The reality of doing business for these vendors dictates [closing driver source code], however.
Quoting from Eric S. Raymond's essay "The Magic Cauldron":
If you are a hardware vendor, you may fear that open-sourcing may reveal important things about how your hardware operates that competitiors could copy, thus gaining an unfair competitive advantage. Back in the days of three- to five-year product cycles this was a valid argument. Today, the time your competitor's engineers would need to spend copying and understanding is a damagingly large portion of the product cycle, time they are not spending innovating or differentiating their own product.
This is not a new insight....[skip two examples]... Acceleration to Internet time makes this effect bite harder. If you are really ahead of the game, plagarism is a trap you want you competitors to fall into!
In any case, these details don't stay hidden for long these days. Hardware drivers are not like operating systems or applications; they're small, easy to disassemble, and easy to clone. Even teenage novice programmers can do this -- and frequently do.
There is no practical business reason for closed source drivers: it is a false sense of security in protecting the innovations that really don't have (or need!) much protection nowadays. Furthermore, since you have already achieved the full value of R&D money spent (by developing your product), there is no "loss" (as you put it, "giving their R&D budget to the competition") to account for. Indeed, in this view releasing drivers under a "mandatory sharing" license such as the GPL multiplies the value of said research as it allows you to gain more free (zero cost) research as those who would copy your R&D must release their alterations to your code.
No, those are not the DigiQ tanks. I own a pair of DigiQs, and they are about half that size and quite a bit more historically accurate (the DigiQ line is modeled -- as I said, somewhat accurately -- on WWII tanks). Furthermore, the ThinkGeek tanks are hard-coded to one frequency while the DigiQ can be reprogrammed. DigiQ also have multiple battle modes, including a very fun "simulation" (where different models have different ammo payloads and reload times).
we need the DMCA... to assert our God Given Right to own ideas forever.
I see you intended this as a "funny", but apparently not everyone sees the joke.
IANAL, but the wording of the Constitution makes it clear that (in the US) copyright is not a God Given Right. How can a natural, god-given right be both conditional ("to promote the Useful Arts") and time-limited in nature?
HP and IBM have both tossed out the word "billion" when talking about Linux revenues.
I'm not going to contest this statement, but I'd like to point out two things:
The $billion figures most people are familiar with with IBM & such is their investment figures; I avoid mentioning such cases first in case the other person misunderstands what I am saying.
IBM and (to a lesser extent) HP are hardware behemoths that can afford a large loss leader product. (Just look at Microsoft, where the OS and Applications divisions "prop up" everything else.) Again, to avoid misunderstandings I avoid the large scale cases where the other person might conclude the corporate strategy involves software as a loss leader.
In my experience, if you want to "prove" to someone that Open Source/Free Software is profitable, you don't start with the gargantuan multinational businesses where economics work differently, but the small/medium sized ones.
However people who create software still need to be paid for their work, and the only way to do that is to control dissemination of the software.
You haven't read Eric S. Raymonds' essay "The Magic Cauldron", have you? He lists seven case studies in profitable open source with the names of companies that make money utilizing (or in his opinion could make more money moving to) a an open source method. I'll let you find his essay to read all seven--I'm presenting here just the two most compelling success stories.
Firstly consider the RedHat "services" route: our software is free, but you pay for {automated updates|technical support|etc}. Red Hat is making money in this are-- and since they are a public company the facts are available to prove that point.
Secondly consier the O'Reilly/IBM "accessories" route: we have a side business publishing free software (PERL, JFS) but that is mostly to garner good will in our primary business of selling {books|hardware|etc}. Here, too, we have undeniable proof of profitability.
I generally don't adress profitability myself in my advocacy -- I refer people to (what I consider to be) the definitive research on the topic.
"Pulling together is the goal of tyrants and despots. Free men pull in all directions." -- Terry Pratchett
If there is a riotous variety of applications for the desktop, it's only because of the vast differences in the way people operate. The reason that you don't see this on the server application side is that these are often longer-term projects, leading people away from writing Yet-Another-IRC-Client to Yet-Another-Apache-Module (or configuration option).
There is absoluely nothing wrong with Linux having six (or sixteen) different graphical system configurators... just so long as when someone asks me to help them fix a problem they're having, I can get to the underlying base configuration files/tools (ifconfig, modprobe, etc) to do things "the hard way".
It's not that it's just technologically impossible; it's logically impossible. A billion years of technological advances can't change that.
This was the very comment I was going to post -- logically, an Digital Rights Manglement module is a symbolic language [that assumes the end user cannot be trusted]. So how do you open source that language -- thus letting the [supposedly untrustworthy] end user alter it at their whim -- while guaranteeing that it still does Digital Rights Manglement?
You can't. The whole idea violates an (unspoken) premise of the system. This, my friends, is the modern day Spruce Goose. Shall we start a betting pool now as to how long it will take for someone to write an (undetectable) patch for "unlocking" their system keys?
Microsoft as a Government?
on
BSA IDC FUD
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· Score: 1
"When people are using software but they're using a pirated version, they're not paying the government the tax revenues it should be receiving," Holleyman said.
We may joke here on/. about the "Microsoft tax" and the naming of Passport being fallacious, but apparently somebody in the software business doesn't look upon these issues quite so jovially....
This just goes to (yet again) show how the Gatus of Borg icon really strikes a chord of truth!
I trust an operating system based on how many different processor architectures it has been ported to. Since Windows runs only on x86 I vest very little trust in it. Mac X provides an interesting contrast: I trust the BSD core a little (as it runs on several architectures) but the Darwin interface is, like Windows, single architecture and hence effectively untrusted. Linux, of course, is generally as trusted as BSD with a few notable exceptions (Gentoo-- runs on any architecture with a C compiler...)
Between the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act granting longer terms to copyright and the DMCA granting greater "enforcement" powers to the holder (in the form of legally-unbreakable encryption) the trend in copyright seems to be passing into more power for the holder and a weakening --perhaps even destruction-- of fair use and of a public domain. Likewise, the proliferation of code patents encroaches upon the creative commons from yet another angle, and all of these aspects serve only the entrenched players in various fields (cable/satellite companies, MPAA/RIAA, IBM/Microsoft/Adobe, etc.). What would you propose to be the proper balance of interests and what measures do you think should be taken to arrive there?
Thanks to the S. Bono Copyright Extension Act, you do have to -- and will, until 2030 (unless they extend copyright again). Why do you think so many (read: just about all) restraunts have their own version?
If Mickey Mouse isn't a convincing argument we have copyright terms that are too long, this ought to be.
I don't understand your use of "input" and "output". How do you measure them?
Well, I doubt Steven King doesn't listen to music or go out with his wife to a movie every so often... I'm just saying that even the producers of media content consume said content. You don't have to measure how much [for now] -- just whether they do or not. The answer is "yes", obviously. Now we ask, "could Steven King write a novel or movie script as fast as he takes in such things?" Again, the answer is obvious... if he takes months to write a single novel, he'd better only hear one song, read one book, watch one episode of a TV show, or see one movie in that span of time or else output falls behind input....
Are you really saying Stephen [King] should value the fair use rights lost during his 3 months of writing at that value [additional funds generated]?
Do you remember the movie "Batteries Not Included"? One of the lines in that movie was a character quoting the GE ad "We bring good things to life". It wasn't a critical line in the movie, but it set the tone for how the characters interated in a way no other word combination could... in that case, fair use of a trademarked (/copyrighted) phrase was worth the entire value of the movie. Even in less blatant uses, fair use is of immense value to content creators -- you can't reinvent the entire industry with each and every work you produce (AKA the "Shoulders of Giants" effect).
Also, as a point I did not bring up before [it was irrelevant at the time]: as with current copy protection schemes (Macrovision, SecuROM, CSS), DRM does not include an stated expiration of protection -- the copyright (thanks to DMCA-style 'can't crack' laws) becomes perpetual. Under such a scheme, there will never be another Walt Disney, blessing us with his creative interpretations of Public Domain works (as there isn't one under DRM). Are you telling me that you would sacrifice his $40B empire (plus all others outside of that one example) for additional controls over use that would probably garner, at that scale, a few hundred million dollars more?
I'm sorry... the benefits gained by granting new rights to a few does not -- nay, cannot -- outweight the costs incurred by taking a right from all. While the lost right may seem insignificant, such "trivial" matters often underlie far more than what first meets the eye... without fair use or the expiration of copyright, there would be very little content produced at all.
The DRM advocates must choose the Napsterization Model: It is potentially the most damaging, in terms of profits.
Yes, please! If the DRM advocates fail to see the fallacy of their completely-closed Rights Manglement model (that even content creators will lose fair use rights, which they must have to creating new works) then having consumer backlash force them out of the market in favor of *AA-independent creators might wake them up.
Oh, wait, you meant Napsterization is more damaging than Causual Copy....
Felten's comments come close to, but do not quite repeat, the twin comments I have been making to friends about Digital Rights Manglement for the past year.
First, Digital Rights Manglement schemes assume that the control over use of media offered to producers due to the virtue of being digital -- controls which they have never before possed in any other medium -- outstrip the value of fair use rights for their entire [potential] audience, despite the twin facts that fair use rights are established in law, and that [some of] the controls suggested violate other legal doctrines such as first sale. This alone is enough to dissuade me from supporting any such schemes.
Secondly, even if you are a prolific creator -- such as Steven King or the Beatles -- you cannot create as much media output as you have input. Even for a creator, the fair use rights lost to DRM will outweigh the additional rights gained. Any way you slice the question, the public rights lost to Manglement will outweigh the private ones gained, because even the few beneficiaries also lose -- on a scale far larger than they gain. (The rest of us just lose.)
That and the second part about employees doing more work at home than goofing of at work all boil down to one thing: Learn how to manage your friggin' time properly and you won't have to worry about that.
No, it breaks down into a simple choice: does your business want employees who will give their all from 9-5 M-F but are upset when asked to give more or give at any other time, or employees who will do what is needed reguardless of the amount of time required, or the time of request but might slack off when their services are less critical?
On basis of that criterion alone, I personally would rather live in the second world, as either employee or manager.
The cost of making a physical CD is not what you are paying for when you buy a CD. You are paying for the cost of developing, testing, marketing, researching both that program and future programs.[Emphasis altered]
Under this theory, the $100 price of BSAWare Version 1 supports the development of both itself and the next version. Wouldn't that mean that all version 2.0 (and all others) cost only $50 as the development costs have already been recouped? And since this $50 price is covering only future development and reproduction, as costs for both decrease (march of progress and all that) the price should continue a slow decline?
Obviously this is not the theory the BSA member companies are working from: the prices of their software have remained very stable.
Where does his figure "$3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy" come from? How does he "measure" this loss, being as it's really difficult to measure negative quantities. Is he counting the total street value of large-scale bootleg videotapes, or some sort of hypothetical "if Joe Average hadn't taped Star Trek off the tv, he would have bought the box set" figure?
Given his "have/eat cake" fallacy in reguard to backups as you noted I suspect he's counting both...
I'm a hobbyist who builds his own computer, writes his own software, and (on rare occasions) will build hardware components (as in: with solder and chips). What assurance do I have that your "Trusted Computing" initiative won't interfere with my projects? Interference here is defined as reducing the operational capacities -- including networking features -- of the computer or reducing my ability to develop to my needs. In a way this is four separate questions: how software, Trusted vendor hardware, pre-Trust vendor hardware, and home-built hardware integrate into the "Trusted Computing" architecture.
How would the people who worked on MPEG4 make money without licensing fees?
Easy. If the companies that composed the MPEG consortium were hardware vendors -- much like those for USB or wireless networking -- then the codecs could be developed (with a mind to selling things such as digital video cameras based off the standard rather than the standard) at "no cost".
People are not claiming the right to cheat: I have never heard anybody complain that online chess servers don't allow them to log in and remove the other guys queen while he is taking a bathroom break.
I hate playing chess over Yahoo or any other public server! Why? It restricts me to the classical rules of chess when I want to play cooler games like Knightmare Chess or perhaps just other, tamer, variants on chess! Most of these rules require "cheating" as you so sladerously phrased it! Until this severe lack of client functionality has been remedied, I refuse to play online chess!
(<sarcasm> tags omitted as I'm not really sure I'm 100% joking....)
Your mp3 analogy is thought-provoking, but I think not valid. They are not taking the same forms.
On the contrary, they are exactly the same thing. When I said "MP3" you heard "P2P" -- and there you are correct. But companies like BMG are trying to publish CDs that can't be ripped -- and that exactly is what I'm arguing against. (P2P, in my mind, is a different kettle of fish altogether.)
With the DeCSS cases, American courts accepted the argument that code==speech. My point of view makes sense when you start thinking that code==law, too. The design and limitations of program code carry the same weight as the legal, contractual, or whatever other limits are placed on my ability to alter that code.
This article is talking about this as though it is some brave stand against a corporation doing something bad.
This is about people cheating at a game.
To me, this issue is about a brave stand... not against a particular corporation or act, but a general class of fallacy. To me, the right to cheat exists (although it is socially despicable to do so outside of single player games, unless every player agrees beforehand to cheat) and opposition to this right generally takes the same form as the opposition of my right to media shift (ie rip CDs to portable MP3 player).
I, personally, do not care much about the forum in which I speak: issues generally resolve to only a few different categories, and I treat all items in a category the same. A social problem cannot be eradicated with technological measures. Personally, I feel it my "duty" to reiterate this point as often, and as loudly, as possible -- mostly due to a copious lack of counter examples. This issue seems to be better than CD ripping for making my point, though: the fact that I oppose cheating (vehemently!) and yet seem to support the cheaters strengthens my point. (My solution, if you care, is to play only with friends -- even on consoles.)
These corporations exist not for oppression, but rather to make money for their shareholders.
To me, this reads like "The drug cartels exist to supply demand for certain products in other countries, not to kill & oppress the local people in Central America". Technically correct, but semantically null.
Slashdot Mirror
The reality of doing business for these vendors dictates [closing driver source code], however.
Quoting from Eric S. Raymond's essay "The Magic Cauldron": There is no practical business reason for closed source drivers: it is a false sense of security in protecting the innovations that really don't have (or need!) much protection nowadays. Furthermore, since you have already achieved the full value of R&D money spent (by developing your product), there is no "loss" (as you put it, "giving their R&D budget to the competition") to account for. Indeed, in this view releasing drivers under a "mandatory sharing" license such as the GPL multiplies the value of said research as it allows you to gain more free (zero cost) research as those who would copy your R&D must release their alterations to your code.No, those are not the DigiQ tanks. I own a pair of DigiQs, and they are about half that size and quite a bit more historically accurate (the DigiQ line is modeled -- as I said, somewhat accurately -- on WWII tanks). Furthermore, the ThinkGeek tanks are hard-coded to one frequency while the DigiQ can be reprogrammed. DigiQ also have multiple battle modes, including a very fun "simulation" (where different models have different ammo payloads and reload times).
IANAL, but the wording of the Constitution makes it clear that (in the US) copyright is not a God Given Right. How can a natural, god-given right be both conditional ("to promote the Useful Arts") and time-limited in nature?
- The $billion figures most people are familiar with with IBM & such is their investment figures; I avoid mentioning such cases first in case the other person misunderstands what I am saying.
- IBM and (to a lesser extent) HP are hardware behemoths that can afford a large loss leader product. (Just look at Microsoft, where the OS and Applications divisions "prop up" everything else.) Again, to avoid misunderstandings I avoid the large scale cases where the other person might conclude the corporate strategy involves software as a loss leader.
In my experience, if you want to "prove" to someone that Open Source/Free Software is profitable, you don't start with the gargantuan multinational businesses where economics work differently, but the small/medium sized ones.Firstly consider the RedHat "services" route: our software is free, but you pay for {automated updates|technical support|etc}. Red Hat is making money in this are-- and since they are a public company the facts are available to prove that point.
Secondly consier the O'Reilly/IBM "accessories" route: we have a side business publishing free software (PERL, JFS) but that is mostly to garner good will in our primary business of selling {books|hardware|etc}. Here, too, we have undeniable proof of profitability.
I generally don't adress profitability myself in my advocacy -- I refer people to (what I consider to be) the definitive research on the topic.
"Pulling together is the goal of tyrants and despots. Free men pull in all directions." -- Terry Pratchett
... just so long as when someone asks me to help them fix a problem they're having, I can get to the underlying base configuration files/tools (ifconfig, modprobe, etc) to do things "the hard way".
If there is a riotous variety of applications for the desktop, it's only because of the vast differences in the way people operate. The reason that you don't see this on the server application side is that these are often longer-term projects, leading people away from writing Yet-Another-IRC-Client to Yet-Another-Apache-Module (or configuration option).
There is absoluely nothing wrong with Linux having six (or sixteen) different graphical system configurators
You can't. The whole idea violates an (unspoken) premise of the system. This, my friends, is the modern day Spruce Goose. Shall we start a betting pool now as to how long it will take for someone to write an (undetectable) patch for "unlocking" their system keys?
This just goes to (yet again) show how the Gatus of Borg icon really strikes a chord of truth!
I trust an operating system based on how many different processor architectures it has been ported to. Since Windows runs only on x86 I vest very little trust in it. Mac X provides an interesting contrast: I trust the BSD core a little (as it runs on several architectures) but the Darwin interface is, like Windows, single architecture and hence effectively untrusted. Linux, of course, is generally as trusted as BSD with a few notable exceptions (Gentoo-- runs on any architecture with a C compiler...)
Between the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act granting longer terms to copyright and the DMCA granting greater "enforcement" powers to the holder (in the form of legally-unbreakable encryption) the trend in copyright seems to be passing into more power for the holder and a weakening --perhaps even destruction-- of fair use and of a public domain. Likewise, the proliferation of code patents encroaches upon the creative commons from yet another angle, and all of these aspects serve only the entrenched players in various fields (cable/satellite companies, MPAA/RIAA, IBM/Microsoft/Adobe, etc.). What would you propose to be the proper balance of interests and what measures do you think should be taken to arrive there?
Thanks to the S. Bono Copyright Extension Act, you do have to -- and will, until 2030 (unless they extend copyright again). Why do you think so many (read: just about all) restraunts have their own version?
If Mickey Mouse isn't a convincing argument we have copyright terms that are too long, this ought to be.
Also, as a point I did not bring up before [it was irrelevant at the time]: as with current copy protection schemes (Macrovision, SecuROM, CSS), DRM does not include an stated expiration of protection -- the copyright (thanks to DMCA-style 'can't crack' laws) becomes perpetual. Under such a scheme, there will never be another Walt Disney, blessing us with his creative interpretations of Public Domain works (as there isn't one under DRM). Are you telling me that you would sacrifice his $40B empire (plus all others outside of that one example) for additional controls over use that would probably garner, at that scale, a few hundred million dollars more?
I'm sorry... the benefits gained by granting new rights to a few does not -- nay, cannot -- outweight the costs incurred by taking a right from all. While the lost right may seem insignificant, such "trivial" matters often underlie far more than what first meets the eye... without fair use or the expiration of copyright, there would be very little content produced at all.
Oh, wait, you meant Napsterization is more damaging than Causual Copy....
Felten's comments come close to, but do not quite repeat, the twin comments I have been making to friends about Digital Rights Manglement for the past year.
First, Digital Rights Manglement schemes assume that the control over use of media offered to producers due to the virtue of being digital -- controls which they have never before possed in any other medium -- outstrip the value of fair use rights for their entire [potential] audience, despite the twin facts that fair use rights are established in law, and that [some of] the controls suggested violate other legal doctrines such as first sale. This alone is enough to dissuade me from supporting any such schemes.
Secondly, even if you are a prolific creator -- such as Steven King or the Beatles -- you cannot create as much media output as you have input. Even for a creator, the fair use rights lost to DRM will outweigh the additional rights gained. Any way you slice the question, the public rights lost to Manglement will outweigh the private ones gained, because even the few beneficiaries also lose -- on a scale far larger than they gain. (The rest of us just lose.)
Better yet, set the system up with a proxy server (squid) and use the logs from that. No worries that the child can wipe that history log...
'Course, this solution requires Linux/Unix (or a similar proxy software for Windows) -- YMMV.
That and the second part about employees doing more work at home than goofing of at work all boil down to one thing: Learn how to manage your friggin' time properly and you won't have to worry about that.
No, it breaks down into a simple choice: does your business want employees who will give their all from 9-5 M-F but are upset when asked to give more or give at any other time, or employees who will do what is needed reguardless of the amount of time required, or the time of request but might slack off when their services are less critical?
On basis of that criterion alone, I personally would rather live in the second world, as either employee or manager.
The cost of making a physical CD is not what you are paying for when you buy a CD. You are paying for the cost of developing, testing, marketing, researching both that program and future programs.[Emphasis altered]
Under this theory, the $100 price of BSAWare Version 1 supports the development of both itself and the next version. Wouldn't that mean that all version 2.0 (and all others) cost only $50 as the development costs have already been recouped? And since this $50 price is covering only future development and reproduction, as costs for both decrease (march of progress and all that) the price should continue a slow decline?
Obviously this is not the theory the BSA member companies are working from: the prices of their software have remained very stable.
Where does his figure "$3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy" come from? How does he "measure" this loss, being as it's really difficult to measure negative quantities. Is he counting the total street value of large-scale bootleg videotapes, or some sort of hypothetical "if Joe Average hadn't taped Star Trek off the tv, he would have bought the box set" figure?
Given his "have/eat cake" fallacy in reguard to backups as you noted I suspect he's counting both...
You know, like the MPAA or RIAA???
Their association is falling down on the job... nobody's suing over this!!!
I'm a hobbyist who builds his own computer, writes his own software, and (on rare occasions) will build hardware components (as in: with solder and chips). What assurance do I have that your "Trusted Computing" initiative won't interfere with my projects? Interference here is defined as reducing the operational capacities -- including networking features -- of the computer or reducing my ability to develop to my needs. In a way this is four separate questions: how software, Trusted vendor hardware, pre-Trust vendor hardware, and home-built hardware integrate into the "Trusted Computing" architecture.
(<sarcasm> tags omitted as I'm not really sure I'm 100% joking....)
With the DeCSS cases, American courts accepted the argument that code==speech. My point of view makes sense when you start thinking that code==law, too. The design and limitations of program code carry the same weight as the legal, contractual, or whatever other limits are placed on my ability to alter that code.
I, personally, do not care much about the forum in which I speak: issues generally resolve to only a few different categories, and I treat all items in a category the same. A social problem cannot be eradicated with technological measures. Personally, I feel it my "duty" to reiterate this point as often, and as loudly, as possible -- mostly due to a copious lack of counter examples. This issue seems to be better than CD ripping for making my point, though: the fact that I oppose cheating (vehemently!) and yet seem to support the cheaters strengthens my point. (My solution, if you care, is to play only with friends -- even on consoles.)
These corporations exist not for oppression, but rather to make money for their shareholders.
To me, this reads like "The drug cartels exist to supply demand for certain products in other countries, not to kill & oppress the local people in Central America". Technically correct, but semantically null.