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Interview with Alexander Noe, PxScan Developer
wikinerd writes "I interviewed Alexander Noe, developer of the open source PxScan and PxView utilities. He recently received a cease-and-desist letter by Shinano Kenshi, the Japanese company which controls Plextor. His utilities provide similar functionality with PlexTools, sending special command sequences to Plextor DVD recorders that activate special features such as media quality check."
Just another example of an established company trying to push around the hard-working small-time developer. What else is new.
Specially since you buy the DRIVE not the software. The software is the COST of doing business. The problem is you have ignorant marketting and investors who think "everything has commercial value".
.doc file and give it out.
Look at Broadcom. They hold their hardware specs a closely guarded secret [for the most part] and the net affect is you can only use their wifi stuff [reliably] in windows... The problem is without the drivers the hardware has zero customer value. But giving out free drivers lets you SELL hardware since it now has value.
The sad thing it isn't even that you have to write the damn drivers. In the OSS world of BSD/Linux the kernel contributors would GLADLY write a driver for free if it meant they could use some quality hardware with the respective OS. So all it costs the hardware manufacturer is describing the interface [at the high level] of how to talk to the hardware. Since these documents are ROUTINELY produced internally so the software teams can write their windows drivers all it means is you re-brand the
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Plextor may be doing a couple things. First and foremost, they're making sure no unauthorized Open Source projects spring up. They have no interest in supporting the software unless they wrote it. I can understand this motivation. We all remember the Mandrake Linux release that killed some CD RW drives, and Plextor is no doubt concerned about a similar problem for them.
Next, they probably have some lawyers trolling the net, sending cease and desists to anyone writing "competing" software. This is a sadly common CYA issue, and is done more to demonstrate they've been actively protecting their patents and copyrights than anything else. If this is the case, a few e-mails between the developer and Plextor could resolve the problem and allow the software to continue being developed, assuming Plextor doesn't want the product squashed.
Then again, this could all be about unauthorized use of the Plextor name or graphics on the developer's web site. They could be doing this to protect their corporate branding, and to keep people from thinking the software is authorized or supported by Plextor.
Has anyone contacted Plextor about this?
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Is the letter confidential, can you post it for everyone to see?
Alexander Noé: The letter itself is not explicitely marked as such, but I'm not sure if I have the right to publish an email sent to me in general without the sender agreeing on this.
Yes he has that right. The recipient is free to do with the contents of that e-mail/letter as he/she wishes. If sender of a letter/e-mail doesn't like that, they shouldn't send letter/e-mail at all.
Non-disclosure can be agreed, but must be done IN ADVANCE. If this didn't happen, non-disclosure can't be enforced, because... the recipient didn't agree to it. Right?
Now before all of you start replying about "how about work-related e-mail that is supposed to remain confidential?", see above: The context of such messages can be viewed as: work-related, and as such, confidentiality is assumed, implied, and agreed upon in advance (by taking the job).
So if you want to disclose the contents of an e-mail or letter sent to you, just check that context. If it is clear from that context that you are expected to keep contents confidential, so be it. Otherwise, you are free to do as you like (copyrights or patents relating to included materials, still apply ofcourse).Even if they explicitly tell him not to do so, he can still make public the information in the letter.
They have copyright on the letter. What he needs to do is paraphrase the letter, with attribution, and quote only the most unbelievably stupid parts.
As for the original program, they need to tell him which specificy rights of theirs he is violating. The is no such thing as generic "intellectual property". There are only copyright, patent, trade secret, trademark, and contractual rights.
Unless they have a patent on the method his program uses to perform the activity his program performs, or he's violating an NDA or using their trademark, they can't stop him from performing the activity.
Bottom line: they can't stop him from publishing his code, only theirs. Using the same methods they use doesn't violate their copyright.
sigs, as if you care.
This, ladies and gentlemen is why I own a LG superdrive.
...HARDWARE... manufacturers realize that ... the better.
I put it in my AMD64 Gentoo based box, booted up and it "just worked". No drivers, no special CD burning software [outside of cdrecord and growisofs], etc...
There is no value for me in commercial CDR tools since free [and decently working ones] exist already. The sooner
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
This premise is proven false time and time again.
... well ... um you got issues.
... to me the extra 200$ is worth it since I plan to own the processor for several years the average cost compared to the time savings is huge...
Look at the x86 CPU [or even ARM]. Look at GPUs, etc..
There isn't a lot of competition in high end products because just knowing how to "jigger the doohickey" isn't enough to figure out how the doohickey works.
If your trying to sell something like a 16550 UART in 2005 as a standalone IC
Complex enough products [to which the value is greater because the ability to solve it on ones own is lower] are hard to mimic to a level of similarly demanded by the customer.
Look at Transmeta and VIA. They're both x86 processors [well sorta] that did little to dent the x86 world [of which AMD which produce awesome cpus is even a small part of].
It's not enough that you're functionality equivalent you have to be just as efficient and cost effective.
I mean, I could buy that 100$ slow as shit Transmeta processor or I could buy that 200$ very fast and power efficient AMD64 processor
So no, I don't think companies revealing the interface reveal their meaningful valuable secrets. It's just a matter of controlling how and when and where the user uses the device.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Seriously,
the best way to speak is with your wallets and ur voice. If eveyone on slashDot sends plextor an e-mail saying that what they are doing is complete BS, and we won't stand for this stuff, we will boycott their stuff and recommend others against purchasing their products they will start to listen.
If every posted article posted gets slashDotted within 5 - 10 mins of it getting posted, u can imagine the number of e-mails that can get sent telling them what u think.
It just takes about 2 mins to write a decent e-mail, do it now and speak up for the little guy.
The implementation of hardware doesn't have to have anything to do with the overall architecture it's attached to. As long as the device sits on a layer that sufficiently distances it from the nuts and bolts of the machine it's part of, there's no reason that, given the same layer in a different machine, that device can't be portable.
As an example, consider PCI devices. As long as the device doesn't have its own BIOS (Namely, video cards), there's no reason you couldn't put the same device in a Mac and in a PC. USB devices are even easier, as there's rarely code on the device that gets run by the host.
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But they get the callers anyway! And they have to tell the callers "no we don't support that," which makes their company look really bad even though it's no fault of their own.
Microsoft has that problem in spades. Something like 80-90% of the support calls they get about Windows have nothing to do with Windows, but only about third-party software that's installed. What can Microsoft do other than point people towards the right company to handle it? Nothing. But it makes them look bad and lowers their reputation.
Comment of the year
According to the cdfreaks website, the PxLinux software simply uses a series of SCSI commands to retrieve statistical data from the drive. The same principle would also apply to ATAPI.
The SCSI command set is a set of published specifications specifically intended for such purposes. It cannot reasonably be the case that Plextor, the drive manufacturer, by following these specifications, expected to restrict the use of SCSI commands for drive control.
It's possible that there is some sort of exclusive software development agreement between Plextor and Shinano Kenshi, but that agreement is not binding on other parties.
It would also be possible, in principle, to sell these drives under condition not to use them except as strictly specified, but again such an agreement would not be binding on other parties.
In no case is it reasonable to seek damages against some third party who independently develops a means to use a manufactured device as intended. An impossible situation would clearly develop for both industry and the public at large if courts were to award such damages.
[I am not a lawyer, and the foregoing does not constitute legal advice.]
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.