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.'"

Comments

Say what?!?

[nahdude812]

but we are not yet ready to play by the rules; but this needs to work the other way round too

So you're not yet ready to play by our rules, but you want us to play by your rules so that you have an opportunity to take advantage of the work we produce and provide to you for free (beer/speech); when the only stipulation we have is that you provide it back for free?

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.

Re:Say what?!?

[qortra]

Interesting. I read it as more of a ransom note:

"We have QT, and unless you give us DRM software in 6 months, you can kiss future GPL releases goodbye!"

Re:Say what?!?

[paroneayea]

Hopefully at some point soon OpenMoko will become good enough for normal phone usage. Now there's a company that, from the very beginning, has wanted to play by our rules.

Want to get the linux community's support? Asus did it, even though I'm not entirely sure they realized it when they began doing so. By releasing a machine that's linux friendly and not locked down, you're sure to get a community surrounding you that will help even improve the usefulness of your product.

Re:Say what?!?

[kipman725]

well thats the wonder of the GPL, we can just take the most current version of QT and FORK.

Re:Say what?!?

[hostyle]

-1 Carpentry Reference

Re:Say what?!?

[mdmkolbe]

If that is their plan, they must not realize the low value of QT (we have plenty of alternatives) compared to the high value of the no-DRM ideals in the F/OSS community. They really aren't in a bargaining position.

Re:Say what?!?

[Constantine XVI]

They're still held by the Free Qt deal. If they stop releasing OSS versions of Qt, it's forcefully taken from them.

Re:Say what?!?

[Cerberus7]

I'm sorry, I don't get it. Could you perhaps rephrase it in the form of an automobile reference?

Re:Say what?!?

[qortra]

Absolutely, and given the choice, I would choose a forked community QT over compromising our values concerning DRM. However, it would be unfortunate to lose the support of a larger organization dedicated exclusively to improving QT. Do you remember the recent article on the the stalled XOrg development? People don't like doing low level, thankless, GUI stuff. They like making interfaces, not improving the speed of existing widgets. It would be difficult to get a sufficient number of people to work on the project reliably, IMHO.

Re:Say what?!?

[erudified]

"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,'

I read this, and interpret it as this:

"Jaaksi admitted that going 140mph in a 55mph zone 'goes against the public safety philosophy,' but said it was a necessary component of his fast-paced business lifestyle. 'Why do I need to do 140mph? I do,'

I love this guy.

Re:Say what?!?

[PurpleBob]

Google knows all. KDE Free Qt Foundation

I hadn't heard of it before, either. Now I'm wondering: what additional power does this agreement give them? Presumably everyone already has the right to fork Qt.

Re:Say what?!?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Do you remember the recent article on the the stalled XOrg development? People don't like doing low level, thankless, GUI stuff. They like making interfaces, not improving the speed of existing widgets.

Actually, I think most Linux developers don't really enjoy the bit they are working on. They do it because they are being paid by a company who needs that part improved. With X.org, for the most part, it was not a problem for what companies want to use it for (mostly as a server). As companies start to use Linux for more applications (to sell consumer laptops, for example) they will invest more in areas like improving X.org in ways that will facilitate those uses.

It would be difficult to get a sufficient number of people to work on the project reliably, IMHO.

Nokia could get out of developing QT, but someone else would move into the niche and undercut the prices of their proprietary replacement. It is simply too hot of a business opportunity to be ignored right now. Maybe the companies dumping money into QT development would go down for a while without Nokia's support, or maybe they would go up because people see an opportunity to make money. Either way, Nokia trying to use it as leverage is not going to get them too far.

Re:Say what?!?

[morgan_greywolf]

Don't contribute to projects that claim ownership of your code as a condition of contributing.

I guess that precludes contributing to most GNU projects, as they want you to assign copyright to the FSF. OTOH, I tend to trust that the FSF believes in continuing the cause of free softwware and I doubt they'll be making anybody's code proprietary anytime soon.

Re:Say what?!?

[morgan_greywolf]

Could this be the year of OpenMoko on the smartphone? :)

Re:Say what?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your complaint doesn't make any sense. Trolltech, the company that created Qt, is already dedicated exclusively to improving Qt. Qt is their flagship product, they're not going to let it suffer. They've created an awesome product without any help from Nokia, and that's not going to change just because Nokia chooses some other GUI toolkit.. You didn't RTFA did you? Nokia owns Trolltech.

Re:Say what?!?

[qortra]

DRM and the GPL isn't incompatible is it? GPL 3 and DRM are relatively incompatible.

I really don't understand what all the fuss about DRM in an open source world is. Then you don't understand the impetus for Free Software. Among the many and diverse goals of free software developers, one particularly prominent goal is to break down IP barriers that have previously obstructed use and development of software. In the case of GNU, the specific IP encumbered product that was being avoided was AT&T Unix.

Implementing DRM in free software is in direct violation of that goal. DRM is a paradigm that, once again, is designed to build obstructions to the development and use of software and media. Asking OSS developers to build DRM solutions is like asking OSS developers to make "Linux Genuine Advantage" software to prevent Apt from working when the system is not "authorized", or activation software to brick your computer if you change the video card one too many times. Why in the world would an OSS developer do such a stupid thing? There simply isn't any utility.

So in short, the following question is purposeless: "is DRM compatible with OSS?" The question you should be asking: "why would an OSS developer donate his time to make his and everybody else's life harder?".

Re:Say what?!?

[0xABADC0DA]

This entire no DRM stand is basically saying that I can't have the option to purchase something or enter into some agreement with a company in a fair and free society. Oh you have the right to purchase something that uses DRM or enter into an agreement with a company that uses DRM in their products. Also, the company has the right to reimplement every open source code they would have used in the product, and you have the right to pay the cost of that.

The changes in GPLv3 to fight DRM are entirely about the free market: either DRM adds enough benefit that companies implement their own codes or it doesn't and they use open source codes. It's up to the market to decide whether open source or DRM can coexist or if one dies. As open source developers, we write code for free and give it away under some license. If licenses with anti-DRM in them out-compete the others like say BSD then that is the market deciding that collaboration and spirit is more valuable than DRM.

When companies complain 'how can we compete with andriod when most of the cost was donated free by open source developers?' they are just whining. If they can't figure out how to compete then they need to drop DRM or die in the market -- that is a free market in action.

Re:Say what?!?

[Stradivarius]

Nobody disputes your right to enter into whatever purchasing agreement you desire, to include DRM or not. (Some may dispute whether you really have much choice, given that the music market is controlled by a small cartel, but let's assume for the sake of argument you both had the choice and chose DRM).

Now suppose you want to want to play that music on your open-source device - say a Linux-based mp3 player. Since open source software guarantees you the freedom to modify the source code, there is nothing to prevent you from modifying the operating system or other open source code on the device to circumvent whatever DRM measure the vendor put in place.

This situation is of great concern to the DRM-using vendor. They wish to enforce your agreement by technical means (rather than legal means), in part because it avoids them having to know whether you're breaking the agreement you made, and in part because it's a lot cheaper for them than suing you for copyright infringement or breach of contract in the event you violate your agreement.

Thus the vendors start playing tricks like building hardware that will only run software that the vendor themselves digitally signed. This includes the GPL operating system and other GPL software on the device. This allows them to enforce their DRM, but also prevents you from exercising your freedoms under the GPL to run your modified software, even when your modifications are unrelated to the DRM you agreed to.

The free software community views this tactic as an attack on the whole point of the GPL. The DRM-using vendors simply don't care about the collateral damage their attempts at technical enforcement of DRM impose. But the free software community cares a lot about those freedoms.

That is why GPLv3 has explicit provisions against this sort of practice - if vendors want to use technology to restrict your freedoms, they can write their own software to do it. If they want to use GPLed software, they need to honor its terms (and hopefully the spirit too). What they can't do is have it both ways.

So to summarize - open source software gives you the freedoms that DRM companies aren't willing to let you keep, and gives them cost savings they aren't willing to give up. So instead they try to circumvent the GPL, creating the current conflict.

Re:Say what?!?

[scamper_22]

"So in short, the following question is purposeless: "is DRM compatible with OSS?" The question you should be asking: "why would an OSS developer donate his time to make his and everybody else's life harder?"."

no, that's not the question should be asking. I don't think any sane mind OSS developer would put their time to write DRM applications.

HOWEVER, would a company like Nokia have a reason to write open source DRM applications? Absolutely.
That said, they'd have to provide the source code which would then make circumventing their DRM trivial. So the only way this could work is if they got governments (looking at you Canada) to go along with criminal offences with respect to software that breaks locking mechanisms. They seem to be having success in certain countries.

So it's not unthinkable for Nokia to have a linux based mobile OS, with an open source DRM package that they use for media content (which means it can ported and the media can remain fully compatible). The only thing protecting the open source DRM from being hacked as the laws against it (as above). If this became the norm, I'm pretty sure you would see other develops using the nokia package to allow other applications to access the media. Maybe a plugin for media players... Or maybe nokia would develop those too.

I must claim ignorance as to whether or not the GPL would legally prevent open source DRM from being implemented.

Here's an idea? Want DRM in your product?

[base3]

Write your own damn code!

Re:Here's an idea? Want DRM in your product?

[inasity_rules]

Funny, but why not? Optionally installed of course.... Trying to mandatorily include DRM in all opensource media players would be a very strange and ludicrous idea. But if someone wants to hang themselves, give them some more rope and fetch the popcorn.

Re:Here's an idea? Want DRM in your product?

[nahdude812]

DRM is 100% Security Through Obscurity. They give you everything you need to produce an unencrypted version of something, and hope to high heaven that the only time it ever exists in unencrypted form is some place you don't think to look for it.

