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Sun Says Hardware Will Be Free
ron_ivi writes "Reuters reports that Sun's President and COO thinks hardware will be free and that people will pay for software subscriptions instead. Reuters quotes Schwartz: 'In our world, you will subscribe to the software and the hardware is free.' 'Directionally, our expectation is that in fiscal 2005 you're going to see a rapid departure from selling hardware, software and services apart.' 'Bill Gates and I agree that within four to five years hardware will be free.' We've recently read here on /. how Gates thinks hardware will be free."
First off, notice the apparent lack of any mention of the free software community in the article. Also, remember the difference between gratis hardware (subsidized by publishers of proprietary software as part of the license fees) and Free hardware (the more general purpose, the more Free).
It appears that like video game console hardware subsidized by licensed game sales, the gratis hardware will probably be locked to the particular applications, turning them into the equivalent of appliances. As publishers of proprietary software shift their business model from running on customer-owned hardware to running on hardware rented from the publisher, does this coming "appliance era" spell the end of affordable general-purpose PC hardware for residential use?
I don't think the free market, specially normal consumers, will like subscription based goods. They want to pay once and then own the thing they paid for, not pay all the time they use it. Even if you have to "buy it once again" every few years.
Software will be free and you'll pay for hardware.
Of course they want it to be free. Then they have full justification for a complete and utter lockdown of the hardware via DRM'd BIOS and OS with threats under the DMCA if we try to break it. No true ownership of the hardware by the user is exactly what they want.
Are general computer users going to buy a computer that isn't DRM'd just to use free software? I don't think so. They are going to use what's given to them as part of their OS license fee.
"Run our OS and never have to worry again! Just sign your name right here. The fine print doesn't say anything about selling your soul. Nope, not at all. Right there... That's riiiight."
It's funny that the same people who decry free software as killing the economic incentive for software development don't feel the same thing applies to hardware.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Didn't we hear this from Sun about 10 years back when they were pushing client-server computing. Look where that got them. Now that serious client-server computing could become a reality, they're going pushing free hardware with another spin on it.
I'm sure Microsoft and Sun won't give me a new Netra or XBox if I call them up.
What Schwartz ("Use the schwartz!") and Gates really mean is, "your software fee will include the hardware fee, and you won't really have a choice about that. Plus, we will add restrictions to the hardware, such as DRM. Thank you, come again!"
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Those guys are geniuses. Hardware will be free. Software will cost money.
Because making hardware is as simple as typing "cp SunE450 SunE450.2" and making new software requires factories, tooling up, shipping, and maintenance.
I disagree. I think both Microsoft and Sun will become obsolete and useless as they continue to try to trap people into their DRM and obsolete-by-design software while manufacturers of good hardware will continue to make some money, and software will become more and more Libre ("free").
I think that the only money that will come in from software will be from developers and coders that maintain existing Open Source software, and create novel new Open Source software for contract (hourly wages).
But I'm just a lowly DBA, not a forward-thinking visionary overpaid stuffed-shirt like these guys, so by all means, bank your future on their brilliance.
fifth sigma, inc.
For one simple reason. Hardware's tangible, software isn't. No matter what these guys do, people will always struggle to get their heads round the idea of paying for software, because it doesn't take up space in their room and can be reproduced ad infinitum. Same goes for music, films, etc., and I'd say it always will. If the Suns and Microsofts of the world don't start accepting this and going with the flow, they're sunk.
I mean, here I am working on my PC (which I bought and put together myself) running Gentoo (which I downloaded and didn't pay a brass farthing for). Microsoft sell as many copies of Windows as they do because they bundle them with new hardware. Who do you know who's ever bought a copy of Windows off the shelf? If the PC came out of the factory with no OS and I wanted to put Windows on it, I'd ask around till I found a friend with a pirate copy - there's just no way I'd haul myself to a shop to buy one. Yeah, yeah, I know it's not right, but that's the way it is, and these guys should embrace it instead of fighting it.
They're completely twisting the language here, which is nothing new. They don't mean free as in speech, or free as in beer (gratis) what they mean is the price will be hidden in the software price. You'll be paying as much or more, they just won't itemise it or offer the hardware for honest sale.
So you'll get a software 'subscription' and the hardware to run it on in a single package, totally locked in.
No one in their right mind would sign up for this without huge, unsustainable bribes and/or being taken in by confusing double-talk and deception. I expect they'll be trying to use both in spades to get a stranglehold on the market, then make it back in rent once they have that. But it seems unlikely they'll succeed, thankfully. One more desperate attempt to try and lock competition out of the market.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
We went through this once before with Ma Bell. You didn't own your phone, you rented it from the phone company, who could futz with it whenever and however they wanted. They also had no incentive to ever upgrade it. My parents still have an ancient phone in their kitchen that is owned by the phone company, even though legally they are required to let you connect your own phone.
Now, these companies want to do the same with computers. You don't own anything, you merely rent it as part of a service contract. Car companies want you to lease a car, rent an apartment...
HELL NO! When possible, you always want to own your stuff instead of leasing it. For one thing, its financially more advantageous. (Take good care of it, and the cost over its lifetime is lower.) For another, it gives you equity for loans and other transactions. For another, it frees you of the control of the leasing party.
Me: You know, I want to try some different software that MS doesn't offer in their archive.
MS: OK, fine, give us your computer back.
Me: What? No way, dude, all of my personal files are on here.
MS: Gee, sucks to be you. Guess you're stuck giving us money just to read your own data. Neener neener!
And that's just one example. The only compromise point I could see would be the way mobile phone companies subsidize the cost of a mobile phone with a service agreement, but that's a "lease to buy" arrangement at best. When it's over, that is YOUR phone by law, and even before that it's still your phone, you just have to pay an early termination fee and the phone is still yours. MSN used to do that with low-end PCs before they realized that no one wanted it.
Live Free. Own your life. Own yourself.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
He's very confused, evil or misquoted. Hardware already is a commodity but commodities still cost money, just like corn, wheat and other honest stuff. It's shocking that someone at such a high level of a firm that excels in hardware design would have failed to notice that. Once can only conclude that Schwartz has decided to collude with Microsoft in their mad attempt to eliminate free software.
Sun is doomed. The traditional commercial software development process ran out of steam twenty years ago. Proprietary software can not compete with free software and those who cling to it will be swept away. Schwartz is going to run Sun into the ground. I really hope Schwartz was misquoted, but that does not seem to be the case.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Pay me $30,000 U.S. dollars a year for 4 tires, and I will throw in a free Dodge Neon every year.
Some restrictions apply.
Get a free ipod.
I think there is an agenda behind this to wipe free software off the face of the Earth. They'll argue to Congress that free software allows people to pirate free hardware to the detriment of these companies, as if they have some God-given right to eternal perpetually increasing profits, and as if the government has some duty to protect that.
No. I have a very strong feeling that software will be free, NOT hardware, because software is information, which by its nature will spread, while hardware is made of physical tangible materials, which by their nature do not multiply. (I think there is some law of physics that prevents that from happening.) Gill Bates has it all back-ass-wards. (And his billions of dollars are a testament to that, by the way.)
I seem to recall a time where you didn't own the telephone in your house either, but the phone company gave you one with your subscription. Anyone know how&why that model changed?
Antitrust action against AT&T
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
From the article, emphasis mine, of course...
Already, Sun offers a mid-range server for free to software developers provided they subscribe to bundled software and services offerings.
Schwartz isn't alone in saying that hardware will someday be "free," so long as customers sign up for multiyear software subscriptions and services contracts.
If I'm selling you two things, call them A and B, and it cost me 50 units of resources to build them, guess what? The price of A+B > 50 units every time -- or I go out of business.
A or B could be hardware, it could be subscription services, it could be maintenance, it could be anything. We could already say that Apple hardware is free, providing you're willing to pay a couple of thousand for the initial OS X install. It's all semantic gynastics. For heaven's sake folk, the hardware they speak of isn't free. Everyone knows that. No more free than the lenses I got with my glasses frames or the DVD of the Patriots I got with Sports Illustrated.
And *of course* OS makers would prefer you ignored hardware -- and more importantly prefer hardware mfgs become even more beholden to OS makers for their dime. If you think HP/Dell/etc was in MS's pocket a few years ago... sheesh.
So just remember, the price of A+B will always be greater than their combined cost to create. As long as someone bundles, what difference does it make? The profit the hardware makers used to derive directly from you would now come from MS or Sun for each unit sold. Wow. How inventive and out of the box. Let's sound like we're moving the company at light speed, helped by the fact that we're travelling in MS's wake now, and hope it helps people ignore that, "Since the dot-com and telecommunications bubbles burst, Sun has posted a string of quarterly losses and declining revenue as its core customer industries - telecommunications and financial services - suffered."
And, of course, it's almost too obvious to bother pointing out that your "free hardware" will [typically] be bottom of the line jive. Upgrade to Office 2015? Well, it doesn't even pretend to run on your Office 2012 hardware. Want to play DOOM 5? Well, you're still shelling out -- that'll never run on the hardware you get bundled with Office today -- unless you sign up for a pretty danged shackling agreement. The more I learn about corporations' planned tomorrow, the safer I feel it to assume I'll be using Linux when I get there.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
You use the term "Apple model" seemingly without understanding what the "Apple model" really is.
Let me describe it to you - the "Apple model" is a somewhat expensive but pleasant merry-go-round ride - if at any point you get tired of the opulance, you are free to return to the litter-strewn streets of reality.
Example. The hardware is all standard. It has a PCI bus, uses pretty standard memory, uses standard USB/Firewire periphrials. If I tire of OS X for some reason, I can in fact leave anytime I like and run Linux on it. The box is not locked down that way at all - and I am not force to buy Apple hardware for expansion in any way. In a "Console model' which is what you were suggesting, everything is custom - like the non-standard USB ports on an XBox (interestingly the standard USB ports on the PS2 are one reason I chose that platform originally, so I could use a normal keyboard/mouse with it, so there can be exceptions).
Second Example. Apple software. If you use iTunes, you can at any time burn any protected songs to CD (or in reality juust use HYMN to deprotect them) and step off the merry-go-round. If you use iPhoto it keeps all of your photos in real files in a subdirectory, not some custom database - super easy to stop using and move all the files elsewhere, even files from a user-defined category. If you use iMovie all of your clips are bog standard video files that anything else can use. In all cases if you tire of the convience offered or outgrow the system (as many serious photographers do with iPhoto), you are free to move on.
We should all pray that the industry adopts the "Apple standard" as you put it, instead of ridiculing this very consumer-friendly approach. I think you were right about attempts to "consolize" the PC market though, it's just that you started out with an unnessicary and incorrect dig at Apple, who is trying to help you. When they do "consoleize" all other PC's with trusted BIOSes, you know where you can turn to...
I also worry about the attempt to make everything you do work by rental. But I don't think customers will stand for it, so I think they can only take the thing so far before customers use non-rental alternatives instead. Look at how popular pay-as-you go cell phone plans are becoming, I know a number of people who have gone that way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley