop the mod. And making your PS2 or Dreamcast boot linux doesn't count-- that's making the specific system more general. The fact is that we'll always need a more general computer for the purpose of developing specific computers.
Of course, the average person will use far more specialized computer. But I'm happy as long as I have my PC.
-Ted
The article basically says that hardware and software vendors are scraping by on razor thin margins because current products do not incorporate proprietary interfaces or encryption standards. So the conclusion is that anyone who remains open is subjecting themselves to too much market competition, and thus will either have to go proprietary or go out of business.
This pretty much ignores the fact that the market demands interoperability. Great, Intel can make more money selling proprietary 'wireless 1394' because it is a standard it owns, and has no direct competitors. This ignores the fact that if a corporation spends $1million of bluetooth PDAs they want them to work with their intel hardware without having to by an extra interface card or adapter.
Yes, the tech market is rampantly competitive, but the market has proven again and again that proprietary vendors are the ones that become non-competitive in the long run. How many closed standards have we seen become defacto open standards because the market demands that level of interoperability and efficiency. VHS, CDs, the original IBM PC, even to some extent Intel's older chip designs.
The same thing applies to encryption, as this has the same goal in mind, but instead of making proprietary hardware, encrypting creates proprietary information. Again, who in their right mind is going to buy a DVD that can only be played on Sony hardware, or a TV that can only get service from certain satellite providers.
Yes, it's hard to make money in the computer industry selling or creating hardware or software. Incorporating encryption and proprietary hardware will not solve the problem, if for no other reason than the fact that I will always pay more for open products.
Perhaps manufacturers should just threaten these moves, creating a perceived scarcity of 'open' products, and then up their prices. Hmmmm....
-josh
I agree that the business/IT world will not take the loss of the general purpose PC lightly. I only hope that that is enough political pull to quash these ideas.
On the other hand, with the Car hobbyist thing, I chose classic VW's as my car of choice, because they're very simple to work on, because they don't have to conform to current emissions and safety standards. If they did, I would NOT be working on my car today. Other old cars are similar, but not many people soup up modern cars (except for those whack-job Honda-Civic nutbags, and the Monster Truck people, but the Civic guys, they aren't rebuilding engines in their basement, they're bolting on coffee can mufflers and putting on window decals).
Extend this to the computer scene, do you think that the US Govt will grandfather computers made in 1995 so that the DCMA does not apply to them? Consider the DCMA to be the emissions and safety regulations of the computer industry. They have been the absolute fucking bane of the automotive industry (unless you care about safety and pollution; if you care at all about performance and style and value, and ease of maintenance, you'll agree). Yeah, there's a demand for these older cars that you don't have to buy a new catalytic converter for every 3 years, cars with reasonable power, rear-wheel drive, simplicity in design, but if they were illegal, nobody would be able to buy them, and we'd all be driving Honda Civics.
Modern computers threaten the income of ALL corporations who rely on Intellectual Property. The DCMA is an IP safety regulation. The case can be made that if Media Conglomerate X employes N people, and isn't making as much money as it could because of piracy or some other IP issue, then some people are going to have to be laid off (um, forget about cutting the CEO's salary and perks, 'k?) Laid off people means less tax revenue, weaker economy, starving poor people, downward spiral.
Making these restrictive laws will not be an economic impediment, because all other industrialized countries will follow suit with the carrot of liberalized trade (IMF-WTO-M-O-U-S-E) dangling in front of them. (WIPO anyone?) Countries that do not do this sort of thing will lose free trade status, will be found in violation of treaties, and will not be eligible for IMF loans, etc. Will Sudan be manufacturing hard drives without CPRM? Will those drives legally be allowed to be shipped to markets within signatory nations?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Capital and people are to a significant extent interchangeable resources, and power is proportional to total resources. Even in cases where people specifically matter-- i.e. elections and referenda-- the vote is largely blown about by spin machinery, which is powered by, guess what, capital.
That power is often used to attack competition directly rather than to improve one's own desirability-- witness Standard Oil before they got the business end of antitrust law, the DMCA, the Microsoft/Sun FUD wars, ILECs like Pacific Bell, or any number of vendor lock-in techniques.
As if that wasn't enough, change policies too far from the center in any direction and you get loss of choice! Laissez-faire permits the large industries to sell at a loss for no reason other than to drive the next guy out of business, tie and bundle products and services ad nauseam, demand lock-in agreements from resellers, and other coercive measures. Regulate things too much and you get subsidies, price supports, licensed monopolies (so there's a single point of pressure for regulators!), and other coercive measures.
I'm beginning to think there's no hope for real free markets, since it's always in some powerful group's interest to keep markets controlled.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
First: How many of you Tivo owners out there also own a PC? My bet is everyone who owns a Tivo also owns a PC.
Second: Exactly how many times has your Tivo told you you are not allowed to record a program. I'd bet none here.
The Tivo is a specialized device and carries as mentioned above an big ease of use factor. Its not a PC, but as my first question states, it does no eliminate the need for a PC.
Specialization is an ease of use thing.
The copy control stuff that is being worked on will not be what the consumer wants to buy. As dumb as consumers are, they always recoil at attempts to control their actions (see Divx, etc.). Content controlled hardware will suffer the same fate, all that will be needed is manufacturers who DON'T make it. Those manufacuters will OWN the market, because consumers will notice the benifits of having devices without those limitations.
Free market theory is concerned with maximising value, usually to the consumer, through competition. Capitalism is interested in maximising value to the owners of capital. The entertainment industry is lousy at markets, but great at capitalism.
Companies in the US have always tried to influence government to privilege them, to make laws that privilige their company in some way to the detriment of their competition.
For example, while the USPS is not a corporation (is it?), it has a government-granted monopoly on First class mail delivery. You know that FedEx could do it better and cheaper, but the USPS is covering its butt. If FedEx tries to do it, they get nailed by the government.
There are two kinds of monopolies: market monopolies, where a company really did beat the tails off the competition, and government-sponsored monopolies, where the government weighs in with its coercive power to restrict competitors. And MOST monopolies in the US are gov't-sponsored.
OK, this went offtopic, but it's a hot button for me.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Have you read the CPRM proposal? The idea is that there's a part of your hard drive that the hardware hides from your OS. If your OS supports it, and you have an application that can convince the hardware that it's "blessed", then that application will be able to get the cleartext form of a "copy-protected" (i.e. encrypted) file. If your OS does not support it, ALL applications are SOL. Circumvention is possible only if the OS supports CPRM and your application can figure out the decryption key.
At least, that's what I remember from my reading of the spec.
So, if Linus wants to avoid all possibility of such lawsuits, his best course of action is to refuse to support CPRM.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Hah! You're quite wrong. Tell, me, which of these two would you take?
A 96GHz computer, with 20GB RAM, 1TB HD, 10Gb ethernet, and a 20" flatscreen
A 1.5GHz computer with 1GB RAM, 50GB HD, 1Gb ethernet and a 19" tube.
Did I mention that all the current software and games are only available on the former? And that there are no cheap upgrades or support for the latter?