An open source DRM module couldn't possibly work. Well, it could, but it would be very easily crackable - instead of sending the unencrypted stream to the screen and speakers, send it instead to ff4mpeg or to a disk and have it re-encoded.

Every major DRM scheme has been broken to date, and that's without having the source code available. Having the source means you just redirect the output to some place you can capture it, and you're done.

Re:Here's an idea? Want DRM in your product?

[dk.r*nger]

Well, I suppose someone could write an open source DRM module for mplayer. Would that work for you?

Yeah, but no:
mplayer -vo mpegpes:grab.mpg YourDRMfile.wmv

So, your DRM decoding module should set a flag in mplayer that forbids file-output. So I modify mpegpes module to ignore that flag, or for mplayer to lie to the DRM module about which output module is loaded. Hmm, so you require the mplayer binary to be signed by someone you trust, probably Microsoft or RedHat, and they'll charge $6000 pr release, even if it's a trivial but critical bugfix.
OK, I don't wanna do that, so I plug in a kernel-module that will always open /usr/bin/mplayer_signed instead of /usr/bin/mplayer when the DRM module asks, so it will appear signed. So you now require the kernel to be signed. So I run the kernel in a VM, and screen-scrape from the VM-host -- so you require direct access to a cryptographic chip on the motherboard to make sure that I don't run you video in a VM.
Then I get myself one of these videocards with a FPGA on it, and program that to dump the video-stream back into the memory, so I can copy it to disk - so you want your cryptographic chain of trust to include the videocard, and I put my FPGA in the other end of the DVI cable, and rip from there. So you demand access to a chip in the monitor, also.
So, no, you can't put a DRM module (that's worth anything, at least) in anything opensource, without making the entire system wall-to-wall closed (AND broken, too). Microsoft, whose customers couldn't care less about closed, tries to do this, and fails. ("What, I can't put my legitimately purchased Plays for Sure! file on my fucking iPod?")

Translation

[dreamchaser]

"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.

Emotional?

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Emotional?

[bug1]

Huh? A corporation talking about emotion?

It's about money...


You dont think corporates get emotional about money ?

In other news...

[mr_da3m0n]

In other news, a dictator urged the population to be cool with a totalitarian state.

Re:In other news...

[Opportunist]

Huh? Bush gave a speech and neither FOX nor CNN covers it?

SIM locks?!

[jez9999]

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)

Re:Based on the quotes in the article header,

[plover]

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.

RE

[Kroc]

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.

Two simple principles:

[Rinisari]

If I don't control it, I don't own it.
If I don't own it, I can't trust it.

OK sure, we are 100% behind DRM.

[Lumpy]

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.

I'm okay with DRM provisions in open-source

[oldspewey]

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!

Re:uh-oh

[geminidomino]

If so, we could fork it (being GPL... the BSD license wouldn't allow us that freedom). Stop spreading FUD. If it was BSD licensed, you COULD still fork it. Take the last BSD licensed version, fork from that, poof. Same as with the GPL.

Jaaksi's blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Ari Jaaksi blogs at jaaksi.blogspot.com, if you want to directly talk to him.

Oh Dear: Nokia Does *Not* Get It

[segedunum]

"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."

Educate them of what? Lock-ins are totally and fundamentally incompatible with open source software, and the natural reaction is to free up or move on to something you can actually develop software freely for. The notion of open source software means that nothing can be kept secret. That's the direction that things head in, and I would have thought that Nokia would have been all for it as it helps them sell more phones.

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.

You either play by the rules or there is no dialogue, and it ultimately harms you as well. I've never seen a successful 'mixed source' software company.

Don't make your own version. The original mistake we made was to take the code to our labs, change it and then release it at the last minute. The community had already gone in a different direction than [us], and no-one was pushing it other than [us].

Tough luck. If people want things like ogg support then they'll go and get it. Forking is a fundamental freedom, and it will happen more often unless you play by the rules more.

"a huge responsibility from a desktop and user interface point of view to see how we play our cards"

Rrrrrrrrright. What does that mean?

and expressed a keenness to see KDE and Gnome brought "closer".

Do some Googling on the last ten years. They are divergent codebases, and while they share lots of libraries like X, I don't know what he means by 'closer'. It's as good as it gets.

Jaaksi added that he believed Symbian, the proprietary operating system in which Nokia has a major share, would still "in years to come [be] the best platform on which to create smart phones".

So we get to what the problem really is, and why he's being defensive about LiMo. As time moved on the odds are that the platform of choice will be Linux and an open source GUI because of the very advantages from the very freedoms and rules that he derides. Manufacturers can pick up the code, not have to worry about NDAs, IP and exorbitant fees, and get on with it. Qt will probably lead the way with Qtopia and GUI toolkits on Linux based phones. It's about cost cutting and economies of scale. Nokia will either join the wagon or fall off it, and being defensive with Symbian is a bad idea.

I don't know where to begin...

[hummassa]

First, DRM does not exist. Content that can be viewed or listened to can be copied.
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.