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The Power of the Hacking Community
narramissic writes "In the world of business software, vendors routinely offer tools to help developers customize applications. Not so in the consumer space, where TiVo and Xbox are notable exceptions. This article offers and interesting look at what companies have to gain — and lose — by embracing the hacker community. From the article: 'One example is TiVo Inc., founded in 1997 to develop digital video technology that allows users to record TV shows. TiVo, based on Linux, is an extensible platform, and from its early days the company welcomed hackers and professional developers. "When we first came out no one knew what DVR was," said Richard Bullwinkle, vice president of products at entertainment networking company Mediabolic Inc., and formerly a senior member of TiVo's product marketing team. "So we made it hacker friendly."'"
Sony Corp. has been too strict about preventing users from playing around with hacks into products like the PlayStation Portable, Bullwinkle and other panelists agreed. Even though the PSP modding community has had to fight Sony every step of the way, they've still been able to do some pretty cool things. COuld you imagine what might have happened if they actually had been able to just do what they wanted, or even been encouraged by Sony? There might actually be a reason for someone to buy one of them.
Say a company created a console with the sole intent of KNOWING people were going to hack it. I can udnerstand the companies wanting to prevent people from playing downloaded ISO's, but that's not what I'm referring to. I'm refering to the Xbox DVR or Linux Box, things like that.
If word gets out into the hacking community that the new Gametron 3000 is designed in such a way to ENCOURAGE people to muck with the innards...well, it might do something good.
Take the PS3 for example. Nearly every discussion on the PS3 has the fact that linux is easily loaded to it popping up. It's a shame there is so much negative thinking about the system...in fact, in retrospect, the PS2 was rather simple as well.
HDAdvance + Network Adapter + 200 gig hard drive = fun. Add in a flip top, and it's even more fun. (Altho sony seemed to learn from that mistake by making a slot-loading mechanism this time)
Something that I find to be funny, and something I have noticed few people think about: a PC or laptop is basically a tool that is sold that encourages people to fuck with it...it's a blank slate, a universal tool to be done with whatever someone wants. No restrictions, no nothing (unless of course you are trying to overclock most brand name computers).
Interesting to think about things like that...
Living With a Nerd
The entire point of the GPL is that hackers can modify and replace GPLed software. Tivo's hardware refuses to run modified Linux kernels, ignoring the intent of the the license they agreed to. It may be legal, but it's not morally right, and it certainly is the opposite of "embracing the hacker community." That same community that gave them the operating system they built upon. It's an insult.
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A very timely posting.
I was very excited yesterday when I heard the news of the Apple iPhone. At last! A phone I can actually control, a have my own software running on! I can integrate into voice mail and SMS!
Not to be. Apple have, perhaps, given in to the airtime providers who want to lock us into old, expensive ways of working. While "Ring Tones" is a multi billion dollar business our mobile phones are going to remain retarded.
I wonder if some one will create a phone that frees us from these chains, and then shows an advert in the superbowl of a 1984 style advert... like, er, Apple?
What a pity.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Meh - at least there's some "legitimate" way to do development. I've done hobby development for a bunch of platforms, but it's never really been fully above board (ie. to develop for the Nintendo DS I flashed my firmware and used a gray-market flash cartridge). With very few exceptions (Dreamcast) it's always been difficult to distribute homebrew console apps. At least with the 360 there's the intimation that eventually there'll be a workable distribution path. In the meantime, getting started with XNA is free and it works pretty well (from my very limited testing).
While the 360 isn't exactly "designed to be hackable", I think MS deserves some credit for giving developers anything. Any fiddling I do with XNA and the 360 is more than I'd be doing with a Wii.
(Also, it's worth noting that the built-in media player on the 360 works pretty good (though it means an extra step of transcoding via VLC). I watch TV shows off my computer using it all the time. This was a big factor in me purchasing the thing as now I have only one device hooked up to the projector and it plays DVD's, games, and content from the computer. My wife is much happier with this setup.)
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Contrast the iOpener, which was a little web terminal sold at a loss with the plan of recouping the cost by selling service subscriptions. But rather than following the cellphone model, where the hardware is only discounted if you sign up for service, they just trusted that nobody would buy the hardware without also buying service.
:)
When hackers realized it was a generic PC and started buying them en masse, iOpener responded by smearing glue on the circuit board, changing the BIOS, and generally sticking their head in the sand. Linksys got it right with the WRT54GL: sell the good hardware directly to hackers at a fair price.
Today, iOpener is but a sad little footnote in the annals of hardware-hacker history, while the WRT54G(L) is riding high.
Every once in a while, I get angry at hackers who aim to make Xbox or PSP hardware more useful by imbuing it with software that doesn't suck. "Why would you aid the enemy by embracing their hacker-hostile business?", I agonize. Then I remember that those game systems are sold at a loss. Awesome.