Doctorow: the Coming War On General-Purpose Computing

GuerillaRadio writes "Cory Doctorow's keynote at 28C3 was about the upcoming war on general-purpose computing driven by increasingly futile regulation to appease big content. 'The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.'" If you don't have time for the entire 55-minute video, a transcript is available that you can probably finish more quickly.

Comments

Raspberry Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Devices like the Raspberry Pi prove him wrong. If anything the backlash has already started: geeks are reclaiming their devices and building the systems that they want.

The music industry realised they were on to a losing battle five years ago. The movie industry will realise the same, soon. In fact, I give it less than five years before Google are producing their own content and streaming it world-wide, without restrictions.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even go through the speech?

Re:Raspberry Pi

[nurb432]

Only in the short term. In the long term devices such as this, and the tools needed to work with them will be strictly controlled and only licensed individuals will get access ( most likely defense contractors. Hobbyists don't need to apply ).

Code submission, auditing and other real-time monitoring will just be the beginning.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[roc97007]

I hope you're right. The processors in even a total homebrew have to come from somewhere and I can see the content providers requiring DRM being built right into the CPU. (As I write that, I can't imagine that MPAA folks could even understand the issue, but anyway.)

I agree with what you said about content being created elsewhere. A series I watch regularly started life as webisodes, and I believe Netflix is already creating original content. And that has *got* to scare the living crap out of Hollywood. If you can make a popular series in Lubbock with equipment from Best Buy and released on Netflix, what the heck do we need Hollywood for?

Re:Raspberry Pi

[currently_awake]

It's not the computer they're trying to control, it's the communications. And they are most definitely winning right now. It amazes me that a tiny minority can run the world so completely.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[pmontra]

Devices like the Raspberry Pi prove him wrong.

As long as they are legal. That was the point of the speech.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't amaze me because a tiny minority does control most of the resources of the world and they pull the strings whenever they feel like.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[icebraining]

You must be new here.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Junta]

The Raspberry Pi represents a vanishingly small proportion of the population. A Raspberry Pi platform probably can't even real-time decode some of the higher-end video files, and definitely won't be invited to the Netflix party and other platforms with DRM requirements that can't be bothered to provide for an open platform with nearly no users. In terms of content consumption, it won't make a blip and the only exciting bit about it really is the price. Orders of magnitude more people are going away from open PC to closed tablet/phone ecosystems, and MS is trying to make nearly all the 'open PC' population as locked down as those tablet/phone platforms with 'secure boot'. On the consumer side, not many voices meaningfully stand for opennes. Fortunately, most of the internet *server* infrastructure would crumble without it and already pretty deep pockets are fighting SOPA as an example.

With the music industry, Apple *forced* their hands. I generally don't like Apple, but that specific move I have to give them credit for. The amount of data constituting a music file was so trivial people naturally tried to fling it about and noticed how DRM fouled it up to the point it hindered Apple's business practices. With movie data, the trend is toward streaming, which is of great concern to me as the everyday consumer accepts the relatively poorer quality and higher network burden and never notices the DRM restrictions. I will say the music industry when *forced* mostly realized they could use business practices to fight copyright infringment more effectively than they could ever legistlate. I hope the movie industry will wise up too, but I'm not optimistic. People doing copyright infringement have a *much* easier time of getting superior functionality than those trying to play by the rules in video world, but with music you can now do everything trivially with legal purchases that you could do with illicit downloads.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Artifakt]

A lot of what made the PC a general purpose computer wasn't innate geek-dom. There were many people in the 60's, 70's, and beyond who were not particularly into learning to code or grok hardware, but wanted to make music, draw pictures, or publish something. They learned about hardware and software because they had those goals, rather than the geek goal of learning tech for its own sake. Computers such as the C-64, with its SID chip were aimed at the lay-person who had a new idea about using the machine for a general task, a task neither tech focused nor business oriented users cared that much about. Apple developed font management and a wide selection of fonts themselves because of what were thought of as hobbyist or non-business users in the same way. At that point, Microsoft was assuring businesses eight fonts would be plenty, counting italic versions. A lot of powerful people though we would go to huge, monolithic computers that did what businesses and governments wanted and that would be it. Breaking out of that model wasn't done the first time all by geeks, unless a bunch of rock musicians who wanted smaller synthesizers and funkier sounds were geeks, or a bunch of psychedelic poster designing hippies were geeks, or a bunch of political minority publishers were geeks. If it has to happen again, it will need the same sort of mix. It will need non-geeks who don't want to be forced into buying Photoshop at some exorbitant markup and running it on their Microsoft only box with regular BSA audits while they are just trying to make pretty pictures. Non-geeks who only want to write something the government doesn't like, but are drawn in to learning about open source by their worrying about distinctive digital watermarking in the Industrial Complex Approved software they are told is the only alternative.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[voidptr]

As long as they are legal. That was the point of the speech.

Which is a law nobody's remotely proposing, nor one that would fly.

There's about a dozen mainstream CPUs on the market today that can be integrated into a workable computer by practically anybody with a Newark catalog and a overnight board fab in their bookmarks, which the Raspberry Pi guys are proving. The reason there's so many is precisely because they are used everywhere; there's thousands of companies now that integrate them into their own appliances and more starting every day. Prohibiting the sale of general purpose CPUs or imposing mandatory content control features in anything that smells like a processor would bring the economy to a halt overnight.

You think Intel would be stupid enough to not lobby every dime they had against such a bill? The alternative would be the death of the company.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Vanders]

With the music industry, Apple *forced* their hands

Google will force the hands of TV and movie companies in a similar manner. I'd bet on it.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Nick Ives]

Doctorow is making the argument that stuff like that is being proposed and fought for in the current copyright war. Desire for it may spread to other developed sectors of the economy.

If it's Intel v everyone else and they do it on an international basis as part of a treaty, it could happen. The argument being made is that we should be aware of and prepared for this kind of thing because if other sectors of the economy start to get as annoyed by general purpose computers as the *AA have then there would be a serious fight.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[voidptr]

Most processors sold today (by individual units shipped) aren't used in a general purpose computer or even an appliance that would be considered one. They're used in embedded applications, but it's the same processor (or very closely related) to the ones that are used for general purposes.

Most of those embedded users are squeezing every dime they can out of component costs, and those companies put together are far bigger than big content is. Nobody, including the chip fabs themselves, would stand for adding features to anything that looks like a CPU that would get in the way and drive up prices for the majority of their consumers. The latest x86-64 is used fairly heavily by embedded systems these days, plus the millions of them churning away in data centers around the globe on general purpose servers running every flavor of OS ever ported to it, making billions for their owners.

Does anyone really think Intel would stand by and watch 75% of their market get either obliterated overnight or priced out the market, that Amazon would let AWS become illegal, that any congressman on the planet wouldn't have hundreds of constituents explaining how they built businesses around writing software?

Re:Raspberry Pi

[lgw]

When the height of copy protection was MacroVision, you could always buy VCRs that ignored it: but they weren't typical home use models, they were built for studio editing. Those general purpose tools have to exist for professionals, and it was such a small percentage of VCR sales that the studios didn't care.

The situation with computers is similar - it's possible that general-purpose home computers will stop being mainstream, with everyone using appliances and pads and whatnot, all o which are locked down. But there will still be a need for general purpose computers that can work around restrictions, even/especially within the content-creation profession. And again the studios won't care, as long as the exception is sufficiently non-mainstream as to not affect their money grab, such as home-built computers running a free OS have always been.

However, I also doubt that we'll ever reach a place where people can't use their locked-down applaices and pads to add music to thier funny cat videos, or home videos of kids playing. Try to mess with that and you've hit something the average voter actually cares about, it's not news for nerds any more, and democracy will happen. The MAFIAA can buy votes on geek issues, because the voters at large don't care, but touch something that people are going to have a strong opinion about regarldess of political advertisng and you're playing with fire. (And if you've never sold home video equipment, trust me, people really want to add music to their home videos of their kids playing, and goodness knows there's jst no stopping funy cat videos, those are a force of nature!).

Re:Raspberry Pi

[voidptr]

Only in the short term. In the long term devices such as this, and the tools needed to work with them will be strictly controlled and only licensed individuals will get access

.

You couldn't even get MS and Apple to back that bill.

The app store did at least $2 Billion in direct revenue for Apple this year, and that's not including $80 Billion for the devices it actually sold. Is anyone really going to argue they wouldn't understand that destroying the hobbyiest programmer wouldn't be slitting their own throat? Without guys willing to write apps, none of these guys make any money, and if you kill the garage hacker, you kill most of the software engineering profession. There aren't going to be that many kids going into CS if the first time they touch a compiler is when they're 19 in CS 103 after a government background check and a license, and the ones that do, probably aren't going to be any good.

Dumb as most congressional representatives are, there can't be that many that wouldn't understand any bill like that would be economic suicide.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[EdIII]

There is a love affair with being an outlaw. The outsider, the whole hacker manifesto.

Growing up as kid I was the stereotypical nerd/geek that would take things apart, hack into them, re-purpose them, etc.

With technology becoming so fundamental to our way of life, children don't see using smart phones, tablets, computers as geeky anymore. The person that can "rootkit" a device, really own it, etc. has become the new cool.

Locking down the tools and the equipment? That will only put gasoline on a fire. Best way to encourage youth to break the law is to make something popular and fun illegal.

The War on Drugs, cigarettes, and liquor has sure kept kids from using it huh?

Sometimes I think the best way to get kids to read would be to outlaw the books.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[GreatBunzinni]

I had mod points, and I was planning on use them all on this discussion, but as no one said what I wish to say, I'll spend them elsewhere. Here it goes.

You claim that the Raspberry Pi proves Doctorow wrong. Well, tablet computers prove him right. And smartphones, too. These are the two personal computer forms which dominate today's market, and will continue to dominate in the future. The market for laptops is shrinking while the market for tablets has increased 42%, according to some estimates Apple is becoming the world's dominant computer platform, with the dominant product being a closed, locked-down, walled garden of a personal computer.

