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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
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.
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.