Get real. Companies and governments want these, and will ban or undercut anything else. Linux is great, provided that there's a strong base of generic hardware. Get rid of that, and the rest falls apart. Laws are turning out to be very effective in comparison to winning in the market.
In short, we're in deep, deep trouble. Why don't we assume this to be the case, and act accordingly. If we're wrong, the only problems will be that we looked foolish. If we're right, we might have a chance to save microcomputing from being ruined. I'll be a pessimist and hope I'm wrong.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
.... The next generation or two of machines come out that smoke yours in the areas you want to do? Will you still be content to hang on to your old machine, when closed proprietary systems set up new "standards" that effectively orphan your machine from the 'Net, or whatever's up and coming to replace what you hold dear today?
Extremely good point. However, controlling proprietary systems only serve to encourage the public to endeavour to develope alternative free, public implementations.
What happens to the growth of Linux or any other alternative platform when you can't go to a parts shop and build the Dream Machine of 2005?
That will only encourage us to develope free, publicly standardized and specified hardware. This has already begun with efforts like www.opencores.org.
What happens when you can't even buy a software license but have to RENT it month to month?
GNU/Linux will be even more embraced.
The writing is on the wall. All these predatory companies will now have to justify why we must spend all this money on their software without having the source code when there are free and openly specified alternatives.
Except a few now broke .com VC firms that is...
Speaking of working out of a garage, is there anyone that knows more about an open hardware projects??
I think it would be fun to have my OWN processor that I built or helped build running on my own hacked motherboard, with other standard components connected I suppose (that will make it a little cheaper).
I remember something about an open chip project, but I don't remember.
this sig is deprecated
Look, just because you don't think you need more power doesn't make it so.
Wasn't 640KB of RAM enough? Couldn't you do word processing and email on a PDP?
Whenever the things acquire more capabilities, they are not wasted, they are utilized. Some of it is used for breathing room - it's easier to write software these days, because you don't have to aggressively optimize it to run with meager resources. Some of it is used for truly new things: did your Apple II have games with graphics as nice as those in Quake 3?
You see, you're only looking at the short term. Yes, for the next couple of years, if the free hardware market vanished, you'd be able to get by. But development is not going to stop on the closed market. And you are just going to get left in the dust.
What happens in ten years? Still going to be using the same thing you are now? Not planning on using anything that we didn't imagine existing now? If you had thought that in 1990, you might have a web browser. But probably not a very good one. You wouldn't have any particularly new games. CD burning? Not easily - the vast majority of those came along later. mp3? I doubt you'd have enough horsepower.
If a lot of manufacturers move to the closed market, the new hardware will still follow the same trend we've had for decades - better, faster and cheaper.
Oh, it'll be restrictive alright, and I'm pissed off about it. But we can't all pretend that our present machines represent the apex of computing, and never upgrade. It's just not so.
Go use your Apple II, or your PDP8. Have fun - that's exactly the same boat you'll end up in.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I have to say i agree with this.
Infact, i think i've pretty much decided not to be a programmer anymore.
I wanna find interest in something else. Anything else.
I'll still do OpenSource programming, but never get a job as a programmer and work for some evil corporation.
D.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Someone comes over to my house and sees that I can actually store MP3's on my old, clunky, ATA hard drive.
When they ask "How did you do that?" when I'm watching a DVD movie on my computer, and fast forwarding past the opening trailers.
When I simply refuse to buy a proprietary device, and build a few for my friends for a price using "old fashioned" computer parts?
When the entertainment industry finds that I'm not buying everything they make just because they tell me to.
When people start to think for themselves, instead of buying everything that's told to them by industry.
When a group of people simply don't buy, and other people see profit in providing them with what they want: storage devices that they can use in whatever they see fit.
When people realize that just because there's other people with a lot of money out there who can purchase control of many things, sooner or later, freedom always wins out in the end. Not because it is right, but because its the only answer that makes sense in the long run.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
While I agree that there is a strong need to be vigilent against the onset of proprietary devices, even they cannot defeat the fundamental market forces. They would have to create a demand for these specialized computers.
Currently, a very significant percentage of us, especially at work, need and want a general purpose computer for word processing, presentations, web authoring, and numerous other critical tasks that simply cannot be done on a some specialized web pad. A general purpose computer is the most efficient way to deal with all of these functions. You can't hand me a webpad or a palm pilot and tell me to write my thesis on it.
I look around at the huge array of companies that provide equipment to the scientific labs and take comfort, because they are operating just fine with a microscopic target market (relative to PC's of course). They have to charge alot more, however, because they can't move as much product.
So I don't think computers like the one I'm typing on will go away soon, but we might be in for a price hike if the market shrinks because a majority of customers (or lawmakers) are convinced that they need proprietary devices.
yU americans reeli do such ahs when it cums to speling not that yur gramar is much beter mind yoo
They can have my pc when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
Your offer is acceptable.
you have moved your mouse, please reboot to make this change take effect
While the consumer market PC may be going the way of the Dodo, I think there will still be a high demind for general use PCs in the Corporate secter, for myriad reasons. One is applications. The reason these are referred to as general use is they are just that, you can have internet acces, E-Mail, AutoCAD, programming and development tools, and scads of other goodies, all in one package, instead of multiple, specialized devices that will ultimately probably cost more.
Another is Worker productivity and happiness. Lets face it, workers are happier if they are able to send off a few quick e-mails while they are working. And a hppy worker is a more productive worker. Try to take away thier PCs and put them back on thin clients, and you are almost guaunteeing a worker revolt.
Anyhow, I think there will still be a merket for general use PCs, it is more a question of whether or not they are going to be highly proprietary systems (Think PS/2)
You say you want a revolution....
Great, then you and me can finally start our own company and sell general purpose PC's! What a market there will be! As long as people WANT PC's, there will be...
If this actually happened, then it would put a lot of us software developers out of business because we wouldn't have a platform to develop our applications on, or cross develop on. The idea that all computer hardware will go to the entertainment industry is crazy!
There are so many other uses for computer iron such as pure research, embedded control, data cataloging, etc. I agree that the entertaiment use of computers will ballon and they will have special purpose needs that the hardware venors will address. There will be a fallout in the computer hardware business. But surly, there will be a supply of general purpose hw available for those that need it, though prices will rise. AMD will probably supply the cpu's if intel won't.
Guess no one will buy a computer at BrandsMart, KMart or Wal-Mart anymore, cause they won't have them. For sure that the markets are changing, but maybe we are seeing a new market for computer hardware, one that will be the major one, but not the only one. And there are always nitch players to supply hardware/software to those that march to a different drum.
I hope!
In that case, the rest of the world will sit back and relax enjoying a good laugh at the stupid yankees who do whatever Hollywood decides...
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Probably because they weren't underestimating them enough.
Ha! Au contraire, mon cher!
Boy would Microsoft LOVE that one: a law that would FORCE all current users of Windoze to UPGRADE!!!!
