I think you are looking too much at the short term.
Having more interoperable DRM will be better than having non-interoperable DRM right now, but it will only delay the real goal of no DRM at all.
I'd prefer to put up with a short term spate of incompatability, shortly followed by no DRM at all (which is actually already starting to happen, at least in with music) than a half-assed sort-of-better solution that in reality will never fully work as intended.
While not specifically relating to user interfaces of computer software, there is an excellent book relating to making things in general easy to use, and most of the ideas translate well to GUIs.
The book is called "The design of everyday things" by Donald Norman.
The software companies that amass the most patents these days, are typically those who do not innovate. This is a perfect example of that.
I'm astonished that there is still any real belief that number of patents filed is any kind of measure of innovation. It's pretty much orthogonal as far as I can see.
Just because the patent systems original intended purpose was to stimulate innovation, doesn't mean that that's what it's actually used for.
I don't like having to install non-free flash. I would have no complaints if a free implementation worked for me, but it doesn't. (And my reasons for complaining about MS office documents go way beyond it being a proprietry format, but I won't go into that - its a different subject and a poor comparison anyway)
Now that Sun's Java is open source, wouldn't it be great if there was an open source Java applet that could download streaming video and audio in an open format that could then be used by everyone, without forcing the poor windows users to install anything new?
Does that count as offering an alternative that would be acceptable to me?
Your biggest mistake is in over-generalizing. You forget that the open source "zealots" are a HUGE group and have a wide range of different reasons for their opinions. You have simply picked on a few easy targets to attack, and the pretended that they somehow represent the whole group.
What you said sounds like something I would have said a few years ago. Nowadays I simply refuse to be rushed when developing important code. As a result I have a reputation (whether deserved or not) of being one of the better coders amongst us. Managers now come to me for solutions to their difficult problems and are coming to respect the fact that I'm honest about my estimates on work, and although I might take longer than some others, the code doesn't come back to be fixed half a dozen times and make the project even later.
If you are good enough and you company values you, use your position as a lever to get things done better.
I don't think I have disagreed more strongly with anything I have ever read on slashdot.
If there's one lesson I have learned in my time as software developer (and designer) it is this:
You will not get everything right first time, no matter how much time you spend designing it. You will discover lots of thinks you didn't (and often couldn't) predict, while you are doing the development.
The solution to this is less initial design, and accepting they things will change. You then have more time to change things later based on what you learn during development.
What you seem to advocate is called "waterfall development" and was discredited as a software development methodology over twenty years ago. Despite this, many are still using it, and as a result having software developed is still very expensive and frequently takes longer than predicted.
Open source has nothing to do with trusting vendors or drawing lines. One of the central points of open source software is that I want to read it because I might want to change and improve it for myself, and I may want to freely pass those changes to others. Comparing to hardware such as CPUs is bogus because even if I did know how my CPU worked internally, I don't have the fabrication plant to make a new version, nor is it trivially simple to give everyone else the same benefit for next to zero cost because they don't have fabrication plants either.
If you want to trust vendors who won't let you look for yourself how things work, then fine; it's up to you, but don't go claiming it's the same for everyone because it ain't.
Also, the tactics employed by adobe and others, where they let people initially have stuff for free until they are used to it and want to continue using it, and then suddenly make them pay, is very similar to the business model used by some kinds of drug dealers.
Like many others, I have always looked for DRM free music and will go to the best source that can give it to me. Sometimes that ends up with the artist being paid and sometimes it doesn't.
Once there is a way to buy all music without DRM, I'll use it because I want the artists to get paid for their work.
Unfortunately though, through their insistence on using DRM, particularly for inline sales, the industry has so far forced the customer to go elsewhere for DRM free music. Over time this has led to the establishment of very efficient and convenient ways to get most music. Now that people are using such methods, it will be very hard to lure them away to a paid alternative unless the industry can offer something better.
What could they offer though? Maybe they could provide files in flac format, since those are slightly harder to find on existing sites for some types of music. That could persuade some users. I can't think of much else, but whatever they do they need to make it better than what the fans already get for free and they need to do it fast.
They won't though. They won't even try. They'll continue to bury their heads in the sand and moan about how they think piracy is hurting the artists.
I've seen ssh MITM attempts myself with tor, but this can easily be avoided by ensuring you check your fingerprints. You do check your fingerprints, don't you?
No shop can make a profit if too many people take products from them without paying.
Many, many companies make a profit from software without charging for the product itself.
See the difference?
Yes, I find security guards annoying. If some shop found a way to make a good profit without them I would shop there.
Similarly, if a software provider found a way not to need copy protection, I would buy from them. Oh wait! They do. They have adapted their business model to better suit lots of their customers and as a result they are getting more customers.
I'm sure shops would do the same if they could, but traditional goods and software are not the same. In the past lots of legal framework has been set up to try and crowbar software (which is a fundamentally abundant resource once created) into the old economic model of physical goods (which are not) but it is failing, and failing badly.
And if it was even slightly more restrictive than that, what do you think people would do?
Buy it, or opt for one of the better (free of charge, free software) alternatives (7zip for example?)
The WinZip authors know that by having this free to use version, people will download their version which gives them free advertising and keeps up their market share. This means that when someone decides to spend money, they most likely will go with WinZip.
It's the same way Microsoft works. They know a lot of the pirates, if stopped completely from using windows for free would not buy it. They would use something else. Bill gates once said that he would prefer people who aren't going to pay anyway to use windows for free rather than use software from competitors.
That is a very poor straw man argument you have made.
Surely these days, we don't still have to point out the difference between stealing and copyright infringement? It is fairly basic stuff.
People will pick the distribution channel that most suits them. Different people have different priorities.
Here are a few:
1) Much be high quality. 2) Must be available as a download. 3) Must come in a box with a nice shiny cover. 4) Must be legal. 5) Must be cheap (or free of charge) 6) Must not have DRM. 7) Must not require a long term subscription. 8) Must be playable on multiple devices of users choice 9) etc...
Each way of getting the content has different characteristics. All this guy is saying is that he already ruled out cable, presumably because it doesn't match well with his preferences. Now that his current preferred method has gone too, he is picking the next best in his list. And it isn't to get cable.
The implication was that he would download it without paying. It's not even clear in many jurisdictions whether that would be a copyright violation in the first place, despite what the major media companies would like you to think.
Actually, he didn't even say it was copyright infringement. He said it was "theft pure and simple" which is even more wrong, and that's saying something.
When you say "the legal documents to which you become a party", I assume you are talking about a contract. It is impossible in most civilised countries to enter into a contract without signing it. I have never signed anything when purchasing a CD, DVD or similar, so the only legal aspect that matters is that I now own the goods I have paid for. I am not a party to anything.
Most DRMed products are not "sold", but rather "licensed". As such, the owner has every right to control their use
There is no basis in law upon which they can have any such control. A landlord can restrict an apartment because it is HIS apartment! When I buy a CD or DVD, it is MINE. If it has a label on it that says "this is only licensed for foo and blah" that makes no difference to how I can USE it.
If you bought a shovel from a shop and it had a label saying "you may not use this to shovel potatoes, it has only been licenses for shovelling rocks", what do you think will happen if you ignore it. That's right, nothing! Because you don't need a license from a manufacturer to use their products in whatever way you want once you own them.
If you disagree, please inform me exactly what law I will be breaking and what I would be taken to court for when I use my possesions in a way the manufacturer didn't want me to.
It's not an imaginary line. It is not okay for some company or individual to be able to control how I can use what I own. I find it unacceptable that I can't watch any version of a movie that I have bought. It's MY copy of the movie and I'll do what I want with it.
It's no different from the supermarket selling me apples and building in a technical restriction that prevents me eating them at night (for example.) It's totally unreasonable because I own the apples. If the person who grew them wants to retain control then they shouldn't have sold them.
Restricting how people can use things is a job for the law, not for manufacturers, growers etc. Restricting how someone can copy and build upon the work of others on the other hand, is what we have copyright law for and is what the GPL is built upon.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you are looking too much at the short term.
Having more interoperable DRM will be better than having non-interoperable DRM right now, but it will only delay the real goal of no DRM at all.
I'd prefer to put up with a short term spate of incompatability, shortly followed by no DRM at all (which is actually already starting to happen, at least in with music) than a half-assed sort-of-better solution that in reality will never fully work as intended.
While not specifically relating to user interfaces of computer software, there is an excellent book relating to making things in general easy to use, and most of the ideas translate well to GUIs.
The book is called "The design of everyday things" by Donald Norman.
The software companies that amass the most patents these days, are typically those who do not innovate. This is a perfect example of that.
I'm astonished that there is still any real belief that number of patents filed is any kind of measure of innovation. It's pretty much orthogonal as far as I can see.
Just because the patent systems original intended purpose was to stimulate innovation, doesn't mean that that's what it's actually used for.
I don't like having to install non-free flash. I would have no complaints if a free implementation worked for me, but it doesn't. (And my reasons for complaining about MS office documents go way beyond it being a proprietry format, but I won't go into that - its a different subject and a poor comparison anyway)
Now that Sun's Java is open source, wouldn't it be great if there was an open source Java applet that could download streaming video and audio in an open format that could then be used by everyone, without forcing the poor windows users to install anything new?
Oh, look there already is.
Does that count as offering an alternative that would be acceptable to me?
Your biggest mistake is in over-generalizing. You forget that the open source "zealots" are a HUGE group and have a wide range of different reasons for their opinions. You have simply picked on a few easy targets to attack, and the pretended that they somehow represent the whole group.
You do have a choice.
What you said sounds like something I would have said a few years ago. Nowadays I simply refuse to be rushed when developing important code. As a result I have a reputation (whether deserved or not) of being one of the better coders amongst us. Managers now come to me for solutions to their difficult problems and are coming to respect the fact that I'm honest about my estimates on work, and although I might take longer than some others, the code doesn't come back to be fixed half a dozen times and make the project even later.
If you are good enough and you company values you, use your position as a lever to get things done better.
I don't think I have disagreed more strongly with anything I have ever read on slashdot.
If there's one lesson I have learned in my time as software developer (and designer) it is this:
You will not get everything right first time, no matter how much time you spend designing it. You will discover lots of thinks you didn't (and often couldn't) predict, while you are doing the development.
The solution to this is less initial design, and accepting they things will change. You then have more time to change things later based on what you learn during development.
What you seem to advocate is called "waterfall development" and was discredited as a software development methodology over twenty years ago. Despite this, many are still using it, and as a result having software developed is still very expensive and frequently takes longer than predicted.
Open source has nothing to do with trusting vendors or drawing lines. One of the central points of open source software is that I want to read it because I might want to change and improve it for myself, and I may want to freely pass those changes to others. Comparing to hardware such as CPUs is bogus because even if I did know how my CPU worked internally, I don't have the fabrication plant to make a new version, nor is it trivially simple to give everyone else the same benefit for next to zero cost because they don't have fabrication plants either.
If you want to trust vendors who won't let you look for yourself how things work, then fine; it's up to you, but don't go claiming it's the same for everyone because it ain't.
Also, the tactics employed by adobe and others, where they let people initially have stuff for free until they are used to it and want to continue using it, and then suddenly make them pay, is very similar to the business model used by some kinds of drug dealers.
What particular job is it that you are using windows for, that you find it is best at?
During my career, I've found that windows is okay at a whole range of things, but best at nothing.
Then don't use WSAD. It's crap.
I changed to eclipse and everything is blazingly fast.
Like many others, I have always looked for DRM free music and will go to the best source that can give it to me. Sometimes that ends up with the artist being paid and sometimes it doesn't.
Once there is a way to buy all music without DRM, I'll use it because I want the artists to get paid for their work.
Unfortunately though, through their insistence on using DRM, particularly for inline sales, the industry has so far forced the customer to go elsewhere for DRM free music. Over time this has led to the establishment of very efficient and convenient ways to get most music. Now that people are using such methods, it will be very hard to lure them away to a paid alternative unless the industry can offer something better.
What could they offer though? Maybe they could provide files in flac format, since those are slightly harder to find on existing sites for some types of music. That could persuade some users. I can't think of much else, but whatever they do they need to make it better than what the fans already get for free and they need to do it fast.
They won't though. They won't even try. They'll continue to bury their heads in the sand and moan about how they think piracy is hurting the artists.
I guess this is why I liked Manic Miner but quickly got bored with Jetset Willy.
I've seen ssh MITM attempts myself with tor, but this can easily be avoided by ensuring you check your fingerprints. You do check your fingerprints, don't you?
but was it "obvious" to people before Amazon did it? If so, then why was Amazon the first?
Someone is first to do everything, and that includes obvious things.
Actually that concept does work in the real world where it is used, it's just not being used everywhere. Those places need fixing.
Nice theory. Where is your evidence to support it?
Honest people are already honest, and it's not your business to keep them so. That's what the law is for.
Thanks for your URL though. I'll add it to the "never buy from these guys" list.
Spoken like somebody who has never run a software development company.
Spoken like somebody who only has experience in a small part of the software sector.
To give you an example, our largest customer brings us several million pounds a year in support, and a few thousand at most in "license" fees.
No shop can make a profit if too many people take products from them without paying.
Many, many companies make a profit from software without charging for the product itself.
See the difference?
Yes, I find security guards annoying. If some shop found a way to make a good profit without them I would shop there.
Similarly, if a software provider found a way not to need copy protection, I would buy from them. Oh wait! They do. They have adapted their business model to better suit lots of their customers and as a result they are getting more customers.
I'm sure shops would do the same if they could, but traditional goods and software are not the same. In the past lots of legal framework has been set up to try and crowbar software (which is a fundamentally abundant resource once created) into the old economic model of physical goods (which are not) but it is failing, and failing badly.
And if it was even slightly more restrictive than that, what do you think people would do?
Buy it, or opt for one of the better (free of charge, free software) alternatives (7zip for example?)
The WinZip authors know that by having this free to use version, people will download their version which gives them free advertising and keeps up their market share. This means that when someone decides to spend money, they most likely will go with WinZip.
It's the same way Microsoft works. They know a lot of the pirates, if stopped completely from using windows for free would not buy it. They would use something else. Bill gates once said that he would prefer people who aren't going to pay anyway to use windows for free rather than use software from competitors.
That is a very poor straw man argument you have made.
Surely these days, we don't still have to point out the difference between stealing and copyright infringement? It is fairly basic stuff.
People will pick the distribution channel that most suits them. Different people have different priorities.
Here are a few:
1) Much be high quality.
2) Must be available as a download.
3) Must come in a box with a nice shiny cover.
4) Must be legal.
5) Must be cheap (or free of charge)
6) Must not have DRM.
7) Must not require a long term subscription.
8) Must be playable on multiple devices of users choice
9) etc...
Each way of getting the content has different characteristics. All this guy is saying is that he already ruled out cable, presumably because it doesn't match well with his preferences. Now that his current preferred method has gone too, he is picking the next best in his list. And it isn't to get cable.
The implication was that he would download it without paying. It's not even clear in many jurisdictions whether that would be a copyright violation in the first place, despite what the major media companies would like you to think.
Actually, he didn't even say it was copyright infringement. He said it was "theft pure and simple" which is even more wrong, and that's saying something.
When you say "the legal documents to which you become a party", I assume you are talking about a contract. It is impossible in most civilised countries to enter into a contract without signing it. I have never signed anything when purchasing a CD, DVD or similar, so the only legal aspect that matters is that I now own the goods I have paid for. I am not a party to anything.
Most DRMed products are not "sold", but rather "licensed". As such, the owner has every right to control their use
There is no basis in law upon which they can have any such control. A landlord can restrict an apartment because it is HIS apartment! When I buy a CD or DVD, it is MINE. If it has a label on it that says "this is only licensed for foo and blah" that makes no difference to how I can USE it.
If you bought a shovel from a shop and it had a label saying "you may not use this to shovel potatoes, it has only been licenses for shovelling rocks", what do you think will happen if you ignore it. That's right, nothing! Because you don't need a license from a manufacturer to use their products in whatever way you want once you own them.
If you disagree, please inform me exactly what law I will be breaking and what I would be taken to court for when I use my possesions in a way the manufacturer didn't want me to.
It's not an imaginary line. It is not okay for some company or individual to be able to control how I can use what I own. I find it unacceptable that I can't watch any version of a movie that I have bought. It's MY copy of the movie and I'll do what I want with it.
It's no different from the supermarket selling me apples and building in a technical restriction that prevents me eating them at night (for example.) It's totally unreasonable because I own the apples. If the person who grew them wants to retain control then they shouldn't have sold them.
Restricting how people can use things is a job for the law, not for manufacturers, growers etc. Restricting how someone can copy and build upon the work of others on the other hand, is what we have copyright law for and is what the GPL is built upon.