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Nokia Urges Linux Developers To Be Cool With DRM
superglaze writes in to note that according to Nokia's software chief, its plans for open source include getting developers to accept things like DRM, commercial IP rights, and SIM locks. "Jaaksi admitted that concepts like these 'go against the open-source philosophy,' but said they were necessary components of the current mobile industry. 'Why do we need closed vehicles? We do,' he said. 'Some of these things harm the industry but they're here [as things stand]. These are touchy, emotional issues, but this dialogue is very much needed. As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies, but we are not yet ready to play by the rules; but this needs to work the other way round too.'"
I'm sorry, it sounds like you have your head firmly rooted somewhere dark and unnatural.
"These things suck and hurt both you and us, and we won't bend on that. But we want you to work for us for free anyway."
Holy cow man, listen to yourself. This is our playground and we give you an opportunity to play in it for free; in return we purchase the goods you produce as a result. You play by our rules or we take our playground and our purchasing power to someone who will.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Write your own damn code!
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
"We want to ditch your rules but have you live by our rules. We know it's wrong and bad for consumers but too bad. We want to lock in our profits".
Pretty typical attitude in the industry I'd say.
Huh? A corporation talking about emotion?
It's about money. It's about vendor lock-in, it's about customer control and about avoiding competition.
They want cheap/free (the beer kind) software, but under their sole control, without allowing the user of the software to apply it to their needs. Sorry, OSS doesn't swing that way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Are you shitting me? IP rights are one thing (we don't expect people not to respect IP rights, we may disagree a bit on how extensive those rights should be), but SIM locks are an anticompetitive abomination, and this guy is a moron if he expects intelligent developers ever to like them. They're all about vendor lock-in, and removal of consumer choice. I bought my phone independently of a contract. It cost more but means I just put in whatever company's SIM I want and I switch providers that easily. Nokia, if you don't like that, fuck off. (It's a Nokia phone)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I RTFA, and it's actually an accurate summary of his speech. It really sounds like the guy honestly believes the crap he's spewing.
John
... as long as it doesn't interfere with my rights to reprogram anything using any free/libre software and doesn't intefere with my fair use rights to use the content I pay for.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies, but we are not yet ready to play by the rules."
Sounds like they are not yet in a position to use open-source technologies.
It would be interesting to see if turnabout is fair play. I'd love to have a free high-end smartphone, but that means taking up an expensive monthly airtime contract. Instead, I'll just declare that I am "not yet ready to play by the rules", take the benefit of the free handset now, and later on I'll sign up for a contract when I am ready to play by the rules.
OK?
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
Educated? I'd say LARTed.
Can you imagine what a cell could become if it is "OSS friendly"? Yes, you will most likely not lock your customers into having to use it, but here's a really novel, radical and completely unthinkable idea: They just might want to use your product because it caters to their needs.
I know it is so last century, but how about making a product again that the customer wants to buy instead of trying to force him to buy it with vendor lock-in snares?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I don't control it, I don't own it.
If I don't own it, I can't trust it.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
1) encrypt something
2) send encrypted data to their computer
3) send key to their computer
4) wait for somebody to take a memory dump
5) NO profit
Even if somebody was to make a binary blob to prevent memory dumps at kernel level, all you need is to run linux in a virtual machine (i hear its good at that) or use some rootkit.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
"These are touchy, emotional issues"
No, they are not. There are very rational and well-explained reasons for being against DRM, closed platforms, vendor lock-in and the like.
I'm not even going to repeat them here, because I assume them to be well-known (certainly to the Slashdot audience).
So that's some nice bullshitting and spin doctoring going on there, but no. Really, no.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Here it is: the KDE Free Qt Foundation.
If Nokia screws up and stops releasing FOSS versions of Qt or otherwise messes with it, Qt's forcefully taken from them. The Foundation is there to ensure that Qt remains available. In a lot of ways, it would make more sense to do this now before Nokia starts using it as a hammer to pound DRM where it doesn't belong. Further, Nokia's competitors would be stupid to use it while Nokia controls it. Tools like Qt belong under an independent company or foundation. Jaaksi is just making that very clear.
What Jaaksi seems to be saying on behalf of his employer, Nokia, is that the company is unwilling to abide by the license (the GPL) under which their new business model is founded upon. That's not a way to appear clever. Though it's good of them to put the cards on the table so early after acquisition, it's still rather shameful of Nokia to try to bullshit us like that. Probably time to check the resume's of Nokia execs and dismiss any moles from Redmond.
I'm not planning on giving up on Qt anytime soon, but I do resent the increased level of alertness required by these probes.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
(as a contributor). Qt is GPL'd, and a fork is available at all times. Lots of good, GPL'd Qt software can only work with the fork if Nokia chooses to close it up. The loss are the good brains at Trolltech.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
"In this industry, we don't care about our customers. If you want to work with us, you'll have to respect that."
"Our business models are very fragile. Please don't break them."
"Our business is based on customer lock-in, rather than customer satisfaction. Don't interfere."
"We accept that we have problems, and that if we followed your rules we wouldn't have these problems. But instead, we want you to follow our rules and enjoy our problems with us."
Ok.
A common fear about BSD-style licenses is that people will make closed forks. If the project is active, this fear is very likely overblown.
Ok.
Some people think that Nokia wants to go play by itself.
Yeah, it pretty much does. Unless your DRM system is a full-blown AI (with all the knowledge of a competent lawyer (for your jurisdiction)), how is it going to judge whether the mashup video that you want to create, using someone's DRM-encumbered audio stream, is a copyright violation or fair use? Does it depend on whether you are going to view your mashup in your own home, or send it to friends? Does it matter if you intend a commercial use for your mashup? Even an IP lawyer can't necessarily tell you how a judge is going to rule on a license violation issue (or whether the license is valid, meaningful, unconcionable, etc)
With DRM, the answer to your request to access encumbered content can never be "maybe" or "sometimes"; it pretty much has to be "yes" or "no".
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain