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How Nokia and Linux Can Live Together
Bruce Perens writes "Ari Jaaski of Nokia is concerned that the Linux developers need to learn to live with DRM, SIM-locking, and 'IPR'. But they won't. Fortunately, Nokia can do all that it wants with Linux, while being GPL2 and even GPL3-compatible. The key is knowing how to draw bright lines between different parts of the system. That's a legal term, and in this case it means a line between the Free Software and the rest of the system, that is 'bright' in that the two pieces are very well separated, and there is no dispute that one could be a derivative work of the other, or infringes on the other in any way. All of the Free Software goes on one side of that line, and all of the lock-down stuff on the other side." A very interesting read, and a good how-to for any company that is looking to use GPLed code as part of their products, or even just make their products to be hacker-friendly.
Looks like the Bright Line for me may be the Nokia label, if they are going to maintain their attitude.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
If you RTFA, you'll see that he explicitly recommends against dynamically linking proprietary with GPL code (the example being Linux kernel modules, but plugins or libraries applies equally). It's a legal gray area, he says, and the whole idea is BRIGHT lines, not gray ones.
You can write a program that uses public system calls (dbus calls, I think, or sockets would be the userland-to-userland equivalent). Or you can keep the Free Software away from the proprietary entirely.
This has nothing to do with distributing A and B together vs. separately. The issue is whether or not B is a derivative work of A and thus legal to distribute *at all*.
I'm not sure about that. Having used Verizion's standard LG software, and going to an S60 device has been night and day. I've had 0 problems setting up applications (non-signed apps just give me a warning), any song on the device can be set as a ringtone, etc. Heck, I can use the full bluetooth stack for OBEX push from my Linux laptop, and it just works.
Now, compare that to the Verizon experience: Download a ringtone? Sure, just open up "Get it Now." Install a Java app? Sure, it might be available as a BREW application, just open up "Get it Now." Download your pictures if you don't have a removable memory card? Sure, just e-mail it to yourself (at $0.25 each, re-compressed). Now, I'm comparing apples to oranges to some extent, since I'm comparing a standard phone to a smartphone, but even NOK's unlocked basic phone have a lot of possibilities available. If you want to see a locked environment, just visit your friendly Verizon store.
I did have to pay a premium for that freedom (full price for an unlocked phone), but not having to deal with some of the frustrations I used to deal with made it worth it. The phone companies are re-learning the lesson that the courts forced them to learn in the early 80s: if you let end-users use whatever they want on the network you'll get a lot more useage and more money for less effort. Right now they get a lot of incremental revenue from ring tones and other stuff. Eventually, the ring tone providers (record companies) will get stingy and want higher percentages, leading to inflation and people will just stop paying for them (and the boomer kids will get older and not bother anymore).
Specifically speaking to Nokia, I like most of what they are doing, thinking outside the box when it comes to some of their services. I doubt that the folks at AT&T would even come up with the Sports Tracker, for example. But even if they did, I'm fairly certain they would charge some crazy amount for it (I MIGHT pay an extra $0.50/month for it, but they'd want to charge $5.00 or more), make it incompatible with just about everything else on the planet, and make the UI so bad that it would be unworkable. And they aren't stopping anyone from writing their own Sports Tracker application. They just happen to have one available.
From the 10,000ft perspective, I think Nokia is not sure what to do. They have a lot of good products, want to see the world migrate to smartphones, but don't know how to do it. Their bread and butter is in cheap disposable phones that will stand up to harsh treatment. They see the iPhone and see that faster processors and better UIs are the way to go (although the basic S60 interface is just fine with me), but they are behind in this regard (not trying to sound like an Apple fanboy, just stating a fact). The N800 is a device that they had all set up to do a nice business as a webpad, but now the whole notion of a webpad is morphing into the UMPCs on the high end, and the eee-style super cheaps. I also don't think they counted on Apple doing well, and Jobs is stealing all their good ideas.
I think long term Nokia needs Linux to move ahead. S60 is nice, but isn't going anywhere. Android running on Nokia hardware would be fantastic. So would a real Debian based build (Ubuntu mobile?) with real support (Please fix the Gmail IMAP bug on my N800! It's been months). Nokia is already using it in a somewhat successful device (Internet Tablets), they've bought several open source companies, and it fits in well with their traditional model (they build hardware and license software with Symbian).
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
> Drm is here to stay whether we like it or not.
I used to fear that would be true, and many would pronounce it as flatly as you just did only a year or two ago. But you are now the exception.
DRM is pretty much dead on music these days. DVD has been totally cracked for years now and the sky hasn't fallen, DVD sales are still good. The defunct HD-DVD was already cracked and BD's first line of defense has already fallen. It is only a matter of time before the advanced crypto falls. And it won't kill HD content sales when it happens. Eventually the fear, uncertainty and doubt in Hollywood will meet reality.
The cell phone industry is going to take a bit longer, especially with the government mixed up in things. But I'm betting DRM gets pushed back to the SIM within a decade. You can't really open up that lowest layer of the stack without rethinking the entire worldwide phone network so that will probably be with us a bit longer.
> Future versions of windows will be locked to signed drm executables
> as well and its the wave of the future.
Had Microsoft been able to force TCPA into Vista they probably would indeed been able to put us all into an X-Box Hell forever. But their window of opportunity has probably closed forever. By the time Windows 7 ships they aren't likely to have a monopoly anymore. Dominant, yes. Monopoly that can dictate who can and cannot sell software for Windows and demand a 'taste' of every sale X-Box style, no. Apple and ASUS have pretty much settled that question.
Democrat delenda est
We do have this great big contrary example of the Internet. It interoperates really well where the standards are followed. The stability problems that exist are mostly due to malware, and exist on closed networks too, and can be managed, although Microsoft isn't a good example of how to manage them.
Bruce Perens.
Handsets probably require a large investment for set up costs, but besides some outsourced components the variable costs would be cheap, yes. But the one thing I really don't get is how you're confusing the cell phone manufacturers with the cell phone service companies. Unless Nokia is a service provider somewhere, they didn't purchase any broadcast monopoly, though they might have had to pay to have their device certified to use the spectrum. But that's different.
With cell phones we have the same situation we have with television. With television the advertiser is the customer and the captive audience is the product. With cell phones in the instance of fixed term contracts, the service providers are the actual customer to the manufacturer. The manufacturers would be competing for what the service providers wanted, which would have been to lock down phones to keep consumers in contracts and maybe to force additional revenue streams by the arbitrary crippling of handset features. If the manufacturer didn't do that, the service provider would just have gone with a different manufacturer.