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You couldn't find a CD/cassette boom box with a mic input? Your response makes no sense any other way. If that's what you meant, the explanation is simple: nobody puts microphone inputs on them because it increases the cost, and people who want to record stuff either use high-quality dedicated stereo gear or low-quality monaural dictation recorders. The boom box isn't great quality and it's a huge bulk. The market for boom boxes with mic inputs isn't big enough to justify the cost.
--
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No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
They won't have to. The point of the article is that these proprietary devices connect to proprietary services so without the device you won't be able to do anything. small example that is widespread is Shockwave/Flash. How many websites are there that simply cannot be viewed without this proprietary plugin? Large example is TIVO!
Ha! I just can't believe that an industry whose prime directive rule #1 is " the mental age of the average Joe Q. Public is 12 " would be afraid of Joe Sixpack pulling out the disk drive from his TiVO and stuffing it into his PC to pirate the latest broadcast of Seinfeld...
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Finally, I pose a question.. since I'm not a terribly wealthy person, I have to ask why these wealthy people want to make it so that we have to rent our software, buy a separate/new copy each time we get a new machine or need a backup, etc. Won't THEY have to rent the software too? Cost aside, won't that be just as annoying to rich people as it will be to me?
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
..Redmont does not control your hardware - the only way for a true access control - ....yet..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
This doesn't even consider the growth of the PC in developing countries. Remember - the telephone and the TV are luxuries, only a tiny fraction of the world's population has them. The PC is something that is just vaguely heard of.
People sometimes forget that the lifestyle we are living is a small oasis that is not accessible to most of the world. Drinking water is a luxury to large sections of the world.
I love Sun/SPARC. :)
hopefully though, pc companies will reduced profit which will in turn, if we're lucky, lead to reduced marketing. keep your fingers crossed.
I have no facts to back this up, but it seems to me like the reason that companies such as Dell and Gateway are not selling as hot as before is because they aren't getting repeat customers. Dell, Gateway, HP, etc... all appeal to first time computer buyers that know jack about computers. Once they have had a computer for a while, and it is starting to get too old for them, they realize something. They figure out that they can probably get a better deal from somewhere else, or they have learned how to build their own for much cheaper.
I also foresee a time when you buy a home based on whether or not it has a good server rack system and telecomms closet and what kind of networking media it has installed. I know i was upset when i realized that there was no good place to put servers in my house.
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Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
A little tip for you: if consumers are uninformed about their options, they will make poor buying decisions. This is the entertainment industry's entire goal in a nutshell. This is why, DECSS. This is why, CPRM. This is why, .NET If they don't KNOW computing can be any better than this, they won't be upset when it's taken away from them. You can't miss what you never knew you had.
/. to boycott the new computer toys. Hmm, ok, if 1/10th of slashdotters take your advice (which I think is a VERY generous estimate) we're talking less than 40,000 people.
Yeah, wow, you call for
Hear that great, roaring noise? That's the RIAA laughing at you.
(sigh)
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Yup. All those evil things the RIAA and co. don't want you do to.
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The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout
This is very true specialized devices suck. Look at all the things the PC has replaced. First it was the calculator and typewriter, then it replaced the Fax machine and game console and now it even replacing the VCR, TV and Stereo. Now this guy is trying to tell me, I will have to junk my PC and replace it with a Calculator, a Typewriter, a TV, VCR, game console and Stereo, only they will be better because they will have copy control. This is not a step in the right direction, this is stepping back to the 80's.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
IT HAS TO BE TRUE! Its on slashdot!
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
When open hard drives are outlawed, only criminals will have open hard drives.
"I am pleased that this legislation declaring war on open hard drives was passed in a landslide. Our children will thank us."
"The Kennedy Family has doubled its wealth running hard drives from China into the US."
etc, etc, etc.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Actually, PC's may be where farming was, and is. So many producers, the price cannot support even the incredibly efficient designs and manufacturing. A few may go out of business, but the price will never go substantially above the price to produce, and competition will reward those who can carve out a few pennies here and there.
Manufacturing industries that have been around for a century or more have long, long since learned the value of saving a penny or two per part.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
CPRM is the BEST thing to happen to having secure systems. ... You are protected by the DCMA since every directory listing is covered by your compilation copyright :-)
Get real. The CPRM drives will be protected by public key cryptography, and the megacorps will have all the keys. Remember, they don't want cryptography for its own sake, they want a monopoly on distribution, storage, and playback.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
> People are prepared to pay premiums to get
> Macrovision removers
A VANISHINGLY-SMALL HANDFUL of people, perhaps. Nothing a large corporation would detect above random noise in their sales.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
While, the "death of the general purpose PC" might be streaching it, the article does bring out an important point about what the hard drive companies are up to with CPRM.
As many have pointed out, CPRM is probably useless on a "general purpose" computer -- there's just too many software packages and operating systems and filesystems to deal with, not to mention the somewhat educated userbase.
However, where it is useful is Single Purpose devices. What if you could just wedge out the IDE drive on your HD-Tivo and get access to the unencrypted MPEG-2 stream. Instant Internet Rebroadcast. Repeat for various other audio and video devices.
Sure, the Single Purpose Device guys (read: the MPAA and the RIAA) could go and invent their own disk interface or their own encryption systems, but what that's probably too high cost of a solution for them. They want to freeload off of the economies of scale of PCs and use standard motherboards and IDE disks, and they want to push the encryption down to the hardware level and make it automatic.
The drive companies are of course jumping on this because it potentially opens up a market 10x the size of the PC market. The could make a killing if they just offer a nice enough package for the consumer electronics people to buy in - Imagine if every TV had a cheap IDE drive in it.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Circuit City, September 2000. Was actually $299, but it had two different $100 rebates, and both were successfully honored.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
It's called a reprogrammable ECU. Plug in your laptop (or your palm pilot), and adjust your timing and fuel delivery curves to your heart's content. The ones I know of are for Miatas, specifically turbocharged ones. (yeah, the hood's not welded shut so tightly that you can't stuff an 18psi blower in there...)
Check out Bill Cardell's http://www.flyingmiata.com for more info.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I forgot to include the obligatory "my ex boyfriend" line. damn. What was I thinking?
ah, well. experiment over. ympoint has been made.
do you know what it was?
didn't think so.
eat shit and die, Bambi!
> 10 years ago, people were using PC's for text
> editing, programming and a few simple games.
I'd hardly call Castle Wolfenstein 3D a "simple game"! My top-end 20 MHz 386 played it quite nicely, thank you very much.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
To join the author in playing devil's advocate, I don't think it's about choosing copy protection over none--it's going to be about choosing new hardware and better performance over old. Quite simply, manufacturers aren't going to be developing new hardware that doesn't conform to the new copy protection standards. That's why the author stresses the power of the entertainment industry. It's not that they can force you to buy one product over another, it's that they can pressure the manufacturer's into only producing one sort. Look at DVDs. It's not that there isn't a demand for regionless or multi-region players--a quick buzz through slashdot will show you that. But there's extreme pressure on the makers to not produce them, so you're not going to find a cheap one. Of course, if you're willing to pay, that's another matter--but this conversation was about reasonably priced products.
Still, I think that the PC user market is both large enough and entrenched enough to keep this sort of thing from happening anytime soon. Look at the outcry over the P4's embedded tracking features. I'm not as pessimistic as the author is on the matter.
No relation to Happy Monkey
> You can't be prosecuted for Copyright violation
> since it is illegal to access the contents of
> your system.
Until you start broadcasting what you have on your hard drive over Napster or Gnutella or Scour or whatever theft-of-the-day program is currently popular.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
With Linux (and other os'es?) running on all sorts of crazy platforms, there's no reason to believe that there will be a complete disappearance of the GPPC. Perhaps a diminishing role. Perhaps.
Don't know about anyone else, but I don't want a mail reader separate from a browser, separate from a word processor, separate from... Get the point?
Punditry is frequently wrong. Why bother posting it? Doesn't Katz have another article coming on that kid in SandyEggo (and the two followups today)?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
While I do find merit in the ideas expressed in the article, I find it difficult to believe that all so called 'General Purpose PCs' will wither and die. If for only one reason - software development.
All of these new PC Appliances require software to be written for them in order to perform anything useful. Software development essentially requires the use of a 'general purpose' machine in order to target the multitude of platforms you are writing for. It really is the epitome of computer generalization, and as such will remain in strong demand as long as there is a need to develop software.
I really couldn't imagine having a 'Development Appliance' for development work since every developer I know does things a little bit differently - you simply couldn't make an appliance suited for such work.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Go ahead, try to alienate the developers. That's a good idea...
Culture is more than commerce
Look at the various "proprietary" devices out there. The TiVo has been hacked. The iOpener was hacked. Just about anything that exists can be hacked into a platform which can then be used for purposes not intended, or even dreamed of, by its manufacturer.
If we somehow wind up in a world of "proprietary" disk drives and such, there will be ways around it. Even if M$ gets lots of people in the USA to pay monthly rent for their software, there are a few billion people around the world who can't afford it (Mexico) or whose governments will oppose such things as a matter of policy (China, probably India). These people will want Linux, and they are not only a market, they are manufacturers of a lot of this hardware. They'll be more than willing to supply the US market if US companies are stupid enough to abandon it.
Even with "copyright respecting" disk drives, one has to have a way of writing material to it without some externally-supplied key. Consider swap space and the OS boot; you can't have to go outside the computer to get a key to allow the OS to be read! We will always be able to write our own OS, even if it gets icky. Worst-case, someone will hack the command set and publish the spec, then we're off and running again.
As long as we can get parts, we will be able to build computers from them that do what we want them to. As long as there is any kind of market in upgrades, or servers, or industrial computers, there'll be a market for parts. Someone will supply that market. Things might not be quite as cheap in relative terms as they are now, when mass-market economies lead to very small retail markups, but they'll be there.
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spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I may be a bit off topic, but I beleive the reason for the lack of mic inputs is that most anything that you'd want to record would be from a higher-quality source. And if you're recording your own music, it's a fair assumption that you'd be wired through a mixer and an amp, so you'd use the RCA input to tape. If the tape recorder only had digital in, it would be a different matter, but I've never heard of such a thing. The only point of a mic input would be to record your own voice, which would be kind of strange for a compilation tape.
~Mike
A big enough hammer fixes *anything*
The point isn't that the PC as we know it is still popular, it's that the market is no longer profitable. If widgets are wildly popular, but none of the widget manufacturers can find a way to profit, widgets will become extinct no matter how badly you and everyone else wants one. More realistically, however, manufacturers will drop out of the race, demand will exceed supply, prices will go up, and profits will return.
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
Only if you think that all advances in science happen in the US.
I suppose you're right about what some company like Intel could pull. This really is scary... while I still don't think the days of the general-purpose computer are numbered at all, I do find CPRM very scary. All I can hope is that some drive manufacturers DO NOT implement it. All it takes is one, really...
As for Bush... ugh, don't even get me started. His administration makes me sick.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
There's a difference, I think: It gets harder and harder to roll your own car from parts because of all the safety requirements. Coming from someone who has built a car from the frame up, I am sorry but you are wrong. I know its offtopic, but its really easy to bypass those laws, even emission laws. Classifing as a hobbyist or classic these cars are easily deemed road worthy, that are quite honestly questionable.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
As I said in the title.... If ever came the day, people like me will be glad we stocked up on allour old computers PH
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
That's funny. I'm still trying to replace my $99 Tivo with a $2000 PC. But hey, I guess that's what nerds do. But will Jee Schmoe? I don't think so; I think he'll be happy with the Tivo.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Also there is also there is the bussiness aspect of things. Accountant aren't going to use a propriatry tax computer and a propatariy spread sheet computer... And form the look at all the bizzare Linux ports (ie. Dreamcast) we will always have an OS that we can use...
And I think DVDs proved that copy protection isn't going to amount to squat in the long run. MG
Randomly distributing Karma whenever possible.
If it plays minesweeper, I'll be happy.
It is quite simple
Haiku should not be funny
Try a Senryu
Because if the software dosen't work on heritage machines, Corps. won't buy it, and there will be no sales. Thus, copy protected hard drives will never make it. Period ... See anything requiring the "secure audio" on windows yet? Neither have I.
But do you have a hard drive that supports any of these standards? Are you sure about that?
All that has to happen for this to work is for hardware manufacturers to quietly insert these features for one generation of PCs -- and we all know how long that is -- and it's done. Everyone upgrades to get the latest and greatest, and it becomes the new "standard." Then content providers and software vendors can enable the copy protection they've been working on all this time.
Nope, no sig
No one will manufacture user-control free media if they RIAA/MPAA/IDSA/BSA get their way
While this seems (sadly) possible, it is not decided yet. If the supreme court kills the DCMA (the EFF is currently ligitating against it), this will set a strong precedent against outlawing user-control free media.
Besides, there are still other countries outside US jurisdiction.
Needless to say, this will tremendously retard advances in computer science, the physical sciences, and many other fields, but the powers that be don't give a fuck.
Now let's assume your worst case scenario comes true in the US. As long as there are some countries without those restrictions, they will probably overtake the US in terms of wealth and knowledge.
This might create a powerful backlash, actually I believe that the GDR (eastern Germany) did crumble more over luxury goods than over personal freedom. It is sad I have to say this about my fellow Germans, but obviously people can get VERY pissed about being denied the things their neighbours have.
Likewise, once the Americans realize that their crippled computer industry puts them on the road to being a third world country, RIAA/MPAA/IDSA/BSA are in for a BIG, BAD surprise.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Ching ching!
-- Bob
They can have my pc when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
Perhaps some other nation will (or already has) institute rational intellectual property laws, rational economic policies, rational social policies (maybe that's asking too much). In any case, my point is that there is a time at which it becomes pragmatic for some individuals to either find a society more in line with their views, or to actively oppose their present milieu.
If freedom to experiment - because that's what we're talking about, on a very basic level - is restricted, whether deliberately or through compound actions, some of us will leave. If it's only big corporations that can afford to manufacture general purpose parts for their $$$-backed play, while the little guy is left either with obsolete tools or conceptual construction, then any little guy who's genuinely interested in his life should seriously consider alternatives.