And what about your home router? It's also a general purpose computer, which has been locked down hard to force you to not fiddle with it. The same applies to NAS and even some external HDs.

If that isn't enough, take a look at every chinese trinket toy which is sold on ebay. I'm referring to stuff such as MP3 players, media players, tablets, video game consoles and all of the sort. You can't fiddle with their software, you can't tweak their OS, you can only use them until it gets bricked. I personally have purchased a cheap, 20 dollar MP3 player with a neat color display which, at the time, put my cellphone to shame, and the damned thing could only be used to display song names and play tetris. And it was a full blown computer, which had a SD card reader.

My media player is also a general purpose computer, which has been castrated by my cable provider. My TV is also a general purpose computer, complete with HDMI input plugs, SD card reader and USB plug. It runs linux, too. But I can't do shit with it. It's from Sony, which also sells other personal computers, such as the Playstation line, playstation portable and playstation vita. And you can't do shit with them, either.

This is what Doctorow is warning about. And you said he has been proven wrong? How?

So no, Raspberry Pi does not prove him wrong. No matter how cool it is or how open it has been designed, it is a very specific product for a very specific market. There is a risk it will be put in the same category as a multitester, oscilloscopes and pulse generators: technical tools which only the technically literate are interested in using. That is, true general purpose computers are being relegated to something that only the fools at the local modern incantation of the homebrew computer club are even interested with, and this is very dangerous.

This artificial limitation already plagues the software development world, where compilers are seen as scary stuff which only technical people care to have. I've seen police reports where they claimed that the target of the raid was somehow a hacker and a pirate because he had linux on his computer, as a dual boot. People already accept these absurd views on computers. They perceive locked down computers as something which is desirable and here to stay, and the hardware vendors are already taking advantage of that ignorance and lack of insight.

The path to a computing world where all computers are tight-down walled gardens is already set, and if we don't acknowledge it and do something prevent this disaster to happen then it will happen. And it will happen in the near future.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[rsborg]

It's not the computer they're trying to control, it's the communications. And they are most definitely winning right now.
It amazes me that a tiny minority can run the world so completely.

The tiny minority (the 0.1%) gets the next 20% to follow them by the fiction called the "stock market". This (easily game-able and impossible to adequately regulate) market allows those with the most to decide the winners (with insider knowledge) while constantly funneling money towards them [1]. While they fleece and rape the rest of the world and get the lion's share of the plunder, the next 20% have an opportunity to ride the wagon for a bit and get a bit more wealthy. Only when that next-to-top 20% wake up and coordinate with lower 79.9% will anything fundamental change. And thus you will see that kind of activity being made "illegal" under false-pretenses to "curb piracy" [2] or "hunt terrorists" [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act

Re:Raspberry Pi

[hairyfeet]

Let us not forget what is REALLY gonna drive this, which is families with kids. i have several customers that have gone HTPC and put little Nbox players in the kid's bedroom, why? Because DVD rippers have gotten to the point it is "Push button to output .AVI" which is beyond easy peasy and NOBODY wants to deal with little Annie crying because her little sister managed to scratch her favorite Dora video. With a 200Gb hard drive and a $30 Nbox you have a system that is simple enough a 6 year old can work it (no exaggeration there, I've actually watched a 6 year old work an nbox) with NO discs to scratch and NO boxes to deal with or to get lost, you can just store them into the closet and if the HDD dies whip another .AVI off or do as my customers do and just back up 4 or 5 onto a blank DVD and call it a day.

Then you have the parents which after seeing how easy it works for the kiddies goes "Hey how come I can't have it that easy?" and end up looking at one of my customer's HTPCs and have me build them one. the new remotes are beyond simple for those that are used to texting (I recommend the Lenovo HTPC remote, fits the hand nicely) and then they can plug in wireless gaming controllers or a full wireless keyboard and mouse when they need to do some real work on the thing. The prices are frankly INSANELY cheap if you stick with AMD, which since i'm an AMD only shop isn't a problem, and you can get an E-350 based setup dirt cheap if all you want is a media center, but most of my customers end up kicking the the few extra bucks to get a triple core that will let them game as well. Before the flood you could build a frankly crazy powerful HTPC that would game for around $500 and that box will last you probably a good decade by simply changing out the GPU occasionally, hell even after the flood if you shop around you can build a 1Tb system for around $600 that will play just about any game in 1080p. you wanna talk about an easy sale, just show them how easy Windows media Center makes dealing with a library of media and then fire up batman:AA or Just Cause II and let them drool on the graphics, cha ching!

So ultimately its families and word of mouth which i think will kill all this BS, just as it did with music. Folks want easy, simple, and cheap and HTPCs frankly fit all three of those conditions now, its the MPAA dragging their heels and making us feed discs like it was 1988 with VCRs. But there are plenty of people with more growing everyday that are tired of feeding discs and just want to "push a button and its all there" and little shops like mine are happy to oblige. All it takes is ONE person in a neighborhood getting an HTPC and soon the word is out and all those around them are going "Hey can you get me a thing like what he's got?" and there it goes.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[russotto]

Point me to any piece of legislation on THOMAS that would prohibit selling or possessing CPUs that can run arbitrary code, or requires a license to own a compiler, or any other of these dystopian futures that would put every software developer on the planet in the unemployment line or prison overnight, or require every functioning Intel CPU currently installed to go to the crusher.

None of the really crazy stuff has become legislation yet; the craziest I've heard floated was a 2002 proposal to require watermark detection on all analog/digital converters; this was part of the Content Protection Status Report the MPAA submitted to the US Senate.

At best, the content industry is saying we're going to build content protection into hardware, and if you want access to our properties, you'll use hardware that respects that.

That's too generous; they want to have content protection in all hardware, whether it has anything to do with their content or not.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Simon Brooke]

The ARM was designed for, and first used in, general purpose computers; I had an Acorn Archimedes on my desk in 1988, and an R260 (running BSD 4.2 with X11 and OSF Motif) on my desk two years later. BSD and the whole of Debian including Gnome and KDE are available for ARM, and with quad core chips and both MacOS and Windows 8 currently in development for ARM, new general purpose ARM hardware - mostly ultra-portable, but also desktop - is definitely on the way.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[citizenr]

Devices like the Raspberry Pi prove him wrong.

Except for the small fact Rasppi will be running fat binary closed source BLOB controlling whole board and deciding what is enabled and what is not (gfx, decoders, IO)

Re:Raspberry Pi

[voidptr]

That space is dominated by ARM chips, and there's no general-purpose PCs made with ARM CPUs.

That's what the Raspberry Pi is. The whole point is we're at the point now you can grab an "embedded" chip off the shelf and make a half decent general purpose Linux box out of it now. ARM is finally to the point where it's got the horsepower to run some GP workloads comparable to what you had on the desktop from Intel a few years ago.

I've never seen an x86-64 used in an embedded system; they're too power-hungry and expensive for anything other than things like >$100k test instruments.

You aren't looking in the right markets. It's nowhere near the volume of ARM and PPC, but there are companies that need x86 power for appliance workloads that aren't "General Purpose" in the sense that they run customer code, generally running BSD derivatives. My employer is one of them.

And the computers used in data centers aren't "embedded", they're servers.

Didn't say they were. They are largely running custom enterprise code to support a business, or somebody's SaaS code on the web. It's a market that's not going to take kindly to any apocalyptic scenario being discussed here.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just legislation, but also closed door trade agreements. Look at the way currency detection algorithms were inserted into color scanner, copier, and printer technology. Regardless of what we think about currency counterfeiters, that's a very clear example of how technology can become limited as per Doctorow's warning.

While all the hacker-ethic people keep looking for the next Gutenberg press to democratize information and technology, those in power are of course going to be concerned with controlling it, to protect their power hierarchies.

Personally, I have mixed feelings. Should we ever obtain an unfettered, consumer-controlled production capacity, we may all be buried in a pile of bread and circuses...

Re:Raspberry Pi

[crutchy]

they both serve the same purpose (capitalism & communism)... help the rich get richer

Re:Raspberry Pi

[hairyfeet]

Exactly. Both AMD and Intel probably sell a dozen server chips for every desktop, both have embedded chips in the C/E series and Atom respectively and while these chips are used in appliances there are also used in everything from camera control setups for businesses to micro desktops. There is just too much money in general purpose computing for either company to slit their own throats for what is essentially a bit player in the wide scheme of thing because despite all their bluster the MPAA really is a small fish compared to the worldwide computing market. this of course is only counting X86 and isn't even counting the Via chips that are used in car computing nor the myriad of ARM and MIPS chips used all over the damned place, to expect them ALL to kiss the ring is frankly the height of insanity.

Finally as we all know thanks to Citizens united our laws are written by he who has the most cash and on their best day the MPAA lobbyists couldn't touch a consortium that had Intel, AMD, all the ARM and MIPS manufacturers and MSFT and Apple all joined together and join together they would because ALL of the above make boatloads of money on general purpose computing. The chip manufacturers sell more chips, and the software houses like Apple and MSFT make money off the appstore and getting people to use Visual studio to enhance their Windows platform respectively so the amount of money they'd stand to lose would frankly be staggering and for what? So a company doesn't have to wake up and smell the present and can instead still pretend like its 1983 and broadband doesn't exist?

In the end the MPAA will be dragged kicking and screaming into the present just like the music companies were and then will find out shock, gasp! That there is plenty of money to be made if you actually give customers what they want, which is cheap, easy and convenient access to anything they want. there is no damned reason in this day and age i just can't go to amazon and whip out my CC and buy an .AVI or .MP4 or whatever format i want movie just like i buy an MP3 or buy a game off of Steam or GOG except the MPAA is just too damned stupid to sell it to me. eventually they'll figure out what Valve did years ago and that is you'll never kill piracy but if you make it cheap and easy enough the majority simply won't bother because the legal version will be easier. I mean compare what it takes to load a movie onto an Nbox or WDTV now, you can 1.-go buy a disc, 2.-get the disc home, 3.-rip the disc to the HDD, 4.-convert it to the right format, 5.-drag it to the device, or you can just 1.-go to TPB and download the movie in the correct format and 2.- put it on the device. Which takes less steps? Now compare that to say Steam 1.-Pick game and push button to either keep or give to friend/family member, 2.-there is no step two. Make it simple, cheap and easy and people WILL buy, make it a royal PITA where the pirate gets less hassle than the guy that gives you money and watch the piracy soar, duh!

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Lumpy]

Radioshack has always sold a Macrovision remover. it was called the VHS video stabilizer. anyone that had a clue was able to get a device to defeat macrovision easily and cheaply.

And if you had a clue about electronics, you could easily turn down the AGC setting on the VCR and defeat it.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[GreatBunzinni]

No, I'm quite sure Core2 CPUs are not being used in many embedded applications. That space is dominated by ARM chips, and there's no general-purpose PCs made with ARM CPUs.

You have completely missed the point. The only reason a computer with an ARM chip isn't a general-purpose computer is because it has been locked down to the point it becomes a single-purpose computer. These little ARM processors are still general-purpose processors, quite capable of performing general-purpose computations and run any software we throw at it. They may not do it as fast as Intel's newest offering, but they are still quite capable of being used as personal computers. I've used general-purpose computers which packed a 33MHz 386 chip, and I did all sorts of stuff with them. Computers such as the ZX Spectrum and commodore 64 were a lot slower than these ARM chips, and they were general-purpose, too. If those systems were general-purpose computers, how come a 300MHz Arm system with 128MB of RAM isn't?

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Junta]

I doubt it. Totally different situation.

In the Apple case, iPods at the time were mostly straightforward devices (no 'apps' or other extensibility) that spent pretty much all their life offline. This meant music companies could only get into iPods by either giving a DRM-free MP3 or through the iTunes store, and had to provide for offline-playback case. If Apple is throwing its weight around, they *can't* go anywhere else and keep their DRM. At the same time, you know your sales through, say, MS DRM just pisses off your customer because they can't play on an iPod. Without other options, DRM-free is better than no business at all.

The state of video content today is different. First, between ubiquitous data plans and wifi, sheer size of content, and style of playback compared to iPods of yore, there is nearly no need for the industry to cater much to the offline playback case, therefore most everything is streaming-only (sadly). Second, presume Google puts its foot down and says "there shalt not be DRM on youtube (their only real video distribution channel of note)". Content providers say "ok" and put it on Netflix, Hulu, or their own internet presence (e.g. Sony and Crackle). If you want your users to play your content on their 'Google' device, you just publish your own app implementing your DRM. Google has pretty much zero leverage here to force the industry to stop doing DRM if they wanted and very little business motivation to bother as well.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Same video on YouTube, in case you don't want to go to an ad and javascript infested online mag.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[sunderland56]

I hope you're right. The processors in even a total homebrew have to come from somewhere and I can see the content providers requiring DRM being built right into the CPU.

They cannot do that. Content providers could require that some API report that the processor has DRM built in, but that is the beauty of software layers: they can report whatever you want.

Or to be more specific: they can inquire what the hardware is on the Tor exit node you are currently on, but that has nothing to do with the hardware you are actually running. Cory Doctorow's future involves much heavier use of Tor than is required today.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[JoeMerchant]

I hope you're right. The processors in even a total homebrew have to come from somewhere and I can see the content providers requiring DRM being built right into the CPU.

They have teetered around getting Intel to do it, but it's a hard sell because that gives AMD an advantage, and, these days, you can do video media on ARM and any number of other architectures. Intel won't be giving up their market easily, and that's exactly what would happen if they became the MPAA's patsy before all their competition did.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[voidptr]

You claim that the Raspberry Pi proves Doctorow wrong. Well, tablet computers prove him right. And smartphones, too. These are the two personal computer forms which dominate today's market, and will continue to dominate in the future. The market for laptops is shrinking while the market for tablets has increased 42%, according to some estimates Apple is becoming the world's dominant computer platform, with the dominant product being a closed, locked-down, walled garden of a personal computer.

No, it doesn't prove his point. What would prove his point is someone proposing legislation that made manufacturing, selling, or owning a device that allowed the user to compile and run their own code illegal.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[voidptr]

There's nothing legal or technical preventing someone from buying a handful chips from any of a half-dozen ARM licensees and fabricating the rest of a system around it, either for personal or commercial use. Etching and populating a multi-layer board with SMT components has been a bit of a stumbling block in the past, but there's several rapid-turn, small-order board fabricators online now that can handle that.

There's no 300 MHz ARM system with 128 MB of RAM being mass-produced and marketed, because there's historically no market for one as an Intel competitor. Raspberry Pi seems to think that ARM has matured enough and there's a large enough niche market to give it a go though.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[GrandTeddyBearOfDoom]

I doubt China or Russia would follow suit, and this kind of stupidity is just what will give them the lead in computer tech.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[voidptr]

There's always going to be someone starting the next big thing in their garage, but setting that argument aside, "garage hackers" are also important because kids that get exposed to STEM in their childhood, including computers, turn into people who pursue those fields as an adult.

The whole information economy is intertwined. All those big shops still need developers from somewhere, and most of them know their own roots enough to know any proposal along those lines would devastate the pipeline of computer science graduates in this country, and everyone's got to hire new talent from somewhere from time to time.

On top of that, most of the people working as software developers in the US aren't writing commercial apps, they're writing and maintaining in-house business applications for the company they work for; the corollary is that almost every company of more than a few hundred employees has some amount of internal software they depend on, even when software or SaaS isn't their actual product. Restricting the ability of anyone to maintain or run in-house code would kill most companies overnight, let alone the damage it would do to all the IT vendors who sell general purpose hardware. IBM / HP / Dell etc. make way too much money selling computers to run their customer's workloads to ever allow that market to get closed off.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[scialex]

I disagree. I think that what would happen would be more similar to whats happened in gaming. Big shops make the big things and indie shops and hobbyists make the original, innovative stuff.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[VortexCortex]

No, it doesn't prove his point. What would prove his point is someone proposing legislation that made manufacturing, selling, or owning a device that allowed the user to compile and run their own code illegal.

Apparently there already is such legislation. You see, it's called the DMCA. Gun's don't kill people, people kill people. Software doesn't defeat DRM, people defeat DRM with software. We've been given VERY LIMITED exemptions to manufacture, sell, own or run software capable of cracking DRM, or Jailbreaking phones, but it's still illegal for me to crack my XBox or Playstation3, or ANY OTHER DRM DEVICE not on the magical white list.

You're wasting your time if you're on the watch for legislation that prevents you from running any code you want. It already exists; It just depends on YOUR definition of "any". Furthermore, as long as EULAs allow MFGs to instant click-wrap legislation into being, you're looking in the wrong place, and you're even looking in the wrong direction!

What we need now is the right to bear technology; I've been saying this for years, and am glad to see the sentiment being finally adopted. When my first 128bit public key encryption program was basically classified as "munitions" and prevented from exportation in the early 1990s I REJOICED! I actually danced a little jig! I foolishly believed that this meant my 2nd amendment rights, "The right to bear arms, lawfully", would come into effect and I'd be able to wield any computing technology just as I can legally wield a gun: If its self defense and/or I'm not physically harming anyone, what I'm doing shouldn't be illegal. To my dismay our Constitutional rights have not been interpreted in this way.

The definition of what is "lawful" has become: That which the EULA allows. The definition of what is "causing harm" has become: That which we can not measure or prove, but suspect.

It would have been as RIDICULOUS to outlaw guns in the pioneer era as it would have been to outlaw possessing ANY stone tool in the Stone age, or for using an iron tool on your own possessions in the Iron age. Yet, here we are in the INFORMATION AGE, and we've got laws against using particular information processing tools...

Some would say that I do not own some of the information that I possess. To them I would ask: "Do you own the memories in your head?" Can I not read 1s and 0s and then use my mind to break encryptions? Can I not use the information in my own mind? I can use external tools such as graph paper and pencil to help me perform my mathematic algorithms too. However, If I use a GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER to help me do certain tasks with the INFORMATION that can be or has been absorbed and then extracted from MY OWN MIND -- Then I can be found guilty of violating existing legislation.

Perhaps you're saying that as long as they don't outlaw all programs and general purpose computers, we've nothing to fear. I put it to you that standing buy while our 1st AND 2nd amendment rights are being restricted in any fashion is OUTRAGEOUS, has already occurred, and continues to occur each time you click the [_] Accept button on a restrictive EULA.

What we need is the right to use our computers. The right to possess and use technology. You wouldn't stand a chance taking ancestors' stone or iron tools, or guns from them. I'll be damned if I'll stand idly by and let ANYONE take my INFORMATION tools from me.

Those stone age peoples who opposed iron tools quickly became extinct: Welcome to the Information Age.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Luckyo]

You missed my point. I meant that "garage hacker" crowd, regardless of their line of business is going after discovering the new low hanging fruit. They have nothing to do in internal combustion engine for car fuel efficiency business anymore, as all easy improvements to the engine have been done and current advances require extreme levels of investment and expertise.

Similar thing will happen in the application stores in near future. All of the apps that are easy to make, provide a new and useful utility and haven't been done yet will be done. And then the revolution phase turns into evolution phase, where improvement takes place from inventing. At this point, "garage hacker" crowd goes looking for a new low hanging fruit, and larger commercial entities invest into improving the already existing pool of technology in the field.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[RobbieThe1st]

Ooh! A Nokia /910/! Tell me where I can get one! :P

Re:Raspberry Pi

[pmontra]

Actually the smartphone/app store combo is a good example of a computing appliance. I can imagine a dystopic future in which an A666 chip will run only software signed from the store. No more jailbreaking or rooting, no more sideloading. This hardly damages the phone manufacturers, the chip manufacturers, the developers, the companies running the stores. All of them will make exactly the same amount of money as before but the Apples of that time will have a stronger grip on what we are allowed to see on our phones. No need for legislation, only commercial agreements among companies. They could even get paid by some industry to do that.

The trojan horse could be (pun intended) our own protection from malware. One of Doctorow's points is that most people won't care and will be actually happy to own a safer phone. That approach will move from phones to laptops and desktops and servers as the app store/walled garden is doing now. Want to be a developer/startup in that future? Get a license to go around the locks in the chip because people like us could be dangerous criminals (spammers, black hats, etc). That's no different than working with explosives. Again, no need for legislation, only a deep inspection we developers will have pay for the privilege of writing software for those platforms.

Do I believe it's going to happen? It's not impossible because I see more profit for those companies there as that's a way to control competition. We'll see if there is a stronger market force going in the opposite direction.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[hairyfeet]

And the music loaded on them is...survey says...pirated! You DO realize it would cost something like $64,000 to load an iPod full of RIAA approved music, yes? After all they say ripping to your iPod is illegal and you should have to cut them a check per song (I'm not shitting you, look up "industry says ripping to your iPod is illegal" in Google) but nobody is actually paying attention to their asses are they? And Apple TV is DOA for precisely THAT reason, its all iStore and no easy way to run home ripped media.

In the end for a media device or home appliance to be a hit with regards to media it needs to be easy, cheap, and convenient and the MPAA haven't grasped that yet which is why so far every attempt they've made has bombed. When they want $3 an episode for TV shows with DRM piled on and more restrictions than you can name VS a user just going to TPB or ripping the thing? they WILL use TPB. It isn't like the old days where only someone with skillz could rip, try something like Tipard DVD Ripper where it is literally "push button to get movie" and even has Streams and CUDA support built in to speed ripping and you'll see why MPAA approved methods are full of fail. There is NO reason why my dad shouldn't be able to buy a DVD player with built in ripper that rips to a 1Tb HDD and makes loading movies off a flash as simple as drag and drop. the tech is there already, its the MPAA that is holding technology hostage.

But the simple fact you can walk into a big box retailer or Amazon and pick up an Nbox or WDTV (which there is no actual legal way to load media on according to the *.A.A and DMCA) means their bullshit isn't selling on their wouldn't be a big enough market to warrant these devices. Hell my 71 year old dad has sent me over a dozen customers simply by raving about how "My boy got me this Nbox thingie and now all my movies are just a click away!" and his friends (and even his nurse at the doctor's office) ask him "You wouldn't happen to have his number handy, would you?" because ultimately that is what the consumer WANTS, they want "push button and movie goes" and the MPAA isn't giving it to them so TPB is. Like Gabe at Valve said "Piracy is someone else offering a better product" and its true, you get nasty with price and DRM and folks WILL go elsewhere. Look at how much game companies make off Steam, it has just enough DRM that Joey isn't passing his purchase to all his buddies while making it beyond simple and cheap to buy. Make it easy, cheap, and convenient and they WILL buy because humans are lazy creatures and will go with the path of least resistance wherever possible. Make it an expensive royal PITA and then piracy is the easier route, simple really.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[TheRaven64]

There's a different definition of PC, and that's short for "IBM PC", and it's a personal computer with specific characteristics: x86 CPU

x86 CPU and PC-compatible BIOS. The latter is important - there have been a few other x86 systems (including some Sun 386 workstations) that did not have a PC BIOS and so could not boot any of the common x86 operating systems. The first Intel Macs also fell into this category, until they shipped a BIOS compatibility layer for EFI.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[hairyfeet]

Ya see pmontra you are falling for the same trap that has me bash my head against the wall with Linux zealots that just can't seem to grasp why "You can't just teach your customers to like CLI" because the simple fact is this...you are thinking like a geek. Ya see consumers are NOT geeks and are strange and curious creatures indeed and as someone who has been building and selling to them since 1983 I am probably one of a unique few that has insight into their strange and maddening habits.

For the example you gave, the cell phone. For YOU its a computer that makes calls but that is NOT what a consumer sees it as you see. its a "disposable phone with buttons that lets me Google" so they simply don't look at it in your light and frankly doesn't give a shit WHAT the carriers do as they'll just can it and get another when the contract is up. That is a completely different beast from say netbooks, which why ARM will never sell on them is because while YOU look at it as a "mobile computing device" THEY see it as a "cute baby laptop" and expect it to run anything a regular laptop does only slower, because its a baby you see and babies aren't as strong as grownups.

And it is THIS curious way of thinking that will doom locking down the PC and why ChromeOS isn't going anywhere, because on "cute baby laptops" and on desktops they expect and it damned well better run THEIR software, which could be any one of a bazillion and one damned apps going back 20+ years. Hell I have one customers I have to keep a NOS 2GHz desktop running for even though he has a nice new triple i built for him, why? Because his "must always have" software is Macromedia Xres which hasn't been supported since 1999 and refuses to run on modern CPUs and HDDs, even with VMS. So I had to set up a KVM switch and build a NOS 2GHz box just so he could have that ONE program. I have other customers that have ancient printers or music softare or any number of different 'must have" apps and if that don't run? Guess who is NOT buying.

so you see you really have to stop thinking like a geek and think like one of them to get a grasp on the way their minds work. cell phones aren't computers, they're phones with buttons and Google you throw away when the contract is up. they think of that like a computer like you would expect to play MP3s on your toaster, the thought simply never crosses their minds. But you tell them they can't run their software on their cute baby laptops (which despite all the doom and gloom certain OEMs are pushing I've found to still be VERY popular, especially among the females who love having a "cute baby laptop" they can stick in their purse) or desktop and watch the screaming bitchfit. I should know friend, i deal with them 6 days a week and sometimes on Sundays.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[GreatBunzinni]

Admittedly, with the consumer electronics end of things, in many cases someone had to figure out how to root the device.

That's the whole point of this talk. There is a continuous pressure to force general-purpose computers to become mere consumer appliances by limiting what the user can do with the tool. Systems are being locked-down through technical and legal means, and we are being routinely forced to resort to increasingly more convoluted practices to regain at least some part of the general-purpose nature of these general-purpose computers.

You mentioned software projects targeted at devices which are tightly locked-down, but you failed to mention that the only reason it is possible to install them is if someone finds a way to side-step all these technical locks put in place by the manufacturer, and if the user intentionally ignores the existing legal locks. And to drive the point home, these technical locks are side-stepped because some clever bloke discovered ways to circumvent them, which are officially referred to as... security vulnerabilities. That is, the only way we are able to retake the general-computing aspect of a general-purpose computer is if the system is found to be, as they say, vulnerable, and the people who engage on this are considered security threats. For wanting to use a general-purpose computer as a general-purpose computer.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[GameboyRMH]

You don't get first posts by RTFA'ing.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[mellon]

The War on Drugs has put a lot of harmless people behind bars, cost the country billions of dollars, and put a lot of people in the ground, many of them innocent. It has cost people their homes, their savings, their marriages, and their lives. You may think it would be cool for being a geek to be illegal like being a dealer, but I would prefer that it not be the case that possession of a C compiler could be justification for a no-knock warrant that gets me or my wife shot by some fuckwit with an automatic weapon in body armor.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[hairyfeet]

Can you produce receipts? Have every single disc and can produce them on demand? you see THAT is where they get you, they have managed to have their cake and eat it to as copyrights are the ONLY thing I know of where they can on one hand say you are only buying a license and on the other hand say you are only buying the physical media which will have to be replaced if lost or stolen. great scam they have going there, BTW don't forget your friends at the RIAA are lobbying to make ripping illegal for music as it is for video, don't forget. Look up what i put about ripping being illegal and you'll see the head of I believe Sony already trying to get the spin started just as they have turned copyright infringement into piracy.

Just remember what YOU think is logical and legal doesn't necessarily correlate to the crazy fucked up laws they end up bribing their way onto the books. After all logic would dictate if I buy a movie I should be able to watch that movie in whatever format that is convenient for me, no different than ripping the CD onto an iPod, but thanks to DMCA that's illegal. Might as well cue the Ayn Rand quote about criminals because I've actually got to see the law books for state and federal and frankly you could crush a man to death just by knocking the state books onto him, the federal could crush you into paste. I'm sure there are several contradictory laws they could whip off that if their lawyers pressed it would turn your life to shit for...ohh about 2 to 5 years worth of courtroom misery. Sad but true friend, sad but true.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[DuckDodgers]

I consider ripping fair use for DVDs I've purchased (and these days if you're not desperate to buy a movie the first two years after it came out, you can probably find the DVD for $5 or less). It may not stand up in court, but I figure it has a better chance than torrenting. It's also harder for the MPAA to track.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention you and the other poster missed the important part when it comes to the masses...simple. Try Tipard DVD Ripper sometime as its literally "push button to get movie" and defaults to a bog standard DivX 5 that just about everything will read from your $30 Wally World DVD Player on up. With TPB you have to be able to tell the good from the fake, hope you don't fuck up and pick a poisoned .WMV (You might not fall for that but I've seen plenty of customers that have and gotten their machines pwned) and frankly most torrent software is designed by geeks and is NOT user friendly. Now compare that to "push button to get movie" and you'll see why all my customers are ripping. Finally add in the DVD collections they already own and as you pointed out the huge bins of movies at places like Walmart and Fred's (I just got my dad 4 westerns at Fred's on DVD for $5, why torrent at that price?) and you can see why ripping wins, its the path of least resistance and knowledge.

BTW if it was just me how can anyone explain Nbox and WDTV? After all legally there isn't a single way to actually use those devices, they don't stream and ripping is against the DCMA yet they often sell out of both and I've seen both machines at big box retailers. I'd argue its because ripping DVD is so damned easy and these devices just go along with that. BTW if you haven't tried one an Nbox is nice, the base model plays 720p for $30 and the high end does .MKV and 1080p for around $60. Add a 200-400Gb HDD in an enclosure and you have a dirt cheap movie station for the kiddies that is simple enough a 6 year old works it with ease.

Failure on our part.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

If we can't make the argument for general purpose computing then we get what we deserve.

Most users never wanted freedom, they wanted to get work done or enjoy themselves. Unfortunately you don't need freedom for that. This is why the loss of basic and HyperCard doesn't matter.

Re:Failure on our part.

[Nerdfest]

I've brought this up before. Users do want freedom, they just don't realize it until they've completely lost it and then have a use for it.

Re:Failure on our part.

[Trepidity]

Depends on what you're arguing. If you mean that consumers prefer to buy walled-garden devices like iPads versus programmable computers, I agree that's something we have to fix ourselves, through outreach, PR, making better programming environments, whatever. But another angle is the government passing laws that make it increasingly difficult to offer unrestricted general-purpose computers. That I think is much more clearly a civil-liberties issue than just an issue of consumer preference.

Re:Failure on our part.

[jd]

That's because most users care about personal freedom -- where they're the only person that matters. Insular thinking is way too common and is way too corrosive. However, it does go a little bit beyond that. Metronets almost don't exist except in a few more enlightened places, because people were conned into thinking of it as a tax. They would be paying for someone else's Internet access. Well, no. What they'd be paying for is the freedom to choose your Internet access. Most places, the ISP is nothing more than a shell company that "provides" access to a single actual Internet provider - your "choice" is what illusion you want. It's not a real choice, which means that if the real provider decides to implement a specific restriction then ALL your "choices" implement that specific restriction.

In short, Joe Public is easily tricked into giving up real freedoms because real freedom means someone else gets that freedom too and Joe Public would go through hell or high water before contributing to someone else's freedom. Real freedom is never individualistic, it's binary. It's there or it isn't. By deceiving people into thinking that they're gaining by inhibiting the freedom of "others", freedom becomes impossible. There is no gain in loss. Ever.

Re:Failure on our part.

[SalsaDoom]

Now, this is making sense. Because its true.

People often ask me about my anti-Apple attitude (or anything really restrictive) and when I explain to them that they've bought something that don't actually really posses complete control over it they are usually understanding. I don't press my opinion in a "the world is ending soon because of..." sort of way. I explain the truth, that there is a trend for that type of activity and I'd like to see it reversed.

In my experience, most people imagine that they "own" something when they purchase it. When they understand that they don't own their iPad in the same way they own their car or their house, they do understand why thats a bad thing *even if they lack of the technical knowledge to take advantage of it*. I don't think most people are quite so stupid as people often assume here. Its just that technology isn't something they think about on a regular basis, accountants probably think many people are stupid because they have bad accounting practices in their lives.

People don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to rent a thing. When you explain how all of this ties into planned obsolescence and other market strategies they can become quite offended at the idea. Owning a device you are free to operate fully means you can replace it on your own terms, not artificial ones (say, from lack of software updates).

So yes, the poster above is correct. Users absolutely do want freedom, they just don't immediately put together the reasons why they do.

Re:Failure on our part.

[king neckbeard]

I'm not sure if the best answer to the paradox of choice is to remove choice and configurability. For example, newegg offers a ton of deals for buying certain combinations of hardware, and when there are 231 possible deals for your CPU, it's not feasible to try and sort through that. The answer wouldn't be to stop those deals, but rather, to make it easier to process all that information.

One might have argued at one point that there are too many websites on the internet, but the solution to that wasn't to reduce the number of websites, but to create good search engines that let us make sense of it all.

Re:Failure on our part.

[hedwards]

That's really not true. A program isn't going to ever be able to do everything and few people would want it to anyway. However the lack of freedom that people like me worry about is the ability to replace the program with something else if need be.

Apple has a long standing policy to not let apps do certain things such as duplicate functionality or do anything that Apple doesn't approve of. In cases like that it's not just that the program doesn't support it, it's that no programs support it because an authoritarian hardware company says no. That used to be understandable when functionality generally required hardware to back it, but those days are long gone.

Re:Failure on our part.

[Overly Critical Guy]

I'm not sure if the best answer to the paradox of choice is to remove choice and configurability. For example, newegg offers a ton of deals for buying certain combinations of hardware, and when there are 231 possible deals for your CPU, it's not feasible to try and sort through that. The answer wouldn't be to stop those deals, but rather, to make it easier to process all that information.

People don't want to process the information for 231 possible CPU deals. The easiest way to deal with that kind of information is to not process it all, removing configurability and therefore the psychological fear of a missed opportunity. It's been shown in several studies that too many choices hinders the decision-making process and leads to decreased happiness, which was the subject of the book I linked by psychologist Barry Schwartz.

One might have argued at one point that there are too many websites on the internet, but the solution to that wasn't to reduce the number of websites, but to create good search engines that let us make sense of it all.

It goes without saying that the sites on the first page of the search results get the vast majority of hits. Nobody wants to sift through the 10,000,000+ hits a Google search gives you. It's an impressive number but ultimately meaningless in terms of how most people use a search engine.

Re:Failure on our part.

[Overly Critical Guy]

Apple doesn't want unnecessary duplication of system functionality because that creates redundancy and confusion in the experience of using the device; for instance, it prevents developers from mimicking the operating system and potentially tricking the user. It should be noted that such prohibitions are very rare, and there are a number of apps that compete with built-in applications, such as third-party web browsers.

Re:Failure on our part.

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

"General purpose computing" is just a synonym for power, in the same way as violence, money, and land are.

When you had land, you could do whatever you wanted on your land, even if it was criminal. When you had money, you could get whatever goods or services money could buy, even if it was criminal. When you had violence, you could take others' land and money, even if it is criminal (it isn't always; Police, in principle, "claim" land and money using violence, but not criminally). Naturally, government came in to regulate all three.

When you have general purpose computing, you can have whatever the peripherals of your computer allow you to have, even if it's criminal. Such peripherals include, but are not limited to, recording devices and displays, CNC machines (fab), and telecom (the internet, VOIP, etc).

The funny thing about computing though, is that it is not consumed in the process the way money and land are. Those have to be invested, because you really can't build a factory on a plot today, and then change it to apartments for a few hours to meet demand. You can't have your paycheck pay for food today, and then have the same money pay for rent tomorrow.

So now users have this virtual land that isn't dedicated to a single purpose and can change at the drop of a hat from producing (or consuming) kitten videos to committing virtual crimes to emailing your mom and back again. It defies the concept of specialization of labor. It defies the concept of investment, because once you pay the overhead and produce something for that virtual land (software), everyone can use it without investing in it themselves.

In other words, it defies the models of money and land. It is its own kind of beast, and computing is our window into that world. What computers we use are our "avatars," to use a tired term, and GP computing is the only avatar that isn't artificially hindered. But an avatar that is unhindered is (for the purposes of law enforcement) no different from allowing all citizens access to weaponry, without even background checks. Maybe it will take care of itself, maybe it won't; the arguments could go on forever.

I would say that the argument for GP computing is more akin to the right to bear arms than the right to free speech. It's individually empowering, to the point of threatening other people. Either you respect that people will someday need it, or you get in the path of that train. Maybe you can derail it with your corpse, maybe not, I don't know, but there are a LOT of people who won't sit idly by as you take their (metaphorical) guns away.

Re:Failure on our part.

[Culture20]

Eventually they will discover a killer app that they must be able to run on their device of choice - and then discover that since they went the iPhad route, they are completely denied the chance to use it.

Already happened with tethering and copy/paste. iPhone users stuck through the hard times through three phone upgrades before they almost got what they wanted.

Re:Failure on our part.

[king neckbeard]

It's been shown in several studies that too many choices hinders the decision-making process and leads to decreased happiness, which was the subject of the book I linked by psychologist Barry Schwartz.

I'm familiar with his theory, which is essentially that when we have too much information to process, we get unhappy, mostly because we fear we aren't making the best choice, or the cost of making a decision is greater than the benefits the choices convey. There are two ways to deal with the problem of too much information to process: less information or better processing. I advocate the latter whenever feasible.

It goes without saying that the sites on the first page of the search results get the vast majority of hits. Nobody wants to sift through the 10,000,000+ hits a Google search gives you. It's an impressive number but ultimately meaningless in terms of how most people use a search engine.

You missed my point. There is an ever increasing amount of information, but Google helps you process the information you need. That's why the existance of 10,000,000 sites on a particular subject doesn't cause us anxiety. Google doesn't make those sites inaccessible, and if you decide are searching for something much more specific, a site that may have been a million pages deep will be the first result. Google's role is in the organization of that information.

Re:Failure on our part.

[tzanger]

People often ask me about my anti-Apple attitude (or anything really restrictive) and when I explain to them that they've bought something that don't actually really posses complete control over it they are usually understanding.

You must certainly feel the same way about just about every cell (not just smart) phone, tablet, set-top box or embedded system. Unless you're given the full API documentation and enough of a schematic or layout documentation to be able to reflash the system (if not also the bootloader) then you simply don't have the means to hack away at the devices you have bought and own. I specifically don't include laptops or desktops here because generally speaking, they're designed to run whatever you want to put on them.

In my experience, most people imagine that they "own" something when they purchase it. When they understand that they don't own their iPad in the same way they own their car or their house, they do understand why thats a bad thing *even if they lack of the technical knowledge to take advantage of it*.

It's been my experience that most people you will talk to about this will give you a blank stare and a "yeah, so?" kind of look after having it explained to them. Most people are not stupid, I agree with you, but it's simply not a big deal to them.

People don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to rent a thing. When you explain how all of this ties into planned obsolescence and other market strategies they can become quite offended at the idea. Owning a device you are free to operate fully means you can replace it on your own terms, not artificial ones (say, from lack of software updates).

Again, you must be running with a different crowd than I am. Even my technically-minded friends, while not incensed when discussing this subject, don't feel it's a big problem. They usually want the faster processor or better graphics in a few years anyway. I do have a couple of friends who like to make their tech buys last as long as possible, and it's that type of personality that cares about this, by and large. It's been my experience that the general population gets it, but has bigger things to worry about.

Re:Failure on our part.

[Shark]

Actually, that's the first thought that popped in my mind when I read the headline: General purpose computing empowers people. We all see what happens when you give people power... You lose your control over what they say, do and think!

Alarmism

[Overly Critical Guy]

I read the transcript, and by the time he started saying things like this:

So today we have marketing departments who say things like "we don't need computers, we need... appliances. Make me a computer that doesn't run every program, just a program that does this specialized task, like streaming audio, or routing packets, or playing Xbox games, and make sure it doesn't run programs that I haven't authorized that might undermine our profits". And on the surface, this seems like a reasonable idea -- just a program that does one specialized task -- after all, we can put an electric motor in a blender, and we can install a motor in a dishwasher, and we don't worry if it's still possible to run a dishwashing program in a blender. But that's not what we do when we turn a computer into an appliance. We're not making a computer that runs only the "appliance" app; we're making a computer that can run every program, but which uses some combination of rootkits, spyware, and code-signing to prevent the user from knowing which processes are running, from installing her own software, and from terminating processes that she doesn't want. In other words, an appliance is not a stripped-down computer -- it is a fully functional computer with spyware on it out of the box.

I'm immediately reminded of countless Slashdot posts decrying the rise of appliance computing and lamenting the industry's move away from "general-purpose computing." That phrase is actually a euphemism for "nerd playground made by nerds for nerds," because that is what is actually being missed. Nerds feel power when they invest time and master a system, but non-nerds have neither the time nor desire to make computing a hobby. To them, computers are simply a means to get a job done, and that's the extent of their interest.

Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take. But more importantly, it signifies a perspective that's out of touch with mainstream people; i.e., non-techies. Non-techies aren't interested in installing custom software or knowing what processes are running or uncovering their technological secrets. Those are things only techies care about.

Doctorow conflates this lament for nerd power with a lot of talk about copyright, DRM, and that all-important buzzword, "freedom." Not only does it make techies feel powerful to have mastery over the system, but it makes them feel important if they believe that their hobby is not just a lone expenditure of free time but the actions of a freedom fighter. However, I believe this is a confusion of issues. Appliance computing and DRM are necessarily not intertwined (look at the DRM-free iTunes Music Store), and appliance computing is just a derogatory (among nerds, anyway) term for an accessible product that most people can use. That such accessibility often necessitates the removal of configurability is simply unfortunate and incidental.

Stick-shift automobiles are generally more efficient gas-wise because you are able to directly control the gears used to move the vehicle, but most people today drive automatics. They don't want to mess with things, or tweak things, or dissect things. The car is a tool, and that is also true of computers.

Doctorow ends the talk with this:

We have been fighting the mini-boss, and that means that great challenges are yet to come, but like all good level designers, fate has sent us a soft target to train ourselves on -- we have a chance, a real chance, and if we support open and free systems, and the organizations that fight for them -- EFF, Bits of Freedom [?], Edrie [?], [?], Nets Politique [?], La Quadrature du Net, and all the others, who are thankfully, too numerous to name here -- we may yet win the battle, and secure the ammunition we'll need for the war.

Disregarding the pandering videogame terminology for a moment, this is a perfe

Re:Alarmism

[drinkypoo]

Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take. But more importantly, it signifies a perspective that's out of touch with mainstream people; i.e., non-techies.

it doesn't make him wrong about that point, though. he is, in fact, entirely correct. It's a problem that we the techies should be going out of our way to apprise the less nerdly of so that they can make intelligent decisions.

There's no war. We're not soldiers. We're not fighting a "mini-boss" in a video game, and we're not "level designers."

You can frame it any way you want. I like the video game metaphors, because I played a lot of video games growing up. And it's frankly true that if we stop buying general purpose computers over specific-purpose ones, we'll stop getting them, and we'll take gigantic steps backwards as a result. All these disparate devices that sit around idle most of the time are a terrible waste in a way that a computer with good power saving isn't.

Re:Alarmism

[russotto]

That was a long piece of flamebait, so you'll excuse me if I only take part of it.

There's this self-absorbed attitude that I just can't wrap my head around, a petulant voice that screams "Don't tell me what to do!" like a child throwing a tantrum.

"Don't tell me what to do!" is one thing from a child to a parent, another from a slave to his master, a third from a man to his government, and yet a fourth from a purchaser of a product to its seller. Unless you feel all purchasers are children, the demand is not necessarily children.

The whole talk reeks of alarmism, as the very restrictions he rants about have all been circumvented already, and several major players have abandoned such restrictions entirely, such as the aforementioned iTunes Music Store, which dropped its DRM (something Apple doesn't get enough credit for, honestly--I can't imagine what Steve Jobs said to the labels to get them to play along).

Alarmism? Yes, they've been circumvented. Illegally in many cases. Which is only resulting in the other side tightening the screws more. And do you think those restrictions could have been circumvented if the most open computer anyone could get was an iPad?

Claiming this is alarmist with SOPA still on the table is sticking your head in the sand.

Re:Alarmism

[SuricouRaven]

I'm inclined to agree with him rather more, because I recently had to root my tablet. During the last routine system update, mysterious new crap appeared: Something called Layar. It was impossible to uninstall without rooting, and the marketplace page for it is just page after page of people giving it one-star reviews and complaining that it was installed without their consent. I think it's some type of augmented-reality program.

I spent a lot of money on that tablet so I can read books in the bath and watch FiM on the train. I don't need the problems of it updating itsself to install new junk I don't want.

Re:Alarmism

[jd]

I disagree. What people don't want is unnecessary complication. Give a person a Swiss army knife and there'll be functions they'll never use but it will still be useful to them. They simply won't use the stuff that doesn't apply.

Give someone an appliance, however, and you have a product that does one thing badly. It can't do that one thing well because nobody has the same one thing that they want to do. Nobody uses all the functions of a DVD player, but equally nobody uses exactly the same set of functions on a DVD player either.

Toasters are no longer simple mechanical devices for a reason. If an "appliance" concept really worked, all you'd need is a 555 timer chip and a variable resistor. There hasn't been a toaster that simple in almost 2 decades! Why? Because even the simplest task the human mind can possibly imagine, the most uniform and consistent task a human can imagine, still has too much variability and uncertainty in it.

The "appliance" market in domestic products is DEAD. We don't have single-purpose kiosks that look one thing up, we don't use PDAs, I don't even remember the last time I saw a shop selling single-function clockwork alarm clocks. I think it was some time in the early 70s. Appliances are a failure. People WANT general purpose tools, not over-specialized ones, because you can make the tool work the way YOU work, you don't have to work the way the tool does.

Half the reason older generations despised the evolution of appliances is precisely because it didn't adapt, they had to. Why should they? People are the masters of tools, the tools exist to serve people, it is never the other way around. The move in computing from general-purpose to excessively specialized is to go down a path that is well-trodden and one history has marked as a failure EVERY time.

Re:Alarmism

[vadim_t]

I'm immediately reminded of countless Slashdot posts decrying the rise of appliance computing and lamenting the industry's move away from "general-purpose computing." That phrase is actually a euphemism for "nerd playground made by nerds for nerds," because that is what is actually being missed. Nerds feel power when they invest time and master a system, but non-nerds have neither the time nor desire to make computing a hobby. To them, computers are simply a means to get a job done, and that's the extent of their interest.

There's no conflict between a general purpose device and an easy to use one. I don't see how lack of DRM and user restrictions would suddenly mean anything different for the interface. All it means for most users is the ability to install unofficial applications. For the rest, the UI can be exactly the same.

Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take.

And an entirely correct one. If you're not the owner of your hardware, then somebody else is. And if they can make money by collecting all the data they can on you, why wouldn't they?

Stick-shift automobiles are generally more efficient gas-wise because you are able to directly control the gears used to move the vehicle, but most people today drive automatics. They don't want to mess with things, or tweak things, or dissect things. The car is a tool, and that is also true of computers.

Yes, a computer is a tool. A tool should do what it's told. A car should drive wherever I want, a hammer should hammer whatever I want, and a computer should execute whatever code I want. The tool is my slave and I'm its master, and that's the only relationship I'm willing to accept.

Disregarding the pandering videogame terminology for a moment, this is a perfect example of the freedom-fighting perspective that appeals to techies and convinces them that they are soldiers in a "war". RMS has made a career out of this, and while his insistence on open technologies does contribute to progress in the long term, it's that step over the line into delusion that makes me cringe. There's no war. We're not soldiers. We're not fighting a "mini-boss" in a video game, and we're not "level designers." We're just nerds who like to tinker, and that is a niche demographic in this business. The free market has discovered that the best way to make a seamless experience is to close parts of it down so the user doesn't screw it up (and any of you who have done tech support already understand how painfully easy it is for non-techies to do just that).

Bunch of nonsense. The reality is whatever we make it be. If we decide to make a war where there wasn't one before, then there will be a war. The "free market" isn't some sort of deity, it's simply the consequence of the actions of people.

Besides, there's nothing approaching a free market in the modern economy. The cost of entry into say, the cell phone market is enormous, and all the existing players are busy making turf grabs to make sure nobody new moves in.

Probably, posting this will get me modded down, but I just wanted to comment on the bitterness toward appliance computing that has sprung up in online tech communities since the popularization of mobile devices like the iPad. There's this self-absorbed attitude that I just can't wrap my head around, a petulant voice that screams "Don't tell me what to do!" like a child throwing a tantrum. It's so out of touch with where the industry has headed in the last 10 years that it risks marginalizing its believers, turning them into crotchety, narrow-minded, unpleasant people.

You know, I don't get your position either. I used to hear that America was the Land Of The Free, where I imagine a sentiment like "Don't tell me what to

Re:Alarmism

[Bitmanhome]

I used have similar principles, right up to a month ago when I got my Evo 3D. It opened my eyes -- I was amazed at the raw power of the thing, but more amazed at just how dead easy it is to use. Android (and, I assume, iOS) have finally figured out how to make computing not just useful, but easy for regular users. I still don't know if walled gardens in general are the best solution, but we've taken a big step in the right direction.

That's not to say Doctorow and Stallman are absurd; on the contrary they've been very helpful pointing out the goalposts on this particular field. We know what fully-open looks like (Gnu) and what fully-closed looks like (cell phones) and we now know we want to be firmly in the middle.

As for Jobs vs. the labels, I suspect Jobs just said "remove DRM or we stop selling your music." By that time, iTunes was big enough (and CD sales small enough) that it was a meaningful threat.

Re:Alarmism

[Urza9814]

You seem to be assuming that user-friendly NECESSITATES techie-hostile; it does not. Compare Archos's Android media players with an iPod touch or iPad. They have nearly identical interfaces as far as the casual user is concerned (there's not a HUGE difference between Android and iOS as far as user-friendliness goes) But the big difference in terms of freedom is that the Archos devices don't have any hardware or software intended to provent you from using them as you wish. In fact, if you go to the Archos website, they'll give you instructions for installing Angstrom Linux on your device. Now I'm certainly not saying every company needs to go to that extreme, but there's no reason they need to actively try to prevent techies from using their devices as they see fit.

Re:Alarmism

[stephanruby]

...non-nerds have neither the time nor desire to make computing a hobby. To them, computers are simply a means to get a job done, and that's the extent of their interest.

That's correct, non-nerds only really care about getting a task done, but that doesn't mean that they don't care about having a locked down device either.

For instance, non-nerds will ask me if they can enable tethering for their laptop from their phone without paying extra, since they were already under the impression that they were already paying a hefty amount for unlimited everything. Some non-nerds will ask me about cheaper brands of ink, since they're paying through their nose for ink every time they're printing family pictures on their cheap Costco-purchased inkjet printer. And those non-nerds may not know exactly the internal workings of those problems they're facing, but even without our help, they do get a sense that they've been lied to, or ripped off in some way, because the device they have failed their expectations.

And please do not underestimate the tenacity of non-nerds at wanting to get something done. Some of those non-nerds will keep on calling their customer service repeatedly, they'll post negative reviews everywhere they can, some of them will harass those of us who are nerds (thinking that we know everything or that we'll do all the research and footwork for them), and eventually through sheer unrelenting tenacity, they'll end up getting what they want (even if it means biting the bullet, swallowing their anger for a little bit, and eventually buying a different more open device from somewhere else).

Re:Alarmism

[jez9999]

Toasters are no longer simple mechanical devices for a reason. If an "appliance" concept really worked, all you'd need is a 555 timer chip and a variable resistor. There hasn't been a toaster that simple in almost 2 decades!

Last time I checked, msot toasters were actually pretty much that simple. Exactly which toasters have you been experiencing in the last 2 decades, and what more functionality do they contain?

Re:Alarmism

[Anonymous Coward]

And if no suitable product exists due to economic conditions? "Just make your own?" What, is there no such thing as economic coercion? Does everyone have infinite resources?
I don't think so. Grow up and take a more nuanced view of how markets and human psychology actually work.

Re:Alarmism

[SuricouRaven]

Layar, as bundled crap goes, is fairly benign. The worst it appears to do (so long as you don't use it) is automatically update itsself. Not a problem for me, potentially a concern to phone users who have usage quotas to worry about. More seriously, recall the recent CarrierIQ: Software installed on mobile phones by the suppliers, deliberatly hidden from the user's knowledge and made difficult to uninstall if it is found, which captures every website visited and keystroke performed - including things like passwords and banking details - and sends it all, in plain text, back to the operator. Now *THAT* in itsself is scarey enough to raise in objection to the notion of devices as appliances. If the user cannot control them, the user cannot ensure their security.

Walled Gardens

[Nerdfest]

He mentions U-EFI bootloaders, but gives Apple a pass on their walled garden. I think that's one of the big factors making a lot of this sort of control more acceptable. And before you bring it up, yes, I realize that the OS X still lets you install any software you want. I'm specifically referring to iOS here. I think it's rise is the knee in the downward curve of general purpose computing.

General purpose computing already won

[MrEricSir]

Standard PC hardware is used absolutely everywhere now days, even places it really has no business being; ATMs, voting machines, automatic train control systems, etc.

I'm sure Cory is trying to argue against locked-down devices -- the same argument he's been making for years -- but now he's repackaged the argument in a way that simply isn't true.

Choices...

[Bander]

The popular success of iOS and other closed systems doesn't mean there aren't choices out there. I have an easily-unlocked and rooted Android phone, and I love it. Would my wife appreciate the command-line access and Python scripting facilities? Probably not -- she didn't even want a feature phone -- even an iPhone would be overkill for her use cases.

HTC just announced that going forward, all their phones will have unlocked bootloaders. Not everything is going closed.

Rational decisions are relative to wants

[perpenso]

Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take. But more importantly, it signifies a perspective that's out of touch with mainstream people; i.e., non-techies.

it doesn't make him wrong about that point, though. he is, in fact, entirely correct.

Not really. Appliances usually won't have the RAM, GPU, storage, etc that a general purpose will have. Furthermore the "spyware" characterization is erroneous. Locked down and digitally signed perhaps, but that is something different than spyware.

It's a problem that we the techies should be going out of our way to apprise the less nerdly of so that they can make intelligent decisions.

You are proving the GP's point. The less nerdy are making rational intelligent decisions. Locked down helps avoid malware and other maintenance issues. They just want to turn it on and read email and browse the web, they don't want to be a weekend system administrator. What is rational and intelligent for we techies is not necessarily so for the less nerdy, its all relative based upon what we want out of our devices. Until we techies realize this we are not likely to convince the less nerdy of anything.

Re:Rational decisions are relative to wants

[drinkypoo]

Not really. Appliances usually won't have the RAM, GPU, storage, etc that a general purpose will have.

Way back in the way back, I had a computer upon which I had a development system and a web browser. It had a 16 MHz SPARC processor and 24 MB of RAM, a luxury back then. When the average cellphone of today is more powerful than the most powerful computers of then, this argument is beyond ridiculous.

Furthermore the "spyware" characterization is erroneous.

No, it really is not. Most network-connected devices will, at minimum, connect for update checks. Any television appliance that depends on remote servers for information is by definition tattling on you.

The less nerdy are making rational intelligent decisions. Locked down helps avoid malware and other maintenance issues.

[citation needed]

Re:Rational decisions are relative to wants

[jamstar7]

Way back in the way back, I had a computer upon which I had a development system and a web browser. It had a 16 MHz SPARC processor and 24 MB of RAM, a luxury back then. When the average cellphone of today is more powerful than the most powerful computers of then, this argument is beyond ridiculous.

The difference is, you could write your own software to run on that SPARC, you weren't at the mercy of whatever was in the 'SPARC App Store'. You weren't made to jump through many many burning hoops to get the toolchain to build new SPARC apps. You could distribute those new apps any way you wanted, you weren't dependent on the 'guardians of the gate' at the 'SPARC App Store'. You could get a wild hair up your ass, sit down, code and compile your new app however you wanted it.

Try that with your iphone.

Back in the Stone Age, you busted your ass off for a couple weeks to get your card stack made and compiled. Then you went to the machine operators, the 'High Priests' of computing and prayed for some time on the mainframe to run your stack. And if you were lucky, they'd run it sometime in the following three weeks. The charge was up to $100/minute for processor time, and that was in real money, equivilent to about $1000/minute today. If you were a college kid running your program on college mainframe, they'd charge it to your department. If you didn't have a class or belong to a department that needed computer support, you had ZERO access to the mainframe.

And now Big Media wants to turn the clock back to 1960 as far as computing goes. Are we having fun yet?

Re:Rational decisions are relative to wants

[perpenso]

Doctorow brings up the Sony rootkit. Or a DRM locking system on audio CDs that installed automatically and went into hiding via tricks not that different from what Malware of various kinds use.

Note that those examples come from the general purpose computer world. On an appliance where the software is locked down and signed there is no need to do the above. Rootkit type DRM is for systems where you don't already control what is installed or running.

Re:Rational decisions are relative to wants

[sjames]

I guess you don't look under the hood much. You may or may not remember 12 years or so ago when we thought our 1GHz PIII w/ a GB of RAM was a powerhouse, that would depend on your age. The new tablets out there kick the PIII's ass without breaking a sweat. Some of the phone appliances out there today do as well.

The Linksys WRT54GL has a fairly anemic CPU for general purpose computing today, but it runs circles around the old Apple ][, C64, and IBM XT I learned on.

Non nerd end users may like the appliance model OK for their use, but I'm guessing they also appreciate the ability of skilled individuals to produce new apps for them to play with on their appliances. Just having a look on the various jailbreak/root forums out there, I would guess that the majority of people busting a hole in the garden wall are NOT nerds at all. A number of them seem to even have trouble with "click here and when it asks a question answer yes".

As for the spyware characterization, given the dust-up over Carrier IQ, it might be literally spyware.

Re:How walled is "walled"?

[Samantha Wright]

"Walled" is when you have to pay a substantial developer license to be able to do what you just described. Which you do. That's at least a knee-high stone fence right there. By contrast, free software development on Windows and OS X is possible once you already have the OS.

Better a walled garden than a steel octagon

[schmidt349]

I think Mr. Doctorow errs in assuming two things: 1) that there's an intrinsic value in the total openness of programmable electronic devices, and 2) that the new "walled garden" approach adopted by Apple, Microsoft et al. is somehow being done to benefit the estate of Jack Valenti (thank God the Supreme Court couldn't extend his lifetime).

Before you mod me into oblivion, hear me out.

Most people do not give a good goddamn about having control over the code execution path. In fact they don't want control because they can get confused into letting viruses and other malware execute. They want their devices to make life easier, whether that means keeping track of information or playing games to pass the time or some other convenience, and given a two-dimensional optimization choice over the convenience/freedom axis they'll pick convenience every time. And they're not wrong or stupid or evil to do so. They just don't agree with your set of principles.

And thank God for that, because I for one would not want to witness the consequences of a Melissa or Slammer-type worm infecting every Android or iOS device in the United States. We would just stop.

There will always be vigorous and enthusiastic communities centered around truly general purpose devices. You need only look to the many devices other posters here have mentioned, such as the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and dozens of other hackables. Hell, through Amazon you can rent time on an infinite mountain of general-purpose computing if you're interested.

