Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[James Bottomley]

> There is much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that
> the evil corporations are locking things up with DRM as well as various
> laws like the DMCA.  People talk about their "rights" being violated,
> about how awful this all is, etc, etc, etc.
> 
> What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
> are the people who own those things and the people who are complaining
> are the people who got those things, illegally, for free.  There seems
> to be a wide spread feeling that whenever anything desirable comes along
> it is OK to take it if you want it.  Napster is a good example.  I don't
> like the record companies any better than anyone else but they do own
> the material and you either respect the rules or the record companies
> will lock it up and force you to respect the rules.

I think you're overlooking a fundamental principle of law here:
Intellectual "property" is intangible.  In particular, it is *not*
subject to the concept of ownership.  A creator of an idea or expression
has no legal right to the ownership of the same.  What they do have is a
time limited, assignable, government granted right to prevent others
from profiting by that invention or expression.

The rights pertaining to creations of the intellect are fundamentally
weaker than physical property rights, and here's why.  Quoting from the
US Constitution, article I section 8:

"The Congress shall have power... To promote the progress of science and
useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the
exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"

The purpose of these limited rights is to promote the progress of
science and useful arts.  Thus, the copyright or patent owner is
fundamentally restricted in the limitations they may impose on the user
of their creation.  The origins of the concepts of reverse engineering
and copyright fair use all flow from this.

If you want to make an intellectual contribution to the body of
knowledge you do so under these terms or not at all.

> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.

I disagree.  The open source community, to me at least, appears to be
the closest thing to the ideal set down in the constitution.  I own the
copyright, you may see my source and improve upon it.

I disagree that the open source community "copies" anything it finds
useful.  I might agree that it improves upon something it finds useful,
but that, again, is a lawful purpose.

As far as the DMCA goes, many people think it oversteps the
constitutional boundary by giving to IP holders rights they are
forbidden from possessing, and hence they come to talk about "ownership
of intellectual contributions" rather than "my limited right to profit
by my invention"...only time and the courts will tell.

James

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

James Bottomley wrote:

>>    
>>
>
>As far as the DMCA goes, many people think it oversteps the
>constitutional boundary by giving to IP holders rights they are
>forbidden from possessing, and hence they come to talk about "ownership
>of intellectual contributions" rather than "my limited right to profit
>by my invention"...only time and the courts will tell.
>
>  
>
I believe that it's very important that an author have rights to profit 
exclusively from their creations.  It gives them incentive to create.  I 
mean, if every time you developed some cool new technology, some foreign 
company took it, made huge profits from it, and left you with out a dime 
for all of your effort, wouldn't that put a huge kink in your desire to 
expend that sort of effort?

On the other hand, I don't believe people should rest on their laurels. 
 Limited rights is an incentive to get off one's behind and create 
another thing.

I think patent periods should be very strongly enforced and SHORT.  Like 
most of these patents that we think of as frivolous should be allowed, 
but the time limit should be at most a year or two.  Many of these 
'defensive' patents that companies like Amazon have are actually good 
things because they ensure that these ideas go into the public domain. 
 If some patent is deemed particularly clever, then the limit should be 
more like five years.

I have mixed feelings on defensive patents.  "Since I know that you're 
going to patent what I'm already doing and then sue me over it, I'm 
going to beat you to the punch and patent it to protect myself."  It 
makes sense in a very sad sort of way.

>  
>

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Timothy Miller wrote:
> I believe that it's very important that an author have rights to
> profit exclusively from their creations.  It gives them incentive to
> create.  I mean, if every time you developed some cool new
> technology, some foreign company took it, made huge profits from it,
> and left you with out a dime for all of your effort, wouldn't that
> put a huge kink in your desire to expend that sort of effort?
> 
> On the other hand, I don't believe people should rest on their
> laurels. Limited rights is an incentive to get off one's behind and
> create another thing.
> 
> I think patent periods should be very strongly enforced and SHORT.
> Like most of these patents that we think of as frivolous should be
> allowed, but the time limit should be at most a year or two.  Many of
> these 'defensive' patents that companies like Amazon have are
> actually good things because they ensure that these ideas go into the
> public domain. If some patent is deemed particularly clever, then the
> limit should be more like five years.
> 
> I have mixed feelings on defensive patents.  "Since I know that
> you're going to patent what I'm already doing and then sue me over
> it, I'm going to beat you to the punch and patent it to protect
> myself."  It makes sense in a very sad sort of way.

I just want to "second" your excellent thoughts. Well said.

..Scott

-- 
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[James Bottomley]

    The problem is a broken patent system that allows common knowledge to be
    "protected." I've strongly considered trying to get a patent on B-trees
    or QuickSort, just to see if the patent office is as foolish as they
    seem. The reason I can tear down the engine on my truck is because it
    poses no threat to the manufacturer; no one has a patent on the concept
    of a piston (though they may patent a specific *type* of piston.)
    
I think you'll find that all patent systems the world over require the
invention to be novel and non-obvious.  Prior disclosure or publication
invalidates the novelty part of this (Except in the US, and only if the
patent author published the details).  Patent systems also require that
the inventor sign a statement certifying themselves as such (i.e. you
can't file a patent for something you didn't think of yourself without
committing perjury).

Obviously, the first judges of the meaning of "novel" and "non-obvious"
is the patent office.  They do a good job generally, but seem to be
having difficulty grappling with the considerable body of computing
knowledge outside the rather limited patent domain.

The final judge is the court system.  Many (and that seems to be about
50% of litigated patents) fail these tests and are ruled invalid
    
    The problem today is that the patent office will honor almost anything
    with a patent; if cars were software, Ford would have a patent on
    pistons that would prevent GM from building V-8s.
    
I'll agree with this, but the patent office is trying to catch up here. 
Perhaps a quick fix would be to publish patents 3 months before issue
for a "bounty" period during which anyone could submit prior art or
non-obviousness arguments for consideration before the final decision on
issuance.
    
    There is nothing wrong with the original conception of patents and
    copyrights: the protection of IP creators to profit from their work
    before it enters the public domain in a reasonable time period. Sadly,
    corporations have legal rights, and the money to pervert the process.
    Patents and copyrights need to be fixed, not destroyed.
    
Anyone with sufficent resources can pervert any process they set their
mind to, be it legal or legislative (DMCA anyone?).  The balance in the
system is the noise made by those affected by this.

James

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Robert White]

I previously wrote a long rant on this subject in this forum (See: "the myth
of sustainable commercial software" [or something very close to that])...

The quick version:

1) the author has a right to profit from his creation
2) all ideas will be mimicked (monkey see, monkey do)
3) the author has already mimicked the ideas of others
4) others will mimic his ideas if they don't stink
5) turn about is fair play
6) An author's "creation" is his code, not the general ideas encompassed in
his code
7) this behavior is wired into the human brain, as a human can not see
something operate and not learn from that observation, and therefore be
likely to mimic the useful parts
8) if you bet the farm on your ideas about how something should be done in
software... and your business plan does not cover the fact that it *WILL* be
mimicked... write off one farm...

Using someone's code without their consent is "copyright infringement", not
"theft" as to "steal" something you must deprive the original owner of that
thing.  That is an important distinction that people forget when they start
yipping on this subject.

Neither "the money he might have made" nor "the concepts implicit in the
code" are "the thing" an author creates.  The code is the only thing, and
the author still has the code.  So mimicry isn't theft.  Period.  Ask a
lawyer.

There was "no intent to create the idea of intellectual property" in the
founders heads when they put copyrights and patents into the US
Constitution.  I used to have a good link to a place in Thomas Jefferson's
own writings make this clear.  You can not "own" an "idea".

I will only honor the "need to own the ideas" of a software producer if they
can demonstrate that they never used any preexisting ideas in the creation
of their software.  We are standing on the shoulders of giants here, and if
you opened a file, or searched a string, or added two numbers together, or
in-fect, invoked a compiler or submitted instructions to a CPU of
other-than-your-own design, you are engaged in exactly the same behaviors
(using others ideas without paying them) that you are complaining that
others might do to you.

Besides, it is provable that you can not make money in commercial software
alone, without treating the software like designer clothes, and constantly
produce new variations that are uniquely yours.  (This is what game
producers do, this is also why Microsoft sells mice and joysticks, see my
longer rant for the full proof.)

The only way to keep a secret is to tell nobody.  A secret once told, is a
secret no longer.  The software equivalent future aphorism will be "A
program once run, grants its ideas to the public domain."

Too bad...
So Sad...
Bye bye...

Rob.

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
[mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org]On Behalf Of Timothy Miller
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:02 AM
To: James Bottomley
Cc: Larry McVoy; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]




James Bottomley wrote:

>>
>>
>
>As far as the DMCA goes, many people think it oversteps the
>constitutional boundary by giving to IP holders rights they are
>forbidden from possessing, and hence they come to talk about "ownership
>of intellectual contributions" rather than "my limited right to profit
>by my invention"...only time and the courts will tell.
>
>
>
I believe that it's very important that an author have rights to profit
exclusively from their creations.  It gives them incentive to create.  I
mean, if every time you developed some cool new technology, some foreign
company took it, made huge profits from it, and left you with out a dime
for all of your effort, wouldn't that put a huge kink in your desire to
expend that sort of effort?

On the other hand, I don't believe people should rest on their laurels.
 Limited rights is an incentive to get off one's behind and create
another thing.

I think patent periods should be very strongly enforced and SHORT.  Like
most of these patents that we think of as frivolous should be allowed,
but the time limit should be at most a year or two.  Many of these
'defensive' patents that companies like Amazon have are actually good
things because they ensure that these ideas go into the public domain.
 If some patent is deemed particularly clever, then the limit should be
more like five years.

I have mixed feelings on defensive patents.  "Since I know that you're
going to patent what I'm already doing and then sue me over it, I'm
going to beat you to the punch and patent it to protect myself."  It
makes sense in a very sad sort of way.

>
>

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Rik van Riel]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Robert White wrote:

> 1) the author has a right to profit from his creation

Not at all.  Copyright law is to promote the progress of
sciences and arts;  in short, it is about the rights of
mankind, not about the rights of authors.

The temporary monopoly which authors get over their work
is there to encourage authors to create more works, which
in turn benefit all of mankind.  Just a side effect to
promote the good of the many.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jamie Lokier]

James Bottomley wrote:
> Obviously, the first judges of the meaning of "novel" and "non-obvious"
> is the patent office.  They do a good job generally, but seem to be
> having difficulty grappling with the considerable body of computing
> knowledge outside the rather limited patent domain.

You forgot about biotech and economic factors.  Obviously it's in
USA's short term economic interest to patent using herbs for medical
purposes, that have been used for 100s or 1000s of years in other
countries.  Even better if you can then use world trade agreements to
litigate against those traditional uses too!

(See also imminent ban of all non-approved (i.e. non-industrial)
medical and nutritional remedies from EU countries).

As with all systems - if some people can get away with something, they
will certainly try!

> Anyone with sufficent resources can pervert any process they set their
> mind to, be it legal or legislative (DMCA anyone?).  The balance in the
> system is the noise made by those affected by this.

Also, those with any semblance of power don't _have_ to bend to the
will of those with resources, but they often seem to do so.

-- Jamie

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jamie Lokier]

Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Robert White wrote:
> > 1) the author has a right to profit from his creation
> 
> Not at all.  Copyright law is to promote the progress of
> sciences and arts;  in short, it is about the rights of
> mankind, not about the rights of authors.
> 
> The temporary monopoly which authors get over their work
> is there to encourage authors to create more works, which
> in turn benefit all of mankind.  Just a side effect to
> promote the good of the many.

The author has a right to profit from his creation _so as_ to
promote the good of the many.

The two views are not contradictory.

-- Jamie

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Robert White]

Dude, loosen your mind a little...

Like so many you are laboring under the misapprehension that all rights have
the same precedence.  That's obviously dumb and you know it.  I have the
right to keep and bare arms, you have the right not to be gunned down while
buying milk at the neighborhood circle-K.  You have the right to smoke, I
have the right not to have to breathe that smoke.  See... "rights" are not
absolute.

You are splitting a pointless hair.  The statement "an author has a right to
profit from his creation" doesn't (and didn't in my mind) have anything to
do with any follow-on statements about extorting money nor was it predicated
on the "right" in any kind of absolute sense.  It is clear and obvious that
the creation of a work that has no value doesn't magically give an author
the "right" to demand to be paid out of a vacuum.  It is, however, also
obvious that if someone creates something with a substantial value, that
creator has a right not to be screwed out of that value unilaterally.

If I write a book, I have the right to expect that people who use that book
meet certain reasonable terms for the privilege.

Simply put, if you make something and you can make it pay you money, you
have the right to that money.

If you create something valuable and then can't manage to make it pay then
you have the right to lose your shirt.

There is a moral right to reap benefit from your action.

Playing word games about the betterment of humanity is all fine and good,
but for the most part people act solely in self-interest.  The key, of
course, is to get as many as possible to act in *enlightened* self-interest.

If you go around telling people "you don't have a right to make a profit
just because you wrote that" the smart people will know what you mean and
the dumb ones wont.  That is pretty much the textbook example of a
needlessly inflammatory statement.

Compound that with the fundamental concept that profit does not necessarily
mean money and you get to such sublime concepts as "If I make it, nobody
should be allowed to say I can't use it, I made it damn it..."

This argument is about the law, but it is not *JUST* about the law as it
exists, it is about trying to match the law to what is just.

In point of fact copyright law is completely about the rights of authors, in
particular it is about convincing authors to forgo their right to hoard
everything they create.  It's about convincing authors that there is good
cause and reason to release their proprietary death-grip on their works.
The *goal* is to benefit all man kind, sure, but the law is about salving
the certain wounds the author will suffer once his ideas leave his control
and get tattered and recycled by the soiled masses.

Say it that way and you will make more sense to the authors.

Rob.



-----Original Message-----
From: Rik van Riel [mailto:riel@redhat.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 6:35 PM
To: Robert White
Cc: Timothy Miller; James Bottomley; Larry McVoy;
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]


On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Robert White wrote:

> 1) the author has a right to profit from his creation

Not at all.  Copyright law is to promote the progress of
sciences and arts;  in short, it is about the rights of
mankind, not about the rights of authors.

The temporary monopoly which authors get over their work
is there to encourage authors to create more works, which
in turn benefit all of mankind.  Just a side effect to
promote the good of the many.

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David Schwartz]

> On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Robert White wrote:

> > 1) the author has a right to profit from his creation

> Not at all.  Copyright law is to promote the progress of
> sciences and arts;  in short, it is about the rights of
> mankind, not about the rights of authors.

	He was talking about moral rights, not legal rights.

> The temporary monopoly which authors get over their work
> is there to encourage authors to create more works, which
> in turn benefit all of mankind.  Just a side effect to
> promote the good of the many.

	Schools were created to keep children out of the work force and to
homogenize the immigrants, but nobody would argue that these are the reasons
children should now go to school. The original reason for something is not
automatically the reason that thing still exists.

	DS

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David Schwartz]

> Like so many you are laboring under the misapprehension that all
> rights have
> the same precedence.  That's obviously dumb and you know it.  I have the
> right to keep and bare arms, you have the right not to be gunned
> down while
> buying milk at the neighborhood circle-K.  You have the right to smoke, I
> have the right not to have to breathe that smoke.  See... "rights" are not
> absolute.

	All of these right conflicts are resolved by property rights. Yes, you can
keep and bear arms on your property, but you can't let a bullet fly onto the
circle K. Yes, you can smoke in your house or someplace under your control,
but I can designate my house smoke free if I want to.

> You are splitting a pointless hair.  The statement "an author has
> a right to
> profit from his creation" doesn't (and didn't in my mind) have anything to
> do with any follow-on statements about extorting money nor was it
> predicated
> on the "right" in any kind of absolute sense.  It is clear and
> obvious that
> the creation of a work that has no value doesn't magically give an author
> the "right" to demand to be paid out of a vacuum.  It is, however, also
> obvious that if someone creates something with a substantial value, that
> creator has a right not to be screwed out of that value unilaterally.

	The author's right to profit from his creation is about as absolute a
property right as you can imagine. The author could, if he wished, refrain
from disclosing his creation to others at all if he wished. Because greater
rights include lesser rights, he can disclose them under restrictive terms
rather than not disclosing them at all.

	This, of course, doesn't ensure that he'll actually profit. That depends on
the actual value of his ideas.

	But his right to not disclose the idea if he doesn't choose to is as
absolute a right as one can imagine. And that greater rights include lesser
rights is nearly as absolute.

> In point of fact copyright law is completely about the rights of
> authors, in
> particular it is about convincing authors to forgo their right to hoard
> everything they create.  It's about convincing authors that there is good
> cause and reason to release their proprietary death-grip on their works.
> The *goal* is to benefit all man kind, sure, but the law is about salving
> the certain wounds the author will suffer once his ideas leave his control
> and get tattered and recycled by the soiled masses.

	But authors could already do this simply by distributing their works only
under contract. You could even have standardized contracts and sign before
you, for example, enter a movie theater or buy a CD.

	DS

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jamie Lokier]

David Schwartz wrote:
> 	All of these right conflicts are resolved by property rights. Yes, you can
> keep and bear arms on your property, but you can't let a bullet fly onto the
> circle K. Yes, you can smoke in your house or someplace under your control,
> but I can designate my house smoke free if I want to.

Free market capitalism _appears_ to tend towards a structure where the
bulk of property becomes owned by a few owners, and the majority of
owners own very little property.

So it's appropriate for rights to be distributed like that too?

For example, suppose you own _all_ the land I can travel to.  Then my
right to not be shot by you is not protected at all.  I do not think
that is an appropriate resolution of rights.

> 	The author's right to profit from his creation is about as absolute a
> property right as you can imagine.

For some kinds of profit, I agree.  For other kinds of profit (read:
coercion over others), I disagree.

And if there are two authors who independently create something
similar?  The rights do not resolve so long as both authors demand
that the other does not profit.  The only resolution is when both
authors view cooperation as a satisfactory kind of profit.

I truly do not believe I have that "absolute property right", much as
I would like it.  If I write a program or create a new kind of
technical device, I would like to profit from that.  But I do not
think I would be allowed to, as I would be pursued into oblivion by
more powerful entities than I.

But then, I truly believe it is conceptually impossible to create
something which has no connection with what has come before.  So I
would not claim it as absolutely mine anyway, unless I had an agenda
to fulfull...

-- Jamie

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David Schwartz]

> David Schwartz wrote:

> > 	All of these right conflicts are resolved by property
> > rights. Yes, you can
> > keep and bear arms on your property, but you can't let a bullet
> > fly onto the
> > circle K. Yes, you can smoke in your house or someplace under
> > your control,
> > but I can designate my house smoke free if I want to.

> Free market capitalism _appears_ to tend towards a structure where the
> bulk of property becomes owned by a few owners, and the majority of
> owners own very little property.
>
> So it's appropriate for rights to be distributed like that too?
>
> For example, suppose you own _all_ the land I can travel to.  Then my
> right to not be shot by you is not protected at all.  I do not think
> that is an appropriate resolution of rights.

	While this is an interesting defect in my analogy, it's not relevant to
copyright because here we're talking solely about property wholly created.
So the alternative to my owning all the land you could travel to would be
that land not existing.

> > The author's right to profit from his creation is about as
> > absolute a
> > property right as you can imagine.

> For some kinds of profit, I agree.  For other kinds of profit (read:
> coercion over others), I disagree.

	As I made clear, your right to profit to the idea is the same type of right
as your right to do what you want with your bat. It doesn't include taking
it onto my property to break my windows.

> And if there are two authors who independently create something
> similar?  The rights do not resolve so long as both authors demand
> that the other does not profit.  The only resolution is when both
> authors view cooperation as a satisfactory kind of profit.

	Since we're talking copyright here and not patent, two independent
developers would both have equal right to authorize the use or distribution
of the idea.

> I truly do not believe I have that "absolute property right", much as
> I would like it.  If I write a program or create a new kind of
> technical device, I would like to profit from that.  But I do not
> think I would be allowed to, as I would be pursued into oblivion by
> more powerful entities than I.

	You have the right to walk the streets at night with hundred dollar bills
danglnig out of your pockets and nobody has the right to steal the money
from you. That doing so is stupid and will likely make you the victim of a
crime doesn't change your right one iota. Heer we see a difference between
rights that are both legal and moral and what you can practically achieve.

	Yes, it's a defect in our legal system that wealthy powerful people can
manipulate it with extreme effectiveness. Yes, it's a defect in our
legislative system that companies like Disney can exert enormous control
over what laws are passed. But these aren't really copyright issues in
principle.

> But then, I truly believe it is conceptually impossible to create
> something which has no connection with what has come before.  So I
> would not claim it as absolutely mine anyway, unless I had an agenda
> to fulfull...

	This is just equivocation on the "it". Legally, the "it" you own is not any
particular word or 'diff' output, it's the original creative effort that you
added. If I translate Hamlet into Polish, there is no physical way to
isolate my contribution from Shakespeare's, but that doesn't mean we don't
understand that there is creative effort that you added and that the total
work contains your creative effort and Shakespeare's.

	This may be confusing for people not familiar with intellectual property
law. But trust me (or do some research or talk to an intellectual property
lawyer), it creates no legal problems or problems of principle whatsoever.
Your copyright rights to what you produce in no way affects what anyone can
do with, or what you can do to, anything that came before you.

	DS

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Robert White]

It truth, there is no such thing as "intellectual property" by the correct
legal definition of property.  There was also no intent to create
"intellectual property" in the minds of the founders of the United States.
The truth of the matter is that Digital Restriction(*) Management isn't even
about copyright.  We are in the berth pains of the creation of "accessright"
law, and nobody has yet demonstrated that such a body of law is, well,
legal... let alone necessary for any purpose.

The fundamental problem with applying property law (et al) to the domain of
ideas is that you can not affect a clean and complete transfer of
possession.

Anything "intellectual" exists in the pure domain of thought (hence the root
"intellect" 8-) and the facts remain that one party, having processed an
idea (or set thereof) can not "willfully and completely surrender" the idea
out of their head and into someone else's.

You see, property is "transferable" but ideas can only be "copied" which is
why COPYright contains that word and not some variation of "property".
Property rights, patent rights, and copy rights are distinct.

That is also why "theft" and what we can generally refer to as "the theft
words" never applies these topics no matter how often or loudly someone
yells "you stole that idea from me."  Notice that you *can* steal a program,
program source, manuscript, or copy of a book.  To do so you must gain
access to (break) and/or variously enter (hence "breaking and entering") a
place where such materials reside, and then simultaneously gain possession
of said materials and deprive the rightful owner of them.  (e.g. you can go
take the media, or you could access a computer, copy the information onto a
removable media, and then wipe the originals or take a hammer to the
computer or something.)

So by definition, the presidents of property rights can not reasonably and
fully be applied to information and ideas.

Worse, absolutely none of the DRM arguments even exist within the presidents
of copyright law as a significant subset of the technology and uncertainty
only comes into play well after the act of copying is completed.

Consider DeCSS.  At the time that the CCS ("Content Control System", not
"Copy Control System") comes into play, all parties have already agreed that
the copy 1) should have been created, 2) should have been assigned, and 3)
is completely within the possession of the reasonably correct person.  That
is, the copy has already been made, and you already have the DVD in your
grubby little paws.

Further, there is nothing inherent in the CCS system that takes a single
step towards controlling the copy of that DVD.  If you have the hardware you
can make a byte-wise copy of the DVD onto another DVD and both copies will
contain identically CCS(ed) image.

CCS is about whether you can access what that copy contains in a meaningful
way.

Some people may access that information with the intent to copy it into a
non-CCSed image, but that is a separate follow-on activity that was not even
considered when the CCS system was created.  The CCS system was invented to
solely (and, according to anti-trust law, illegally) tie the one product (a
particular DVD) to another (any player with a licensed DeCCS and matching
region code).

The sticky part is that the constitution does NOT create nor endorse any
sort of "accessright" law.  Things like the DMCA endeavor to create such a
body of law in a back-handed fashion by attempting to convince everybody
that copyright always included accessright.

If it had, then it would be, and would always have been, legal to sell
someone a book and then say, "you may only read this book in a library" and
have the force of law behind you to back you up in that restriction.

Rob White
(Not A Lawyer!)

(*) "DRM" is improperly coined as Digital "Rights" Management, but no
existing work in the area actually "manages" "rights", the technology
singularly and specifically implements restrictions and manages those
restrictions.  For instance, a DRM system can disallow your access to a work
that you actually have the right to access.  For instance, a Digital
Restriction may prevent you from accessing a work that is in the public
domain (e.g. which you have the undisputed and indisputable right to
access).

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David Schwartz]

> It truth, there is no such thing as "intellectual property" by the correct
> legal definition of property.

	Nonsense. Intellectual property is, conceptually, a form of contractual
property. If I pay you $10 to mow my lawn tomorrow, my right to compel you
to mow my lawn (or have you pay me damages) is a property right.

	If I develop an idea, I have the absolute right to the contents of my mind
and cannot be compelled to disclose the idea. Because the greater includes
the lesser, the right to not disclose the idea includes the right to
disclose the idea under terms, pursuant to a contract (actual or implied).

	Most property rights are contractual. You come to own property because you
contract for it.

> There was also no intent to create
> "intellectual property" in the minds of the founders of the United States.

	Because there was no need for them to do so. If I have possession of an
idea and agree to tell you the idea for $10 provided you agree not to
disclose the idea to anyone else, I don't need any special laws other than
the normal laws that permit me to make and enforce contracts.

> The truth of the matter is that Digital Restriction(*) Management
> isn't even
> about copyright.  We are in the berth pains of the creation of
> "accessright"
> law, and nobody has yet demonstrated that such a body of law is, well,
> legal... let alone necessary for any purpose.

	I think that you are right conceptually. Access restrictions are purely
contractual things and more obviously so. If I put a security restriction on
a CD and sell it to you, there's an implied agreement that you will respect
the restricitions. If I really wanted to, I could have you sign an agreement
to that affect.

> The fundamental problem with applying property law (et al) to the
> domain of
> ideas is that you can not affect a clean and complete transfer of
> possession.

	This would apply to employment contracts too.

> Anything "intellectual" exists in the pure domain of thought
> (hence the root
> "intellect" 8-) and the facts remain that one party, having processed an
> idea (or set thereof) can not "willfully and completely
> surrender" the idea
> out of their head and into someone else's.

	This is true for employment to. In fact, it's true for all contractual
agreements except for the sale of real property. If you hire me to mow your
lawn, how can I "willfully and completely surrender" one day of lawn mowing
in the next ten days to you at that time?

	Really, this is not a problem at all. Complex societies like ours
understand how to deal with intangible property rights. When you book a
hotel room in advance, the right to that hotel room on that day is an
intangible. It could, however, well be a transferrable property right that
you have. That's not a problem.

> You see, property is "transferable" but ideas can only be
> "copied" which is
> why COPYright contains that word and not some variation of "property".
> Property rights, patent rights, and copy rights are distinct.

	You are confusing the right with the thing that the right is to. If I have
an idea, and I tell you that idea pursuant to an agreement that you will not
disclose the idea to others, the property I have is the right to pursue you
for damages should you disclose the idea. This is the same concept as if,
say, you sign a non-disclosure agreement. The right is not to the idea
itself, it's to pursue damages from those who violate their actual or
implied agreements not to disclose or use the idea without compensating you.

> That is also why "theft" and what we can generally refer to as "the theft
> words" never applies these topics no matter how often or loudly someone
> yells "you stole that idea from me."

	But it is theft, as surely as if I pay you $10 to mow my lawn and you don't
mow my lawn. Violating a contractual agreement not to disclose and not
paying the damages the agreement specifies is a form of theft by fraud.

> Notice that you *can* steal
> a program,
> program source, manuscript, or copy of a book.  To do so you must gain
> access to (break) and/or variously enter (hence "breaking and entering") a
> place where such materials reside, and then simultaneously gain possession
> of said materials and deprive the rightful owner of them.  (e.g.
> you can go
> take the media, or you could access a computer, copy the
> information onto a
> removable media, and then wipe the originals or take a hammer to the
> computer or something.)
>
> So by definition, the presidents of property rights can not reasonably and
> fully be applied to information and ideas.

	You are trying to set back a complex society by arguing that only what you
can touch has legal meaning. But you can't touch the right to use an
apartment from June 1 to July 1. Yet if you agree to pay monthly rent for
the apartment, use the apartment, but don't pay, it's theft.

	Seriously, there is no problem at all here. You are needlessly and
senselessly manufacturing artitifical distinctions that make no sense.

> Worse, absolutely none of the DRM arguments even exist within the
> presidents
> of copyright law as a significant subset of the technology and uncertainty
> only comes into play well after the act of copying is completed.

	Then forget about copyright law entirely. Think only about contractual
property and the fact that a person who comes up with an idea cannot be
compelled to disclose it and can disclose it under any terms he or she
chooses. Think that when you buy a CD or a program, there's an implied
contract that the CD or program is for your personal use and that violating
that contract is as much theft as living in an apartment without paying
rent.

> Consider DeCSS.  At the time that the CCS ("Content Control System", not
> "Copy Control System") comes into play, all parties have already
> agreed that
> the copy 1) should have been created, 2) should have been assigned, and 3)
> is completely within the possession of the reasonably correct
> person.  That
> is, the copy has already been made, and you already have the DVD in your
> grubby little paws.
>
> Further, there is nothing inherent in the CCS system that takes a single
> step towards controlling the copy of that DVD.  If you have the
> hardware you
> can make a byte-wise copy of the DVD onto another DVD and both copies will
> contain identically CCS(ed) image.
>
> CCS is about whether you can access what that copy contains in a
> meaningful
> way.

	Agreed.

> Some people may access that information with the intent to copy it into a
> non-CCSed image, but that is a separate follow-on activity that
> was not even
> considered when the CCS system was created.  The CCS system was
> invented to
> solely (and, according to anti-trust law, illegally) tie the one
> product (a
> particular DVD) to another (any player with a licensed DeCCS and matching
> region code).

	Agreed.

> The sticky part is that the constitution does NOT create nor endorse any
> sort of "accessright" law.  Things like the DMCA endeavor to create such a
> body of law in a back-handed fashion by attempting to convince everybody
> that copyright always included accessright.

	Agreed. More sensible would be to look at whether the implied agreement
when you purchased that DVD included a promise to only use it on licensed
DVD players. An argument that is, IMO, nonsense.

	Further, there is no reason why the DMCA should have been enforced in cases
where no right recognized under copyright law exists because the DMCA was a
copyright law extension. As far as I know, a DVD seller has no legally
recognized copyright interest in what device I play that DVD on, and hence
CSS is *not* a copright enforcement mechanism.

	I totally disagree with the way the DMCA has been interpreted and hope that
there is a massive backlash.

> If it had, then it would be, and would always have been, legal to sell
> someone a book and then say, "you may only read this book in a
> library" and
> have the force of law behind you to back you up in that restriction.

	This is certainly not a right recognized under copyright law, so it's not a
right that can be enforced by a copyright enforcement mechanism. However,
this is a moral right that a content author has. Copyright law has taken
this away from content authors in the name of benefitting the public at
large.

	Copyright laws gave authors very little that they didn't already have.
Patent laws, on the other hand, give inventors many rights they would not
have otherwise.

	DS

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Robert White]

I am not sure why I am bothering since you clearly don't know anything at
all about what does or does not constitute property.  (and therefore all
your "property law covers this" based logic is impossibly flawed.)

Nonsense right back to you.  Your "right to compel me to mow your lawn
tomorrow" isn't a property right in any sense.  It is covered under "tort"
law (whatever the heck that is).  In plain speak is an AGREEMENT not a
POSSESSION.

It is not property because, among other things, it isn't transferable.  You
can not COMPEL me to mow your neighbors lawn instead.  You could pursue an
alteration of that agreement involving your neighbors lawn in stead, but I
am not COMPELLED to AGREE to such a change.  Moreover, you can't re-sell my
mowing of your lawn to your neighbor without making me party to the revision
of the agreement.  (The reason people confuse this often enough is because
into financial lending agreements one often agrees at the time of borrowing
to allow the lender to sell your promise of payment to a third party.)

However, as we all (hopefully) learned in primary school, you can't borrow a
dollar from me, loan a dollar to "Alex" and then, when I come for my dollar,
tell me to go get it from "Alex" because he owes it to you.  Agreements can
not be sold, and are not property.  Agreements that contain a right-to-sell
are agreements with that provision, but they are still not property.  For
instance, you don't and *cant* "own stock" even though people use that
expression all the time.  you *HOLD* stock in a company.  Hence
"stock-holders meeting" and "majority share-holder" as so forth.

"Contractual property" is a non sequitur.  As is "intellectual property".
Ask a lawyer.

The fact that you seem to equate "I will mow your lawn tomorrow in
consideration of the $10 you gave me today" to be the same as "one generic
day of lawn mowing" demonstrates that you, personally, should *NEVER* make
any kind of agreement with anybody for any purpose. 8-)  "one day of lawn
mowing" is completely dissimilar to "mow (a specific) lawn on (a specific
date)".  Persons who try to turn the latter into the former are guilty of
fraud and will tend to be out $10 in a court of law.

And no, I am not "trying to set back a complex society by arguing that only
what you can touch has legal meaning."  I am trying to make you understand
that agreements, "real property" (which is land), "property" (which is any
tangible thing other than land), and copyright (among other concepts) are
completely dissimilar and are covered by completely different kinds and
scopes of law.  The fact that they are "not the same thing" completely
negates your "the law of one is the law for all" claim that "property law"
somehow carries into the other areas.

There is not now, nor has their ever been, such a thing as "intangible
property".  There is (real and otherwise) property, there are contracts
(oral agreements, written agreements, common stock, preferred stock, trusts,
etc are all contracts), and there are rights (including copyrights and
patents) and they are each governed by completely different sets of laws.
If you go to court to claim that property law says something about
non-property (like a contract you are a party too) you will get laughed at,
and then you will lose.

For instance, the authors right to not invent and not share his invention,
is, wait for it... a RIGHT... and doesn't make the idea any kind of
property.  You even used the words your self "... I have the right to the
contents of my own head ..." and the follow-in fact that you can get
together with someone and agree to a contract where you will disclose the
idea for $10 and a non-disclosure agreement, is contract law.  (Notice that
there is still no "property" anywhere in there, its all rights and
agreements.  "Property law" doesn't apply because there is NO SUCH THING as
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY)

Contrary to your statements, Patent law did less for the patent holder than
copyright did for authors.

In many cases, an invention is self describing.  You build a windmill and
someone can come along and disassemble the thing and know how to build a
windmill.  In most cases, however, inventors can keep secret the nature and
structure of their invention and still profit from that invention.  Patent
law was really about convincing inventors to record their inventions in a
public archive instead of taking their invention with them into death.
Invention is different than authorship because often times the invention
doesn't automatically reveal itself.  Consider Damascus (sp?) steel or the
formula for the varnish Stradivarius (sp?) used on the instruments he
created.  These are inventions that have been lost despite the fact that we
still have some of the swords and violins.  So many, perhaps even most,
inventors enjoyed both the protection of keeping their secrets secret and
still profiting from them.

Copyright, however, gave authors something they didn't have at all.  The
right to control who copied their work once it left their hands.  Books only
have value if they are read, plays have their value in the performance.  Art
is public.  Prior to the invention of copyright, if you said your idea
aloud, wrote it down, painted it, sung it, or whatever, you had ceded it to
the public.  Period.  End of story.

So you have it exactly backwards.  Copyright gave whole classes of
innovators something they never had before even slightly, while Patents gave
far less new protection to inventors.

Saving the best for last, the fact that "you come to own property via a
contract" doesn't bring the fact of property ownership under the purview of
contract law.  The contract *ENDS* and ceases to exist, with respect to the
property, once the agreement is discharged and the ownership is transferred.
The contract law governing the sale of property has nothing to do with the
body of property law.

Example: you are selling Alex some land.  I am injured on the land before
you complete the sale.  The existence of the contract and the intent to sell
do not allow me to pursue Alex in court for my injury.  If the injury happed
one instant after the transfer of ownership, you are safe and Alex is on the
hook *UNLESS* you agreed to indemnify him against such things for some
period of time after the transfer of ownership.  In that last case I *STILL*
sue him as the owner, but he gets to exercise the agreement and bring you
into it.  There will even be a meta-hearing to determine if the agreement
validly redirects my suit and whether the suit goes under property or
contract law at that point. (and so on...)  This special example case of
indemnity exists because the contract didn't end with the transfer of
property (for the specific purpose of that indemnity).

[ASIDE: you are also wrong about contracts being the basis of real property
ownership.  Real property has its basis in the fact that someone at some
time in the past said "this place is mine!" (which you can still do in well
defined circumstances, see "squatters rights" etc.)  The *transfer* of
ownership is *usually* accomplished by agreement, but that isn't the basis
of the law in the matter.  I can come to own your house by all sorts of
means you did not agree to, not the least of which would be moving into your
house and living there for N years and having you not complain about it.]

[ANOTHER ASIDE: you ever hear the expression "possession is nine-tenths of
the law"?  The law in that usage is only property law.  Which is why NDAs
work, because possession is *NOT* nine-tenths of the way out of a contract
nor is it nine-tenths of the way into a copyright.]

You can agree to almost anything, but agreements don't create property, and
property exists in the absence of agreement.

All that considered, the rest of your argument is specious.  Period.

Rob.




-----Original Message-----
From: David Schwartz [mailto:davids@webmaster.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 4:09 PM
To: Robert White; Jamie Lokier
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]



> It truth, there is no such thing as "intellectual property" by the correct
> legal definition of property.

	Nonsense. Intellectual property is, conceptually, a form of contractual
property. If I pay you $10 to mow my lawn tomorrow, my right to compel you
to mow my lawn (or have you pay me damages) is a property right.

	If I develop an idea, I have the absolute right to the contents of my mind
and cannot be compelled to disclose the idea. Because the greater includes
the lesser, the right to not disclose the idea includes the right to
disclose the idea under terms, pursuant to a contract (actual or implied).

	Most property rights are contractual. You come to own property because you
contract for it.

> There was also no intent to create
> "intellectual property" in the minds of the founders of the United States.

	Because there was no need for them to do so. If I have possession of an
idea and agree to tell you the idea for $10 provided you agree not to
disclose the idea to anyone else, I don't need any special laws other than
the normal laws that permit me to make and enforce contracts.

> The truth of the matter is that Digital Restriction(*) Management
> isn't even
> about copyright.  We are in the berth pains of the creation of
> "accessright"
> law, and nobody has yet demonstrated that such a body of law is, well,
> legal... let alone necessary for any purpose.

	I think that you are right conceptually. Access restrictions are purely
contractual things and more obviously so. If I put a security restriction on
a CD and sell it to you, there's an implied agreement that you will respect
the restricitions. If I really wanted to, I could have you sign an agreement
to that affect.

> The fundamental problem with applying property law (et al) to the
> domain of
> ideas is that you can not affect a clean and complete transfer of
> possession.

	This would apply to employment contracts too.

> Anything "intellectual" exists in the pure domain of thought
> (hence the root
> "intellect" 8-) and the facts remain that one party, having processed an
> idea (or set thereof) can not "willfully and completely
> surrender" the idea
> out of their head and into someone else's.

	This is true for employment to. In fact, it's true for all contractual
agreements except for the sale of real property. If you hire me to mow your
lawn, how can I "willfully and completely surrender" one day of lawn mowing
in the next ten days to you at that time?

	Really, this is not a problem at all. Complex societies like ours
understand how to deal with intangible property rights. When you book a
hotel room in advance, the right to that hotel room on that day is an
intangible. It could, however, well be a transferrable property right that
you have. That's not a problem.

> You see, property is "transferable" but ideas can only be
> "copied" which is
> why COPYright contains that word and not some variation of "property".
> Property rights, patent rights, and copy rights are distinct.

	You are confusing the right with the thing that the right is to. If I have
an idea, and I tell you that idea pursuant to an agreement that you will not
disclose the idea to others, the property I have is the right to pursue you
for damages should you disclose the idea. This is the same concept as if,
say, you sign a non-disclosure agreement. The right is not to the idea
itself, it's to pursue damages from those who violate their actual or
implied agreements not to disclose or use the idea without compensating you.

> That is also why "theft" and what we can generally refer to as "the theft
> words" never applies these topics no matter how often or loudly someone
> yells "you stole that idea from me."

	But it is theft, as surely as if I pay you $10 to mow my lawn and you don't
mow my lawn. Violating a contractual agreement not to disclose and not
paying the damages the agreement specifies is a form of theft by fraud.

> Notice that you *can* steal
> a program,
> program source, manuscript, or copy of a book.  To do so you must gain
> access to (break) and/or variously enter (hence "breaking and entering") a
> place where such materials reside, and then simultaneously gain possession
> of said materials and deprive the rightful owner of them.  (e.g.
> you can go
> take the media, or you could access a computer, copy the
> information onto a
> removable media, and then wipe the originals or take a hammer to the
> computer or something.)
>
> So by definition, the presidents of property rights can not reasonably and
> fully be applied to information and ideas.

	You are trying to set back a complex society by arguing that only what you
can touch has legal meaning. But you can't touch the right to use an
apartment from June 1 to July 1. Yet if you agree to pay monthly rent for
the apartment, use the apartment, but don't pay, it's theft.

	Seriously, there is no problem at all here. You are needlessly and
senselessly manufacturing artitifical distinctions that make no sense.

> Worse, absolutely none of the DRM arguments even exist within the
> presidents
> of copyright law as a significant subset of the technology and uncertainty
> only comes into play well after the act of copying is completed.

	Then forget about copyright law entirely. Think only about contractual
property and the fact that a person who comes up with an idea cannot be
compelled to disclose it and can disclose it under any terms he or she
chooses. Think that when you buy a CD or a program, there's an implied
contract that the CD or program is for your personal use and that violating
that contract is as much theft as living in an apartment without paying
rent.

> Consider DeCSS.  At the time that the CCS ("Content Control System", not
> "Copy Control System") comes into play, all parties have already
> agreed that
> the copy 1) should have been created, 2) should have been assigned, and 3)
> is completely within the possession of the reasonably correct
> person.  That
> is, the copy has already been made, and you already have the DVD in your
> grubby little paws.
>
> Further, there is nothing inherent in the CCS system that takes a single
> step towards controlling the copy of that DVD.  If you have the
> hardware you
> can make a byte-wise copy of the DVD onto another DVD and both copies will
> contain identically CCS(ed) image.
>
> CCS is about whether you can access what that copy contains in a
> meaningful
> way.

	Agreed.

> Some people may access that information with the intent to copy it into a
> non-CCSed image, but that is a separate follow-on activity that
> was not even
> considered when the CCS system was created.  The CCS system was
> invented to
> solely (and, according to anti-trust law, illegally) tie the one
> product (a
> particular DVD) to another (any player with a licensed DeCCS and matching
> region code).

	Agreed.

> The sticky part is that the constitution does NOT create nor endorse any
> sort of "accessright" law.  Things like the DMCA endeavor to create such a
> body of law in a back-handed fashion by attempting to convince everybody
> that copyright always included accessright.

	Agreed. More sensible would be to look at whether the implied agreement
when you purchased that DVD included a promise to only use it on licensed
DVD players. An argument that is, IMO, nonsense.

	Further, there is no reason why the DMCA should have been enforced in cases
where no right recognized under copyright law exists because the DMCA was a
copyright law extension. As far as I know, a DVD seller has no legally
recognized copyright interest in what device I play that DVD on, and hence
CSS is *not* a copright enforcement mechanism.

	I totally disagree with the way the DMCA has been interpreted and hope that
there is a massive backlash.

> If it had, then it would be, and would always have been, legal to sell
> someone a book and then say, "you may only read this book in a
> library" and
> have the force of law behind you to back you up in that restriction.

	This is certainly not a right recognized under copyright law, so it's not a
right that can be enforced by a copyright enforcement mechanism. However,
this is a moral right that a content author has. Copyright law has taken
this away from content authors in the name of benefitting the public at
large.

	Copyright laws gave authors very little that they didn't already have.
Patent laws, on the other hand, give inventors many rights they would not
have otherwise.

	DS

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David Schwartz]

> And no, I am not "trying to set back a complex society by arguing
> that only
> what you can touch has legal meaning."  I am trying to make you understand
> that agreements, "real property" (which is land), "property" (which is any
> tangible thing other than land), and copyright (among other concepts) are
> completely dissimilar and are covered by completely different kinds and
> scopes of law.  The fact that they are "not the same thing" completely
> negates your "the law of one is the law for all" claim that "property law"
> somehow carries into the other areas.

	Do you agree that:

	1) A person who thinks of an idea cannot be compelled to disclose it,
especially since nobody would even know that he had it unless he told them
and that therefore absent a contract or other agreement to the contrary, may
refrain from disclosing it to others.

	2) The greater includes the lesser.

	In any event, my dictionary defines "property" as "something tangible or
intangible to which the owner has legal title".

> There is not now, nor has their ever been, such a thing as "intangible
> property".  There is (real and otherwise) property, there are contracts
> (oral agreements, written agreements, common stock, preferred
> stock, trusts,
> etc are all contracts), and there are rights (including copyrights and
> patents) and they are each governed by completely different sets of laws.
> If you go to court to claim that property law says something about
> non-property (like a contract you are a party too) you will get
> laughed at,
> and then you will lose.


	Who said anything about "property law"? All I'm talking about, and all I
need, is contract law. What I'm saying is that contractual property acts
like property but it wholly covered by contract law.

	If I acquire from you the transferrible right to one day of your lawn
mowing, I have something. It acts like property -- a person can own it,
transfer it, control it. Yet it's not covered by real property law. If you
fail to mow the lawn, I wouldn't argue property law, I'd argue contract law.
The right is a contractual right but it, in every essential way, acts like
property.

> For instance, the authors right to not invent and not share his invention,
> is, wait for it... a RIGHT... and doesn't make the idea any kind of
> property.  You even used the words your self "... I have the right to the
> contents of my own head ..." and the follow-in fact that you can get
> together with someone and agree to a contract where you will disclose the
> idea for $10 and a non-disclosure agreement, is contract law.

	Absolutely. That's what I'm saying. Intellectual "property" rights are,
morally and conceptually, based in contract law. This is because, unlike
real property, intellectual property consists solely of the right to
control, to some extent, what other people can do.

> (Notice that
> there is still no "property" anywhere in there, its all rights and
> agreements.  "Property law" doesn't apply because there is NO
> SUCH THING as
> INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY)

	Play word games if you want, but people use the term "property" to cover
intangibles if you can have the exclusive right to them.

> Contrary to your statements, Patent law did less for the patent
> holder than
> copyright did for authors.

	I disagree. As a single example, independent creation is a defense to a
copyright infringement claim. However, a patent holder need not prove that
the infringer got the idea from him at all.

> In many cases, an invention is self describing.  You build a windmill and
> someone can come along and disassemble the thing and know how to build a
> windmill.  In most cases, however, inventors can keep secret the
> nature and
> structure of their invention and still profit from that invention.  Patent
> law was really about convincing inventors to record their inventions in a
> public archive instead of taking their invention with them into death.

	Sure, but patent law doesn't stop them from failing to disclose just they
didn't have to before. That is, patent law didn't take away your ability to
keep an invention secret. Nor does it stop you from enforcing contractual
secrecy agreements in the absence of a patent, so you can still use
contractual techniques or even quasi-contractual technques like trade
secrets.

> Invention is different than authorship because often times the invention
> doesn't automatically reveal itself.  Consider Damascus (sp?) steel or the
> formula for the varnish Stradivarius (sp?) used on the instruments he
> created.  These are inventions that have been lost despite the
> fact that we
> still have some of the swords and violins.  So many, perhaps even most,
> inventors enjoyed both the protection of keeping their secrets secret and
> still profiting from them.

	As they still can if they wish. However, patent law gave them something
they never had under contract or property laws -- the right to control other
people's use of "their" ideas even if the others developed them wholly
independently.

> Copyright, however, gave authors something they didn't have at all.  The
> right to control who copied their work once it left their hands.

	They always had that. They just write a contract that says so and compel
everyone who receives the work to sign the contract. In fact, copyright
behaves just like an implied contract.

> Books only
> have value if they are read, plays have their value in the
> performance.  Art
> is public.  Prior to the invention of copyright, if you said your idea
> aloud, wrote it down, painted it, sung it, or whatever, you had
> ceded it to
> the public.  Period.  End of story.

	All you would have had to do was state, before the play, that listening to
the play is contingent on their agreement not to further distribute it. Can
you give me any rational reason such a contract wouldn't be enforceable?

> So you have it exactly backwards.  Copyright gave whole classes of
> innovators something they never had before even slightly, while
> Patents gave
> far less new protection to inventors.

	Obviously, I 100% disagree with you.

> Saving the best for last, the fact that "you come to own property via a
> contract" doesn't bring the fact of property ownership under the
> purview of
> contract law.  The contract *ENDS* and ceases to exist, with
> respect to the
> property, once the agreement is discharged and the ownership is
> transferred.
> The contract law governing the sale of property has nothing to do with the
> body of property law.

	I agree with you. I don't believe that I ever said contracts are the
"basis" of real property ownership. However, you can, purely by contract
law, obtain much the same thing as real property ownership with no actual
legal transfer of the title. The distinctions are largely artificial legal
ones, though admittedly created for legitimate and useful purposes.

	It is useful to have an actual "owner" for physical object in a way that it
is not useful to have an actual "owner" for an idea. This is the basis for
the laws covering real property.

	However, there is another sense of "owner" which still includes the right
of control, use and exclusion. It is this type of ownership that is acquired
by explicit or implicit contract, and it is this type of property that
intellectual property falls into.

	Tell me anything significant that copyright law does that an author could
not do by requiring anyone to whom he discloses his idea to sign an
appropriate contract. Tell me anthing copyright law does that contract law
can't do.

	DS

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David Schwartz]

> > The fact that they are "not the same thing" completely
> > negates your "the law of one is the law for all" claim that
> > "property law"
> > somehow carries into the other areas.

	You know, I read over my original argument again, and I absolutely cannot
understand how you could have misunderstood it. There is no reference to
property law at all in it, and several times I mentioned that I was talking
about contract law. So how you could have misunderstood me to mean that
property law applies to contracts is baffling to me. What I mean is the
reverse, that intangible property rights and conceptually part of contract
law.

	The one thing I said that was not clear and where I understand your
confusion was:

> Most property rights are contractual. You come to own property because you
contract for it.

	However, I maintain that the rest of my argument is completely clear and
you have not responded to it:

>> There was also no intent to create
>> "intellectual property" in the minds of the founders of the United
States.

>Because there was no need for them to do so. If I have possession of an
idea and agree to
>tell you the idea for $10 provided you agree not to disclose the idea to
anyone else, I don't
>need any special laws other than the normal laws that permit me to make and
enforce contracts.

>Access restrictions are purely contractual things and more obviously so. If
I put a security
>restriction on a CD and sell it to you, there's an implied agreement that
you will respect the
>restricitions. If I really wanted to, I could have you sign an agreement to
that affect.

>> That is also why "theft" and what we can generally refer to as "the theft
>> words" never applies these topics no matter how often or loudly someone
>> yells "you stole that idea from me."

>But it is theft, as surely as if I pay you $10 to mow my lawn and you don't
mow my lawn.
>Violating a contractual agreement not to disclose and not paying the
damages the agreement
>specifies is a form of theft by fraud.

>> Worse, absolutely none of the DRM arguments even exist within the
>> presidents
>> of copyright law as a significant subset of the technology and
uncertainty
>> only comes into play well after the act of copying is completed.

>Then forget about copyright law entirely. Think only about contractual
property and the fact
>that a person who comes up with an idea cannot be compelled to disclose it
and can disclose it
>under any terms he or she chooses. Think that when you buy a CD or a
program, there's an implied >contract that the CD or program is for your
personal use and that violating that contract is as >much theft as living in
an apartment without paying rent.

	DS

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 566 bytes --]

On Thu, 01 May 2003 20:10:55 PDT, David Schwartz said:
>
> 	1) A person who thinks of an idea cannot be compelled to disclose it,
> especially since nobody would even know that he had it unless he told them
> and that therefore absent a contract or other agreement to the contrary, may
> refrain from disclosing it to others.

They can't be compelled *YET*.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/121/nation/Some_fear_loss_of_privacy_as_science_pries_into_brain+.shtml

This could make for some *interesting* EULA clauses...

Where's my copy of The Demolished Man??? ;)

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 226 bytes --]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 01:04:14PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > Those people ought to consider the benefits that BK has provided, the
> > fact that any free replacement is years away, and the fact that we could
> > pull the plug tomorrow and shut down the free use of BK.  Balance your
> 
> So you are essentially blackmailing us,
> and expect us to like it? (What's above
> statement, if not blackmail?) Either
> pull the plug today, or stop flaming this
> list. Better pull the plug.

Pavel, someone gave me some really good insight when he said "When's the
last time you saw something from Pavel that wasn't a troll?"  I think
you do post a some useful stuff but he does have a point, and I'll pass
on rising to the bait, this troll is a little too blatant.

If you really want to know how I feel on the topic, Dave stated it nicely:

> From: "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>
> 
> See, it's not about what you're allowed to do, it's about being nice to
> people especially the ones that help you.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> Those people ought to consider the benefits that BK has provided, the
> fact that any free replacement is years away, and the fact that we could
> pull the plug tomorrow and shut down the free use of BK.  Balance your

So you are essentially blackmailing us,
and expect us to like it? (What's above
statement, if not blackmail?) Either
pull the plug today, or stop flaming this
list. Better pull the plug.

				Pavel
-- 
				Pavel
Written on sharp zaurus, because my Velo1 broke. If you have Velo you don't need...

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > Current --in production-- DRM. Clearly no. Current DRM is mostly all
> > targeted to audio / video content protection.
> > 
> > So, nothing that we have *today* is a response to Open Source.
> 
> I can't believe nobody talks about TiVO and what they're doing (only
> allowing signed Linux kernels to boot on their machines).
> 
> That is DRM, and directly in response to open source.

When they make their bootloader only
boot one particular kernel, they are
essentially making bootloader&kernel
same product, right? That does not
seem "mere aggregation" to me...
				Pavel
-- 
				Pavel
Written on sharp zaurus, because my Velo1 broke. If you have Velo you don't need...

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Kurt Wall]

An unnamed Administration source, Henning P. Schmiedehausen, wrote:
% 
% I'm pretty sure that Germany will not get pressured into an US-like
% DMCA. We will have to obey E.U. law in the end and in the E.U. there
% are some countries with more backbone than ours (France, e.g. who
% basically spit on anything that comes out of the U.S....).

That's not backbone, merely knee-jerk reaction.

Kurt
-- 
Mandrell: "You know what I think?"
Doctor:   "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you
	  don't think, right?"
		-- Dr. Who

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

> are some countries with more backbone than ours (France, e.g. who
> basically spit on anything that comes out of the U.S....).

Its called an independant nuclear deterrent. It scores bonus points
during trade negotiations

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Henning P. Schmiedehausen]

Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@ithnet.com> writes:

>On Tue, 6 May 2003 15:58:02 +0000 (UTC)
>"Henning P. Schmiedehausen" <hps@intermeta.de> wrote:

>> Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@ithnet.com> writes:
>> 
>> >copy-protected I cannot do that _legally_, because breaking the protection
>> >is against DMCA. Now you just created the case where _buying_ something does
>> >not
>> 
>> You live in which country? So why do you care about archaic law in
>> foreign countries? The DMCA doesn't apply (yet) to the E.U.

>This is not completely true. You can be imprisoned (and "handed over") even as
>E.U. citizen to US for violation of US laws. E.U. signed a respective

Only if it is a crime by E.U. standards, too. Copying a CD isn't (yet).

[...]
>of the new german Urheberrecht which is said to come somewhen this autumn.
>There is a clear statement that private copies are illegal after that passed
>parliament.

The proposed change to the german law is consided unconstitutional
by many lawyers (and if the current governement is really stupid
enough to pass the law, it will almost surely get shot down by the
german supreme court.

>> Copying a CD for private use is perfectly legal here in Germany. 

>Just wait 6 month and see...

I'm pretty sure that Germany will not get pressured into an US-like
DMCA. We will have to obey E.U. law in the end and in the E.U. there
are some countries with more backbone than ours (France, e.g. who
basically spit on anything that comes out of the U.S....).

	Regards
		Henning


-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen          INTERMETA GmbH
hps@intermeta.de        +49 9131 50 654 0   http://www.intermeta.de/

Java, perl, Solaris, Linux, xSP Consulting, Web Services 
freelance consultant -- Jakarta Turbine Development  -- hero for hire

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Stephan von Krawczynski]

On Tue, 6 May 2003 15:58:02 +0000 (UTC)
"Henning P. Schmiedehausen" <hps@intermeta.de> wrote:

> Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@ithnet.com> writes:
> 
> >copy-protected I cannot do that _legally_, because breaking the protection
> >is against DMCA. Now you just created the case where _buying_ something does
> >not
> 
> You live in which country? So why do you care about archaic law in
> foreign countries? The DMCA doesn't apply (yet) to the E.U.

This is not completely true. You can be imprisoned (and "handed over") even as
E.U. citizen to US for violation of US laws. E.U. signed a respective
agreement. As far as I know no case was filed up to now, but that does not mean
it weren't possible.
It was obviously a complete brain-damage of the officials to pass something
like that, it looked a lot like the ongoing case of giving away all E.U.
customer flight data to the US, not only those flighing to the US.
And additionally look at the currently ongoing discussion about the second part
of the new german Urheberrecht which is said to come somewhen this autumn.
There is a clear statement that private copies are illegal after that passed
parliament.

> Copying a CD for private use is perfectly legal here in Germany. 

Just wait 6 month and see...

-- 
Regards,
Stephan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2003-05-07 at 15:44, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote:
> This is not completely true. You can be imprisoned (and "handed over") even as
> E.U. citizen to US for violation of US laws. E.U. signed a respective
> agreement. As far as I know no case was filed up to now, but that does not mean
> it weren't possible.

Only if the crime in question is also a crime in the EU, and a whole
list of other conditions about who/where the crime was committed against
(and that it doesnt cover crimes with a death sentence). Also even
within the EU certain kinds of financial crimes are exempted so that
the italians would sign it

> > Copying a CD for private use is perfectly legal here in Germany. 
> 
> Just wait 6 month and see...

Indeed

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Henning P. Schmiedehausen]

Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de> writes:

>See, the open source (or free source) people are _not_ interested in
>marketing. They're addicted towards technical evolution. By locking new

Overgeneralization and wrong assumption. Lots of open source people
care tons about marketing. Ask e.g. RedHat or SuSE. Or many of the
smaller companies that do open source work. We all have to eat sometimes.

	Regards
		Henning

-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen          INTERMETA GmbH
hps@intermeta.de        +49 9131 50 654 0   http://www.intermeta.de/

Java, perl, Solaris, Linux, xSP Consulting, Web Services 
freelance consultant -- Jakarta Turbine Development  -- hero for hire

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Henning P. Schmiedehausen]

Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@ithnet.com> writes:

>copy-protected I cannot do that _legally_, because breaking the protection is
>against DMCA. Now you just created the case where _buying_ something does not

You live in which country? So why do you care about archaic law in
foreign countries? The DMCA doesn't apply (yet) to the E.U. It might
be illegal in the UK to drive on the motorway on the right side. This
doesn't stop me from doing so over here in Germany.

Copying a CD for private use is perfectly legal here in Germany. 
Copy protecting a CD is also perfectly legal over here in Germany.

	Regards
		Henning
-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen          INTERMETA GmbH
hps@intermeta.de        +49 9131 50 654 0   http://www.intermeta.de/

Java, perl, Solaris, Linux, xSP Consulting, Web Services 
freelance consultant -- Jakarta Turbine Development  -- hero for hire

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David S. Miller]

On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 04:25, Henning P. Schmiedehausen wrote:
> Well, vote with your wallet.

I said this is exactly what I intend to do.

And yes it is about being nice.  If Linus wasn't "nice" nobody
would give a shit about his project and want to work with him
in the first place and Linux as we know it wouldn't exist today.

If Linus, like TIVO, said "ok you can hack my kernel, but you
can't ever boot one except the ones that I distribute and I'm going to
enforce this by signing the kernels and not giving out the bootloader
sources nor the keys I use" nobody would hack on Linux.  He could
certainly "do it", but he "didn't".  He "didn't" because that would
be "stupid".

You can say whatever you want about Linus, and while he is firm in his
decisions he is still "nice".

Nothing in my email is about what I think TIVO "has to do".

-- 
David S. Miller <davem@redhat.com>

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Henning P. Schmiedehausen]

"David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com> writes:

>Yet I personally am offended by their behavior.  You mean that I wrote a
>substantial amount of code that makes your damn product even possible
>yet I can't boot my very own kernel on your box?  Well, thanks a fucking
>lot Tivo.

Then you shouldn't have given your code away.

I personally don't want anyone boot anything on anything linux
driven. Consider a linux driven medical appliance that controls your
bodily functions after open heart surgery. You don't want the hospital
admin to boot a "newer and better, self rolled Linux kernel" on
that. It might be even legally required by the medical appliance
vendor to make it impossible for a hospital admin to do so.

TiVO is an appliance. Not a general purpose computer running Linux
connected to a TV. If you want that, assemble it from readily
available components. You can't get it for the price of a TiVO? Well,
vote with your wallet.

If TiVO decides that it don't want to boot non-signed kernels on their
appliance, they can do so. If you consider this a GPL violation, sue
them.

If you don't like it, start hacking it like they do with the X-Box. Or
don't buy it.

As you yourself said many times, Linux is about freedom. About
choice. TiVO has chosen and you don't like it? Well, tough luck.

>See, it's not about what you're allowed to do, it's about being nice to
>people especially the ones that help you.

Linux and the GPL are not about being nice. Just because you wrote
parts of the code that I use for writing this message and sending it
on the internet does not mean I have to give you elevated priviledges
on the system that runs this code. I do appreciate your work and I am
grateful for it.  However, that's all.

	Regards
		Henning

-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen          INTERMETA GmbH
hps@intermeta.de        +49 9131 50 654 0   http://www.intermeta.de/

Java, perl, Solaris, Linux, xSP Consulting, Web Services 
freelance consultant -- Jakarta Turbine Development  -- hero for hire

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 04:10:20PM -0700, David S. Miller wrote:
> See, it's not about what you're allowed to do, it's about being nice to
> people especially the ones that help you.

My thoughts exactly.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David S. Miller]

On Fri, 2003-05-02 at 12:00, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> The sad part is that the earlier TiVos were eminently hackable, and it
> seemed TiVo had no problem with people doing that.

Yes, this is exactly the part that upsets me.

Let me make it clear that what they do is probably legal.

Yet I personally am offended by their behavior.  You mean that I wrote a
substantial amount of code that makes your damn product even possible
yet I can't boot my very own kernel on your box?  Well, thanks a fucking
lot Tivo.

See, it's not about what you're allowed to do, it's about being nice to
people especially the ones that help you.

-- 
David S. Miller <davem@redhat.com>

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <1051789446.8772.13.camel@rth.ninka.net>
By author:    "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On Wed, 2003-04-30 at 13:00, Dax Kelson wrote:
> > Current --in production-- DRM. Clearly no. Current DRM is mostly all
> > targeted to audio / video content protection.
> > 
> > So, nothing that we have *today* is a response to Open Source.
> 
> I can't believe nobody talks about TiVO and what they're doing (only
> allowing signed Linux kernels to boot on their machines).
> 
> That is DRM, and directly in response to open source.
> 
> Yet at the same time I recognize the truth in Linus's stance here.
> And personally, I'm going to speak with my walet by not buying any
> products from those fucknuts at TIVO.  This is precisely the mechanism
> Linus said would decide if DRM is successful or not.
> 

The sad part is that the earlier TiVos were eminently hackable, and it
seemed TiVo had no problem with people doing that.  I suspect they've
gotten crap from DirectTV, with whom they've gotten pretty deeply
embedded.  DirectTV is not exactly "hacker friendly", as the only
"hacker" they even know exist are the ones trying to crack their
access cards.

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
Architectures needed: ia64 m68k mips64 ppc ppc64 s390 s390x sh v850 x86-64

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Chuck Ebbert]

Scott McDermott wrote:

>>  They only leaked information when you edited documents while running
>>  the word processor on a toy OS that didn't zero newly allocated
>>  memory...
>
> um pardon, but does your libc zero newly allocated memory?

 I don't know about libc, but my kernels do.  All of them...

> and why should it, praytell? force a performance hit on everyone, when
> it could just be left to the application to do it?

  It is a security requirement.  Applications cannot be trusted.

------
 Chuck

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Chuck Ebbert]

Gerhard Mack wrote:

> Older versions of word used to embed random bits of memory into the doc
> file that word couldn't see.

  They only leaked information when you edited documents while running
the word processor on a toy OS that didn't zero newly allocated memory...
------
 Chuck

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Gerhard Mack]

On Thu, 1 May 2003, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:21:07 -0700
> Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:
>
> > That line of reasoning, by the way, only works if they are a monopoly,
> > i.e., it doesn't work real well for BK, there are lots of other source
> > management systems.  But it works very well for things like Word,
> > that's a de facto standard, contrary to what some people here believe
> > it is bloody difficult to negotiate a contract in anything but Word.
> > Try sending a lawyer anything else and you'll see what I mean.
>
> A lot of people love reading deleted-and-not-visible parts of w.rd-docs, you
> can learn a lot out of such a doc, including some information about the network
> it was created on.
> But of course it may be of no importance what the other side thinks when
> negotiating a contract ...
>

Older versions of word used to embed random bits of memory into the doc
file that word couldn't see.  I'm not sure of the versions that did it but
I once found an essay on the mark of the beast embedded in the
unreadable portions of woman's resume that didn't show until I used
catdoc.  She was most upset when I showed her.  That sort of error could
be catastrophic during contract negotiations if it happened to embed some
data that you didn't want to see such as opposing bids or something.

	Gerhard


--
Gerhard Mack

gmack@innerfire.net

<>< As a computer I find your faith in technology amusing.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1330 bytes --]

On Wed, 2003-04-30 18:03:17 -0700, Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
wrote in message <20030501010317.GB8676@work.bitmover.com>:
> On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 08:43:47AM +1000, Paul Mackerras wrote:
> > Larry McVoy writes:
> And as much as I dislike Microsoft, I'd argue that the middleware layer
> that they provide which makes all the windows apps work together is 
> maybe even a bigger deal than the web.  Unix has been trying to build
> something like that for decades and never has.  Neither Gnome nor KDE 
> matches what they have, not a chance.  And the reason is that that 

Now, after using Linux (and some other Un*xes as well:) I wouldn't
compare Windows to Gnome or KDE. I'd better compare Windows to sh, awk,
sed, ... The best thing ever seems to be '|', '&&' and '||' :-)

> layer is the computing version of ditch digging, it's not sexy, it's
> not math, it's just a pile of grunt work, a huge pile.  And Microsoft

Nothing sexy there, but some simple sh scripts are damn neat to that:)

MfG, JBG

-- 
   Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481
   "Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg
    fuer einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger" | im Internet! |   im Irak!
      ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(IRAQ_WAR_2 | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jesse Pollard]

On Wednesday 30 April 2003 20:03, Larry McVoy wrote:
[snip]
> Don't get me wrong, I think Microsoft as an OS company is the worldest
> biggest joke.  Anyone who thinks that socket "handles" are different
> than file "handles" just doesn't get the abstraction at all.  It's
> pathetic, amazingly so.  But they got the application support layer
> pretty right or at least very useful and workable.

And it is the biggest source of security problems that has ever existed.

One of the reasons the UNIX implementation (corba and others) haven't worked
real well is:

1. complexity of usage
2. nonportability (a version on SUN will tend to fail to communicate with one 
on HP)
3. security verification.

M$ hasn't had to deal with #2 (since all the world is intel ((their view)),
and obviously doesn't deal with #3. #1 is handled by not allowing people to
use it (the cause of so many "undocumented interfaces"), and instead force
the use of interfacing languages that ignore #2 and #3.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jesse Pollard]

On Wednesday 30 April 2003 10:55, Jeff Randall wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 08:20:41AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > My point wasn't about theft, it was about reimplementation.
> > I stand behind that point, what I've seen for more than a decade is
> > reimplementation after reimplementation.  I'm not saying there is no
> > value to that or that it is illegal or that there are no improvements
> > (compare Unix diff to GNU diff if you want to see some imrovements).
> > There is tons of value in having free versions of useful tools.
> > There is also tons of value in the creation of new work.
> >
> > What I haven't seen is a lot of revolutionary work.  All of that seems
> > to come from commercial companies and at a pretty slow pace.  There are
> > a lot of false starts, commercial failures, whatever.  But a few slam
> > dunks as well.
>
> Mosaic was pretty revolutionary for it's time.. as was Sendmail..
> source was available for both from the start.

Mosaic is/was derived from two sources - gopher for network communication 
(derived from network news and/or e-mail) and SGML combined with display only
word processor applications (postscript and pdf previewers).

sendmail was derived from a message routing protocol originally using UUCP, 
written to promote research in message routing, and flexibility to reduce the
re-implementation time required on earlier applications. (somewhere there is a
quote from Eric Allman along the lines of "...If I had known how popular it
would become I would have asked for a dime for each installation...")

Neither looked revolutionary at the time.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Stephan von Krawczynski]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 18:03:17 -0700
Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> Don't get me wrong, I think Microsoft as an OS company is the worldest
> biggest joke.  Anyone who thinks that socket "handles" are different
> than file "handles" just doesn't get the abstraction at all.  It's 
> pathetic, amazingly so.  But they got the application support layer 
> pretty right or at least very useful and workable.

... and that may be the reason why such a lot third party vendors make big
bucks on selling applications competitive to w.rd or ex.l or <name-one> - the
perfectly working and documented application support layer ...

</sarcasm>
(in case one didn't notice)

Regards,
Stephan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Stephan von Krawczynski]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:21:07 -0700
Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> That line of reasoning, by the way, only works if they are a monopoly,
> i.e., it doesn't work real well for BK, there are lots of other source
> management systems.  But it works very well for things like Word,
> that's a de facto standard, contrary to what some people here believe
> it is bloody difficult to negotiate a contract in anything but Word.
> Try sending a lawyer anything else and you'll see what I mean.

A lot of people love reading deleted-and-not-visible parts of w.rd-docs, you
can learn a lot out of such a doc, including some information about the network
it was created on.
But of course it may be of no importance what the other side thinks when
negotiating a contract ...

-- 
Regards,
Stephan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[David S. Miller]

On Wed, 2003-04-30 at 13:00, Dax Kelson wrote:
> Current --in production-- DRM. Clearly no. Current DRM is mostly all
> targeted to audio / video content protection.
> 
> So, nothing that we have *today* is a response to Open Source.

I can't believe nobody talks about TiVO and what they're doing (only
allowing signed Linux kernels to boot on their machines).

That is DRM, and directly in response to open source.

Yet at the same time I recognize the truth in Linus's stance here.
And personally, I'm going to speak with my walet by not buying any
products from those fucknuts at TIVO.  This is precisely the mechanism
Linus said would decide if DRM is successful or not.

-- 
David S. Miller <davem@redhat.com>

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Nicolas Pitre]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 03:58:08PM -0400, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> > > That's what I meant by chasing.  If you are chasing the leader you are
> > > automatically more at risk because you are trying to play in the leader's
> > > playing field and they can change the rules to screw you up.  You build
> > > a better playing field and you turn the tables, now the leader is the
> > > follower and they have to play by your rules.
> > 
> > Then... if you're so confident about you remaining the leader in the SCM 
> > world, why are you afraid of possible BK clone attempts?  The leader will 
> > _always_ be chased regardless.  That's part of being a leader.
> 
> Read my lips:
> 
> 	It's not about BitKeeper
> 	It's not about BitKeeper
> 	It's not about BitKeeper
> 
[...]
>
> But worried about these guys?  Come on.  Read Pavel's "source" tree.
> Read the mailing lists.  It's absolutely true that I'm outraged at
> the attempts to clone our technology by the people we are helping.
> Threatened?  Gimme a break.  If you think we are threatened you don't
> have the foggiest idea of how good our technology is, how good our
> programmers are, or how dedicated we are to making the best solution.

Larry, please stop these over emotive reactions once and for all.

Threatened you are certainly not, and you seem to know it pretty well.  
Have more confidence, relax, laugh at BK clone attempts privately, and stop
pissing off people back since there is nothing _outrageous_ with a few folks
(hardly a "community" here) trying to convince themselves they can (or
cannot) do what you did.  Yes you are passionate about what you do and that's 
really a good thing.  Using that passion against others is not.

Your repetitive spinning of dust and stepping on anything that is years 
away from BK just give the impression that you fear
bankruptcy for tomorrow, yet you claim your superiority out loud. So please
get real and stop that nonsense.


Nicolas

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Tom Lord]

	> The thread was about corporations and powers which are
	> orders and orders of magnitude more powerful than we will
	> ever be.

It was also about innovation and R&D (or the lack thereof) in the free
software and open source communities, and the lack of business models
that seek to address that.  Kudos to you for taking the crap for
talking openly about that lack of innovation instead of trying to
handwave it away.   Some of us, at least, share your observations and
think you are right on the money.


	> But since you insist on harping on BK, I get what you are
	> saying, but we are cranking out code faster than you can
	> type.  I have an engineer here who has over 100 active BK
	> repositories, just that one person can code circles around
	> all the BK cloners stacked up and then some.  

Now, there: be careful.   I can only hope/guess that the code you guys
are cranking moves well beyond just basic revision control and into a
complete software development pipeline infrastructure.   It's no
virtue of a revision control system that it takes a lot of code to
implement it or countless revisions to get it right.


	> We're not worried that the BK cloners are going to keep up.

Yeah -- cloning is dumb.  I think that a radically different approach
(specifically, dare I say it, arch) is better.   No, arch isn't ready
for LK work.   I won't pretend for a minute that it is.   I was
shocked and amused to learn that last year somebody actually tried it
for that purpose.

But what's the delta between where arch's at, and an arch that's great
for something the scale of LK?  It's not that huge, guy, and if I
weren't so broke -- you'd have something to worry about there, IMHO.

But I am broke, and that just reinforces your recurrent theme about
business realities vs. free software R&D.   You Are Right.



	> Look at Subversion, that's a funded project, serious
	> programmers (good ones), open source, etc.  They admit that
	> they can't do what BK can and we started more or less at the
	> same time

If you ask me, they're totally messed up.   They aren't passionate
about revision control or source management generally.   The paid ones
seem to be passionate about Collabnet's short-term business plans and
putting on a public project face that fits the mythology of free
software success.   I'm sorry -- that's completely rude.  Hopefully it
won't land me with a subpoena or anything.   But really, I have yet to
see any evidence to the contrary, and plenty supporting it.
It's sad, really, because the core idea -- a txnal file system db --
is a totally winning direction.


	> It's absolutely true that I'm pissed off at the kernel
	> people looking at cloning BK.  Why shouldn't I be?  

Because, combined with their inevitable failure, it's just free
publicity.


	> Yeah, I'm pissed.  If you were me you would be livid.  It
	> sucks to try and help and be distrusted and crapped on.

It's probably comparably heartbreaking to try and help, and _not_
break any basic licensing precepts of the "community" -- and get
crapped on anyway.  It's really lost on me, at this point, why anybody
thinks it's a good idea to _volunteer_ for commercially significant
free software projects.  In your case, I can sort of see: if nothing
else, you get some marketing and testing and use cases to study.  I'd
guess you'd say "not nearly enough to justify the costs" -- but still,
you have _some_ business reason for spending salary on this, at least
for now.


	> We've had 5 years of "you're just evil corporate bastards"

There are worse ones.

	> and so far we have never done a single thing to deserve
	> that.  

Eh.   It's just flames and they happen both ways.  I think you're
exaggerating there.   But, yeah, when you start saying "this is really
exasperating," a "communal" response of "dog pile on the rabbit" is 
not the right thing.


	> As one open source luminary said "It will take them 5 years
	> to catch up to where you were last year and unless you guys
	> are idiots you'll be more than 5 years ahead of them then".

It will take that long, but only because of the absence of real R&D
spending in the free software world.  I could seal your fate in a year
given <$2M.  (Which means that I can't do it in a year and pretty
much have to give up trying.)  ("Seal your fate" doesn't mean match
your features or clone -- just get enough leverage to start taking
away project wins.)


	> Exactly.  Nobody here is sitting back and resting, we think
	> what we have is garbage and have a clear vision as to how to
	> make it be great.  We're doing that.  If the copiers can do
	> better, that's very cool, but we'll probably respond by
	> hiring them if they are really that good, we're always
	> looking for people as passionate as we are about this stuff.

I'm available, and I'm looking to get out of this free software
"community" :-)

-t

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 03:58:08PM -0400, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> > That's what I meant by chasing.  If you are chasing the leader you are
> > automatically more at risk because you are trying to play in the leader's
> > playing field and they can change the rules to screw you up.  You build
> > a better playing field and you turn the tables, now the leader is the
> > follower and they have to play by your rules.
> 
> Then... if you're so confident about you remaining the leader in the SCM 
> world, why are you afraid of possible BK clone attempts?  The leader will 
> _always_ be chased regardless.  That's part of being a leader.

Read my lips:

	It's not about BitKeeper
	It's not about BitKeeper
	It's not about BitKeeper

The thread was about corporations and powers which are orders and orders
of magnitude more powerful than we will ever be.

But since you insist on harping on BK, I get what you are saying, but we
are cranking out code faster than you can type.  I have an engineer here
who has over 100 active BK repositories, just that one person can code
circles around all the BK cloners stacked up and then some.  We're all
like that, we're nuts, we live to code and we are pretty good at it.
Linus has the BK source, ask him what he thinks.

We're not worried that the BK cloners are going to keep up.  Look at
Subversion, that's a funded project, serious programmers (good ones),
open source, etc.  They admit that they can't do what BK can and we
started more or less at the same time (I worked alone for a year or so
before they started but our teams started up about the same time).

It's absolutely true that I'm pissed off at the kernel people looking
at cloning BK.  Why shouldn't I be?  We busted our ass to produce
a much better tool to help out the kernel effort and got "rewarded"
with people saying they'll clone it.  That reaction just disgusts me.
Those people ought to consider the benefits that BK has provided, the
fact that any free replacement is years away, and the fact that we could
pull the plug tomorrow and shut down the free use of BK.  Balance your
actions against the reactions.

Yeah, I'm pissed.  If you were me you would be livid.  It sucks to try and
help and be distrusted and crapped on.  We've had 5 years of "you're just
evil corporate bastards" and so far we have never done a single thing to
deserve that.  We've done nothing but provide the best technology we can
possibly build for free.  Whatever, that's life, we certainly didn't do
this for the love and rewards we would get from the so called "community".

But worried about these guys?  Come on.  Read Pavel's "source" tree.
Read the mailing lists.  It's absolutely true that I'm outraged at
the attempts to clone our technology by the people we are helping.
Threatened?  Gimme a break.  If you think we are threatened you don't
have the foggiest idea of how good our technology is, how good our
programmers are, or how dedicated we are to making the best solution.

As one open source luminary said "It will take them 5 years to catch
up to where you were last year and unless you guys are idiots you'll
be more than 5 years ahead of them then".  Exactly.  Nobody here is
sitting back and resting, we think what we have is garbage and have a
clear vision as to how to make it be great.  We're doing that.  If the
copiers can do better, that's very cool, but we'll probably respond by
hiring them if they are really that good, we're always looking for people
as passionate as we are about this stuff.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 08:43:47AM +1000, Paul Mackerras wrote:
> Larry McVoy writes:
> 
> > What I haven't seen is a lot of revolutionary work.  All of that seems
> > to come from commercial companies and at a pretty slow pace.  There are
> 
> Didn't the web start out as open source?  Certainly it didn't come
> from a commercial company.  And the web is arguably the biggest
> revolution in computing in the last 10 years.

Well, http was from CERN and Mosaic was from a University, right? 
And yes, I'd agree 100% that the Web is absolutely the biggest deal 
in computing in the last 10 years, in fact, I think you could argue
that it is the biggest deal in computing pretty much ever.

On the other hand, Google is probably the most useful way to use the
web at that was absolutely a for profit commercial venture.

And as much as I dislike Microsoft, I'd argue that the middleware layer
that they provide which makes all the windows apps work together is 
maybe even a bigger deal than the web.  Unix has been trying to build
something like that for decades and never has.  Neither Gnome nor KDE 
matches what they have, not a chance.  And the reason is that that 
layer is the computing version of ditch digging, it's not sexy, it's
not math, it's just a pile of grunt work, a huge pile.  And Microsoft
did it and not all the Unix guys plus all the open source guys have
anything remotely as useful.

Don't get me wrong, I think Microsoft as an OS company is the worldest
biggest joke.  Anyone who thinks that socket "handles" are different
than file "handles" just doesn't get the abstraction at all.  It's 
pathetic, amazingly so.  But they got the application support layer 
pretty right or at least very useful and workable.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Paul Mackerras]

Larry McVoy writes:

> What I haven't seen is a lot of revolutionary work.  All of that seems
> to come from commercial companies and at a pretty slow pace.  There are

Didn't the web start out as open source?  Certainly it didn't come
from a commercial company.  And the web is arguably the biggest
revolution in computing in the last 10 years.

Paul.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

Could you explain to me how this is any more off-topic than the whole 
DRM thread?  I don't want to be a jerk about it, but my original 
statement was directly in response to McVoy's ostensive assertion (as 
interpreted by some people) that open source developers don't do 
anything innovative whereas commercial vendors do.

So, was I off topic?  Within the realm of the whole DRM discussion we've 
been having, I don't think so.  Was the whole DRM discussion off-topic? 
  Probably, and I apologize for adding to it.  I will move on to more 
relevant topics.


viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 03:41:12PM -0400, Timothy Miller wrote:
>  
> 
>>I am vaguely familiar with that.  It uses vi-like editing commands? 
>>Sounds great.  Why isn't THAT the default shell?  Why are these 
>>usability perks not a priority to commercial vendors?  Why are they a 
>>priority for open source developers?
> 
> 
> ... and for $64000 question, could you get yourself vaguely familiar with
> the notion of on-topic posting?
> 
> 

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Dax Kelson]

Larry, in your opening remarks you stated:

"The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts."

DMCA, clearly no, the time frame is wrong.

Current --in production-- DRM. Clearly no. Current DRM is mostly all
targeted to audio / video content protection.

So, nothing that we have *today* is a response to Open Source. And
speaking to your statement, Open Source wasn't the cause of it emerging in
the first place.

Is "Trusted Computing/Palladium" a response to Open Source apps reading
file formats from commercial products? Maybe.

Or is it an attempt (well, it isn't out yet) of MS to:

1. Finally "solve" the Windows virus problem? 
2. Make developers pay a fee to MS get their app signed so it will run
on Windows?
3. Solve software piracy?

I hope it does solve software piracy. If users were confronted with the 
true cost of running the pirated commercial software installed on their 
windows boxes, they will likely look for alternatives like Open Source 
software.

Dax Kelson

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Nicolas Pitre]

> The open source thing is a new twist, it's changing the playing field.
> That can be good (it has been so far) but it can be bad too if the
> corporations get all paranoid, which is what they look like to me.

So what?  Do you mean that we should all stop writing open source and go
home and grow cucumbers instead?  No amount of corporations get all paranoia
will stop Open Source and it might even stimulate it instead.  If
corporations get too annoying then there'll always be a bunch of people
motivated enough to say "up yours, we will manage to live without you
somehow".  If corporations, especially big old businesses, aren't able to
adapt to the new twist because of their inertia, then of course they'll try
to use their weight to stop those who don't play by their rules because
that's less effort than adapting to the new emerging conditions.  But what's
new there?  It's been like that since the emergence of human kind on Earth.

> What you do about it is an open question.  My thought has been to focus
> on creating new stuff that creates its own world of users and advocates.

On the other hand it didn't work for Microsoft -- they've rather been more
successful at cloning/copying what others did before them.

> Going back to Word, if there was a word processing system that was better
> than Word and people switched to it, then any attempt by Microsoft to lock
> up the data is irrelevant.  Apply that pattern to any application which
> operates on data - if you let any corporation have the best technology and
> become a monopoly then they can lock up the data and you're shut out of
> the game.  

While M$ Word is a de facto standard today, like WordPerfect used to be 15 
years ago, it doesn't mean that an Open Source solution won't have its turn 
in 5 or 10 years from now.  Of course that won't happen right away, and 
it'll take time and development efforts.  That why people are working on 
Word alternatives _now_.

Of course M$ does not like that.  Is this a reason to stop trying to push
them aside?  Absolutely not.  If they lose their market that'll be because
the alternative (be Open Source or not) is simply better for the user.  
They might try encrypting the data or whatever, but then they'll just create
an incompatibility with their own standard and people won't upgrade to the
new version, or if they force people into upgrading that'll create just more
incentive toward the Open Source solution among the users.

> That's one of the reasons I sort of think the BK clone attempts
> are pointless, we can change the file format or encrypt it and unless
> there is some other compelling reason to use the clone, it's irrelevant.

You feel just like Microsoft now, aren't you?

> On the other hand, make something different and better and BK becomes
> irrelevant (unless we do leapfrog with some new feature/whatever).

A BK clone just has to be better and BK becomes irrelevant.  Face it, that's
like that even among corporations with proprietary products.  When your only
reaction left is to encrypt the data to preserve an edge over the
competition rather than improving your own product for increased user value
then it means that you've reached the best you can achieve in your closed
environment and Open Source will surpass you just because of the larger mind
share.  If in that context an Open Source clone becomes better for the user
then no amount of corporate whining will change that fact.  The only thing
corporations do better is to organize focused development and to come with
mature products faster.  They therefore saturate faster in terms of
innovations with regards to a given products.

One day, there'll be a M$ Word alternative or clone that works just as fine
as Word itself, especially since Word can't bring a revolution in the word
processing field anymore.  And from that day that alternative will just get
better.  But before it happens, M$ will certainly try hard to twist the
rules which will give nothing to users but slow down competition.  That'll
only buy them some time nothing more.

> That's what I meant by chasing.  If you are chasing the leader you are
> automatically more at risk because you are trying to play in the leader's
> playing field and they can change the rules to screw you up.  You build
> a better playing field and you turn the tables, now the leader is the
> follower and they have to play by your rules.

Then... if you're so confident about you remaining the leader in the SCM 
world, why are you afraid of possible BK clone attempts?  The leader will 
_always_ be chased regardless.  That's part of being a leader.


Nicolas

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[viro]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 03:41:12PM -0400, Timothy Miller wrote:
 
> I am vaguely familiar with that.  It uses vi-like editing commands? 
> Sounds great.  Why isn't THAT the default shell?  Why are these 
> usability perks not a priority to commercial vendors?  Why are they a 
> priority for open source developers?

... and for $64000 question, could you get yourself vaguely familiar with
the notion of on-topic posting?

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 388 bytes --]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 15:41:12 EDT, Timothy Miller said:

> I am vaguely familiar with that.  It uses vi-like editing commands? 

set -o vi   or set -o emacs  - your choice.

> Sounds great.  Why isn't THAT the default shell?  Why are these 

At least on AIX, it *IS*.  Solaris and Tru64 the sysadmin can make it
the default shell easily enough.

You can't blame the vendors for this one.


[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 226 bytes --]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 14:19:13 EDT, Timothy Miller said:
> 
> 
>>I mean, when will Sun, IBM, or Compaq ever start shipping tcsh or bash 
>>as the default shell?  Don't they realize that people make typos and 
>>would like to reedit the line they just typed?  Why are they still in 
>>the dark ages?
> 
> 
> Odd.. I use the vendor-provided 'ksh' on Solaris, AIX, and Tru64 (now an HP
> product), and they all have supported re-editing the line just typed for
> *years* (I can't prove it's over a decade, but I'm fairly sure it is).
> 
> Remember that a major reason for 'bash' being created was because of licensing
> issues with the 'ksh' source.


I am vaguely familiar with that.  It uses vi-like editing commands? 
Sounds great.  Why isn't THAT the default shell?  Why are these 
usability perks not a priority to commercial vendors?  Why are they a 
priority for open source developers?

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 623 bytes --]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 14:19:13 EDT, Timothy Miller said:

> I mean, when will Sun, IBM, or Compaq ever start shipping tcsh or bash 
> as the default shell?  Don't they realize that people make typos and 
> would like to reedit the line they just typed?  Why are they still in 
> the dark ages?

Odd.. I use the vendor-provided 'ksh' on Solaris, AIX, and Tru64 (now an HP
product), and they all have supported re-editing the line just typed for
*years* (I can't prove it's over a decade, but I'm fairly sure it is).

Remember that a major reason for 'bash' being created was because of licensing
issues with the 'ksh' source.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 226 bytes --]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Balram Adlakha]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4935 bytes --]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 10:21:07AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 10:53:52AM -0600, Dax Kelson wrote:
> > On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > 
> > > Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
> > > that the reaction is likely.  You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
> > > as to why the reaction is happening, I see that.  OK, so let's try it
> > > with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
> > > DRM happening?  It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
> > > it's the corporations.  So why are they doing it?
> > 
> > DRM/DMCA do nothing to address reimplementation (it can't, see all 
> > previous posts on how it is a LEGAL activity).
> > 
> > In my observation, DRM/DMCA addresses unauthorized audio and video content
> > copying.
> > 
> > So, if Open Source is all about reimplementation, and DRM/DMCA is about 
> > "protecting" audio/video content, where is the connection?
> 
> "Trusted Computing/Palladium" stuff is clearly headed in the direction
> of encrypting everything, the only place it lands unencrypted is on
> your display.  I thought that fell under the heading of DRM but maybe
> I'm mistaken.
> 
> I believe the point of that is "huh, people are going to copy our program?
> OK, well, we're a monopoly, you have use our programs to generate the
> data, we encrypt the data and poof! the reimplemented programs are
> worthless".
> 
> That line of reasoning, by the way, only works if they are a monopoly,
> i.e., it doesn't work real well for BK, there are lots of other source
> management systems.  But it works very well for things like Word,
> that's a de facto standard, contrary to what some people here believe
> it is bloody difficult to negotiate a contract in anything but Word.
> Try sending a lawyer anything else and you'll see what I mean.
> 
> So I don't agree that the DRM stuff is all about protecting audio/video
> content at all, I think it goes much further than that.  Maybe I'm
> wrong, maybe DRM isn't all about that, but the point remains that there
> is lots of activity in the directions I'm describing and whether it
> falls under DRM, DMCA, Trusted Computing, Palladium, of BuzzWord2000,
> the activity exists.  And I think it exists at least in part because
> of the threat of the open source reimplementations.  I'm starting to
> think I'm the only person on this list who thinks that, that may be,
> but in the business world that I move in pretty much everyone thinks that.
> 
> The open source thing is a new twist, it's changing the playing field.
> That can be good (it has been so far) but it can be bad too if the
> corporations get all paranoid, which is what they look like to me.
> 
> What you do about it is an open question.  My thought has been to focus
> on creating new stuff that creates its own world of users and advocates.
> Going back to Word, if there was a word processing system that was better
> than Word and people switched to it, then any attempt by Microsoft to lock
> up the data is irrelevant.  Apply that pattern to any application which
> operates on data - if you let any corporation have the best technology and
> become a monopoly then they can lock up the data and you're shut out of
> the game.  That's one of the reasons I sort of think the BK clone attempts
> are pointless, we can change the file format or encrypt it and unless
> there is some other compelling reason to use the clone, it's irrelevant.
> On the other hand, make something different and better and BK becomes
> irrelevant (unless we do leapfrog with some new feature/whatever).
> 
> That's what I meant by chasing.  If you are chasing the leader you are
> automatically more at risk because you are trying to play in the leader's
> playing field and they can change the rules to screw you up.  You build
> a better playing field and you turn the tables, now the leader is the
> follower and they have to play by your rules.
> -- 
> ---
> Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



What about the people who cannot use bk because the license doesn't permit
them?They feed off the hourly kernel.org snapshots?
The BK clone doesn't have to be a clone always, but it has to start off with
that coz thats what is being used for linux currently. Maybe that won't be
requiredif you change the license to a bit more friendlier one.

This thread has become a few metres long now, but it as simple as 'open source
for better software, hidden source for better chances of making money'

-
- 

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Edgar Toernig]

Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> So if you were the organization spending the money to produce something
> new and you knew that it was going to be copied, wouldn't you do something
> to protect that?

I hope you have a license from your parents to use a copy of their genes...

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Chuck Ebbert]

Larry McVoy wrote:

.> If you were a powerful
.> corporation, you might lobby Congress for more laws to protect your 
.> works, you might start a "Trusted Computing" initiative to make sure
.> that the data was all encrypted so that only your programs could access
.> that data, etc.

  So you are saying that the whole TCPA/Palladium thing is a sham,
designed so that only one company's products can be used to access
DRM-managed media?  That's what I thought from day one...

  What's stopping an open-source reimplementation?  Or keeping Sony and
partners from creating a "DRM Linux" for their embedded OS?

------
 Chuck

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> 
> My point wasn't about theft, it was about reimplementation.
> I stand behind that point, what I've seen for more than a decade is
> reimplementation after reimplementation.  I'm not saying there is no
> value to that or that it is illegal or that there are no improvements
> (compare Unix diff to GNU diff if you want to see some imrovements).
> There is tons of value in having free versions of useful tools.
> There is also tons of value in the creation of new work.
> 


Here's my example:

Years ago, I realized that when you used malloc(), your process size 
would increase (of course), but when you used free(), your process size 
would not shrink.  This is still the case under Solaris.  I understand 
why it is the case, but I always wondered why someone didn't do 
something to improve it.  I mean, what a lazy, broken way of doing things.

Recently, I came to realize that glibc's implementation is really smart 
about it and releases free'd memory back to the system.  Wow!  What 
commercial vendor would EVER do something that intelligent?  Under 
Solaris, we had to do weird stuff involving mmap to get memory that we 
could release back to the system.  It was a pain.  glibc does it 
automatically!

Now, I have come to realize this because this 'intelligence' in glibc is 
being a major thorn in my side.  I wrote a program which relied on the 
lazy behavior, and the performance is being killed by the overhead of 
releasing the memory back to the system.  But being a thorn in my side 
doesn't make that improvement any less cool or genuinely unique to the 
open source community.

A lot of times, what you'll see from commercial vendors is a set of 
tools that work well.  But only just well enough.  They don't go out of 
their way to improve things.  They give you the same version of diff and 
the same basic functionality from libc for years and years on end.  The 
open source community says, "You know what?  This is lame.  I'm going to 
fix it and make it more useful for everyone."

More and more, people where I work are switching over to using 
GNU/Linux/x86 workstations rather than any of the alternatives, 
primarily because the development environment and the basic tools are 
just SO MUCH BETTER.  (Sure, Sun's Workshop comes with some great 
graphical tools, but who uses them?  And it's expensive anyhow.)

I mean, when will Sun, IBM, or Compaq ever start shipping tcsh or bash 
as the default shell?  Don't they realize that people make typos and 
would like to reedit the line they just typed?  Why are they still in 
the dark ages?

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jim Penny]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 10:21:07AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> So I don't agree that the DRM stuff is all about protecting audio/video
> content at all, I think it goes much further than that.  Maybe I'm
> wrong, maybe DRM isn't all about that, but the point remains that there
> is lots of activity in the directions I'm describing and whether it
> falls under DRM, DMCA, Trusted Computing, Palladium, of BuzzWord2000,
> the activity exists.  And I think it exists at least in part because
> of the threat of the open source reimplementations.  I'm starting to
> think I'm the only person on this list who thinks that, that may be,
> but in the business world that I move in pretty much everyone thinks that.

But the timeline is simply wrong.  DMCA is an implementation of the WIPO
TRIPS treaties, which was passed in 1996, well before open-source was a
common topic.

See http://www.public-domain.org/wipo/dec96/dec96.html
In particular, note the EFF comment and the comment by "Software
Developers".  Even these most relevant sources simply did not raise the
issue.

DRM is another issue.  I think it is primarily an effect of the Hollywood
reality distortion field.  They think that useful computers that are not
Turing complete can be built; and if such machines cannot be built, well, 
Hollywood thinks that digital communication is error free and occurs 
without charge and with infinite bandwidth at infinite distance, putting 
them permanently out of business.

Jim Penny

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 12:21:49PM -0400, Chuck Ebbert wrote:
> Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> .> Your answer has to be interesting because it seems to me that they are
> .> doing it to protect their products, their product is sometimes content,
> .> sometimes programs, sometimes both.  An answer which says that open source
> .> is not part of the cause also says that open source is irrelevant.
> 
>   You are trying to make the case that open source developers are in the
> same group as those who illegally download copyrighted media...

No, I'm not, if that's what you think you certainly didn't get my intent.
I may have lead you to believe that or you may have guessed that, whatever,
that's not my message.  I've restated a half dozen times, if you reread 
that and still don't see what I am saying let's take it private and I'll
go over it again.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 10:53:52AM -0600, Dax Kelson wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> > Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
> > that the reaction is likely.  You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
> > as to why the reaction is happening, I see that.  OK, so let's try it
> > with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
> > DRM happening?  It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
> > it's the corporations.  So why are they doing it?
> 
> DRM/DMCA do nothing to address reimplementation (it can't, see all 
> previous posts on how it is a LEGAL activity).
> 
> In my observation, DRM/DMCA addresses unauthorized audio and video content
> copying.
> 
> So, if Open Source is all about reimplementation, and DRM/DMCA is about 
> "protecting" audio/video content, where is the connection?

"Trusted Computing/Palladium" stuff is clearly headed in the direction
of encrypting everything, the only place it lands unencrypted is on
your display.  I thought that fell under the heading of DRM but maybe
I'm mistaken.

I believe the point of that is "huh, people are going to copy our program?
OK, well, we're a monopoly, you have use our programs to generate the
data, we encrypt the data and poof! the reimplemented programs are
worthless".

That line of reasoning, by the way, only works if they are a monopoly,
i.e., it doesn't work real well for BK, there are lots of other source
management systems.  But it works very well for things like Word,
that's a de facto standard, contrary to what some people here believe
it is bloody difficult to negotiate a contract in anything but Word.
Try sending a lawyer anything else and you'll see what I mean.

So I don't agree that the DRM stuff is all about protecting audio/video
content at all, I think it goes much further than that.  Maybe I'm
wrong, maybe DRM isn't all about that, but the point remains that there
is lots of activity in the directions I'm describing and whether it
falls under DRM, DMCA, Trusted Computing, Palladium, of BuzzWord2000,
the activity exists.  And I think it exists at least in part because
of the threat of the open source reimplementations.  I'm starting to
think I'm the only person on this list who thinks that, that may be,
but in the business world that I move in pretty much everyone thinks that.

The open source thing is a new twist, it's changing the playing field.
That can be good (it has been so far) but it can be bad too if the
corporations get all paranoid, which is what they look like to me.

What you do about it is an open question.  My thought has been to focus
on creating new stuff that creates its own world of users and advocates.
Going back to Word, if there was a word processing system that was better
than Word and people switched to it, then any attempt by Microsoft to lock
up the data is irrelevant.  Apply that pattern to any application which
operates on data - if you let any corporation have the best technology and
become a monopoly then they can lock up the data and you're shut out of
the game.  That's one of the reasons I sort of think the BK clone attempts
are pointless, we can change the file format or encrypt it and unless
there is some other compelling reason to use the clone, it's irrelevant.
On the other hand, make something different and better and BK becomes
irrelevant (unless we do leapfrog with some new feature/whatever).

That's what I meant by chasing.  If you are chasing the leader you are
automatically more at risk because you are trying to play in the leader's
playing field and they can change the rules to screw you up.  You build
a better playing field and you turn the tables, now the leader is the
follower and they have to play by your rules.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Dax Kelson]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
> that the reaction is likely.  You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
> as to why the reaction is happening, I see that.  OK, so let's try it
> with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
> DRM happening?  It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
> it's the corporations.  So why are they doing it?

DRM/DMCA do nothing to address reimplementation (it can't, see all 
previous posts on how it is a LEGAL activity).

In my observation, DRM/DMCA addresses unauthorized audio and video content
copying.

So, if Open Source is all about reimplementation, and DRM/DMCA is about 
"protecting" audio/video content, where is the connection?

Larry, this is the point YOU are missing. 

Dax

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Chuck Ebbert]

Larry McVoy wrote:

.> Your answer has to be interesting because it seems to me that they are
.> doing it to protect their products, their product is sometimes content,
.> sometimes programs, sometimes both.  An answer which says that open source
.> is not part of the cause also says that open source is irrelevant.

  You are trying to make the case that open source developers are in the
same group as those who illegally download copyrighted media, but you
are wrong.  Taking ideas and concepts from the "daemon book" or "The
Design of OS/2" or whatever and putting them in Linux is not a crime,
nor is buying a program and trying to clone its functionality.  Copying
the source or object code is something entirely different.

-------
 Chuck
------
 Chuck

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Giuliano Pochini]

On 30-Apr-2003 Larry McVoy wrote:
> Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
> that the reaction is likely.  You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
> as to why the reaction is happening, I see that.  OK, so let's try it
> with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
> DRM happening?  It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
> it's the corporations.  So why are they doing it?

IMHO, no dubt piracy is what caused the reaction. But it's not a direct
cause. They always wanted things like DRM. The stronger is the control
over your customers, the more money you get from them. Piracy is a very
good excuse, but even without piracy it was only a matter of time. The
distance between who can and who cannot, is contantly increasing. It's
the age we are living :(


Bye.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jeff Randall]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 08:20:41AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> My point wasn't about theft, it was about reimplementation.
> I stand behind that point, what I've seen for more than a decade is
> reimplementation after reimplementation.  I'm not saying there is no
> value to that or that it is illegal or that there are no improvements
> (compare Unix diff to GNU diff if you want to see some imrovements).
> There is tons of value in having free versions of useful tools.
> There is also tons of value in the creation of new work.
> 
> What I haven't seen is a lot of revolutionary work.  All of that seems
> to come from commercial companies and at a pretty slow pace.  There are
> a lot of false starts, commercial failures, whatever.  But a few slam
> dunks as well.

Mosaic was pretty revolutionary for it's time.. as was Sendmail..
source was available for both from the start.


-- 
randall@uph.com    "It's a big world and you can hit it with any airplane."
                                           -- Flying, August 2000, Page 90.

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Downing, Thomas]

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry McVoy [mailto:lm@bitmover.com]

[snip] (because I agree almost completly with all of it.)

>> My A produces your B; I don't like B, so I won't A. This seems to be
>> your solution. 
>
> I'm not sure I've proposed a solution, I doubt it.  I don't have a
solution,
> I'm trying to shine a light on what I see as a problem.  I was hoping that
> you had a solution.

Okay, fair enough.  I don't have a silver bullet.  I do have some ideas -
but only ones obvious to anyone.

In the short term, everything that can be done to thwart the abuse of DRM
and other technological measures, must be done.  DeCSS (lovely example)
shows us this.  Nominally, MPAA won that battle.  Practically, they lost;
anyone can use Linux to watch DVD's anywhere in the world.  Hence my
dislike of the cause-and-effect argument.

In the short term, everything that can be done to thwart legal abuse of
consumer rights must be done.  This is in many ways harder.  Political
activism is _not_ easy; as many of us on lkml have found out at first
hand, and often at greater or lesser personal cost.  The current battle
against DMCA is _not_ going well.

Anything that can be done to encourage distribution (for profit) of
entertainment content through channels other than MPAA/RIAA sould be
done.  The internet holds this promise.  If DRM becomes law in the
way the entertainment industry wants, this will be illegal.  Best
way to fight that eventuality is to have a healthy industry already
in place.

The to points on which the issues will hang are hardware and law.  If
hardware vendors decide to adopt the path that the media industry
(and certain members of the software industry) would like, we have
a big problem, and only legal and market forces can change that.  At
this time, I don't see how 'open hardware' is a practical concept if
current vendors stop making it.  I don't think market force against
total media control is likely to be measurable - unless alternatives
are just as easy to use, from the _mass_ market point of view.

If hardware vendors continue to make 'open hardware' the only hurdle
is legal.  But when the opposition has the sort of clout (read, money)
that it has, this is one hell of a big hurdle.

This whole thing is being driven by the US.  This leads to the long
term.  They will fail - problem is just how long will it be before
they do fail.  It could be quite some time.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 10:52:27AM -0400, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> No, I don't think you are 'the world's worst communicator'.  First, I was
> not alone in understanding you to say that the open source community as
> a class were prone to theft.  

I am too the worst communicator!  :-)

My point wasn't about theft, it was about reimplementation.
I stand behind that point, what I've seen for more than a decade is
reimplementation after reimplementation.  I'm not saying there is no
value to that or that it is illegal or that there are no improvements
(compare Unix diff to GNU diff if you want to see some imrovements).
There is tons of value in having free versions of useful tools.
There is also tons of value in the creation of new work.

What I haven't seen is a lot of revolutionary work.  All of that seems
to come from commercial companies and at a pretty slow pace.  There are
a lot of false starts, commercial failures, whatever.  But a few slam
dunks as well.

As someone who has extensive first hand experience at large and small
commercial companies and in the open source world, it's my take that
the open source guys are better at the evolutionary approach (faster,
for sure) but worse at the revolutionary approach.

A key point is that you need a baseline to evolve.  The open source guys
aren't producing that baseline as far as I can see, the new stuff comes
from other sources.  That's not an absolute statement, there are exceptions,
but as far as I can see, it's a true statement most of the time.

Another key point is that it costs a boatload more to produce something
new than to reimplement something and the corporations know that.  It
doesn't cost more because they are dumb, it costs more because they have
to try lots of new ideas and only a tiny percentage of them pan out.

So if you were the organization spending the money to produce something
new and you knew that it was going to be copied, wouldn't you do something
to protect that?  And if a world wide group of volunteers sprang up and
got well organized and became productive at reimplementation techniques,
wouldn't you be concerned?  I think you might.  If you were a powerful
corporation, you might lobby Congress for more laws to protect your 
works, you might start a "Trusted Computing" initiative to make sure
that the data was all encrypted so that only your programs could access
that data, etc.

> My A produces your B; I don't like B, so I won't A. This seems to be
> your solution. 

I'm not sure I've proposed a solution, I doubt it.  I don't have a solution,
I'm trying to shine a light on what I see as a problem.  I was hoping that
you had a solution.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Scott Robert Ladd wrote:
>>The coherency you seek lies in seeing a common thread of wanting
>>something for nothing. Free software developers often clone products
>>developed by commercial companies; this is taking a free ride (something
>>for nothing) on the R&D budget of the corporation.
> 
> Who, exactly, do you think creates resources in the first place which
> form the basis of commercial software which is eventually cloned?
> 
> A significant portion is from tax-funded univerities and research labs.

And where do you think taxes come from? Somebody pays for everything; 
there's no such thing as a free lunch.

>>The effort that goes into designing quality software isn't just
>>coding -- it's also research, design, focus groups, testing, and QA.
> 
> You think people writing Free Software don't do these things?  You
> think that billions of dollars worth of activity isn't spend on
> developing Free Software?

Certainly, free software does some of these thing; it varies greatly 
from individual to indvidual, but we all contribute time, code, and 
knowledge. Sadly, society tends to measure contributions in dollars and 
cents, given that we need those dollars and cents to feed, clothe, and 
house ourselves.

>>I think it is quite reasonable for commercial entities to protect
>>their investment in time, effort, and personnel.
> 
> Likewise people who put enormous effort into developing free software,
> whether they are commercial entities or not - it is reasonable for
> them to protect their investment.
> 
> Unfortunately some other entities want to deprive free software
> authors of the fruits of their work.  Think about it.  It cuts both ways.

I couldn't agree more.

>>Understanding your opponent is the first step to converting an enemy to
>>a friend. As it stands now, the confrontational attitude of many free
>>software advocates is counterproductive. The more adversarial "free"
>>software advocates act, the more companies will use money and law to
>>protect themselves.
> 
> This is true, but it is true both ways.  The more companies are
> adversarial by using money and law to protect themselves, the more
> free software advocates feel the need to have a confrontational
> attitude.
> 
> I'm not advocating confrontational - just pointing out that the
> natural consequences we observe apply to _both_ sides of the debate.
> 
> There's a lesson in this for smart commercial entities: don't
> antagonise open source folks, cooperate with them, and they will give
> back to you.

Once again, I agree. My original article was in response to statements 
about commercial developers; indeed, the issue cuts both ways.

>>This isn't about right-and-wrong, it's about power. That, perhaps, is
>>the most painful lesson I learned in my years as an activist.
>>[snipped]
> 
> My sympathies to all activists everywhere.  I have a Jewish friend who
> is a peace activist in Palestine right now, and two of her
> co-activists were recently killed there.  Kinda puts things into
> perspective.

Damned right.

>>If "right" wants to win out over "wrong", it must find power. If you
>>don't have money or political clout, you need to find power elsewhere.
>>But simply claiming "I'm right" -- even if you are -- isn't going to
>>stop the corporate steamroller from flattening your band wagon.
> 
> Actually, it just might.  Free Software / Open Source is such a
> tremendous force for good - because it speaks to basic human desires
> for freedom to do our own thing - that it is a source of power unto itself :)
> 
> Not because it claims to be right.  But because it _is_ right :)

That's why I'm here. I don't know about other people's motivations, but 
my involvement in free software stems from a recognition of its potential.

But just because free software *is* right doesn't mean it will succeed 
in the long run... we need to be very certain of our motivations and 
actions.

..Scott

-- 
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Professional programming for science and engineering;
Interesting and unusual bits of very free code.

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Downing, Thomas]

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry McVoy [mailto:lm@bitmover.com]

>On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 09:11:57AM -0400, Downing, Thomas wrote:
>> > The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
>> > with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
>> > with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
>> > and more at stake so they will win.
>> 
>> The point is that they don't (with a couple of clever and amusing 
>> exceptions) respond with "even more clever hacks", they respond with
>> things like DMCA.  This is also the danger of the motives behind DRM;
>> just pass a law making it a felony to produce, use, etc. hardware which
>> does _not_ enforce corporate controlled DRM.
>> 
>> This is why in my first post on this topic I said it was a political
>> issue, not a technical one.
>> 
>> > The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the
corporations
>> > will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby
the
>> > government to get the laws they want and build the technology they
need.
>> > The more you push back the more locked up things will become.
>> 
>> Unfortunately, this may very well prove to be true.  But laying it at the
>> door of the open source community (or even piracy other than commercial
>> piracy, viz. China) is buying into the FUD that MPAA and RIAA spew.
>> Remember, that when the courts asked the MPAA to produce _any_ evidence
>> of harm from DeCSS, they were unable to produce _anything_.
>
> I'm probably the world's worst communicator because you're right at the
> edge of getting the point and then it gets missed again.  I think you're
> outraged thinking that I'm saying the open source guys are all bad people
> or whatever.  I'm not trying to make a bad/good argument, I'm trying to
> make a cause and effect argument.

No, I don't think you are 'the world's worst communicator'.  First, I was
not alone in understanding you to say that the open source community as
a class were prone to theft.  Now as to cause and effect, we may
disagree on causes (and as to that, did you here of what Nasrudin said
when the thief fell on him? - he fell off the wall, _my_ collar bone
is broken,) but the effect we do agree on.

> Take everything that I said which is not an action on the part of the
> corporations and just call it A.  Ignore what A is or even if A exists
> or is true, whatever.  Concentrate on what I claim to be the reaction.
> I tried to make the case that A is the cause, you got mad, the fact that
> the reaction is the problem is lost in the anger.
>
> Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
> that the reaction is likely.  You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
> as to why the reaction is happening, I see that.  OK, so let's try it
> with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
> DRM happening?  It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
> it's the corporations.  So why are they doing it?
> 
> Your answer has to be interesting because it seems to me that they are
> doing it to protect their products, their product is sometimes content,
> sometimes programs, sometimes both.  An answer which says that open source
> is not part of the cause also says that open source is irrelevant.

My A produces your B; I don't like B, so I won't A. This seems to be
your solution. Such simple reasoning is not always correct. For an example
we could only hope to emulate, Ghandi.  Second, what is driving DRM
and DMCA is profits, and MPAA and RIAA see profits as at a maximum in
a pay-per-view world.

If this is not what you are saying, what do you see as a solution?
Or is it that you don't see any problems with what is being done with
DRM and DMCA?

> You can't be both a force and not a force.

I have no interest in being a force.  I hope I can find the courage not
to submit to force.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jesse Pollard]

On Wednesday 30 April 2003 08:59, Larry McVoy wrote:
[snip]
> Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
> that the reaction is likely.  You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
> as to why the reaction is happening, I see that.  OK, so let's try it
> with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
> DRM happening?  It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
> it's the corporations.  So why are they doing it?

To force people to buy their media of course.

The data (most of it) is nearly zero cost (between 1 to around 8%). They can't
stop you from copying the data. They just want to make that copy unusable.

That forces you to buy their media.

> Your answer has to be interesting because it seems to me that they are
> doing it to protect their products, their product is sometimes content,
> sometimes programs, sometimes both.  An answer which says that open source
> is not part of the cause also says that open source is irrelevant.
>
> You can't be both a force and not a force.

Philosophically, you can, provided that the direction of the forces are 
perpendicular.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 09:11:57AM -0400, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> > The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
> > with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
> > with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
> > and more at stake so they will win.
> 
> The point is that they don't (with a couple of clever and amusing 
> exceptions) respond with "even more clever hacks", they respond with
> things like DMCA.  This is also the danger of the motives behind DRM;
> just pass a law making it a felony to produce, use, etc. hardware which
> does _not_ enforce corporate controlled DRM.
> 
> This is why in my first post on this topic I said it was a political
> issue, not a technical one.
> 
> > The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
> > will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
> > government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
> > The more you push back the more locked up things will become.
> 
> Unfortunately, this may very well prove to be true.  But laying it at the
> door of the open source community (or even piracy other than commercial
> piracy, viz. China) is buying into the FUD that MPAA and RIAA spew.
> Remember, that when the courts asked the MPAA to produce _any_ evidence
> of harm from DeCSS, they were unable to produce _anything_.

I'm probably the world's worst communicator because you're right at the
edge of getting the point and then it gets missed again.  I think you're
outraged thinking that I'm saying the open source guys are all bad people
or whatever.  I'm not trying to make a bad/good argument, I'm trying to
make a cause and effect argument.  

Take everything that I said which is not an action on the part of the
corporations and just call it A.  Ignore what A is or even if A exists
or is true, whatever.  Concentrate on what I claim to be the reaction.
I tried to make the case that A is the cause, you got mad, the fact that
the reaction is the problem is lost in the anger.

Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
that the reaction is likely.  You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
as to why the reaction is happening, I see that.  OK, so let's try it
with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
DRM happening?  It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
it's the corporations.  So why are they doing it?

Your answer has to be interesting because it seems to me that they are
doing it to protect their products, their product is sometimes content,
sometimes programs, sometimes both.  An answer which says that open source
is not part of the cause also says that open source is irrelevant.

You can't be both a force and not a force.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Downing, Thomas]

----Original Message-----
From: Larry McVoy [mailto:lm@bitmover.com]


> What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
> are the people who own those things and the people who are complaining
> are the people who got those things, illegally, for free.

That is an unfairly sweeping statement.  I complain, I purchase; I am
not alone in this.

Second, in the context of the USA, there are two long established
principals that balance copyright - fair use and first point of sale.
The problem with the "bad use of DRM" is that the vendors (who _are_
the owners) of copyright material want to eliminate consumer rights
under these to principles as well.

> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
> useful, take it" is the attitude.

First, in many countries, (including USA,) producing a work-alike
alternative has been defended by the courts, as long as such issues as
patent violations are not shown to have occured.

Second, there is _no_ parallel between producing a clone of BK and
making illegal copies of copyrighted material.

> This problem is pervasive, it's not just a handful of people.  Upon the
> advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
> boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
> productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
> and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
> like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
> But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

That's enough to guarentee that my company _never_ uses BK.

> Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
> BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
> with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
> lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
> steal anything that isn't locked down.

Examples? (other than BK ;-)

> Show me a single example of the community going "no, we can't take that,
> someone else did all the work to produce it, we didn't".

You certainly can find patent violations by the score out there in the
open source world - probably copyright violations as well.  But how many
are there in what might be called 'mainstream' OS; such as the Linux
kernel tree, XFree86, Gnome, KDE, Apache, etc.?  And do not confuse an
independently produced work-alike with theft of IP.

> The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
> with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
> with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
> and more at stake so they will win.

The point is that they don't (with a couple of clever and amusing 
exceptions) respond with "even more clever hacks", they respond with
things like DMCA.  This is also the danger of the motives behind DRM;
just pass a law making it a felony to produce, use, etc. hardware which
does _not_ enforce corporate controlled DRM.

This is why in my first post on this topic I said it was a political
issue, not a technical one.

> The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
> will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
> government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
> The more you push back the more locked up things will become.

Unfortunately, this may very well prove to be true.  But laying it at the
door of the open source community (or even piracy other than commercial
piracy, viz. China) is buying into the FUD that MPAA and RIAA spew.
Remember, that when the courts asked the MPAA to produce _any_ evidence
of harm from DeCSS, they were unable to produce _anything_.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jamie Lokier]

Scott Robert Ladd wrote:
> Dax Kelson wrote:
> >What exactly are you trying to say about an Open Source relation to 
> >software theft (warezing), Audio/Video theft, high asian piracy rates
> >and DRM? These are all things you brought up, but I couldn't
> >recognize any coherent statement here.
> 
> The coherency you seek lies in seeing a common thread of wanting
> something for nothing. Free software developers often clone products
> developed by commercial companies; this is taking a free ride (something
> for nothing) on the R&D budget of the corporation.

Who, exactly, do you think creates resources in the first place which
form the basis of commercial software which is eventually cloned?

A significant portion is from tax-funded univerities and research labs.

> The effort that goes into designing quality software isn't just
> coding -- it's also research, design, focus groups, testing, and QA.

You think people writing Free Software don't do these things?  You
think that billions of dollars worth of activity isn't spend on
developing Free Software?

> I think it is quite reasonable for commercial entities to protect
> their investment in time, effort, and personnel.

Likewise people who put enormous effort into developing free software,
whether they are commercial entities or not - it is reasonable for
them to protect their investment.

Unfortunately some other entities want to deprive free software
authors of the fruits of their work.  Think about it.  It cuts both ways.

> Understanding your opponent is the first step to converting an enemy to
> a friend. As it stands now, the confrontational attitude of many free
> software advocates is counterproductive. The more adversarial "free"
> software advocates act, the more companies will use money and law to
> protect themselves.

This is true, but it is true both ways.  The more companies are
adversarial by using money and law to protect themselves, the more
free software advocates feel the need to have a confrontational
attitude.

I'm not advocating confrontational - just pointing out that the
natural consequences we observe apply to _both_ sides of the debate.

There's a lesson in this for smart commercial entities: don't
antagonise open source folks, cooperate with them, and they will give
back to you.

> This isn't about right-and-wrong, it's about power. That, perhaps, is
> the most painful lesson I learned in my years as an activist.
> [snipped]

My sympathies to all activists everywhere.  I have a Jewish friend who
is a peace activist in Palestine right now, and two of her
co-activists were recently killed there.  Kinda puts things into
perspective.

> If "right" wants to win out over "wrong", it must find power. If you
> don't have money or political clout, you need to find power elsewhere.
> But simply claiming "I'm right" -- even if you are -- isn't going to
> stop the corporate steamroller from flattening your band wagon.

Actually, it just might.  Free Software / Open Source is such a
tremendous force for good - because it speaks to basic human desires
for freedom to do our own thing - that it is a source of power unto itself :)

Not because it claims to be right.  But because it _is_ right :)

-- Jamie

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jamie Lokier]

Jeffrey Souza wrote:
> >Upon the
> > advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
> > boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
> > productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
> > and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
> > like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
> > But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.
> 
> Trying to influence someone's personal project through their boss? Wow.
> No wonder so few people like you on lkml.

See, the thing Larry didn't hear was Garloff _actually_ said:

   "Sorry Larry, I can't [*in good conscience*] control Pavel [*like that*]."

No to mention that it _isn't_ Garloff's problem.

I wonder who are the "leading kernel developers" that Larry mentions.
Probably giggling in the background after their practical joke
actually worked :)

On a more straight-faced note, perhaps Larry thought a BK clone was being
developed _at SuSE_?  That would make it a less stupid request.

-- Jamie

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jamie Lokier]

Timothy Miller wrote:
> I have known a lot of incredibly creative people who have never shared 
> their ideas with anyone because they feared others would steal their 
> ideas and not give credit where it's due.

Indeed so have I.  For the most part those people weren't very
successful in business.

> Maybe you think they're crazy for thinking that way, but evidence
> abounds that that sort of thing happens all the time.  It's very sad
> that so many brilliant ideas have never been shared with the world.

It's very sad that people stay on abusive relationships, or continue
to fight one another long after they need to.  It is hard to
sympathise with people who seem to keep choosing that, though.

> What do the "information wants to be free" people have to say to
> those people who know they're going to be ripped off if they open
> their mouths?

Larry hit the nail on the head by pointing out that it's irrelevant
what you _want_, consequences just are whether you acknowledge them or
not.

The rest of the world will go on creating brilliant things whether the
"incredibly creative" people share their variants of ideas or not.  It
is their choice, to share or not to share.

The world will not stop creating and sharing just because some people
are too scared to, just as it will not stop just because a large
proportion live in fear of other things.

Yes it's very sad when someone creative is too scared to share their
brilliance.  We should not engineer a system of punishment so that
those people can be happy at the expense of _other_ brilliantly
creative people though!

Nonetheless, credit for creativity is very important and a formal
system to represent it might be worth creating.  (Such as a library of
registered creations.)

How to get from here to there... that's a big one.  I think we here in
open source are an essential ingredient in that direction, and part of
a diverse movement so large it is difficult to perceive the whole of it.

Money is not enough - money is anonymous and does _not_ give credit
where it is due.  Seriously!  How many commercial things do you see
where the people who created them are completely unknown?  How many
creative people do you know who will not share their ideas despite
financial reward, because they want personal credit too?  I know one
very well.

Something is desirable to ensure credit stays with creative people enough
that they feel happy to share.  But it should not be something which
frightens _other_ brilliantly creative people - that would also be very sad!

-- Jamie

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Helge Hafting]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2003 at 12:40:48PM -0400, Scott Robert Ladd wrote:
[...]
> The coherency you seek lies in seeing a common thread of wanting
> something for nothing. Free software developers often clone products
> developed by commercial companies; this is taking a free ride (something
> for nothing) on the R&D budget of the corporation. The effort that goes
> into designing quality software isn't just coding -- it's also research,
> design, focus groups, testing, and QA. I think it is quite reasonable
> for commercial entities to protect their investment in time, effort, and
> personnel.
> 
Except that this isn't "something for nothing".  The free clone
is the price paid - it is available for everybody, including that
company. Companies are free to use free linux distributions, and
get a lot that way.

Helge Hafting

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Henrik Persson]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 15:56:12 -0400
Timothy Miller <miller@techsource.com> wrote:

> Like in movies where:
> - kid A writes a book report
> - kid B copies it
> - kid B gives the book report in class before kid A
> - kid A gets an F because he can't give his report

Ah, allright.

> Mind you, this may be a very childish way of looking at things.  I 
> PERSONALLY don't expect a problem.  I've released code under GPL before,
> and people respected, to my knowledge, my copyright.  They were thankful
> and appreciated using what I wrote.  I loved the whole experience.  But 
> I have a strong enough sort of personality that I would go on the 
> offensive were someone to steal my work, take credit for what I did, 
> etc.  Some people are much more timid.  Rather than damning them for 
> being timid, those of us who can understand how they feel should try to 
> help so that they will share their ideas with us.
> 
> The fear exists because this kind of theft happens, and not just among 
> children.

I can see what you mean. Personally, neither do I expect a problem. And if
it did become a problem, I wouldn't care very much. If I knew that someone
stole my work and took credit for it, I would flame him somewhere public,
just to let the world know, but it wouldn't keep me up at night.

But there is another view at this problem. When money gets involved. If
someone is stealing your code and is making money of it. Most people I
know would react in a very offensive way. But I wouldn't. I did never
expect to get any money out of it, so well. ;)

Or.. Err. On the second thought, I would flame them too, I guess. Darn.

> Keep in mind that being introverted is normal and common.  Being timid, 
> on the other hand, is something completely different and can be the 
> result of some sort of past trauma.  People try to share and get burned,
> so they don't share anymore.

We will just have to be pedagogical. We'll have to try to help them
overcome their fear of those pirates, as you said. I think that it might
be enough for some people to raise the question "Does it really matter? At
least _you_ know you did this."

-- 
Henrik Persson  nix@socialism.nu  http://nix.badanka.com
PGP-key: http://nix.badanka.com/pgp  PGP-KeyID: 0x43B68116  

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

Henrik Persson wrote:

>On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:21:19 -0400
>Timothy Miller <miller@techsource.com> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I have known a lot of incredibly creative people who have never shared 
>>their ideas with anyone because they feared others would steal their 
>>ideas and not give credit where it's due.  Maybe you think they're crazy
>>
>>for thinking that way, but evidence abounds that that sort of thing 
>>happens all the time.  It's very sad that so many brilliant ideas have 
>>never been shared with the world.  What do the "information wants to be 
>>free" people have to say to those people who know they're going to be 
>>ripped off if they open their mouths?
>>    
>>
>
>Newton had a lot of rather unique ideas he never published.. But in his
>time no one did own information. ;)
>
>And to those people who are so terribly afraid of being "ripped-off" I can
>only say that every poet, every programmer, every human being is a theif
>in that sense. If they are afraid that other people will take their ideas
>and make money of it - just put it under the GPL? ;)
>
>Could you be a bit more elaborative when it comes to the term "ripped
>off"?
>
>  
>
Like in movies where:
- kid A writes a book report
- kid B copies it
- kid B gives the book report in class before kid A
- kid A gets an F because he can't give his report

Mind you, this may be a very childish way of looking at things.  I 
PERSONALLY don't expect a problem.  I've released code under GPL before, 
and people respected, to my knowledge, my copyright.  They were thankful 
and appreciated using what I wrote.  I loved the whole experience.  But 
I have a strong enough sort of personality that I would go on the 
offensive were someone to steal my work, take credit for what I did, 
etc.  Some people are much more timid.  Rather than damning them for 
being timid, those of us who can understand how they feel should try to 
help so that they will share their ideas with us.

The fear exists because this kind of theft happens, and not just among 
children.

Keep in mind that being introverted is normal and common.  Being timid, 
on the other hand, is something completely different and can be the 
result of some sort of past trauma.  People try to share and get burned, 
so they don't share anymore.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

Larry McVoy wrote:

>On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:05:15PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
>  
>
>>Your economic model is flawed because if something needs doing enough
>>someone will pay to do it. The moment the value exceeds the cost it
>>should happen. 
>>    
>>
>
>Explain to me how BK would have happened under your (non flawed) model.
>Before we gave it to you, you had no idea how to do it.  It cost
>millions to get it to the point that you could see that it was valuable
>by using it.
>
>If I had said "Hey, Red Hat, how about you give me $8M so I can go
>build you the perfect SCM tool" you would have laughed your ass off.
>As would any other company, the amount of money it takes to do something
>new is not a working amount for a single customer.
>
>Under your model, only incremental change will occur, no customer is
>ever going to fund the large amounts required for truly new work.
>  
>
Many open source projects start out as entirely new ideas, but 
admittedly, they then taken on an entirely evolutionary (rather than 
revolutionary) approach to improvement afterwards.  The theoretical 
advantage is that global revolutionary change can occur through fast 
enough evolution.  Is Linux 2.5.68 revolutionarily better than Linux 
1.2?  I'd say so, but it got there through evolutionary, incremental change.

Keep in mind that evolution itself is driven by lots of 
mini-revolutions.  So when Ingo developed his O(1) scheduler, he 
completely replaced the existing one.  Sure he borrowed ideas, but that 
always happens.  The point is that the old one was ripped out and a new 
one was inserted.  An incremental change for Linux was caused by a 
revolutionary change to the process scheduler.

The idea of an O(1) scheduler may not be revolutionary in the grand 
scheme of all of computer science.  But that doesn't make it any less 
important to us or any less useful to the world.

Sometimes, the evolution just doesn't happen fast enough.  GNOME and KDE 
will both get there... eventually.  But they're not fast enough to make 
Linux viable yet on the desktop.  I can't begin to tell you how much 
effort it's taken for me to get Blue Curve and other GNOME-oriented or 
Red Hat-oriented (I know the difference) stuff with RH9 to behave the 
way I want it to.  Actually, it still doesn't.  

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> Well, there is the question about whether Microsoft would really want
> a law which made it illegal to duplicate the (unpatented) design of a
> competitor's product, given that Microsoft does that *all* the time.

The law is not applied equally, however. Microsoft has the resources to
fight any action taken against it; thus, a law that restricts you (with
your limited resources) may not hinder Microsoft at all.

> In the business world, engineers purchase competitors' products and
> rip them apart to see what makes them tick *all* *the* *time*.  Ford
> does it GM cars, and Crystler does it to Toyota cars, etc., etc.
> Anything important where they don't want that to happen is patented.  

Precisely. I've done this myself with various pieces of technology.

The problem is a broken patent system that allows common knowledge to be
"protected." I've strongly considered trying to get a patent on B-trees
or QuickSort, just to see if the patent office is as foolish as they
seem. The reason I can tear down the engine on my truck is because it
poses no threat to the manufacturer; no one has a patent on the concept
of a piston (though they may patent a specific *type* of piston.)

The problem today is that the patent office will honor almost anything
with a patent; if cars were software, Ford would have a patent on
pistons that would prevent GM from building V-8s.

There is nothing wrong with the original conception of patents and
copyrights: the protection of IP creators to profit from their work
before it enters the public domain in a reasonable time period. Sadly,
corporations have legal rights, and the money to pervert the process.
Patents and copyrights need to be fixed, not destroyed.

..Scott

-- 
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Dax Kelson wrote:
> What exactly are you trying to say about an Open Source relation to 
> software theft (warezing), Audio/Video theft, high asian piracy rates
> and DRM? These are all things you brought up, but I couldn't
> recognize any coherent statement here.

The coherency you seek lies in seeing a common thread of wanting
something for nothing. Free software developers often clone products
developed by commercial companies; this is taking a free ride (something
for nothing) on the R&D budget of the corporation. The effort that goes
into designing quality software isn't just coding -- it's also research,
design, focus groups, testing, and QA. I think it is quite reasonable
for commercial entities to protect their investment in time, effort, and
personnel.

"Free-as-in-liberty" software is just one of several factors that
influence companies to protect themselves. Merchants put alarms and bars
on their stores, in response to crime; software and IP companies buy
legislation to protect their property as well. That property is the
basis of their income -- and not all IP companies are unsympathetic,
multinational corporations like Microsoft. Many, many small companies,
authors, and artists depend on their IP for an income.

Understanding your opponent is the first step to converting an enemy to
a friend. As it stands now, the confrontational attitude of many free
software advocates is counterproductive. The more adversarial "free"
software advocates act, the more companies will use money and law to
protect themselves.

This isn't about right-and-wrong, it's about power. That, perhaps, is
the most painful lesson I learned in my years as an activist. It doesn't
matter if Microsoft *should* have been convicted in the U.S. anti-trust
suite -- that *fact* is, they got away with it. It doesn't matter if
every international court said that my friends were being mistreated by
the U.S. government -- because the U.S. government could safely ignore
those courts.

If "right" wants to win out over "wrong", it must find power. If you
don't have money or political clout, you need to find power elsewhere.
But simply claiming "I'm right" -- even if you are -- isn't going to
stop the corporate steamroller from flattening your band wagon.

-- 
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Professional programming for science and engineering;
Interesting and unusual bits of very free code.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[venom]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Jeffrey Souza wrote:

> Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:46:43 -0700
> From: Jeffrey Souza <souza@psychopenguin.net>
> To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]
>
> >Upon the
> > advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
> > boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
> > productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
> > and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
> > like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
> > But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.
>
> Trying to influence someone's personal project through their boss? Wow.
> No wonder so few people like you on lkml.
>
well, he's just what in my country is defined as an real aziendal man,
hope there are very few aziendal man on lkml, it is a nonsense that a
job like Pavel's one should be controlled by a boss.

bests
Luigi

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jeffrey Souza]

>Upon the
> advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
> boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
> productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
> and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
> like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
> But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

Trying to influence someone's personal project through their boss? Wow.
No wonder so few people like you on lkml.

Larry, please myob.

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Maw, 2003-04-29 at 01:09, Larry McVoy wrote:
> The point you are missing, utterly and completely, is that I am someone
> who has been a member of this "community" for a long time and I'm also
> running a business.  

Been there. Ran a profitable open source company. Now work for a NASD
listed one, still meet real businesses of all sizes.

I don't see the relevance of that to the current Larry rantings about
innovation.

Alan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Henrik Persson]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:21:19 -0400
Timothy Miller <miller@techsource.com> wrote:

> I have known a lot of incredibly creative people who have never shared 
> their ideas with anyone because they feared others would steal their 
> ideas and not give credit where it's due.  Maybe you think they're crazy
> 
> for thinking that way, but evidence abounds that that sort of thing 
> happens all the time.  It's very sad that so many brilliant ideas have 
> never been shared with the world.  What do the "information wants to be 
> free" people have to say to those people who know they're going to be 
> ripped off if they open their mouths?

Newton had a lot of rather unique ideas he never published.. But in his
time no one did own information. ;)

And to those people who are so terribly afraid of being "ripped-off" I can
only say that every poet, every programmer, every human being is a theif
in that sense. If they are afraid that other people will take their ideas
and make money of it - just put it under the GPL? ;)

Could you be a bit more elaborative when it comes to the term "ripped
off"?

-- 
Henrik Persson  nix@socialism.nu  http://nix.badanka.com
PGP-key: http://nix.badanka.com/pgp  PGP-KeyID: 0x43B68116  

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

I have known a lot of incredibly creative people who have never shared 
their ideas with anyone because they feared others would steal their 
ideas and not give credit where it's due.  Maybe you think they're crazy 
for thinking that way, but evidence abounds that that sort of thing 
happens all the time.  It's very sad that so many brilliant ideas have 
never been shared with the world.  What do the "information wants to be 
free" people have to say to those people who know they're going to be 
ripped off if they open their mouths?

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 05:09:04PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> This constant "I know how the law works and you don't" is no match for
> "Microsoft has enough money to change the law".  There was this little
> anti-trust case, maybe you heard of it, it was obvious that they should
> have lost and they didn't.  How does your opinion, which would clearly
> have been that they should have lost, reconcile with the fact that they
> didn't lose?  I don't get it, you apparently see something I don't.

Well, there is the question about whether Microsoft would really want
a law which made it illegal to duplicate the (unpatented) design of a
competitor's product, given that Microsoft does that *all* the time.
(Think Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel, just to name one example.)

In the business world, engineers purchase competitors' products and
rip them apart to see what makes them tick *all* *the* *time*.  Ford
does it GM cars, and Crystler does it to Toyota cars, etc., etc.
Anything important where they don't want that to happen is patented.  

So I would find it very hard to believe that Microsoft or any other
corporate lobbiest would try to convince their national legislature to
pass laws that would prohibit some open source developer from cloning
and/or reverse-engineering BitKeeper.  After all, that would also
outlaw a good part of what goes on all the time in the corporate
world...

						- Ted

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

> Your complaint/observation about cloning/re-implementation is recognized.  
> 
> The counter claims are:
> 
> 1. Unless patents are involved, it is perfectly LEGAL.
> 2. Virtually nothing is original to begin with.
> 3. The practice is hardly unique to Open Source developers.

Me:  Action A is leading to reaction B which you don't want.
You: Action A is perfectly legal, etc., etc.
Me:  It's not about whether it is legal or not, it's about reaction B.
You: Action A is perfectly legal, etc., etc.
Me:  Reaction B is what you don't want, it's behaviour A which is the cause.
You: Action A is perfectly legal, etc., etc.
Me:  You keep missing the point about the reaction B.
You: Action A is perfectly legal, etc., etc.
Me:  Err, umm, how many times do I have to tell you it is the reaction that
     is what you want to avoid?
You: Action A is perfectly legal, etc., etc.
Me:  Sigh.


I think the point that you are missing is that if the corporations are 
threatened by your actions they will take steps to remove that threat.
The various IP protection changes which we are seeing are those steps.
People keep telling me how I don't understand the legality of the threats
and I keep telling them that the world evolves, we're in a world which 
is moving more and more towards a place where much of the economy is
based on IP, not physical goods.  As that happens the laws will be
evolved to protect the owners of the IP, technology will evolve to 
protect that IP, everything becomes about the IP.

To the extent that the corporations view your actions as a threat,
they will react.  Consider at Microsoft Word, if you don't talk Word
you don't do business.  So if Microsoft gets really nervous about
their office monopoly what is to prevent them from encrypting the data?
You can build all the Word compatible programs you want and it won't do a
bit of good if you can't read the data.  It's the data, not the program,
which is valuable.  He who owns the data wins.  Office is more than proof.

It's my belief that the more you chase the leaders, the more the leaders
will lock up what gives them that lead.  Various people on this list have
said that the lockup will fail, it will be too inconvenient.  I don't buy
it for a second.  If only the Word binaries can read Word documents, that
doesn't cause the users any headaches, they can still get their job done.

So how do you win?  Create a *better* answer.  Chasing is a waste of your
time, all that happens is that the people being chased will do a little
work to make it impossible to get at the data produced by their tools.
You win by being a leader, not following a leader.

It's not that hard to lead, you just need to decide to do it.  Look at Word.
What's wrong with it?  Well, it's a binary file format, you can't version
control it in a meaningful way, there is no way to merge diverged docs,
so development on any doc is single threaded.  Suppose you made an
ascii file format (me being the geek I am, I'd use troff as the back
end but that's just me), add version control (RCS would be good enough),
made a 3 way merge tool, TADA, you have just parallelized documentation
(never mind that we had this in the 70's and Microsoft screwed it up).
There is a huge, huge market for this sort of thing.

Instead of actually making real progress, people work on reimplementation
of the same thing.  Doomed, the leader changes a few things, you're
incompatible, you lose because noone can open their files in your tool.

The problem, in my not so respected opinion, is that the open source
community is good at chasing and hasn't figured out how to lead.
Linux is a hell of a success story but it's still Unix.  It's a nice
Unix, I much prefer it over any other but I could just as easily live
on MacOS X if I had to, the processors are fast enough for what I do.
But Linux isn't really the issue, the OS has never been the issue, it's
always been the applications.  And there, again, we see reimplementation
of proprietary apps and infrastructure.  When Microsoft is following
Mono rather than the other way around, then the tide will have changed.
As long as you chase them, you're bound to lose.

We may now return to our regularly scheduled thread of how I don't get
that reimplementation is perfectly legal and I'll go do some real work...
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Dax Kelson]

Your complaint/observation about cloning/re-implementation is recognized.  

The counter claims are:

1. Unless patents are involved, it is perfectly LEGAL.
2. Virtually nothing is original to begin with.
3. The practice is hardly unique to Open Source developers.

Your statement about being part of the community AND a business owner is
recognized. Yes, this gives you insight that a pure hobbies Open Source
developer might not have.  Are you the only one? No. Does this mean
everyone should accept everything you say without analysis? No.

Moving back to the statements *you made* that started this whole thread.
                                                                       
What exactly are you trying to say about an Open Source relation to
software theft (warezing), Audio/Video theft, high asian piracy rates and
DRM? These are all things you brought up, but I couldn't recognize any
coherent statement here.

Further, you also stated, "The open source community, in my opinion, is
certainly a contributing factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM
efforts." Please explain.

Dax

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 11:16:00PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
[How he knows more about the law, and everything else, than I, for one, do]

Look, Alan et al, you keep wanting to make this a BK thing and/or tell me
how I've got my head screwed on wrong and I'm finding it a bit tedious.

The point you are missing, utterly and completely, is that I am someone
who has been a member of this "community" for a long time and I'm also
running a business.  There aren't a huge number of people doing both
and there is even a smaller number willing to waste their time trying
to help out on this list.

I have a pretty good idea of how you look at things and I am developing a
pretty good idea of how businesses look at things.  That might be useful
to you, in one person you have access to both perspectives.  If I tell
you that businesses will look at things a certain way perhaps that should
have a little more credibility than Microsoft telling you how their new
feature is for your own good.  Then again, given the response, maybe not.

I've tried to tell you how the businesses will see things because that is
information that you might not already have and their actions can cause
you grief.  You make plenty of noise about how you hate the corporate
things that they do yet when I try and explain why they are doing those
things, from their perspective, you shoot the messenger.

This constant "I know how the law works and you don't" is no match for
"Microsoft has enough money to change the law".  There was this little
anti-trust case, maybe you heard of it, it was obvious that they should
have lost and they didn't.  How does your opinion, which would clearly
have been that they should have lost, reconcile with the fact that they
didn't lose?  I don't get it, you apparently see something I don't.

What makes it frustrating is that I used to share a lot of your opinions
but in the process of running a business I learned a fair amount which
changed my perspective.  Unfortunately, you are doing a great job of
directing the discussion away from any of that information.  I don't
know what to say to make the information more interesting to you and
maybe I should accept the fact that you don't want to hear it.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Timothy Miller]

Larry McVoy wrote:

>  
>
>
>The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
>factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
>thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
>Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
>will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
>it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
>sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
>useful, take it" is the attitude.
>
Reminds me of Microsoft.

>
>Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
>BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
>with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
>lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
>steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
>community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work
>to produce it, we didn't".  Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
>that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
>of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.
>
Reminds me of Stallman.

>
>  
>

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Llu, 2003-04-28 at 21:18, Larry McVoy wrote:
> from any such suit.  Proving clean room is not easy, especially if the
> product is widely available.  Look at the suits between intel and
> some of the chip clones and you'll see what I mean.

You think the chip suits have anything to do with law as opposed to
business techniques to slow each other down. Count just how few of them
actually ended up in court. I think it speaks for itself.

Please don't confuse lawsuits and law, the former is merely a business
strategy

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Llu, 2003-04-28 at 22:24, Larry McVoy wrote:
> It was written up on slashdot in the last year or so, I think it was
> some GUI thing maybe with Adobe.  Poke around, if you can't find it
> I'll go look.

This was patents on aspects of UI

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> > Please site a successful ruling to that effect.  In the two most
> > well-known look-and-feel court cases, Apple lost their suit against
> > Microsoft, and Lotus lost theirs (on appeal) against Borland.
> 
> It was written up on slashdot in the last year or so, I think it was
> some GUI thing maybe with Adobe.  Poke around, if you can't find it
> I'll go look.

That one involved patents:
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-898061.html

bye, Roman

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 03:22:31PM -0500, Chris Adams wrote:
> Once upon a time, Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> said:
> > Sometimes.  If you sit down with product A and use it in the process
> > of creating product B which does what product A does, the courts have
> > held that you can't copy look-and-feel for example.
> 
> Please site a successful ruling to that effect.  In the two most
> well-known look-and-feel court cases, Apple lost their suit against
> Microsoft, and Lotus lost theirs (on appeal) against Borland.

It was written up on slashdot in the last year or so, I think it was
some GUI thing maybe with Adobe.  Poke around, if you can't find it
I'll go look.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> said:
> Sometimes.  If you sit down with product A and use it in the process
> of creating product B which does what product A does, the courts have
> held that you can't copy look-and-feel for example.

Please site a successful ruling to that effect.  In the two most
well-known look-and-feel court cases, Apple lost their suit against
Microsoft, and Lotus lost theirs (on appeal) against Borland.

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 10:04:24PM +0200, Matthias Schniedermeyer wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 03:32:55PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> > I don't think it is exclusively the open source folks that have the 
> > business guys worried, they are also worried about the illegal wholesale
> > replication of the software which occurs in places like China.
> 
> apples? pears?
> 
> 100% copy or "binary clone" of a software is illegal, thats correct.
> 
> Reimplementing the "ideas" behind a software is legal.

Sometimes.  If you sit down with product A and use it in the process
of creating product B which does what product A does, the courts have
held that you can't copy look-and-feel for example.  Independent 
derivation of the same thing is fine but just blatent copying is not.

It's true that you can copy the "math" as it were.  But look and feel
isn't math.  

The fact that you can be sued over look and feel is one of the reasons
that people do "clean room" reimplementations; if you can prove you
never saw WhizzWidget2000 and you reimplemented it then you are safe 
from any such suit.  Proving clean room is not easy, especially if the
product is widely available.  Look at the suits between intel and
some of the chip clones and you'll see what I mean.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Matthias Schniedermeyer]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 03:32:55PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:

> I don't think it is exclusively the open source folks that have the 
> business guys worried, they are also worried about the illegal wholesale
> replication of the software which occurs in places like China.

apples? pears?

100% copy or "binary clone" of a software is illegal, thats correct.

Reimplementing the "ideas" behind a software is legal.

Otherweise there wouldn't be Bitkeeper. "100% original invention" is
impossibel today. At least for a "nontrivial" software. And i guess
Bitkeeper isn't "trivial" (-> it's more than a oneliner).




Bis denn

-- 
Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as 
bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer
wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated, 
cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Michael Buesch]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Monday 28 April 2003 00:32, Larry McVoy wrote:
> If that's what you heard, I didn't get across what I meant.  In the
> business world, it's a well established fact that you don't win by
> copying the leader, the leader will always out distance you.
>
> My message was that instead of sitting around copying other people's
> programs, it would be far more interesting if the open source community
> came up with original works on their own.  That's how you win.  It's a
> lot more work but when you win, you really win.  In the copying model,
> you are always playing catchup to the leader.

Yea, but what about first copying _and then_, when it works stable,
improving it? In the end, we'll have the better product.
> That's how you win.
!


But I also don't share the opinion, that the leader will "win".
Have the original Unix-developers really won? I don't think so.
The real winners are todays Un*ces.

- --
Regards Michael Büsch
http://www.8ung.at/tuxsoft
 16:40:07 up 53 min,  1 user,  load average: 1.05, 1.03, 0.95
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+rUDroxoigfggmSgRAohpAJ9v0b7PM7O31FE/GFoYrPwPKQ/6PwCfWYq6
2kHhcejAO4CsJNtfibYVc8I=
=GPkc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1042 bytes --]

On Sun, 2003-04-27 11:50:37 -0700, Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
wrote in message <20030427185037.GA23581@work.bitmover.com>:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 01:35:53PM -0500, Chris Adams wrote:
> 
> If you want to win, you win by being a creator, not a copier.  That's the
> point.  In my opinion, chasing the leader and copying them is a losing

That's half of it. Creating something oftenly goes along with copying
parts of other things. Without the idea of version control (which you
for sure didn't invent) BK wouldn't be there. Distributed repositories
aren't that new, too. For example, I'm using rsync'ed CVS repositories
since quite some time...

So creating and copying are quite connected to each other...

MfG, JBG

-- 
   Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481
   "Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg
    fuer einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger" | im Internet! |   im Irak!
      ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(IRAQ_WAR_2 | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5426 bytes --]

On Sun, 2003-04-27 09:59:59 -0700, Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
wrote in message <20030427165959.GC6820@work.bitmover.com>:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 04:21:06PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote:

> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
> useful, take it" is the attitude.

See, the open source (or free source) people are _not_ interested in
marketing. They're addicted towards technical evolution. By locking new
technologies (like BK) against free use, you slow down evolution of
other "products" (it's a word from hell; I'd rather only talk about
programs). Well, away from companies and money, what do you think? Would
technical evolution get faster if your "idea" is eg. only one year
protected? ...if official standards (think C99) and any other
books/texts/media would belong to public domain after two years?

I think this would fasten evolution in sizes of _magnitudes_! And I
consider this a good thing (over giving companies the possibility to
rest some time because they earn money with licenses and patents).
Instead that, I'd like to express that there's no time to spend on
earning money from what _had been done_ but better spending any time on
doing further development (and leaving old things off).

> This problem is pervasive, it's not just a handful of people.  Upon the
> advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
> boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
> productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
> and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
> like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
> But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

I think there's everything alright. Abroad that, why not simply let
Pavel do whatever he likes to do at his spare time?

> Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
> BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
> with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
B
> lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
> steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
>community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work

You see this as stealing. I think of further enhancing what's currently
available! Don't rest on what had been done, proceed with evolution!

> to produce it, we didn't".  Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
> that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
> of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.

That's what the README and the THANKS file is for. I like reading them a
lot. This is, because I have some respect to people starting new ideas.
...and I've got some respect for those who coded it. That's what the
AUTHORS file is in place:)

> Do you think that corporations are going sit by and watch you do that and
> do nothing to stop you?  Of course they aren't, they have a strong self

They better start developing again.

> preservation instinct and they have the resources to apply to the problem.
> The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond

Yes, I fear that.

> with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
> with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
> and more at stake so they will win.

Why not simply face the _real_ problem? It's like "Is somebody allowed
to exclusively earn money from some idea/music/software/... for longer
than, say, half a year or a year or the like?"

My answer: No. If we socially accept these money-making machines, we
accept slowing down the creation of new ideas/music/software/..., just
because we give a lot time to their respective creators to wait for
money flowing in.

> The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
> will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
> government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
> The more you push back the more locked up things will become.

Companies will win as long as lawa are like they are just right now (or
as long as current direction is kept). Consider the opposite: consider
peoples all over the world to think that it would be better to only
protect I/M/S/... for half a year; after this time, everything is public
domain. (Of course, laws had to be changed for this.)

I think this would be a better world's vision than today's view out of
my window...

MfG, JBG

-- 
   Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481
   "Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg
    fuer einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger" | im Internet! |   im Irak!
      ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(IRAQ_WAR_2 | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Llu, 2003-04-28 at 00:28, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Under your model, only incremental change will occur, no customer is
> ever going to fund the large amounts required for truly new work.

Or customers do it in groups, or they keep it proprietary. The value
leak of commoditization is slow. I also don't believe in truely new
work. Everything is a new light on a pile of existing technology

Whats BK but a collision between graph theory, CVS and distributed
resolution stuff. The result of that collision is possibly the worlds
best VCS, but its built on a thousand or more years of maths, it
requires the entire science of computer hardware to run, and the
chips it runs on require several thousand years of material science.

On the scale of what it takes to make BK actually useful your work is
but a tiny spec in the big picture, like Linux like all these things.
People seem to lose the picture of the smaller things they rely on.
Remember the subroutine - someone invented that, BK builds on that
knowledge. How about floating point maths, turning machines ....

> The fact that we took that approach is the main reason we're in business
> today, there are literally hundreds of competitors out there, so if we
> are only slightly better do you think anyone would know we existed?
> Not a chance.  I'll bet you I can name at least 20 and probably more
> like 200 SCM companies you've never heard of.  We weren't interested in
> being number 201 in that list.

Which requires you are not a commodity product. What is funny here is that
open source probably isn't your nemesis. Before open source commoditizes your
market space cheap foreign labour and more tax efficient and business
efficient non US companies will probably do so with cheaper proprietary
applications.

When we first discussed bitkeeper and you talked about licensing issues I
said the same - the GPL generally doesn't fit "best in field", be that
Oracle or BK. It's up to you to ensure the other 200 VCS vendors don't
run you down. Most of them want to be #1 too


Alan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Stephan von Krawczynski]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003 09:59:59 -0700
Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
> are the people who own those things and the people who are complaining
> are the people who got those things, illegally, for free. 

Unfortunately this is plain wrong. I am in fact not interested at all in the
P2P stuff. I am interested in simply buying CDs from my favourite bands. And I
_hate_ it to constantly swap CDs during car driving. So I make my own samplers,
where you basically have to _copy_ the songs onto another media. If they are
copy-protected I cannot do that _legally_, because breaking the protection is
against DMCA. Now you just created the case where _buying_ something does not
make sense any longer. This brings up the simple question: what did you really
pay for? In former times you paid for the ability to listen to certain songs.
_Now_ you ought to pay for the ability to listen to a certain CD-media. This
makes a very fundamental difference. I am not interested in the _media_, I am
interested in the _content_ - without technical deficiencies.

There's one other thing you have to keep in mind: a lot of artists do have
agreements where they are paid for every sold CD which is completely full of
their respective songs, but get no money at all from released samplers. This is
why I do not buy any samplers at all. I want the _artist_ to get money for his
work. If there were another possibility to give the money directly to the
artist for his work, I would do that, and buy no records burnt by some RIAA
members at all.

-- 
Regards,
Stephan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Eric W. Biederman]

Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> writes:
> 
> My message was that instead of sitting around copying other people's
> programs, it would be far more interesting if the open source community
> came up with original works on their own.  That's how you win.  It's a
> lot more work but when you win, you really win.  In the copying model,
> you are always playing catchup to the leader.
> 
> By the way, I wouldn't object to the copying so much if I didn't see it
> as a threat to the open source community itself.  I take the long view
> which says that if you look far enough out, if the open source community
> is successful enough, there won't be anything left to copy.

I have to laugh because of a conversation I recently had with the Intel
BIOS guys.  I was describing some of the more important features of
LinuxBIOS and they said: "Yeah we are working on that..."

Copying goes both ways.

Eric

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Måns Rullgård]

rmoser <mlmoser@comcast.net> writes:

> >Nowdays very few programs show any genuinely new ideas.  For the
> >greater part, they are new implementations of very old concepts.  Take
> >Microsoft.  They produce operating systems and word processors.  They
> >were not by far the first to do either of these.  Actually, I can't
> >think of anything where MS has come up with something really new.  The
> >idea of using a display (possibly graphical) with multiple windows was
> >at one time such a new thing.  
> 
> wtf?  Wasn't that W?  (the W windowing system)

Read carefully again.  I did *not* say that MS invented window
systems, quite the contrary.  What I said, was that the invention,
whenever it took place and whoever the inventor, was, at that time, a
new thing.  All later window systems are, in Larry's sense, copies of
the first one.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@users.sf.net

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[rmoser]

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/27/2003 at 7:35 PM mru@users.sourceforge.net wrote:

>Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> writes:
>
>> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
>> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
>> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
>> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
>> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
>> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
>> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
>> useful, take it" is the attitude.
>
>AFAIK, BK is not covered by patents.  This means that anyone can
>legally write software with similar functionality, without doing
>anything illegal, or (IMHO) immoral, as long as no code is copied from
>the original product.  This applies to other progams, as well.  I
>don't see anything wrong with taking inspiration from other programs,
>when writing your own.  Sure, it might not take the same effort to
>create a program similar to an already existing one, as to think of
>totally new, great idea for how to do something.  With your reasoning,
>all version control programs are stolen from the first one, whatever
>that was (does anyone remember?).
>
>> Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
>> BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
>> with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
>> lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
>> steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
>> community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work
>> to produce it, we didn't".  Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
>> that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
>> of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.
>
>Nowdays very few programs show any genuinely new ideas.  For the
>greater part, they are new implementations of very old concepts.  Take
>Microsoft.  They produce operating systems and word processors.  They
>were not by far the first to do either of these.  Actually, I can't
>think of anything where MS has come up with something really new.  The
>idea of using a display (possibly graphical) with multiple windows was
>at one time such a new thing.  

wtf?  Wasn't that W?  (the W windowing system)

> This does not mean that any subsequent
>implementation of such a system is copied, or stolen, from the
>original inventor (who was that?).  

I dunno.  Lemme see...

http://new.linuxnow.com/docs/content/XWindow-User-HOWTO-html/XWindow-User-HOWTO-2.html

The X Window System was developed in the Laboratory for Computer Science
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as part of project Athena in
cooperation with DEC, and first released in 1984. The project lead of the main
development was Robert Scheifler, and the origins of X owe much debt to the
``W'' Windowing package, developed by Paul Asente at Stanford. In September
of 1987, MIT issued the first release of the X11 that we know and use today.
As of X11R2, control passed from MIT to the X Consortium, formed in January
of 1988.


So there you have it.  Paul Asente, as far back as I can see.  There is one
other good tip on that page:

And remember, it's called X Window, not X Windows!

> If an idea is special enough, it
>can be patented.  This protects it from being used by anyone else for
>some time.  Good examples are MPEG video compression and RSA
>cryptography.  Fortunately, not everything can be patented.
>
>-- 
>Måns Rullgård
>mru@users.sf.net
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[rmoser]

Well I didn't read the header! :D  Geeze.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/27/2003 at 5:37 PM Larry McVoy wrote:

>On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 08:19:18PM -0400, rmoser wrote:
>[whine whine whine]
>
>
>FYI, this person just posted a private email to a public list.
>
>Personally, I don't care, I try not to send private mails that I wouldn't
>want to see out in public, and I stand 100% behind what I said to him
>in private.  In fact, I feel more strongly about it now than I did before.
>
>On the other hand, it might be useful information that this person doesn't
>seem to understand the rules of the road, i.e., what is private remains
>private.
>--
>---
>Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com
>http://www.bitmover.com/lm
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 08:19:18PM -0400, rmoser wrote:
[whine whine whine]


FYI, this person just posted a private email to a public list.

Personally, I don't care, I try not to send private mails that I wouldn't
want to see out in public, and I stand 100% behind what I said to him
in private.  In fact, I feel more strongly about it now than I did before.

On the other hand, it might be useful information that this person doesn't
seem to understand the rules of the road, i.e., what is private remains
private.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Larry McVoy wrote:
> There seems to be a wide spread feeling that whenever anything
> desirable comes along it is OK to take it if you want it.

Such attitudes are indicative of a "me first" society, wherein laws only 
apply if a quilty entity (person or corporation) believes they will 
suffer consequences for their actions. Recent history shows a strong 
tendancy for corporations to lie, cheat, and steal whenever they think 
they can "get away" with it; I don't see the behavior of music 
downloaders as any more or less noble than the business practices of 
Microsoft.

Many people couch their theft of IP in terms of nobility; they seem 
themselves as Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich and giving to the 
poor. I've even seen some people state that music piracy is a human 
rights issue, comparing themselves to civil rights activists. Such 
claims devalue real human rights abuses in an attempt to validate IP theft.

> The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the
> corporations will win, they will protect themselves, they have the
> money to lobby the government to get the laws they want and build the
> technology they need. The more you push back the more locked up
> things will become.

And it's happened time and time again, in so many areas where personal
freedoms stand contrary to the profits of corporations. We exist in a 
feudal society, whether people wish to recognize it as such or not -- 
and right now, the Lords are corporations who have the power of law and 
force on their side.

Copyrights and patents were once sound devices for stimulating the
development and dissemination of new ideas; the advent of the modern
corporation, however, has perverted those fine concepts for selfish
goals; government incompetence has allowed the process to degenerate
into stupidity, where anyone can patent almost anything.

I doubt very much the most music pirates give a damn about the social 
implications of freedom. In my experience, those who steal IP are just 
as greedy as the corporations; they want soemthing, so they take it. 
Theft is theft, whether it's a software corporation stealing someone's 
GPL code or a college kid downloading a thousand pirated songs.

> I don't like the record companies any better than anyone else but
> they do own the material and you either respect the rules or the
> record companies will lock it up and force you to respect the rules.

I'm willing to agree that the current in-your-face tactics of the 
"free-as-in-liberty" IP movement will accomplish little or nothing in 
terms of human freedom.

That does *not* mean that it is useless to break unjust laws! Revolution 
is always involves people who foresake the rules and ignore the 
impositions of powers-that-be.

The real question is: What tactics make a revolution effective? In the 
case of "free" software and IP, I believe the current, confrontation 
tactics are both ineffective and counterproductive.

> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.
 > ...
 > "If it's useful, take it" is the attitude.

Indeed, it is. It amazes me how many students "use" code from my books 
or web site as their homework. Even more disturbign are the college 
students who insist that I provide them with free implementations of 
their homework assignments. By the gods, I've been *threatened* by some 
of these people, who are likely the same sort who buy term papers and 
doctoral thesis.

Modern society is selfish. And much of the "free" software movement is 
based on "free-as-in-beer", not "free-as-in-liberty" thinking.

> Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with 
> BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
>  with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you
> don't lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no
> respect, and will steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a
> single example of the community going "no, we can't take that,
> someone else did all the work to produce it, we didn't".

And corporations do EXACTLY THE SAME THING. The evil is on both sides of 
the fence. People think that they have a "right" to steal Windows 
because Microsoft has acted unethically. Adults pass this "me first" 
attitude to their children.

> Do you think that corporations are going sit by and watch you do that
> and do nothing to stop you?  Of course they aren't, they have a
> strong self preservation instinct and they have the resources to
> apply to the problem. The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the
> beginning.  You will respond with all sorts of clever hacks to get
> around it and they will respond with even more clever hacks to stop
> you.  They have both more resources and more at stake so they will
> win.

Exactly.

Stealing music, software and IP is doomed to fail in terms of 
"liberating" intellectual property.

For a long time, I was involved in a dispute over indigenous land 
rights; the opponents were multinational mining corporations. They could 
hire private "security" firms to provide "enforcement." We had 
international organizations, including the Organization of American 
States and the UN on our side; the victims won international human 
rights awards for defending their rights peacefully.

We lost. No fanfare, no laser guided bombs; we simply lost because 
people wore out. Leaders got old, people got tired of "surprise" tax 
audits, bugged phones, and death threats. The government and 
corporations imposed their will by force of money and time.

And that was a truly *noble* loss for people fighting for their heritage 
and the  purity of their land! If we couldn't win that war, how do a 
bunch of software thieves and music pirates expect to win against even 
bigger corporate opponents?

Yes, we should fight against the excess of corporate greed-- using a 
rational battle plan, founded on honest ethics and superior products.

-- 
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Professional programming for science and engineering;
Interesting and unusual bits of very free code.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[rmoser]

No need to get indignant.  Just that these messages generally
go:

<Message 1>  You're copying things, you're breaking the law,
you're going to be nailed
<Message 2> Well what are we going to do about it?
<Message 3> Stop!
<Message 4> We can't we ahve to make this work with that.
<Message 5> Do it some other way you're doing foo bar baz
<Message 6>  We are not foo!  Define bar and wtf is baz?
<Message 7> Bar is biz, baz is delta, your economic model
is flawed, you can't think, you're stupid

.....

Or something like that.  I mean it's ignorable for a while but God,
like I can't find 10 contiguous messages from the past 2 days (I
signed on on friday) that doesn't include this thread.  The past
few hours have it where it's trouble finding a group of 10 messages
where less than 8 are this thread.

It's just getting excessive.  I'm expecting to see

<Message 200> Shut up moron!
<message 201> Hah!  Call me a moron 2!$*head?  You can't
code worth balls!
<Message 202>  Can't code?  I'll show you you ba@$!4%!

......

some time soon

--Bluefox Icy

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/27/2003 at 5:10 PM Larry McVoy wrote:

>Jeeze, buddy, sorry to waste your time.  I'll go kill myself now.
>Not.  Get a life.  If you don't like a thread, kill it.  If you
>don't like me, add me to your procmailrc.  But since I've been
>around working on Linux and stuff that predates Linux by about
>10 years or so, maybe I'll just post whatever the heck I feel
>like and if you don't like it, well, gosh, darn, I'm sooooo
>sorry I've wasted your time, but I really could care less.
>I certainly hope that's OK with you, but if not, oh, darn.
>
>On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 08:00:23PM -0400, rmoser wrote:
>> Just some clarification, this thread is generating excessive traffic.
>> Is this actually a useful topic, or are you just having a flamewar?
>> If it's just a big argument, can you stop?  Like, get your own list,
>> put all the participants on it, and flame there.
>>
>> If it's relavent, then get to the point.
>>
>> --Bluefox Icy
>>
>> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>>
>> On 4/27/2003 at 4:53 PM Larry McVoy wrote:
>>
>> >On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:51:58PM +0100, Matthew Kirkwood wrote:
>> >> On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Please excuse the aggressive trimming, but I don't think I'm
>> >> affecting the intent of your works.
>> >
>> >I agree, what you did is fine, great in fact.  Thanks.
>> >
>> >> >     1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content
>> >and/or
>> >> >        products.
>> >>
>> >> I think that the word "copy" may be a significant cause
>> >> of artificial disagreement here.  I, for one, find it just
>> >> as misleading as "free" (is it as-in-beer or as-in-speech?).
>> >>
>> >> Larry -- would you be willing, in future postings of this
>> >> nature, to distinguish "duplicate" and "reimplement"?
>> >
>> >A very good point, you're right.  And it's worse because I use "copying"
>> >to mean two different things depending on context.
>> >
>> >To clarify: in general, when I'm talking about copying, what I mean
>depends
>> >on whether I'm talking about content or software programs.  For content,
>> >copying means the act of generating a new copy of the content (copying
>> >mp3 files via Napster like services, for example).  For programs, which
>> >is usually what I'm talking about, I mean the act of sitting down and
>> >trying to make a new program which does the same thing as the old
>program.
>> >
>> >I think some people may think that I mean redistribution when I say
>> >copying and I almost never am talking about that.
>> >--
>> >---
>> >Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com
>> >http://www.bitmover.com/lm
>> >-
>> >To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel"
>in
>> >the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> >More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>> >Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>>
>>
>>
>> -
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel"
>in
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
>--
>---
>Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Ross Vandegrift]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 04:28:35PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Maybe it fuels you, it certainly doesn't fuel me.  As far as I know,
> nobody who works here has ever run clearcase or looked at their file
> formats.  All of the clearcase knowledge I have has come indirectly
> through customers who have told me how it works.  At this point I have
> a pretty good idea how it works but at no time did we ever attempt to
> emulate or improve on clearcase.

Well, but if you made a more advanced SCM tool, then yes, you improved
on Clearcase.  Therein lies the flaw in your arguement - you're saying
the community needs to start really innovating, but really - what's
innovation?

If BK is better off because of user feedback, and you said above those
users used Clearcase, BK is at least part a copy of Clearcase.  There's
no way around that - every person who creates has influences.  In BK's
case that influence is indirect, but c'mon - without that feedback,
which is based on Clearcase, BK would be something different.
You're asking people to not have any influences.

> I'm much more interested in the definition of "best".
> What is the best answer?  OK, let's build that.

How did you find that "best", if it didn't come failed attempts?  Were
you born with an image of the ideal SCM tool in your head?  Did you
stumble upon it in the woods one day?  I don't see how the idea could've
developed without influences.  

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com

A Pope has a Water Cannon.                               It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it.                        It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it.                                 It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it.          It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced.                It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official.       It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive.                                       He shoots them.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[rmoser]

Just some clarification, this thread is generating excessive traffic.
Is this actually a useful topic, or are you just having a flamewar?
If it's just a big argument, can you stop?  Like, get your own list,
put all the participants on it, and flame there.

If it's relavent, then get to the point.

--Bluefox Icy

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/27/2003 at 4:53 PM Larry McVoy wrote:

>On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:51:58PM +0100, Matthew Kirkwood wrote:
>> On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:
>>
>> Please excuse the aggressive trimming, but I don't think I'm
>> affecting the intent of your works.
>
>I agree, what you did is fine, great in fact.  Thanks.
>
>> >     1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content
>and/or
>> >        products.
>>
>> I think that the word "copy" may be a significant cause
>> of artificial disagreement here.  I, for one, find it just
>> as misleading as "free" (is it as-in-beer or as-in-speech?).
>>
>> Larry -- would you be willing, in future postings of this
>> nature, to distinguish "duplicate" and "reimplement"?
>
>A very good point, you're right.  And it's worse because I use "copying"
>to mean two different things depending on context.
>
>To clarify: in general, when I'm talking about copying, what I mean depends
>on whether I'm talking about content or software programs.  For content,
>copying means the act of generating a new copy of the content (copying
>mp3 files via Napster like services, for example).  For programs, which
>is usually what I'm talking about, I mean the act of sitting down and
>trying to make a new program which does the same thing as the old program.
>
>I think some people may think that I mean redistribution when I say
>copying and I almost never am talking about that.
>--
>---
>Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com
>http://www.bitmover.com/lm
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:51:58PM +0100, Matthew Kirkwood wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> Please excuse the aggressive trimming, but I don't think I'm
> affecting the intent of your works.

I agree, what you did is fine, great in fact.  Thanks.

> >     1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content and/or
> >        products.
> 
> I think that the word "copy" may be a significant cause
> of artificial disagreement here.  I, for one, find it just
> as misleading as "free" (is it as-in-beer or as-in-speech?).
> 
> Larry -- would you be willing, in future postings of this
> nature, to distinguish "duplicate" and "reimplement"?

A very good point, you're right.  And it's worse because I use "copying"
to mean two different things depending on context.

To clarify: in general, when I'm talking about copying, what I mean depends
on whether I'm talking about content or software programs.  For content,
copying means the act of generating a new copy of the content (copying 
mp3 files via Napster like services, for example).  For programs, which
is usually what I'm talking about, I mean the act of sitting down and 
trying to make a new program which does the same thing as the old program.

I think some people may think that I mean redistribution when I say
copying and I almost never am talking about that.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Matthias Andree]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> But you are still missing the point.  As long as the feeling is that it is
> OK to reverse engineer by staring at the file formats, the corporations
> will respond by encrypting the data you want to stare at.
> 
> In other words, it's pretty much hopeless to try and catch up that way,
> you might as well go try and build something better from the start.

Wouldn't you still want to import "old" data into the new BetterApp?

Changes of the format or interface are painful, we've seen this with the
network filtering in Linux several times, 2.0 had ipfwadm, 2.2 had
ipchains, 2.4 has compatibility interfaces for either and its native
netfilter... There must have been a better reason to add compatibility
than just "because we could do it."

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:05:15PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> Your economic model is flawed because if something needs doing enough
> someone will pay to do it. The moment the value exceeds the cost it
> should happen. 

Explain to me how BK would have happened under your (non flawed) model.
Before we gave it to you, you had no idea how to do it.  It cost
millions to get it to the point that you could see that it was valuable
by using it.

If I had said "Hey, Red Hat, how about you give me $8M so I can go
build you the perfect SCM tool" you would have laughed your ass off.
As would any other company, the amount of money it takes to do something
new is not a working amount for a single customer.

Under your model, only incremental change will occur, no customer is
ever going to fund the large amounts required for truly new work.

> As to using one companies lessons to do your work, how much did BK learn
> from what *didn't* work well in Clearcase. Rather a lot I believe. That
> learning fuels innovation.

Maybe it fuels you, it certainly doesn't fuel me.  As far as I know,
nobody who works here has ever run clearcase or looked at their file
formats.  All of the clearcase knowledge I have has come indirectly
through customers who have told me how it works.  At this point I have
a pretty good idea how it works but at no time did we ever attempt to
emulate or improve on clearcase.

A lot of people who work here have commented that they like working
here because we don't back away from the hard problems.  We don't
work at things by going "hmm, clearcase does it this way, let's see
if we can do better".  Linus told us he'd use BK when it was the best
and what we thought he meant "best" meant "it can be no better", not
"well, it's better than all the other crap out there".  The way we work
is to imagine perfection and then try and build that.  I'm really not
interested in how CVS does it or how ClearCase does it, I already know
they do it wrong.  I'm much more interested in the definition of "best".
What is the best answer?  OK, let's build that.

The fact that we took that approach is the main reason we're in business
today, there are literally hundreds of competitors out there, so if we
are only slightly better do you think anyone would know we existed?
Not a chance.  I'll bet you I can name at least 20 and probably more
like 200 SCM companies you've never heard of.  We weren't interested in
being number 201 in that list.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <m13ck3de5b.fsf@orchid.mirar.org>
By author:    Mirar <mirar+linuxkernel@mirar.org>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> Xerox. (Yes, same X as in X11, if I understand correctly.) 
> I think they gave the idea away freely to Apple.
> 

X was named so because it was the successor to a windowing system
named W.

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
Architectures needed: ia64 m68k mips64 ppc ppc64 s390 s390x sh v850 x86-64

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Matthew Kirkwood]

On 27 Apr 2003, Alan Cox wrote:

[ playing John Humphries today ]

> > But you are still missing the point.  As long as the feeling is that
> > it is OK to reverse engineer by staring at the file formats, the
> > corporations will respond by encrypting the data you want to stare at.
>
> And government if it is smart will reply by enforcing reverse
> engineering rights *for compatibility* (not cloning), or business (the
> surviving bits anyway) will figure it out and do it themselves.

Alan -- could you please explain what you see as the real
differences between reverse engineering for "compatibility"
and for "cloning"?

It isn't obvious to me that there is a line-in-the-sand.
For example, a Word document extractor like "wv" is not
nearly as useful without an attached word processor (be it
or not that your intention is to save in that format).

> > In other words, it's pretty much hopeless to try and catch up that way,
> > you might as well go try and build something better from the start.
>
> You have to interoperate to do that.

Is that really true?  It may make sense for a lot of
consumer applications, but does it really apply to source
control?

Isn't it the case that sometimes features are more compelling
than compatibility?

Matthew.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Matthew Kirkwood]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

Please excuse the aggressive trimming, but I don't think I'm
affecting the intent of your works.

>     1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content and/or
>        products.

I think that the word "copy" may be a significant cause
of artificial disagreement here.  I, for one, find it just
as misleading as "free" (is it as-in-beer or as-in-speech?).

Larry -- would you be willing, in future postings of this
nature, to distinguish "duplicate" and "reimplement"?
(Perhaps someone else will find better, more obviously
different, words, but that's the best I can do today.)  If
you did this, at least the discussions about whether you
refer to copyright or patents would disappear.

Matthew.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

> > factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> > thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
> > Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> > will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> 
> Build something making the same things possible and then more. But then
> thats exactly what BK did. Does that make you a crook ?

If I had been sitting there with a copy of clearcase or reverse engineering
from the data stored by clearcase, I'm pretty sure rational would have 
something to say about it.

But you are still missing the point.  As long as the feeling is that it is
OK to reverse engineer by staring at the file formats, the corporations
will respond by encrypting the data you want to stare at.

In other words, it's pretty much hopeless to try and catch up that way,
you might as well go try and build something better from the start.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Matthias Andree]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

>     1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content and/or
>        products.

The problem you're not seeing is: how much of that "content/products" is
taken from other products?

>     2) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to get the government
>        to create laws to protect the corporate interests.

So make the last step, abolish elections, they're just show to pretend
there were a democracy. The government does not have the right to act in
the corporate interests, look at the consitution and see what oath is
prescribed. Provided your country is a democracy, officials will have to
swear to serve the people and only the people and its good, turn away
damage and all that.

Lopsided constructs "but the corporations make jobs" are then often used
to bully/get bullied into making corporate friendly decisions without
checking if they are for the good of the people. 

>     3) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to create technology
>        which will remove threats to the corporation.

Granted.

>     4) The more you inist that you are doing nothing wrong the more motivated
>        the corporation becomes to stop you.

5) Corporations that make products tailored to the (potential)
   customers' needs may not have to think about #4 at all.

> This isn't a BK thing, we don't have lobbyists in Washington get laws
> passed on our behalf.  This is my private opinion based on observing
> what's happened in the last five years or so.  The world is moving more
> and more towards a place where IP is the significant source of revenue.

IP is not the thing that let society come to life the way it is now.
Societies have started to work our way because specializing people and
trading goods freed resources that were to the good of everybody. If
hunters go hunting not just for themselves, but share their prey and get
tools (say, bow and arrow) in return for food, they get more efficient.

This hasn't been about intellectual property, but sharing knowledge.

What do you think will happen when basic arithmetics become IP? Why do
you think basic arithmetics are public knowledge rather than IP? Why do
you think it should remain this way -- or changed?

If I invent something *really* new, then I'd think granting a patent for
like 10 years might be worthwhile (with some exceptions, say for
medicine: the state should always have the right to buy out a patent
from a corp by covering the development costs and then releasing the
patent). Just letting something evolve or tuning something that already
exists is not worth a patent -- not even copyright protection (which
happens with much of the music nowadays...)

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 06:07:17PM -0400, Ross Vandegrift wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:50:37AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> >     1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content and/or
> >        products.
> >     2) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to get the government
> >        to create laws to protect the corporate interests.
> >     3) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to create technology
> >        which will remove threats to the corporation.
> >     4) The more you inist that you are doing nothing wrong the more motivated
> >        the corporation becomes to stop you.
> [snip]
> > What I'm trying to
> > say is that I think that the organizations which *create* the IP will
> > vigorously defend that.  The more you try and circumvent that the more
> > draconian they will get.
> 
> I think that you simply meant in your email to identify free software as
> a cause for this paranoia.  I can kinda see the logic, and you might be
> right.

Whew.  At least I'm not totally crazy, one person saw what I was saying.

I don't think it is exclusively the open source folks that have the 
business guys worried, they are also worried about the illegal wholesale
replication of the software which occurs in places like China.

> But what I think what fired up many other readers (and me as well, until
> I read your reply), is that your email reads like the solution is to
> stop making free software/independant music/etc and just pay for what
> we're offered.  After all, individual creations will only serve to increase
> the paranoia of the corporations.

If that's what you heard, I didn't get across what I meant.  In the
business world, it's a well established fact that you don't win by
copying the leader, the leader will always out distance you.

My message was that instead of sitting around copying other people's
programs, it would be far more interesting if the open source community
came up with original works on their own.  That's how you win.  It's a
lot more work but when you win, you really win.  In the copying model,
you are always playing catchup to the leader.

By the way, I wouldn't object to the copying so much if I didn't see it
as a threat to the open source community itself.  I take the long view
which says that if you look far enough out, if the open source community
is successful enough, there won't be anything left to copy.

That's not a problem except that the commercial companies are spending
the R&D to create new stuff and the open source guys using the proprietary
programs as a roadmap to make a free version.  Not a problem until you go
looking for a business model based on open source which can generate the
revenue that it takes to do something new.  Nobody has in the many years
I've pointed out this problem.  
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Llu, 2003-04-28 at 00:08, Matthew Kirkwood wrote:
> > And government if it is smart will reply by enforcing reverse
> > engineering rights *for compatibility* (not cloning), or business (the
> > surviving bits anyway) will figure it out and do it themselves.
> 
> Alan -- could you please explain what you see as the real
> differences between reverse engineering for "compatibility"
> and for "cloning"?
> 
> It isn't obvious to me that there is a line-in-the-sand.

Oh indeed it is not. Have a look at EU reverse engineering law and
caselaw if you are really that curious to see where the line lands
(I'm not). A lot of it depends how you define "a product". 

Writing a tool to extract BK repositories into an open format (ok
except that BK is basically already in an open format at the
moment but suppose it changed..) would be an obvious example.

You might however get your backside kicked if you had people
reverse engineer BK and then write a copy of it.

It isnt entirely that complex: Are a laser printer and its ink
cartridge two products, or a mobile phone and its battery ?

Alan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Matthias Andree]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> There is much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that
> the evil corporations are locking things up with DRM as well as various
> laws like the DMCA.  People talk about their "rights" being violated,
> about how awful this all is, etc, etc, etc.

I have had the right to run any software I wish on my PeeCee.

The people locking down music with DRM and CD playback protection, whatever,
have explicitly stated that they aren't interested in pressing Red Book
compliant CDs. I am not going to ask EMI or Universal if they want me to
play their CD in my car audio or CD-ROM drive, I'm just doing it. If
they are telling my "our CD isn't going to play in your computer", they
can keep it to themselves and plug it into their backs.

I bought the CD, and the implicit right to the information contained on
the CD. I'm not sharing my CDs in P2P networks, and I do have the right
to make a backup copy of a CD (at least, that was the situation a month
ago, I'd need to check again, but the new German copyright act is
inconsistent anyways) for my private purposes (of course, selling the
copies without consent of the copyright holder hasn't been allowed for
the past decades). The current law _effectively_ undermines my right to
a backup. This hasn't yet addressed fair use, and I'm not going into
fair use here.

> What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
> are the people who own those things and the people who are complaining
> are the people who got those things, illegally, for free.  There seems

I'd very much like to give the original artist and record engineers and
stuff twice of what they're getting now, and instead give the useless
record company nothing. CD forth or back.

The problem is to draw the proper line around property, and find a
consensus in society who can own what information. Imagine someone would
"own" basic arithmetics. You can't imagine that, because that's
essential and public knowledge. Where are you going to draw the line
between public and private property?

The moment DRM is extended on other information than just entertainment,
it's going to get really threatening to the basics of society in
general. We've had this discussion before about patents, so I'm not
going over all the arguments which are virtually the same, only
technically enforced rather than by means of registering your
"invention" with the patent and trademark office.

> to be a wide spread feeling that whenever anything desirable comes along
> it is OK to take it if you want it.  Napster is a good example.  I don't
> like the record companies any better than anyone else but they do own
> the material and you either respect the rules or the record companies
> will lock it up and force you to respect the rules.

They are to make serious product offers first. :->

Seriously, if someone offers a "pay per listen/view", that's fine if it
has an adequate price. I still expect an offer of a "flat rate" (such as
the CD) that I can listen to/view for my private use as often as I want.
I understand that'll cost like 10 or 30 times "single view", but ...
(see below)

> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.

Open Source is about copying what you find useful; information for the
most part (and the one who makes the copy pays for it, the information
is free and with some licenses meant to remain free).

> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
> useful, take it" is the attitude.

... believing that DRM and TCPA and sequels will just be about only
permitting to consume what you've paid for is not my belief.

> This problem is pervasive, it's not just a handful of people.  Upon the
> advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
> boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
> productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
> and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
> like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
> But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

So there. You aren't telling SuSE any more about they deal with people
who have SuSE mail addresses (and possibly work contracts) than Richard
M. Stallman or I are telling you to open source Bitkeeper: you don't
think it's right, you're not doing it. (And given that Pavel's week has
168 hours minus sleep and eating and all that, leaves like 100 hours
for him to use, and SuSE could control half than that and less, they'd
be idiots to tell Pavel what he cannot do in his spare time.)

> that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
> of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.

Now that's thin ice you've set your foot upon; I'd like to challenge
that with "has BitMover invented source code and revision management"?
Certainly not. Has BitMover invented distributed development? Neither.
So watch out. I do acknowledge that I've yet to see something working as
smooth as BitKeeper for merges of distributed repos, but then again, I
haven't seen anything else than RCS, CVS and BK.

> Do you think that corporations are going sit by and watch you do that and
> do nothing to stop you?  Of course they aren't, they have a strong self
> preservation instinct and they have the resources to apply to the problem.
> The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
> with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
> with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
> and more at stake so they will win.

They can have their rights, but no more. DMCA is currently being abused
to hinder research and publishing results thereof, and DMCA and patents
are also actively being abused to protect usury (think printer ink).
Such abuse won't grow people's acceptance of such laws and patents.

After all, the whole argument is about taking away, locking away and
selling. We know Communism has failed for various reasons, but sharing
certain kind of information has advantages, for example it prevents
reinventing the wheel, and if products (closed source software) are
copied then there must have been a reason for that, say, the original
(protected by patent or whatever) was too expensive or too restrictive
or whatever.

> The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
> will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
> government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.

That's the real problem here. Most industry nations claim democracy, but
they act contrary to people's will. If the people's will evidently is
"give us free music", one might consider rising taxes on certain
products and have the state pay for the artists. I know this phrase is
reaching far too short and such things aren't going to happen without
another bloody revolution, but just give it a thought as a model that is
outside what you're used to.

What I'd also like to see is many small companies rather than few
giants, to have real competition and choice.

I'll stop now, because that's getting off-topic. Please respond in
private mail.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Ross Vandegrift]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:50:37AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
>     1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content and/or
>        products.
>     2) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to get the government
>        to create laws to protect the corporate interests.
>     3) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to create technology
>        which will remove threats to the corporation.
>     4) The more you inist that you are doing nothing wrong the more motivated
>        the corporation becomes to stop you.
[snip]
> What I'm trying to
> say is that I think that the organizations which *create* the IP will
> vigorously defend that.  The more you try and circumvent that the more
> draconian they will get.

I think that you simply meant in your email to identify free software as
a cause for this paranoia.  I can kinda see the logic, and you might be
right.

But what I think what fired up many other readers (and me as well, until
I read your reply), is that your email reads like the solution is to
stop making free software/independant music/etc and just pay for what
we're offered.  After all, individual creations will only serve to increase
the paranoia of the corporations.

If you're offering that as a solution, you're far crazier than even the
most vicious anti-BK people have claimed.

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com

A Pope has a Water Cannon.                               It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it.                        It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it.                                 It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it.          It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced.                It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official.       It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive.                                       He shoots them.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Sul, 2003-04-27 at 23:32, Larry McVoy wrote:
> If that's what you heard, I didn't get across what I meant.  In the
> business world, it's a well established fact that you don't win by
> copying the leader, the leader will always out distance you.

Very few companies win by being the leader. You win by letting someone
else create the market then jumping on them with lots of money, sharp
marketing and business sense. 

> My message was that instead of sitting around copying other people's
> programs, it would be far more interesting if the open source community
> came up with original works on their own.  

Lots of Linux stuff is new and unique - from doing threading right to 
stuff like IP Masquerading, to the Glibc extensions to make
internationalisation actually sane.

> I take the long view
> which says that if you look far enough out, if the open source community
> is successful enough, there won't be anything left to copy.

Like the patent office head who proposed closing it because nothing was
left to invent

> That's not a problem except that the commercial companies are spending
> the R&D to create new stuff and the open source guys using the proprietary
> programs as a roadmap to make a free version.  Not a problem until you go
> looking for a business model based on open source which can generate the
> revenue that it takes to do something new.  Nobody has in the many years
> I've pointed out this problem.  

Your economic model is flawed because if something needs doing enough
someone will pay to do it. The moment the value exceeds the cost it
should happen. Government keeps raising the cost of doing anything but
sitting at home watching TV but even with that factor included people
will pay the cost when it is needed. 

Its also not clear that open source companies will replicate everything
or have the ability to do so. Even without US patent bogons its doubtful
that open source is going to replace Oracle in a hurry. It takes time
for stuff to become commodity. 

As to using one companies lessons to do your work, how much did BK learn
from what *didn't* work well in Clearcase. Rather a lot I believe. That
learning fuels innovation.

Alan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Sul, 2003-04-27 at 23:36, Larry McVoy wrote:
> But you are still missing the point.  As long as the feeling is that it is
> OK to reverse engineer by staring at the file formats, the corporations
> will respond by encrypting the data you want to stare at.

And government if it is smart will reply by enforcing reverse
engineering rights *for compatibility* (not cloning), or business
(the surviving bits anyway) will figure it out and do it themselves.

> In other words, it's pretty much hopeless to try and catch up that way,
> you might as well go try and build something better from the start.

You have to interoperate to do that. 

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Sul, 2003-04-27 at 17:59, Larry McVoy wrote:
> What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
> are the people who own those things 

Untrue. If I buy an X-box who owns it ? If I sold you a house and it had
a room in it I didnt let you have access to with one way mirrors out
watching all your activity would you be upset ? (and dont argue you
wouldnt buy it - there wont be any other house types)

> it is OK to take it if you want it.  Napster is a good example.  I don't
> like the record companies any better than anyone else but they do own
> the material and you either respect the rules or the record companies
> will lock it up and force you to respect the rules.

They want to lock it up as much to keep out small players as to stop
piracy. Not that they shouldn't be allowed to stop piracy

> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,

Build something making the same things possible and then more. But then
thats exactly what BK did. Does that make you a crook ?

Alan

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Jon Portnoy]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 04:21:06PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote:
> > It seems that the people who form the "market" (and buy shares, write
> > analyses, buy CDs/DVDs) need to be told the implications of buying
> > copy-protected material or material that enforces to boot only
> > particlular kernels or whatever.
> 
> This is in the "it's too late to fix it" category but here's my opinion
> about all this digital rights stuff.
> 
> There is much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that
> the evil corporations are locking things up with DRM as well as various
> laws like the DMCA.  People talk about their "rights" being violated,
> about how awful this all is, etc, etc, etc.
> 
> What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
> are the people who own those things and the people who are complaining
> are the people who got those things, illegally, for free.  There seems
> to be a wide spread feeling that whenever anything desirable comes along
> it is OK to take it if you want it.  Napster is a good example.  I don't
> like the record companies any better than anyone else but they do own
> the material and you either respect the rules or the record companies
> will lock it up and force you to respect the rules.
> 
> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
> useful, take it" is the attitude.

You're comparing illegally stealing something already made to making 
something that behaves similarly to something that exists?

> 
> This problem is pervasive, it's not just a handful of people.  Upon the
> advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
> boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
> productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
> and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
> like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
> But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

Larry, why do you want other people to be as much of an apparent asshole 
as you are? When you're trying to get someone's boss to extort them into 
stopping a personal project, you're going way too far. You really feel 
_that_ threatened by Pavel's project that you feel a need to try to get 
leverage over Pavel via his boss?

> 
> Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
> BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
> with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
> lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
> steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
> community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work
> to produce it, we didn't".  Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
> that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
> of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.

No conscience and no respect? Maybe you just have no respect for us. Maybe 
if you had respect for us, we'd respect you in return. Instead you're here 
ranting about how we're a bunch of thieves while you're trying to get 
everyone else to behave unethical and extort their employees. Wow, you're 
just a paragon of virtue, Larry. I wish we could all be nicer to wonderful 
people like you.

> 
> Do you think that corporations are going sit by and watch you do that and
> do nothing to stop you?  Of course they aren't, they have a strong self
> preservation instinct and they have the resources to apply to the problem.
> The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
> with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
> with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
> and more at stake so they will win.

Why aren't they winning so far? They don't have more resources. You mean 
that they have more money (and more money at stake). Apparently judging by 
the fact that the RIAA, MPAA, et al aren't "winning," "our" clever hacks 
(who and what are you referring to here exactly?) are "winning."

"They have the guns, but we have the numbers"

> 
> The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
> will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
> government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
> The more you push back the more locked up things will become.

Wow, I wish they'd get it over with. Are they just faking the current 
"losing" trend?

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Sul, 2003-04-27 at 18:35, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> AFAIK, BK is not covered by patents.  This means that anyone can
> legally write software with similar functionality, without doing
> anything illegal, or (IMHO) immoral, as long as no code is copied from

>From conversations with Larry a long time ago I believe this is
not the case wrt to BK and patents.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Alan Cox]

On Sul, 2003-04-27 at 19:50, Larry McVoy wrote:
> If you want to win, you win by being a creator, not a copier.  That's the
> point.  In my opinion, chasing the leader and copying them is a losing
> strategy and always has been.  The successes have been when someone
> creates something new.  So for both historical reasons and current reasons,
> copying as a strategy looks flawed.  And depressing if I'm right that the
> corporations will just encrypt all the data so that copying the program 
> is pointless.

You forget that there is no point creating anything new when you can't 
interoperate, if need be by copying.

What good would BK be if it didnt work with GNU emacs, couldnt talk via
the internet and refused to work with a GNU C compiler ?

Even if you rewrote the lot, would you run your own telco, build your
own computers ?

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[walt]

Larry McVoy wrote:

> ...If you want to win, you win by being a creator, not a copier...

DisneyCorp was a prime mover behind the DMCA (or so I'm told), so
let's take them as an example.  They have been a copier of artistic
material for decades -- one of the biggest ever.  They 'improve' the
material they copy and then make a fortune by clever marketing and
by charging whatever the market will bear -- a market historically
controlled by the producer of the product because there was, until
very recently, no aftermarket.  You had to buy from the producer
because you couldn't buy the product from anyone else -- until now.

My point is that the mind-boggling wealth produced from mass-marketed
entertainment products has been generated by strict control of the
means of distribution -- printing press, airwaves, film, records,
tape, CD's, and now, finally, the internet.

Oops.  Well, they don't control that last one, come to think of it.
And that is the big problem for monopolists like Disney -- they
can't control the supply of their product and thus they can't
control the price either.

The artificial scarcity of their product is over at last, due
entirely to advances in technology.  The question for society to
answer is whether this is an evil fact or a good fact.  I think
most people think it good, not evil, and therefore the technology
will not be going away anytime soon.

The media producers, therefore, are going to lose this battle to
prop up the price of their product to artificially high levels.
They have the money to buy legislation only because they have had
strict control of the means of distribution of their own product
which has made them artificially wealthy.  This is now changing
and they had better adapt or they will perish.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Frank van Maarseveen]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:50:37AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> This isn't a BK thing, we don't have lobbyists in Washington get laws
> passed on our behalf.  This is my private opinion based on observing
> what's happened in the last five years or so.  The world is moving more
> and more towards a place where IP is the significant source of revenue.

In general, maybe. In software business I think the world is moving
towards making money out of services rather than IP.

On another perspective, something which is often underestimated is the
fact that the cost of copying software (programs, music etc.) has no
relation whatsoever with the "value" of the software itself. This is
not a permit to copy -- it is an observation about the properties of
software in general. This is a very strong property and I think that
any attempt to resist this "law of nature" will ultimately be futile.

-- 
Frank

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:
> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.

Ugh, this sounds almost as bad as the press release of the MPAA's lawsuit
against DeCSS in 2000! That one stated that the goals of the Open Source
community are the illegal distribution of as much copyright-protected content
as possible...

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Davide Libenzi]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> Microsoft successfully made the case that if they were broken up it would
> damage world economy.  So thinking and laws will evolve to accomodate
> this new world wherein IP is a critical factor.

It'd be nice to have a look at a world where all the scientists that
*really* left some kind of trace in this planet would have kept their IP
for their own. Or, for example, if E.Myers would have kept the algorithm
that you're very likely using in BK for diffing, for his own.



- Davide

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Werner Almesberger]

Larry McVoy wrote:
> What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
> are the people who own those things

Ownership is a cultural concept and the understanding of who owns
what, and what they're allowed to do with it, vary widely.

If I was your theocrat, and I decreed that any software written in
my theocracy belongs to the church (e.g. because all the works of
man belong to whatever deity or deities this theocracy believes
in), would you be pleased with this ? (If not, I'll have you burnt
for heresy, so you're better smiling when handing over your
work :-)

> But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

On the other hand, I'm sure you'll be eager to comply with any
orders he may have for your employees.

> The more you push back the more locked up things will become.

Yes, Larry, so give up the futile struggle, and open source BK :-)

- Werner

-- 
  _________________________________________________________________________
 / Werner Almesberger, Buenos Aires, Argentina         wa@almesberger.net /
/_http://www.almesberger.net/____________________________________________/

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 01:35:53PM -0500, Chris Adams wrote:
[rant, missed the point, thought it was about BK]

Sorry to pick on Chris, but his is the best example of what most of the
replies have been saying.

I should have never brought BK into the conversation, it was just an example.
Remove all references to BK and what you are left with is:

    1) Corporations are threatened when people copy their content and/or
       products.
    2) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to get the government
       to create laws to protect the corporate interests.
    3) Corporations have a lot of money which they use to create technology
       which will remove threats to the corporation.
    4) The more you inist that you are doing nothing wrong the more motivated
       the corporation becomes to stop you.

This isn't a BK thing, we don't have lobbyists in Washington get laws
passed on our behalf.  This is my private opinion based on observing
what's happened in the last five years or so.  The world is moving more
and more towards a place where IP is the significant source of revenue.
Microsoft successfully made the case that if they were broken up it would
damage world economy.  So thinking and laws will evolve to accomodate
this new world wherein IP is a critical factor.  What I'm trying to
say is that I think that the organizations which *create* the IP will
vigorously defend that.  The more you try and circumvent that the more
draconian they will get.

If you want to win, you win by being a creator, not a copier.  That's the
point.  In my opinion, chasing the leader and copying them is a losing
strategy and always has been.  The successes have been when someone
creates something new.  So for both historical reasons and current reasons,
copying as a strategy looks flawed.  And depressing if I'm right that the
corporations will just encrypt all the data so that copying the program 
is pointless.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[William Lee Irwin III]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 09:59:59AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Do you think that corporations are going sit by and watch you do that and
> do nothing to stop you?  Of course they aren't, they have a strong self
> preservation instinct and they have the resources to apply to the problem.
> The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
> with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
> with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
> and more at stake so they will win.
> The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
> will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
> government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
> The more you push back the more locked up things will become.

They can drop down all the crypto dongles they want for mp3's/DVD's etc.
and I don't care; I buy all my stuff anyway.

What I _do_ care about is that this looks like it'll be used to stop
me from running Linux altogether.


-- wli

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Henrik Persson]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003 19:34:07 +0200
Michael Buesch <fsdeveloper@yahoo.de> wrote:

> Oh no. My opinion points exactly 180 degrees to the other side.
> You can't say: "The whole community is evil" if only a few people are.
> And IMHO that are only a _few_ people.
> I think most people of the opensource community know exactly about
> copyrights and so on and don't violate them.

And some of us just doesn't respect the opinion that everything can and
should be patented, that you can own abstract things as information etc.

IMHO it's great that there exists people who revolt against the
corporations by breaking copyrights just for the sake of it. ;)

-- 
Henrik Persson  nix@socialism.nu  http://nix.badanka.com
PGP-key: http://nix.badanka.com/pgp  PGP-KeyID: 0x43B68116  

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Larry McVoy  <lm@bitmover.com> said:
>What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
>are the people who own those things and the people who are complaining
>are the people who got those things, illegally, for free.

Stop right there - you are wrong.  That is just the corporate party line
used to justify stripping consumers of their rights.

In the US (I don't know about the rest of the world), we have a legal
right (upheld many times by the courts) to "fair use".  Much of the DRM
is a way for companies to deny the people that buy a product their legal
fair use rights.  This has been through the courts numerous times with
VCRs and photocopiers.

I am allowed to make copies for personal use, such as taking an audio CD
and creating MP3s so I can listen on another device.  Music companies
and the RIAA are trying to remove that right.  I have a TiVo so I can
watch TV at my convenience instead of some network programmer's idea of
when I should watch, but some networks want to ban TiVo-like devices as
well (despite "time shifting" with VCRs having been upheld by the courts
as fair use).

I want to play DVDs under Linux legally.  According to the laws, I've
bought the DVD and the right to play it (and even make backup copies
under fair use).  However, the DVD consortium has restricted my (court
upheld) right to do this.  The DMCA just adds criminal enforcement for
this.

>Napster is a good example.  I don't
>like the record companies any better than anyone else but they do own
>the material and you either respect the rules or the record companies
>will lock it up and force you to respect the rules.

The way a lot of people USED Napster was illegal.  That doesn't mean
that Napster should be made illegal.  Also, there are plenty of civil
laws regarding copyright infringement; why do we need additional laws
making it also a criminal offense?

>The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
>factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
>thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
>Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
>will see people saying "we'll clone it".

Again - stop right there.  Reverse engineering to copy something has
been upheld by the courts many times.  We probably wouldn't be here if
Compaq, Phoenix, and others hadn't reverse engineered the IBM PC BIOS.
The patent side of things protects against this; is BK covered by any
patents?

You have every right to defend your trademark (and you should, or it
becomes diluted).  Unless BK is covered by one or more patents, you have
no right to tell people they can't take their time reverse engineering
it (if it takes as many man-years to build as you say, why do you
worry?).

>That's not unique to BK,
>it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
>sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
>useful, take it" is the attitude.

By your logic, why do you support Linux?  It is just copying Unix.

>This problem is pervasive, it's not just a handful of people.  Upon the
>advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
>boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
>productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.

Why don't YOU don't something more productive with your time other than
call someone's boss and complain?

>That's nonsense
>and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
>like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
>But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

Get a life.  Are you going to call Transmeta and complain about Linus
working on something that rips off SCO's "intellectual property" (some
of which may even be covered by patents, something BK doesn't have)?

You chose to step into the frying pan; don't complain about the heat.

>Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
>BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
>with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
>lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
>steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
>community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work
>to produce it, we didn't".

There are things that Red Hat won't ship because they are protected
under patents (good or bad).  Patents are the protection the US system
offers; if you don't come up with something original enough to rate a
patent, then anyone can copy it.

>Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
>that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
>of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.

Please name something that "the creation of the product took 100x the
effort it takes to copy".  How much effort has gone into Linux, Wine,
GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice, etc. that originally was targeted to copy
another product?

>Do you think that corporations are going sit by and watch you do that and
>do nothing to stop you?  Of course they aren't, they have a strong self
>preservation instinct and they have the resources to apply to the problem.
>The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
>with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
>with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
>and more at stake so they will win.

No, because a growing number of people won't play their game.  People
are already bringing challenges to the DMCA, as more people realize the
implications of it.

>The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
>will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
>government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
>The more you push back the more locked up things will become.

Then you have nothing to worry about, since you are one of the
corporations.  You can "lock up" BK and try to silence the critics (as
you have already said you've gone after at least one person).
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Matthias Schniedermeyer]

<...>

You aren't any better(tm).

I guess there was SCM Software before Bitkeeper, so your are "cloning"
other people concepts yourself. (At least in the beginning.)

When you count every lego-brick in the software, how many of them are
"original" (=100% invented by Bitmover. Including the ideas. Excluding
the ones that you only weren't aware of existing)?

0.01%?





Bis denn

-- 
Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as 
bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer
wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated, 
cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous.

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Michael Buesch]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sunday 27 April 2003 19:35, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> when writing your own.  Sure, it might not take the same effort to
> create a program similar to an already existing one, as to think of
> totally new, great idea for how to do something.  With your reasoning,
> all version control programs are stolen from the first one, whatever
> that was (does anyone remember?).

That's exactly the way evolution works.
Examples?
Take apes and make humans out of them... :)
Linux ist "stolen" from Unix.

Without "stealing", no evolution and no progress.

- -- 
Regards Michael Büsch
http://www.8ung.at/tuxsoft
 19:55:03 up  8:02,  1 user,  load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+rBqZoxoigfggmSgRArtGAJ9HOMRjb06wlc9n2drd2tj7kL9cjACdEXDM
c9vm/qj/mYhb1Suv1XVgR+8=
=SwD9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Mirar]

> With your reasoning, all version control programs are stolen from
> the first one, whatever that was (does anyone remember?).

It's bound to be something related to RCS (which CVS was built on). 

> The idea of using a display (possibly graphical) with multiple
> windows was at one time such a new thing. This does not mean that
> any subsequent implementation of such a system is copied, or stolen,
> from the original inventor (who was that?).

Xerox. (Yes, same X as in X11, if I understand correctly.) 
I think they gave the idea away freely to Apple.

/Mirar

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Måns Rullgård]

Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> writes:

> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
> useful, take it" is the attitude.

AFAIK, BK is not covered by patents.  This means that anyone can
legally write software with similar functionality, without doing
anything illegal, or (IMHO) immoral, as long as no code is copied from
the original product.  This applies to other progams, as well.  I
don't see anything wrong with taking inspiration from other programs,
when writing your own.  Sure, it might not take the same effort to
create a program similar to an already existing one, as to think of
totally new, great idea for how to do something.  With your reasoning,
all version control programs are stolen from the first one, whatever
that was (does anyone remember?).

> Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
> BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
> with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
> lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
> steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
> community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work
> to produce it, we didn't".  Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
> that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
> of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.

Nowdays very few programs show any genuinely new ideas.  For the
greater part, they are new implementations of very old concepts.  Take
Microsoft.  They produce operating systems and word processors.  They
were not by far the first to do either of these.  Actually, I can't
think of anything where MS has come up with something really new.  The
idea of using a display (possibly graphical) with multiple windows was
at one time such a new thing.  This does not mean that any subsequent
implementation of such a system is copied, or stolen, from the
original inventor (who was that?).  If an idea is special enough, it
can be patented.  This protects it from being used by anyone else for
some time.  Good examples are MPEG video compression and RSA
cryptography.  Fortunately, not everything can be patented.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@users.sf.net

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Michael Buesch]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sunday 27 April 2003 18:59, Larry McVoy wrote:
> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.

Oh no. My opinion points exactly 180 degrees to the other side.
You can't say: "The whole community is evil" if only a few people are.
And IMHO that are only a _few_ people.
I think most people of the opensource community know exactly about
copyrights and so on and don't violate them.

> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
> useful, take it" is the attitude.

But: They don't illegaly steal bk. They make their own software for
which _they_ own the copyright. I think it is their good right to do so.

> Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
> BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
> with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
> lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
> steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
> community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work
> to produce it, we didn't".  Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
> that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
> of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.

I see no problem here.
But in the future software patents will prevent it :P

- -- 
Regards Michael Büsch
http://www.8ung.at/tuxsoft
 19:24:16 up  7:31,  1 user,  load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.07
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+rBSdoxoigfggmSgRAhJnAJ9LmwYmgV5aYD0ao/DVOdIN0f+ieACghWUL
fPZm/m0G2+yaszGn7fD7hio=
=rIkH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Ben Collins]

> The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
> factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
> thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
> Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
> will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
> it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
> sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
> useful, take it" is the attitude.

Cloning is not illegal, nor is it something that the DMCA/DRM is
supposed to protect against. Wanting things for free is not illegal, nor
does it contribute to illegal behavior.

Larry, I do take a bit of offense to your blanket statement, basically
calling me a thief.

I don't pirate software, I respect copyrights (I don't use BK anymore
even under the free license, because I respect your license/copyrights).
I pay for my music, even though I do convert it to mp3 so I can fit 130
songs on a CDR to play in my truck. That's not illegal.

Yeah, I've used the mp3 trading to download music for some of my old
CD's that are now too scratched up to backup. That's perfectly moral,
even if it becomes illegal.  Maybe one day it wont be legal. The music
companies will sell media that is easily damaged so that people will
have a lifecycle for their purchased music. Or maybe they'll make you
pay per play, or charge you a subscription for "1000 song playlists".
Call me paranoid.

Plain and simple, I am not a contributing factor to the DMCA/DRM. And
claiming that the community that I take great pride in being a part of
is in fact nothing but a bunch of thieves with low morals just pisses me
off.

Putting all of us on the same level as the zero-day-warez groups is
pretty fucked up.

-- 
Debian     - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo       - http://www.deqo.com/

Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 04:21:06PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote:
> It seems that the people who form the "market" (and buy shares, write
> analyses, buy CDs/DVDs) need to be told the implications of buying
> copy-protected material or material that enforces to boot only
> particlular kernels or whatever.

This is in the "it's too late to fix it" category but here's my opinion
about all this digital rights stuff.

There is much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that
the evil corporations are locking things up with DRM as well as various
laws like the DMCA.  People talk about their "rights" being violated,
about how awful this all is, etc, etc, etc.

What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are locking things up
are the people who own those things and the people who are complaining
are the people who got those things, illegally, for free.  There seems
to be a wide spread feeling that whenever anything desirable comes along
it is OK to take it if you want it.  Napster is a good example.  I don't
like the record companies any better than anyone else but they do own
the material and you either respect the rules or the record companies
will lock it up and force you to respect the rules.

The open source community, in my opinion, is certainly a contributing
factor in the emergence of the DMCA and DRM efforts.  This community
thinks it is perfectly acceptable to copy anything that they find useful.
Take a look at some of the recent BK flamewars and over and over you
will see people saying "we'll clone it".   That's not unique to BK,
it's the same with anything else which is viewed as useful.  And nobody
sees anything wrong with that, or copying music, whatever.  "If it's
useful, take it" is the attitude.

This problem is pervasive, it's not just a handful of people.  Upon the
advice of several of the leading kernel developers, I contacted Pavel's
boss at SuSE and said "how about you nudge Pavel onto something more
productive" and he said that he couldn't control Pavel.  That's nonsense
and everyone knows that.  If one of my employees were doing something
like that, it would be trivial to say "choose between your job and that".
But Garloff just shrugged it off as not his problem.

Corporations are certainly watching things like our efforts with
BitKeeper, as well as the other companies who are trying to play nice
with the open source world.  What are they learning?  That if you don't
lock it up, the open source world has no conscience, no respect, and will
steal anything that isn't locked down.  Show me a single example of the
community going "no, we can't take that, someone else did all the work
to produce it, we didn't".  Good luck finding it.  Instead you get "hey,
that's cool, let's copy it".  With no acknowledgement that the creation
of the product took 100x the effort it takes to copy the product.

Do you think that corporations are going sit by and watch you do that and
do nothing to stop you?  Of course they aren't, they have a strong self
preservation instinct and they have the resources to apply to the problem.
The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning.  You will respond
with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
with even more clever hacks to stop you.  They have both more resources
and more at stake so they will win.

The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
The more you push back the more locked up things will become.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm