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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.
this sounds rather like a declaration of war. Of course, we know how accurate Slashdot article teaser text can be...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I think they are the ones that need to be "educated".
My rights don't need management.
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.
In other news, a dictator urged the population to be cool with a totalitarian state.
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'm sure that will do wonders to convince all of the second-grade OSS programmers to help you out.
Me, I'm not interested. Because you're a doody-head, because you are.
Asking Linux users to accept DRM is like asking them if it's alright to take a shit in their kitchen.
There is *no* cool way you can word it.
... 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.
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!
Other plans include getting the open-source community to make closed source software while still working for free. And also get nokia "a pony" (*).
Oh wait. They want DRM, which needs the software to be closed source. So I guess that's already what they are asking for.
And the "we need closed vehicles" bit? Worst car analogy ever. If you want to "close" your music, you encrypt it. What nokia wants are cars that locks from the outside when you get in, so you can't escape from them. Not sure that we really need those.
(*)fake quote. Keep the pony if you've already bought it.
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
I'm not sure how accurate the article summary, it's a little hard to believe. Judging from it my reaction would be: What funny guy this Jaaksi character is!. I wonder if he would also like us to do his dishes, take his dog out for walks, and wash his car .. all this while hacking away at code he can use for free which then he can lock us out of as well. Would he like a foot massage too?
[alk]
Nokia, we just dropped in a new kernel module that makes DRM and SIM locking 100% transparent. you do not have to do anything it uses a 1024bit RSA encryption and has bypass detection as well as a system to fight off anyone trying to break DRM. you don't have to do anything it's all in there for you. It's even TRANSPARENT to you and the users.
Dont worry nokia, we got your back, it's there believe us. and it's Un-Crackable. We wouldn't lie to you.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Go ahead Nokia and write the code that forces open-source software to respect DRM and content locks ... just make sure your code is well-commented. Thanks!
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
"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'
Ari Jaaksi blogs at jaaksi.blogspot.com, if you want to directly talk to him.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Stick it up your Jaaksi!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
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.
Thank you Mr Jaaski, you made my day. I did not laugh so loud from corporate speech for long.
I really appreciate the : "We want to educate open-source developers. There are certain business rules [developers] need to obey, such as DRM, IPR [intellectual property rights], SIM locks and subsidised business models."
Who educates who ? You simply did not grasp the inner meaning of Open Source. You seem confused the world does not work as you want it to be. Your solution is then to "Educate", to teach reality to all this dreamers because you know the true. It's so pathetic that it's funny. You do not understand your model is obsolete, people do not want DRM, they do not want SIM lock.
You present these "technologies" as natural, but they are not. Coalition of network operators, manufacturers, and content providers want to impose it to the users. It's nothing natural, it's just the easiest way to keep high margin business. Or so you think, because users will not keep buying this s**t if they have choice. And FLOSS gives this choice.
(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.
Second, attempts at implementing DRM are a _terrible_ thing -- because they are just attempts to prevent honest people from exercising their fair use rights, and lock people on carriers, distributors, or platforms. Nothing else. Forget the 'piracy!' screams, it just translates to 'the consumer wants to buy a CD and listen to the same music on his iPod without paying another fee for it' or 'the consumer wants to watch the movie on this DVD... but after, he wants to lend it to a friend, that will watch it and we will not receive any money for it'. Why can't I use DRM to protect and maintain a durable finely gained control of how my data is used and by whom? Answer: because it's mathematically impossible. What's the end you want? One that draws your foes into a collabrative fold, or one that keeps you unnecessarily at odds depriving everyone of more choice, more ability? I, personally, don't care if they try to implement DRM schemes... as long as the Free Software they are using to leverage their problem remains Free. The case, here, is that they want to use software developed by thousands of people against the license that those same people freed their software. The issue is the same: DRMers want to be in control of what people do with their own things.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
"We like open source, as a way for us to get free cake, but please Linux devs, change your licenses and forget about all that freedom, transparency and competition stuff, let us have our free cake without having to risk our monopolies, this will allows us to be the only who profit from Linux, in exchange, I promise not to say you are not ready for business, thanks."
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Coming from someone that just bought a Nokia N810, that might sound biased, but... I think most posters here completely missed the point.
Nokia sells cellphones, and most of them are sold to carriers that want to use SIM locks and DRM to lock in customers to their plans and those stupid ringtones at $1.
Why do you think they use Linux almost only for "Internet Tablets"? No carriers would never sell a phone that's unlocked out of the box, and the vast majority of cellphones are bought with a plan, not unlocked.
Why do you guys think the iPhone is selling so well? Because it's unlocked? Because it's Open Source? And why do you guys think the iTunes music store grew so big at first? Because it was DRM free?
Nokia, RedHat, Sun are not making the rules. Business, cellphone carriers, and media companies are the ones lobbying governments, and until that changes there is no way Open Source software will grow unless we gradually change those rules.