Tim O'Reilly Interview

s4 news machine writes "The UK webcaster stage4 has published a lengthy interview with Tim O'Reilly in which he talks about why DRM will fail, Macromedia Central and the rise of webservices, and that Microsoft should have been broken up."

Comments

DRM viability

[Anonymous Cowdog]

He thinks the experience of software protection in the 1980's shows DRM will fail.

Not so. In the 80's, software publishers were attempting to do DRM on open systems. Not open in the sense of open source, but open in the sense of being hackable.

The work underway now is to make systems closed, so that DRM *will* be technically doable. It doesn't have to resist every attach Bruce Schnier can conceive of. It just has to be good enough to keep consumer behavior in check.

If DRM fails, it will be because of consumer rejection, not for technical reasons.

Re:DRM viability

[*weasel]

the data that gets sent to a drm system will be saved, cracked and distributed to open systems.
it's not an if. one could fairly easily save packets into a file stream on a modified proxy and then work on cracking the encryption; and even barring that, technical reasons have yet to bridge the analog gap (if its presented on a tube or piped to a speaker - it will be captured and reencoded.)

copy protected data -will- fail, unless the prices fall, or the features rise (or a combination) to the point that customers will look past it. (dvd's are vastly more copy-protected than vhs, and they were adopted - for very good reasons).

and even then - data will continue to be pirated. but most people won't bother, because pirating lowers the features, and increases the time, effort and hassle to the point that just buying it is a better solution.

palladium's only hope for adoption, is in possible restrictions on running unsigned code.

but ms is busier cozy-ing up to the media companies than worrying about what the customer wants.

Re:DRM viability

[rgmoore]

The work underway now is to make systems closed, so that DRM *will* be technically doable. It doesn't have to resist every attach Bruce Schnier can conceive of. It just has to be good enough to keep consumer behavior in check.

OTOH, the software protection schemes of the 1980's were dealing with comparatively primitive approaches to distributing the deprotected software. Today it's not enough to prevent most people from being able to bypass the DRM. You have to do that and make the system so that the few people who can bypass the DRM can't pass it out to the rest of the world using a system like Napster. That means either locking down systems to the point that they can't run anything that isn't signed (which kills backward compatibility among other problems) or playing whack-a-mole with file "sharing" systems. The first is unlikely to happen because of consumer resistence, and the second is technically very, very difficult.

Re:DRM viability

[RevMike]

If DRM fails, it will be because of consumer rejection, not for technical reasons.

Don't you remember having to keep a box next to each PC with the disks for that PC's copy of Lotus 1-2-3, since if the software needed to be updated, you couldn't use any copy, but the actual disk that was used to install it?

Consumers will reject excessively onerous DRM.

the truth

[radiumhahn]

the worst thing they could do to microsoft is make it a regulated public utility. Of course that would cause so much fear in the business world we would have an even worse economy.

Tim O'Reily for President

[_Sambo]

Reading that article was like going to the oracle and partaking of pure knowledge. Tim O'Reilly has the brains to shape the future. I'd vote for him for just about any public office. He has a global-centric, practical approach to business, economics and his words make a lot of sense.
I'm suprised that he's not on the Microsoft board of directors to help them see what's coming down the pike.
He mentions SETI-like applications that do not depend on a single piece of hardware, but do depend on connectivity to other devices. The idea of an Internet OS is very interesting. In a few years we won't be booting up to an os, we'll be booting up to Slashdot to get the posting fix.

Huzzah!

So don't buy closed systems.

[sulli]

And fanboys, listen up: quit buying XBoxes to put Linux on them! You know that's just your excuse to /. so you can feel ok about subscribing to XBox Live.

Stick with the PC and it will all be good in the 'hood. Help the marketplace decide by not investing in stupid-ass closed architectures.

It must resist all attachs, and then some

[Pac]

It doesn't have to resist every attach Bruce Schnier can conceive of

But it does, or else it won't keep consumer behavior in check. It is enough for one Chinese hacker or one Bulgarian hobbist to break the protection once, the networks do the rest: in the wonderful digital world we live in, once broken, forever broken, everywhere. I can't replicate a shoplifting, but I can program a code-breaking software that will break a given protection everytime.The whole point is that Joe Clueless Consumer does not have to be a crypto expert, just a Web amateur capable o downloading the "codec" that will play everything again. And Joe C. Consumer will...

Re:Microsoft "not a monopoly"

[bogie]

"because it's fundamentally impossible (STILL) to run a business any other way"

Why? Because your developers are 100% Windows users and can't live without it? How does that prove anything?

According to you, your company represents every single company in the world and no other possibility exists. How is that possible?

Linux has been a viable desktop for years now. It all depends on what your using it for. But then since your company doesn't use it as a desktop nobody else possibly can. What strange logic.

"but there is No Reasonable Alternative To Windows On The Desktop"

Again with the proclamations. You know saying something over and over doesn't mean its going to come true right? Well since its already been proven that some companies do in fact run linux I'd say you don't really have a leg to stand on here. The point is that your not wrong when you say most companies use windows, but your dead wrong to suggest that it's not possible to survive without it.

Also btw in case you hadn't heard there is a little thing called OSX.