Let's face it -- hackers, by which I mean the folks who want to push devices to do things they were neither designed nor intended to do, are a teensy minority in the world of users.

Re:Better a walled garden than a steel octagon

[Microlith]

Most people do not give a good goddamn about having control over the code execution path

And most people do not give a good goddamn about you having freedom of speech. Go ask all the fundie christians, they'd rather you be forced to live how they want you to. Is that a good thing?

Appeals to the masses is BS, and for that alone you should be modbombed.

Providing security for users does not have to be mutually exclusive to giving end-users full control over their property.

There will always be vigorous and enthusiastic communities centered around truly general purpose devices.

Until they're made illegal. Something tells me you didn't listen to the speech. I can totally see a push from Apple, Microsoft, et. al. to ban computers that don't include extensive DRM built in. Hell, the RIAA/MPAA have rammed SOPA this far.

Hell, through Amazon you can rent time on an infinite mountain of general-purpose computing if you're interested.

And I don't believe for a moment they couldn't be forced into placing access restrictions and all sorts of logging to trace every step taken.

Let's face it -- hackers, by which I mean the folks who want to push devices to do things they were neither designed nor intended to do, are a teensy minority in the world of users.

Which is an entirely fucking irrelevant point. Justifying oppression by claiming that too few people will use their freedom is pure, distilled, weapons grade idiocy.

Re:Better a walled garden than a steel octagon

[kwalker]

1) There is. For the last ten years it has been euphamised as "innovation".
2) Depends on what you define as "the estate of Jack Valenti".

Do you honestly think we'd be in the same world if every Windows program down the line had to be approved by Microsoft prior to it being available to anyone? Do you think Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera would exist if Microsoft could kill them in the cradle because they competed with IE?

If you're speaking literally about the estate of jack Valenti, then that's irrelevant. If you're talking about his legacy, or the "content owners" represented by the RIAA/MPAA and the other special-interest groups that wrote SOPA, then yes, it is. Hardware manufacturers lock boot loaders because the companies that commissioned the hardware from them told them to. Those same companies did so because content companies told THEM to lock down the device, lest some enterprising nerd out there figure out how to get access to said content.

So what if "most people" don't care about their code execution path. They won't take advantage of it anyway, so retaining it does nothing while removing it stops the people who DO contribute to the body of human knowledge from contributing, or at least raises the barrier to entry. The fact that "most people" don't want to work on their devices doesn't mean that those that do should be prevented from doing so.

Your argument about a Melissa or Slammer worm on all Android or IOS devices is also bogus. Melissa didn't need "root" access to do its job, and Slammer was facilitated by stupid programmer decisions by the original vendor. Neither of which will be abated by using a walled garden and in fact can be increased because of the perceived "safety" of the garden.

Yes, there will always be a small community of hackers, but said community will be smaller and more difficult to maintain as devices are increasingly locked down and lesser-skilled members decide it's not worth their time to break into their devices in order to realize whatever idea (however small) they have that could balloon into the next "innovation".

Re:Better a walled garden than a steel octagon

[rastoboy29]

Just because we are a small group, doesn't mean we are wrong.

I have said it a dozen times

[koan]

"They" (Big Content) want to turn the computer into the Television, where they control every aspect of what you do, see and hear.

The thing is it wouldn't be much of a war because all people have to do is stop consuming their content and they go away, but people just can't seem to do that, one other thing, why is every challenge in America labeled a "War" the war on piracy, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, etc.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The third great war

[Sara Chan]

The first half of the twentieth century was dominated by the war against fascism. The second half of the twentieth century was dominated by the war against communism. We are now engaged in a third great war: where governments try to gain total monitoring capabilities—where everything everyone does and says is monitored.

The goal will be to have everything tracked and recorded. The technology will certainly exist, and governments will certainly try to deploy it. And most people will acquiesce. Because the governments are doing it "to protect the children", or "to stop terrorism". Or maybe it will be done just for convenience (e.g. portions of the Internet now require a Google account—and having a Google account now requires giving Google your phone number). Just remember, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear".

This war will last decades, like the first two. The outcome is anyone's guess.

Re:The third great war

[xs650]

Did you really expect 1984 to occur in 1984? Government programs by their very nature a completed late.

iOS/Android smartphones/tablets are not appliances

[perpenso]

Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take.

And easily disproven. Appliance computers will usually not have the RAM, GPU, permanent storage, etc that a general purpose computer will have. Unless of course the definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app.

My *Kindle* has 64 times the RAM and 40000 times the mass storage capacity of my first general purpose computer. Not to mention a faster CPU and a way better operating system. Yes, it's not as awesome as a current rig, but it's definitely general-purpose.

iOS/Android smartphones/tablets are not appliances. They are general purpose handheld computers designed to handle everything from email to office productivity apps to video games. Appliances would be something like Apple TV, a device that downloads movies from the net, downloads videos from your phone, downloads photos from your phone or camera and displays them all on your TV. A general purpose computer could do all of this. The hardware in the Apple TV probably resembles a general purpose computer in many respects, but designers will probably leave off various unneeded things to reduce costs.

It's fine

[rsilvergun]

HTC just opened up their phones. There's tonnes of cheap tablets that are open. Thing is, even big guys like IBM want to keep things open. Look at HTML5. They're all too scared of Microsoft to risk a complete lock down.

Re:Home-brew Graphene ICs

[Sloppy]

Death to SHE!

Walled gardens...

[blahplusplus]

... do not mean malware free computing, it means corporate sponsored malware the user is unaware of and can't get rid of. You people are dense who think walled gardens are going to be a panacea. The good thing about open systems at least is that they are analyzed by lots and lots of eyeballs. Closed systems will let nefarious organizations do whatever they want without your say or your knowledge.

Re:How walled is "walled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The student edition of Visual Studio is about the same price.

Next year I get to keep visual studio and keep writing programs for my general purpose computer.

Next year I get to pay Apple again to renew my SDK license or everything I've written becomes uninstallable. When I do renew my SDK, I have to recompile everything to use the new certificate.

donate

[101percent]

Good reason to contribute to the FSF fundraiser

Re:How is this new?

[dgatwood]

Blaming the pirates for DRM is like blaming terrorists for the porn scanners at the airport. The terrorists didn't take put those scanners in the airports; our own government did. The pirates didn't add DRM to our multimedia content and apps; the manufacturers did....

We are each responsible for our own actions. People pirating movies does not excuse the industry's reaction to it any more than foreign terrorists crashing some planes into buildings on September 11th excuses unlawful searches, unlawful wiretapping, unlawful detention, etc. It takes two to tango. It is far better to deny the other side battle than to pursue a course that leads to totalitarianism.

Automotive analogy...

[wetpainter]

I suggest general computing may go the way the auto industry did. There was a time when my father was a young man (the 1950s) when you could build and modify cars any way you wanted (I am in Australia, your experience may be different). You had to have it approved to drive on the roads but it was relatively easy to do and lots of men had the skills and interest to do it. The last remnants of these skills are seen in the small number of people who build hotrods or modify 4x4's. Government regulations since the 1980s have made this increasingly difficult. Auto repairers are no longer allowed to use second-hand parts for repairs to cars and entire panels must be replaced rather than filled, sanded and repainted. All modifications must have a private automotive engineer inspect work done and certify the quality. This is also expensive. Increasing safety regulations in new cars has made then more expensive and heavier. I apologise for the automotive analogy, but computing may go the same way. 99% of people will just buy cheap off the shelf consumer devices to watch YouTube clips and use FaceBook. They will have no interest in using computers for anything else. People who want to "build" their own computers and modify or write custom software will go the way of back yard mechanics - they will be regarded with suspicion and seen as dangerous to the interests of society. They will be considered as subversives, or worse, libertarians ;) And to tie back to cars again, governments will eventually mandate tracking devices in cars for charging a per kilometer/mile tax and mandate automated speed limiting will be enforced. Police (or the TSA in the US) will push for remote kill switches to be compulsory on the grounds that high speed chases are too dangerous. Remote door locking by the police to prevent escape will be included. Safety proponents will also lobby for fully automated cars that will not be allowed to be controlled by human drivers while on major roads and freeways/toll roads. Drivers who hack their cars to circumvent these controls will be criminals. Today those who agitate against laws like SOPA are seen by governments as potential terrorists. Imagine the crazy laws against home-brew computer enthusiasts that will be proposed by the big content entities and bureaucrats pushing for the SOPA twenty years from now. Twenty years ago no one imagined the Patriot Act could have existed, but it does and is unlikely to ever be revoked. Governments have no interest in having computer technology empowering society. Again, sorry for diverging from the primary topic.

Re:How walled is "walled"?

[Samantha Wright]

As has been said in response elsewhere:

- An iOS developer license has a recurring fee of $99 per year
- You can legally use totally free GNU tools to develop for Windows and OS X, but not the iOS, and not actually have to buy Windows or OS X
- The iOS cross-compiler still requires OS X, which means (legally, anyway) a Mac. The cheapest Mac currently on sale in the Apple Store, a Mac Mini, is $599.

It's really, really substantial.

Some more thoughts on these issues

[zuki]

I generally agree with the view that we are going down a slippery slope when it comes to individual liberties being subverted to fit the model of special interest groups like the copyright cartel. A couple of things I thought about.

-1) It's worth remembering that Hollywood became what it was when the young movie industry felt stifled and encumbered by Thomas Edison's legal challenges asking everyone to pay license fees to use his inventions on the East Coast, so they decided to move West. (sounds familiar?...) People and companies will move again if there is no breathing room left in the US.

-2) Between China and India there are over 2.5 billion people on the planet to whom this makes no difference whatsoever, as for all intents and purposes, copyright enforcement is non-existent. The market they create is too big to ignore, and general-purpose computing boxes that are fully open and customizable will always be around because of them.

Re:How walled is "walled"?

[Raenex]

The question is, is it a walled garden or not? The answer is yes, because you have to get permission and pay extra to develop or install non-approved applications on your device. I can still buy a PC and there is no "unlocking" or "developer" account to install a different OS, install any application I want, or write software for it.