You're not stuck with the country you were born in, if you're lucky.
[|]
Someone comes over to my house and sees that I can actually store MP3's on my old, clunky, ATA hard drive.
You get arrested.
When they ask "How did you do that?" when I'm watching a DVD movie on my computer, and fast forwarding past the opening trailers.
They tell 20 of their friends, then you get arrested.
When I simply refuse to buy a proprietary device, and build a few for my friends for a price using "old fashioned" computer parts?
They get arrested, then you get arrested.
When the entertainment industry finds that I'm not buying everything they make just because they tell me to.
They label you a "hacker", then you get arrested.
When people start to think for themselves, instead of buying everything that's told to them by industry.
They shout "hacker/subversive/criminal" through the megaphone, the ignorant masses reaffirm the craniorectal position, then the free-thinkers get arrested.
When a group of people simply don't buy, and other people see profit in providing them with what they want: storage devices that they can use in whatever they see fit.
They get taken to court for "circumvention", and the hackers/subversives get arrested.
When people realize that just because there's other people with a lot of money out there who can purchase control of many things, sooner or later, freedom always wins out in the end. Not because it is right, but because its the only answer that makes sense in the long run.
How about letting me know when "the end" gets here.
__________________________
The American Dream went to hell in a handbasket when someone decided that "The Customer" was King, and the customer beli
MacroVision is a way of recording VCR tapes with an altered signal that makes the output fluctuate from overly light to overly dark if you do anything other than plug a VCR directly into a TV. There are devices available to fix the signal; they don't cost very much.
DVD drives and region encoding is a very good example. Even the employees of the stores know in which ones it can be turned off, small wonder, since customers are asking this. I even heared that some Manufacturers even advertised with this "feature" (now being able to turn off something becomes a feature ...) in countries where they could get away with it. And the information how to disable regionencoding for a specific player is probably even leaked by the manufacturer himself.
What is different here though is: the copy protection mechanisms are in fact an additional feature. There will be software accessing these hardware functions which won't work with a HD without them. You can still use it as a normal HD but you can also use it to store special, copy protected, content, which you cannot store on an older HD (since the software handling that content will simply not allow that).
For the customer there is no immediate disadvantage: He can do everything he could do with the old HD, and if he ever intends to use aforementioned software he can do that. The problem then is, that once those new HDs are so widely distributed, that copyprotected content can be marketed (the software to do this probably comes for free) it will become harder to get the content in the unprotected form.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
It is silly to think that people will just randomly accept a segregation of the PC into separate entities. If people really wanted separate deviced to do the various functions that a PC does, they'd ask for it. I, for one, am not asking for that. I think the author has forgotten about consumer backlash.
The almighty buck has much power, and that power will be what decides the fate of home computing. The issue of copy protection is a hot issue now, but will it be next year, or will it die a quiet death?
Impatiently awaiting the Arrival of a new Lover!
If everything in this article holds true, I can see 'personal computers' becoming the type of hard to find and 'uncommon' item that they were 10 years ago. Does this mean we can expect hardware prices for PC's go go up, reaching the thousands of dollars we used to pay for good old Tandy's?
If I had space in that huge salt mine storage facility, I would find backers to store billions in PC parts while they were still cheap. Five years from now we'd open up a huge warehouse with the capability of making 500% profit!
Yeah.
Right.
-S
Scott Ruttencutter
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
If worst comes to worst, there's always used server parts. Nobody's going to put up with all this CPRM nonsense on a server, and yesterday's high-end servers architecture is today's average PC.
Some people have mentioned the car as an example of something that began hobbyist-accessible and turned into a shrink-wrap one-size-fits-all world.
There's a difference, I think: It gets harder and harder to roll your own car from parts because of all the safety requirements. To have a practical car, you are limited by the market because only car companies can afford to get their designs past the NTSB. This is different in the computer world. Despite some alarmist contentions to the contrary, the government does not and will not have a sufficiently strong position to argue that my safety or that of others is aided by preventing me from having a homemade - or otherwise nonstandard - computer. People already know that's not the case. The powers that be can point to legends of "hackers" and all the trouble they purportedly caused, but at the end of the day it's not the same kind of bone-crunching trouble that was prerequisite to justifying the sweeping restrictions on vehicle designs.
Furthermore, the economy depends on computer innovation in a very different way from how it depends on automobile innovation. Any country that made it impossible for people to learn and explore technology would be at a severe disadvantage to those that were more open. Some bright kid in Paraguay is very little threat to the American auto industry. But he might well be able to compete with the software industry.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
> In Michigan I have the "right" to refuse to take
> a breathalyzer test, but if I refuse any cop can
> and will suspend my drivers license immediately,
> sans due process.
"Right" is correctly in quotes here. You do not have the right to not take a breathalyzer test if you have acted drunk. That is physical evidence (see below) and the government is merely (rightly) choosing not to have physical altercations out in the field. However, by refusing (assuming due process) you are violating laws by preventing the collection of physical evidence.
> Part of that privelage in most states is that
> you MUST consent to a violation of your 5th
> amendment protection against self incrimination
> (AKA breathalyzer) if asked by a law enforcement
> officer."
The government may collect evidence when it thinks a crime has been comitted. If you act drunk in public, especially while driving, you seem to be comitting a crime. The government then may collect evidence, including the physical evidence of your breath alcohol content. The government refrains from this simply to not appear bad when forcing you to do this. It has nothing to do whatsoever with a right against self-incrimination. The government could physically force you if they wanted to.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
There are aftermarket computers available for every engine configuration and every type and make of car. However, there are few reasons to use one, as the factory engine configuration is usually matched to the factory ECU.
It is often not necessary to modify the ecu for minor engine mods either. Almost any engine computer from the past 10 years can adjust for varying amounts of air (be it from a small turbo or a decrease in altitude or temperature) and keep the car running normally and cleanly.
It only becomes necessary to upgrade the computer when the car is running cams and the stock ecu can't lean out the mixture enough at idle, or your car is running so much boost that the stock injectors cant keep up with it at high RPMs.
That being said, I have to disagree with you. There is a much greater amount of tuning possible due to computer controlled ignition and injector timing. It allows your car to continue to function with a much wider range of mods than would otherwise be possible. Now, ODBII is another story altogether. Most of the problems with that relate to the fact that it goes off for lots of stupid reasons, and the extra sensors for the exhaust get in the way of a lot of mods. Of course, there are no shortage of cool ways to work around odbII, since it was only built into 1996+ cars, and it can be disabled without police detection on most cars. I think ODB-II was a stupid idea in the first place. Thanks clinton.
I didn't fully explain the situation I was in at the time I was putting together these compilation tapes. Basically, I was travelling prior to starting a new job: most of my stuff, including all my CDs, were on a boat being shipped to the States. I was staying with my family waiting for paperwork to filter through INS and the US Embassy in London so I could go there too.
So the stuff I wanted to record was MP3s played on my laptop, these having been ripped from my CD collection before it all got packed away. I did not have access to any hifi equipment with external inputs and certainly did not want to spend several hundred pounds on putting one together, so what I was looking to buy was a pretty basic radio cassette player (a boom box would have done, although I hate the styling on those things) so that I could take the headphone output from the laptop and record it onto tape. Buying anything costing much more than fifty quid would have been overkill in the extreme for a handful of tapes, since I wouldn't be able to bring it with me (regardless of bulk, the voltage would be wrong). In all seriousness, high quality recording was not a requirement since I would have been listening to my music mostly on planes.
So really I was looking for the kind of simple, relatively cheap device which everyone made fifteen or even ten years ago, and now no bugger does. Even on three hundred pound boom boxes there is no external input of any kind, which is why I do not believe the reasons for this omission are cost-based. Similarly, I looked idly at a number of self-contained micro and midi systems and none of those had external inputs either where they always used to.
My point was that audio equipment has already gone the way of reduced functionality driven (probably) by the demands of the entertainment industry descibed in the article.
I'll try to be a bit more complete in my postings in future. Sorry.
--
Dunx
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
You, Sir, are a geek. I also prefer a PC combined with several other devices to form an entire home entertainment hub, but I'm a geek too.
Who uses their computer with a CDROM drive and Napster to play music, a TV decoder card to watch their favorite shows, a DVD drive to watch movies, and a kick-ass video card with the latest drivers to play games? Geeks.
Who connects a CD changer to their stereo system for tunes, plugs their big screen TV into the cable outlet for shows, plugs a DVD player into their TV for movies, and plugs a Nintendo/Playstation/Whatever into the TV to play games? Everyone else.
There are still a few "killer apps" that people use PCs for. Mainly: word processing, spreadsheets, and surfing the web / accessing Hotmail. Once those functions are integrated into toaster-type devices most people will no longer want to deal with big, ugly, space-hogging, frustrating to use, and expensive to maintain/upgrade PCs.
Think about it: Why was it even necessary to create a program like DeCSS?
Most consumers already use their machines as high priced game consoles (honest dad, its for homework!) or web browsers already. (don't reply posting that you code, design or whatever - slashdot hasn't degraded to a forum for "most consumers" yet) From the manufacturers point of view its probably better to create inexpensive devices with a higher profit margin, priced so that people can purchase multiple units. The computer manufacturers have been taking a beating on profit expectations, in a large part due to the razor thin margins on personal computers.
While I don't think this will mean the end of the general purpose computer, I do think it'll mean the end of the insanely cheap general purpose computer. There's always going to be a demand for machines that serve as a swiss army knife, but the demand will be dwarfed by the need for the digital media box for the family room and the kids rooms, the communication pad in every room in the house and so t o
I don't think the copy protection to be built in to drives will be what brings this about, it'll be the desire of hardware manufacturers to make more profits. The built in copy protection is an evil thing, but isn't the evil that caused this.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
I was gone on a holiday within the past few weeks and I seem to have missed something. What does "all your base are belong to us" mean, and where is it from?
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
What the US does dramatically effects me. And the US is the heart and soul of the computing industry, so the ripples it produces are felt far and wide. Not to mention that where the US goes, Europe is frequently right behind us.
Apple, btw, has a CRPM on their DVD burner. I wouldn't be surprised to see one on the CD burner in the near future... especially as it's just a part that they get from some manufacturer up the chain.
You think that Linux can effect the home market? Hah. Sure, open web servers are great. That does not translate into cheap components for you and me, or anyone else. Besides, what business do you have serving content that might be copyrighted, buddy? No, they'll go after you too.
As I've said, let's fight this even if we think we'll win. How can it hurt to give the market a nudge? And if we are losing already, well, we still need to get busy. Complacency will do us in.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I just don't understand what the problem is. The only thing you'd need a microphone jack is to record yourself, not a prerecorded medium (another tape, CD, record, radio...)
And if you have such a system, it seems to me you'd plug yourself (your microphone, or keyboards, or electric guitar) into a pre-amp or something.
What point am I missing?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
You mean it's replaced the classic automobile in that regard. With today's computer controlled engines, "souping up" an new car has limited possibility compared to the days when you had the ability to tweak almost every instance of fuel / air / compression / timing / exhaust.
Now, it's all controlled by a chip that you can replace, but I'd hardly call that "souping up" any more than I'd call what script kiddies do as "hacking"
I think you underestimate the value of convenience. If it were just an issue of end-user intelligence, something like a TiVo would be strictly an item for Joe Consumer. However, the proliferation of the TiVo hacking community and the repeated mentions of TiVo on Slashdot indicate that it also holds a geekish appeal.
So why would an intelligent, geeky person go for something like this? Convenience. Am I capable of, say, recording programs by specifying it as an at-job? Sure. Do I really want to? Hell, no. Especially not when I'm sitting in front of the TV. I just want to be able to pick up the remote and push a few buttons in a nice, friendly GUI. And this is coming from someone who, under normal circumstances, is a die-hard CLI/text-user -- Hell, I even use lynx and emacs to read and post to Slashdot. But when I'm in front of a TV, all I care about is ease-of-use. Period.
"Digital Rights Protection" is already in the 1394 spec.
Sure, maybe Apple doesn't care, but Sony does -- they have big plans to make 1394 the standard connector between everything in your digital home theater and your computer. Apple either has to support the spec, or they won't be able to talk to anything more interesting than a scanner.
sony makes pcs and makes money off music cds. one of thier vps has already been quoted on /. saying they would firewall napster and anyone else that threatens their business. i assume they mean building protections into their pcs, working with m$, or leaning on isps
who would buy such a proprietary machine? the same people who buy the proprietary playstation. remember games consoles sell far better than pcs do, and they are gradually taking pc functions
so maybe some of us stick to our general purpose hardware and os. what good does that do if isps and software houses dont support us? i am convinced the only major hurdle in the way of linux dominating on the desktop is m$ office for linux
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
I point this out merely for the entertainment value... I have the misfortune of knowing who he responded to...
I, however, agree with you. Maybe I am a bit "unaware" of the reality of economics, but I was always taught about supply and demand, but I don't how anyone would want such a restrictive, specialized PC. It just doesn't seem realistic.
If the governement were to "force us to use them", well, that would be bad. Bad for us, bad for the government that would have to deal with the huge outrage it would incur.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
I believe 80% of DVD players sold in the U.K. can play region 1 DVDs. Many VCRs can play 525 line 60 Hz NTSC tapes.
I don't know of anyone who has bought one that CAN'T play region 1 DVDs.
No chips here:
Just an old Ford Ranger that keeps up with Corvettes
(when I finish college, I'm aiming for vipers)
More exactly, in case of the DVD the licenses for the encryption system (CSS) is only granted by the copyright holders under the condition that the manufacturers also implement region coding.
Without CSS, a DVD player would be only a "big CDROM" without the ability to decode the CSS-encrypted films. Such a drive would be difficult to sell...
BTW, DeCSS makes a big hole in this scheme, hence the massive efforts to squash it.
On harddrives, there is no such system you need to support in order to make your drives attrachtive. Thus, only (bought?) legislation could drive general-purpose harddrives from the market.
C - the footgun of programming languages
I don't like the thought that everything will be controlled though, renting software would suck. I can write my own, but if its not allowed to run, or I have to rent the development tools I'm not going to be a happy camper. I don't think that anything, like hard drives is to blame. Yes, the net has made piracy easier, but its not like it didn't happen before. I don't think that purely open solutions are the only answer, there are plenty of good proprietary solutions out there. Its just when things stop getting better, or become more restrictive that there are problems with the proprietary model. I don't mind paying $40 for a proprietary game, if its decent at least. I would have a problem justifying paying $20 for a game and $10 to play for each month after the first.
I suppose my longwinded point is that we need an open front for everything, from fabs to applications. Not because they're neccessarily better, or because of crap like information wants to be free, but to keep the companies that would be content to bring in massive products without providing advancement on their toes. There are some very good proprietary things out there, they just need a reason to stay good. Generally that had been a newer company who was content with less money. A group not interested in profit at all though seems the least corruptable of any option to keep companies competitive though. I like open source for the options it provides.
If not now, when?
I was looking for a stereo cassette recorder the other week to make up some compilation tapes to play on my Walkman but I couldn't find one with an external microphone socket. Not a single one, in any shop. That is not a cost issue, that is a matter of stopping people from recording anything which isn't already on a CD. That's a bit poor for demo tapes and the like.
In the end I worked round it by burning CDs for each side of the tape and then recording from those, but it was a bloody kludgy way to have to do it.
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Dunx
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
Some of the things you say are true. the up coming generation thinks the Playstation is the computer of the future ( have you seen the advt. for PS9 ) their goal is global domination. Nothing less than that.
The sad thing is, most consumers will just go along with it. Hackers will know better, but in the sense of the global computing population hackers are going to be a drop in the bucket.
the other sad point is that if you are a softeare coder, you'll be developing packages to work for it. you have to eat.
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Perhaps the big names like Dell and Gateway might be diminishing in importance, but the PC itself is probably not in any danger. More and more, folks are comfortable with the idea of having to open up their machine and replace/install stuff, and carry on. It's replaced the automobile as the thing people talk about repairing, or "souping up". People I thought would never even touch a computer are bragging to me about how much RAM, HD space, etc., they have. It's amazing.
While niche machines like Tivo are bound to proliferate, the PC itself has ensconced itself in enough homes now (especially in the US) that to write it off prematurely would not be wise.
_
props to all dead homiez
Yes, it will have all these additional multimedia capabilities. But that doesn't stop PCs from becoming dumbed down appliances. They'll just have on-screen buttons and knobs instead of physical ones.
How many people actually "program" these flexible devices to better handle repetitive tasks? No, it's "point, click, point, click...", even if it's 100 point/clicks done 1000 times the same way.
No need to wait for the future. Today's computers serve more as modular consumer appliances than as computing devices.
It will only get worse.
Let your average Joe Schlob have his TiVO. And he can enjoy wallowing in the deeper and deeper pool of money swallowing, lawsuit-filing RIAA-DMCA-MPAA Pihrannas. I will have nothing to do with it. I'll stick with my adequate personal computer.
So, Iintellectual Property whores want to stifle technology in the PC world? We can stop it. It's simple. Don't buy any of these crappy crippled special purpose appliances. They're worthless in my eyes anyway.
Okay. I'm done ranting. Phew. Anyway, why would anyone want to buy up a ton of worthless appliances, instead of one machine that can do it all, and most of it well?
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The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout
It also means the death of Windows ME.
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Je t'aime Stéphanie
General purpose machines are only going to be replaced by special purpose machines in places where a general purpose machine isn't "useful". In this case "useful"=="too complicated for your local boob to handle".
..... The next generation or two of machines come out that smoke yours in the areas you want to do? Will you still be content to hang on to your old machine, when closed proprietary systems set up new "standards" that effectively orphan your machine from the 'Net, or whatever's up and coming to replace what you hold dear today?
What happens to the growth of Linux or any other alternative platform. when you can't go to a parts shop and build the Dream Machine of 2005?
What happens when you can't even buy a software license but have to RENT it month to month?
Look at the evidence that already exists. 10 years ago, people were using PC's for text editing, programming and a few simple games. Now, just look at what MP3 and DVD have done to the PC world. Not only can I download and store hundreds of hours of high quality music on my machine, but I can watch full-length movies right on my desktop. As HDTV is further developed, and bandwidth going into the homes increases in the future, I think we'll begin to see the convergance of even more audio and video into the PC market.
My machine at home has an S-video output connected to my 36 inch TV, a Soundblaster Live, with a SP/DIF output going to my receiver, and a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. Anything I need to do on the PC, I can do sitting on the couch.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
Steve Jobs said it best back in January. The PC isn't going away. It's changing. It's going to increase the value of our digital gadgets and connect them together for increased value.
The PC can do things that those devices can't do: run complex applications, provide a large screen for better UI, burn disks, and connect to the internet at any speed. He refered to this role as the "digital hub."
Watch the speech here.
I noticed it took Microsoft about two whole months to start echoing this idea. They must be slipping!
Scott
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You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I'm guessing that the whole "digital hub" strategy is hardball tactics by Apple to get the entertainment industry to take QuickTime seriously.
Apple desperately needs QuickTime to take more marketshare (then get rid of the stupid Pro-nagware bs, and ship a fucking Linux version!), and one avenue would be to get Sony, etc. to standardize on it as a format, slipping in some copy protection features would be a nice tidbit in trade for a deal like that. I bet it's already in the code, just commented out.
But your points on Open Source are well taken. But like I said about CPRM in another post. Intel could bundle it indivisibly with some other very attractive features in future machines. Microsoft did this very successfully with Windows/IE "innovation". Then the Open Source software people would be forced to modify the software for the new platform (or ignore any new CPU upgrades entirely). Hackers could modify the open source, but I'm sure that will be considered illegal as circumvention under the DCMA, from there on, it's just a matter of enforcement.
Plus, don't kid yourself about the Tobacco lobbies. It was the Insurance lobbies, not the public outrage, that did in the Tobacco industry. And currently, I would expect a huge softening on the stance on Tobacco with the new administration. They gave a lot of $$$ to Bush, and there's already noise about stopping any further prosecution of these cases already pending.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Don't mix apples with oranges... Gross margin is not the same as net profit. These companies may still be making 10-20% margin, but that's over parts and manufacturing. Consider the millions that are spent on marketing!
Also keep in mind, computers don't exactly sell in large quantites compared to your box of Cap'n Crunch. Do you have any idea what the margin on Crunchberries is?? Again, apples and oranges, but you can see the vague relationship I'm trying to make.
And speaking of printers... PC Printers anymore and sold nearly at cost. You'll probably point out a margin over P&M, but I'll point out that they have to advertise too (see Subject). HP makes all it's $ in ink cartridges.
Look at Amazon if you need a loud and clear example: they're still making a margin on their book sales, but did that turn them a profit?
(btw: have they turned a profit yet? I thought I heard they finally did but...)
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
"if an OS doesn't support CPRM, then it'll just ignore the CPRM parts of a drive, and render the copy protection useless." so, what happens when the "foobarAA" decides to sue linus because linux is a device which can circumvent copy protection?
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I mean, it doesn't seem possible right now, but then neither did the DMCA seem possible 5 years ago. What if they somehow spun it so that the operating system itself were circumventing the copyprotection, and therefore ought to be declared illegal?
Also, I'd like to believe the public will "backlash" against the recent laws that take away our fair use rights, but most people just don't seem to "get it."
It's like the people I discuss Napster with: the "pro" side tend to be "information wants to be free" rampant pirate types, while the majority (no, really...the majority - try talking about it with relatives, or people that just don't use it - if you live in a geek only world, you wouldn't see this) think Napster needs to be banned because "it" illegally copies copyrighted material. Either that, or they don't really care either way - they don't see the future ramifications.
People just don't "get it", that there's a fair-use middle ground, and that our rights are being stomped on. I just haven't seen this public outcry except from us, the minority, and most of us don't really do anything about it - we run home to napster to try to download our stuff before napster gets shutdown instead of contacting our representatives.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
.. almost anybody can go on and make this chip and sell it to you - (actually chips are good - they made for much more efficient engines) - but there is still hundreds of places to modify, if you wish, in your car, and thousands independent mechanics to do it for you. I can bolt anything from a supercharger to new brakes to my 325xi wagon.. It is not like you have to go to the dealer to change you copy controlled proprietory oil. Or have to buy a permit for each approved trip route from SRAA - Scenic Route Association of America... and that's what some PC/content vendors are dreaming about...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
You are right, as Bill Gates was when he claimed that Software is the limiter of a computer's functionality. He of course was implying that he would fill that functionality rather than block it. Those that impeed are removed. This effort does not really stand a chance, but neither does MS does it?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ab-so-freakin-lutely, brother.
Ceci n'est pas un sig
For example, while the USPS is not a corporation (is it?), it has a government-granted monopoly on First class mail delivery. You know that
FedEx could do it better and cheaper, but the USPS is covering its butt. If FedEx tries to do it, they get nailed by the government.
Back in January, USPS gave FedEx most (all?) of the Express Mail business. FedEx will be installing a drop box in a post office near you shortly. See story here. Or google for it yourself.
True, FedEx isn't going to be handling first class mail (yet), but even this deal was shocking when it happened.
This would not be the first example of this type of behavior by .gov. In Michigan I have the "right" to refuse to take a breathalyzer test, but if I refuse any cop can and will suspend my drivers license immediately, sans due process.
-- I'm not cool enough for a .sig
You comparison to Sun's Network Computer, otherwise known as the Sun Ray 100, isn't quite accurate in my opinion. This machine is basically a glorified video card with a network connection and runs software from the server. The device itself really operates like a PC. So what if your hard drive is elsewhere on the network? As I was reading the article I was at least reassured that workstation and server companies, like Sun, would not buy into copy protection hard drives. I don't think the Network Computer is a threat to the PC... it just dictates that the hard drive should be in a centralized area.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
I don't think specialized PCs will make it due to simple supply and demand.
If given the choice, who would choose a PC that restricts your rights to copy files you rightly own? Nobody. No demand, thus the supply will falter (witness Sun's Network Computer)
What if this thing does take off? There will be a demand for normal hard drives still (I know I don't want hardware with copy protection built in), thus someone will need to supply the demand. It may be some yet unknown company in Asia, or maybe of the large hard drive manufactuers here in the states won't give in and still make normal drives.
In short, I don't think stuff like this will go over because nobody except companies and governments actually wants these products. However, governments forcing us to use them is another debate....
This would hardly be the death of a general purpose PC, at least for someone like me. They might make a bunch of little appliances that do this and do that but I would personally still like to stick to a centralized place of doing everything and not have fifteen remote controls floating around for this pantload of devices that I probably wouldn't use. Besides, what's the point of buying a brand-spanking-new thing when you know that six months later there's going to be one twice as cool and twice as fast? The technological world is moving so fast that I'm afraid to upgrade from my 350MHz machine to something new. It works for my purposes now, so why would I get a superfast expensive system that's going to be outdated next year? I don't have the spare money to go spending like that on little toys. Technology can do all it wants to make me want to buy buy buy and get the newest fad, but there's no reason to become a lemming following the newest trend. If it works, use it, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
[)(]subliminal labs[)(]
I'm hoping to -
oh. . .
You said fail in the market. I getcha.
Oh... I got it for free when virgin killed the project
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I am a freelance computer animator. I have two "personal" computers. If this ever comes to pass, all of us who do serious work that requires serious muscle aren't going to be able to use a thin client. Graphics is not a spreadsheet. We also need huge amounts of storage and memory...I think the profesionals will keep the pc alive. And Linux will keep it free.
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"Against stupidity the very god themselves contend in vain" -Johann Schiller
Yeah, I could see it. The average consumer isn't going to know any better, and doesn't even use 99% of the functionality of his computer. But the average geek? No way will we give up are machines!
It's a good point that historically, useful things that begin as general-purpose often break down into specialized devices.. however computers didn't really begin as general-purpose... they came about by combining several other types of devices... word processors, calculators, game consoles, etc. It's hard to believe that PCs will be completely dissected back into it's originating components. However, there is a lot of merit to the idea that SOME specialized devices will exist... I just don't think that they'll displace PCs as completely as this sort of thing seems to suggest.
HOT PASTRAMI!
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Well, for example, look at this line from the article:
"And why is Intel doing a "wireless 1394"? What is wrong with BlueTooth? Answer: BlueTooth is not a specification controller by Intel."
Well, 1394 isn't controlled by intel, so it's doubtful that the same protocol run over RF would be controlled by intel either. For example, Apple heavily influences 1394, and given Apple's recent direction (with iTunes, the digital hub stuff) it's doubtful Apple would favor any sort of digital "rights" protection in the 1394 spec.
Furthermore, if an OS doesn't support CPRM, then it'll just ignore the CPRM parts of a drive, and render the copy protection useless. Linux, Mac OS X, and to my knowledge Windows, have no provisions for supporting CPRM, and it would take a fair amount of work to put it in. And certainly Linux would never support it. Indeed, OS X would probably never support it, as the parts of the OS concerning hardware and storage are open-source as well.
Essentially, I fail to see how any new developments would render existing computers unable to rip, trade, etc. mp3s and such. Furthermore, I fail to see how anything T13 does will make it so that an open-source OS on any kind of hardware will be required to respect any form of digital rights management. There will always be an underground for this stuff.
Also, eventually the public backlash against the complete loss of fair use provisions ("You have the right to fair use, but it's illegal to exercise that right!") would end up dismantling parts of the DMCA. As the Tobacco Industry has shown, eventually public outrage can overcome the most powerful lobbies in the world.
Of course, the fact that in this case the lobbies would BE the media industry is a little more worrisome.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin