Slashdot Mirror
Lego and the IP Conundrum
Packetknife writes: "Business 2.0 has an article on Lego and the development and business issues surrounding the Mindstorms product line. The article concentrates on intellectual property issues and the role of hackers in the development of Mindstorms. The hook to the OSS movement is obvious in the article." Interesting piece about Lego trying not to bite the hand that feeds it, even though the temptation is strong.
Texas Instruments allowed assembly hacking on their TI line, notably -85 and higher. . .then in perhaps a wise move, in the updated line, allowed for an easier time to implement one's own assembly, editor and all. Why shouldn't Lego, the best 'toys' in my opinion, do the same?
This is of course standard US FUD about IP.
In the rest of the world we don't care.
The problem is quitte simple that there isn't a problem at all.
For LEGO this is a big plus and due to the fact that they aren't sueing the butts of those people is a VERY good thing.
That is also the reason why they are selling lots of kits.
If they started sueing everbody who hacks their OWN LEGO mindstorm kit, then they wouldn't have sold so many kits.
The thing is, that after you bought something it is yours.
And you can do with it whatever you like.
The problem with the DMCA and other stupid US laws is, that the government tries to (over)protect the people.
That doesn't work.
Ever seen a warning sign on an European cup of coffee that it's hot?
Of course not!!
It is known that a cup of coffee is hot, and if you burn yourself than that is your own stupid fault.
Well, since news broke some years ago, I tried to get an hand on a Lego Mindstorms. And well I'm old enough to vote a few times. However it is hard to get hands on materials and try to get a robot out of it. With Lego voila. It is cute, it's a toy but it has all the basics. One can read megatons of books but never become an expert without having some life with the Real-Thing (TM).
:)
Back then we had 17th of August, salaries going down 6 times and a rumours about Russia gong nuts. Besides back then we had Lego already but it was impossible even to search for a Technics set.
Well two years passed. And in one shop I saw the damn bastard hanging. What to do? Get the money! Well, I was short of 20 dollars to get it, and my friends decided to protect me from this madness. So I thought I had lost my chance...
However, recently it was my birthday. And I thought I should get a real good gift for myself. Well I was sure that the robot was already gone, bought by some fattened father for his not less fattened son. And what I see? That same set hanging just behind dozens of other Legos. One could barely see it on the corner. I asked the shopper why that thing was hanging there. "Well no one buys it. It's too expensive and people fear kids break it..." Besides the price was lowered by... Just guess... 20 dollars!.. Well I just said : "Freeze up that thing there I'M GOING TO GET THE MONEY!!!!!" In less than half-hour, I had the box in my desk.
Right now the robot is here just facing my computer and waiting for another bunch of stupid commands that make him stuck the walls. I study NQC, LegOS and looking over some Forth and Ada realizations. On free time I read the processor specs and think on its potential uses. I'm thinking on how this stuff can be used to teach students some basics of robotics and AI. Besides, some people got quite interested on this stuff and think to buy a similar toy. Like me, they all vote for quite a long time...
This is a tale of a lost and lonely robot in the corner of the shop. If Lego will try to "recover" its market, then this and many other robots will just lay there, with no use. No one of us needs their "Bricks constructor". We all need specs, tools, firmwares and open source. Because this is the best of all robots to learn the basics of robotics. And it is a great and cute yellow pet. In fact Lego should have made its toy for "Ages 20+"
To Lego people if you see this. Keep it open source and help people to develope more soft for it. The reward will be much great than keeping it on the shelf for kids who their parents fear.
There would be no LegOS without Mindstorms...
Well the article mentions a huge boost of sales. I believe Lego has some good and experienced marketing department to predict sales under the conditions they think are correct. However LegOS, NQC and other Open Source stuff may have called a completely unpredictable boost. As the toy became something else, which managers could not think of.
Besides, many higher-education institutions and even the US Air Force use it to teach robotics. An Air Force teacher even made a Ada->NQC translator for this toy. Now the question is, would Mindstorms be what it is today without Open Source? I doubt. Probably it would be another cute toy among thousands in a lost shelf of a Lego store.
On what concerns LegOS. It is very hard to confuse a name with its purpose because, apart of its relation to Lego Mindstorms, this thing is useless . So it is hard to confuse it with something else. If LegOS was more general and had a more broad use, then Lego could have had a right to claim defense of its good name. But the fact is that LegOS is deeply dependent on the technical characteristics of Mindstorms. So it is hard to miss it. So its name is, somehow, an additional advertisement for the set.
I think it is correct that LegOS has such a name. Because it is a real true "Lego Operating System". So much for the purisms of today's libertarian commercialism where "all's MINE!!!!".
Their trademark and IP are not 'at stake'.
They provide software so joe average can USE the stuff, not to 'control' it. They are not in the mindstorm software business, per-se, they are in business to sell legos.
Of course they don't care if someone hacks it; it's our right to reverse engineer it and publish information about it. After all.. it doesn't hurt them one little bit.
So far, the only industry thats' managed to prevent reverse-engineering to a degree is the publishing industry in general, via the DMCA, and then, only with regards to copy protection mechanisms.
TI's first graphing calculators, the TI-85 and TI-82, were "hacked" so that assembly-language programs could be written and access the calculator hardware directly. The article here seems to imply that LegOS and other independent "hacks" could somehow damage LEGO Mindstorms' reputation if they don't function properly -- with the TI calculators, it also took very little effort to install these programs (mostly games), and they crashed the calculator _very_ often.
So what did TI do? Rather than trying to patch up the holes that allowed ASM programs to be run, they added full ASM program support to their next calculators, the TI-86 and TI-83. And they even documented the systems to encourage ASM programming -- and I know many, many people who bought calculators only to play games in class. This earned them a bundle.
Now, years later, this is paying off even more. I, a 17-year-old "hacker" (at least under the definition given in the article), and several others have been hired to write programs for them, and although I can't give details I'm certain that these will also make them a good deal more money.
So what's the moral of the story? As another poster suggested, LEGO should _embrace_ these "hackers" and hire them to improve their products. It seems that whatever "danger" these independent projects have on LEGO's reputation is greatly exaggerated -- people who understand enough to send their RCX a new OS are smart enough that they won't be blaming LEGO for any flaws in it (and as far as I know, there really aren't any flaws in LegOS). Almost no harm done, but great benefits for LEGO.
Even Businessweek's article says that these have helped sell tens of thousands more units. That is not in doubt. This is a case of corporate types fearing anything they don't understand, and instantly suing it. Instead they should consider the situation here and realize how much they can benefit from it!
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.