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ESR on the DVD Control Association
Posted by
Hemos
on Sun Jan 02, 2000 07:20 PM
from the legal-issues-are-fine dept.
from the legal-issues-are-fine dept.
Johan Jonasson writes "Eric S. Raymond takes a look at how the DVD Control Association is trying to obscure the real issues in the whole DeCSS affair. " The next hearing is Jan. 14 - for those who haven't followed the case, check out the story. Thanks to Rik van Riel for pointing out the OpenDVD site. It's a community site designed to explain to people what's going on with the case and another perspective on the DVD industry in relation to consumer rights.
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A Litmus Test (Score:2)
I don't know enough about DVD-ROM to post anything here which you probably don't know already, but whatever happens - why not treat this as a Litmus Test for the awareness of the public / governmental organisations involved.
Judge Penfold Jackson got the point - but how quick are other branches of goverment to see the 'new dawning of the Information Age'?
The DVD situation will resolve itself in time (we are after all living in an advanced industrial economy where capitalism / market forces and the rule of law are in full force. No monopoly exists forever.
So why not look at the situation laterally and use it to track the current level of awareness of I.T. among different organisations and more interestingly, how quickly different organisations learn as they go on?
Re:Good old ESR (Score:2)
While what he says may not necessarily be startling news to those of us whose freeholds lie deep within the blessèd demesne of hackerdom, he nevertheless fulfills a critical role in packaging and projecting our memes to the barbarian realms beyond the Pale.
Let us not begrudge him his work. Wearisome and troublefilled as his task must be, better him than me, say I. I, for one, would surely lack the stamina and patience and skill and tolerance which his job doubtless requires.
...and you can START by writing to CNN! (Score:2)
[rant mode]
Isn't it interesting how the "mainstream press" just can't quite manage to figure out why so few people trust them anymore?
[/rant mode]
No Simple Answers (Score:2)
It seems as though people want nice, easy-to-digest pundits who will say only things they agree with. Chances are, if someone fits this criteria, they have done so by saying nothing at all. I like to read speeches by people who generate controversy because they have actually said something. All you have to do is extract whatever part of the speech makes sense and discard the rest. With this simple technique and a little critical thinking, anyone can sift out lots of good points and interesting observations from people that you think are (as a whole) full of crap.
Re:Gun propaganda (Score:2)
Ah, very true! But, esr has himself chosen to speak on behalf of the Open Source Software community. And if esr is acting on behalf of the OSS community, should he not be using a different address than the one he uses to espouse his gun views?
I'm sure that, as an accomplished hacker as esr is, he should be able to generate a different set of pseudo-random
Eric, you are not doing the OSS community any significant favours by speaking on their behalf, if you continue to publicise unrelated agenda when you do so!
propaganda (Score:3)
I'm not saying that Eric doesn't have a right to free speech. He's certainly allowed to say this, when and whereever he feels like it. But it seems like it would be more responsible to seperate his personal agenda from that of the people he's taken as speaking for.
--
Re:HAIKU (Score:2)
"medieval on your ass".
I need a new phrase.
Yeah, he posted those
last week. They were dumb then, and
they are still dumb now.
Is this my problem?
I don't think so. Separate
the wheat from the chaff.
I would rather bitch
at ESR and Tom C
for poor haiku form.
Five seven five, d00d2
are syllables for haiku
not just seventeen!
You, of all people,
understand the importance
of open standards!
You are major d00d2.
Please set a good example
for all the newbies.
That is all i ask.
Respectfully submitted,
(signed Frank Sullivan)
---
120
chars is barely sufficient
Re:haiku (Score:2)
for you here [slashdot.org]. Kind of a flame,
but you're used to that.
---
120
chars is barely sufficient
Re:Perl-Generated Automatic Haikus (Score:2)
Now i shall use this module
in all future code.
It would be cool if
unworthy code generated
unworthy haiku.
After all, software
is like poetry. Sturgeon's Law
applies equally.
And, in re-reading,
i realize your haiku
is in correct form.
Therefore, my bitching
about bad haiku is for
ESR alone.
I apologize
to you, Tom, and i hope that
you will forgive me.
I shouldn't flame you
carelessly like some half-assed
lamer wannabe.
---
120
chars is barely sufficient
Sigh. (Score:3)
But then he had to go and mix other politics into it. He included a standard signature with his usual gun rights stuff in it at the bottom, line upon line of it. Regardless if you agree with him on this or not, isn't it at best inappropriate to mix these controversial (even in the US, and in particular globally) view into speech from someone who claims to be a spokesman for the community? I think so.
ESR hit two of the three (Score:2)
The other one is that this is the only "play your
DVD before time" thing that will be widely
distributed. Think about it for a while. It's
GPLed and it will eventualy be smoth, fast and acurate.
Re:haiku (Score:3)
think earth revolves around them;
they're assholes too.
Not considering
my posts might be here only
as side effect...
The true target is
all the mainstream media;
and CEOs' heads.
Pointless chattering.
Vast `Operation Mindfuck'.
The sage susses out both.
Gun propaganda (Score:2)
I agree with ESR's stance against gun control, but I *don't* think that it should be something that gets tacked (unless it's a random sig?) onto the end of what is, essentially, a press release for the Linux community.
"ESR, spokesman for the Open Source community" and "ESR, anti-gun control advocate" are both fine positions to take, but I'd rather he not mix them. If he's going to start a letter summarizing our views and representing the whole of the OSS community, I'd rather he not finish it by making unrelated statements that many OSS users and authors disagree strongly with.
I don't think this specific instance was a problem - the quote was obviously a sig, random or not; and he didn't claim to be representing anyone but himself in the letter. Nevertheless, it makes me uneasy.
Mozilla on OpenVMS? (Score:2)
Oh, and I suspect the reason ESR mentions Linux rather than "free operating systems" is the reason he talks about "open source software" instead of "free software" - marketing spin. Don't confuse the lusers with details, just give them a name they can wrap their heads around...
Re:gun control (Score:2)
For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration!
FYI, there are other countries than the USA, which consider themselves civilized, and more so than the US of A, and which mostly prohibit firearm. All of Europe, for instance.
Why do you think it's lame? (Score:2)
I wrote a new version of the Melissa virus (Score:2)
that contains the DeCSS code. Do I win?
Insightful? My *** (Score:2)
Here are a few related answers:
Because millions of people have heard of the word "Linux" as opposed to mere thousand who have heard of BSD.
Because non-free Unix is mostly used on corporate systems that have absolutely no use in playing DVD movies. I'm sure you can find a couple exceptions, but they will be just that: exceptions.
I'm sure you can count the people who actually need that on one amputated hand.
Now I have one question for you:
We know you don't like the GPL. Now give us a break.
Note to potential moderators: I choose to speak under my real name; please respect this as my opinion. Thank you.
Re:gun control (Score:2)
You're 100% WRONG - check your facts first. In many parts of Europe you now have greater gun ownership rights than in the USA. Get a CLUE.
Name one.
Okay, here's one: Switzerland. It's due to the military system (where every citiwen is a soldier).
What else? I'm waiting. I'm waiting ... What else?
Spread the word and make the real issues known (Score:4)
The more the mainstream media gets a copy of this article, the more they will understand the real issues.
What better story for the media than "big corporation spreads lies to smash little man" - the more that slant on the story comes across to the public, the less the DVDCA will want to throw their weight around.
So spread copies of that article to all media outlets far and wide!
The real pirates (Score:3)
I can classify for the moment the pirate DVD's in three categories:
-Bit to bit copies
-"Broken" DVD's
-Copies from mpg or VCR sources
Bit to bit copies are usually european or asian (american pirates are not seen around but I suspect this is just an "oceanic" problem)
Broken DVD are copies where encryption was broken somehow. I saw two such DVD's but people have told me that there are a lot more. In fact they are becoming a major segment. However these DVDs are quite problematic. Do don't always go and sometimes hang either the viewer or the machine. Quality is poor.
mpg or VCR copies. Some people have managed to make such a crazyness to copy from such sources to DVDs. It is understandable. Even pirate DVDs cost more than a videocassete. But such copies are usually horrible in their quality.
Now the market in many places is running over such pirated copies. Note! This is been hapenning before DeCSS came out. Sincerly I have not seen DeCSS or alikes to change tendencies or creating boosts in piracy. The most I have seen is that people have grown their tastes to borrow DVDs to each other and to write them in the HDDs. But I think this is a very questionable point to consider it as piracy or not. Anyone is allowed to make personal photocopies of a book. And anyone is allowed to borrow a book to his colleague or gilrfriend.
Commercial piracy has been growing on its own and I don't think that anyone will stop it. Much like CD history, when Sony claimed over all winds that it had given a blow to piracy. Today we not only have pirated cassettes but also pirated CDs...
This story rises some serious questions. Why DVD Control Association is so eager to give a blow over a rather primitive tool like DeCSS, while it keeps quite silent over the "real" threat? Considering many issues over commercial piracy I think that they are just pushing over people to forbid them the free use of DVDs. Note that many pirated products are made with the blessing of these same corporations behind DVD Control Association. I know that because I saw what happens in the VCR market and how smart these guys "collect" their part on the pie. At least, in the places where I have been, I know that even officially they collect some cents on every pirated copy. Something much like Microsoft Tax.
So the only interpretation of this story is that they are trying to avoid people to be free in their use of DVD. To turn DVD into Coca-Cola bottles (no offense Coke!
Re:Controlling DVD players? (Score:3)
Yes, we're all aware that there are tons of grey market applets available as shareware to be the same, but this is a CSS licensee distributing a supported application.
It's right there in the DVD Station menu on my windows box - first item, actually. "Change Region Code". Pretty much right out there.
So, I wouldn't say Windows is entirely in line with the region controll cabal. No.
haiku (Score:3)
They are a bunch of assholes
ESR said so.
They abuse the courts,
ignore the first amendent
and order silence.
No legal basis
Something about trade secrets
They have no patent
They blame the hackers
for their own weak encryption
Its their own damn fault.
Re:propaganda (Score:3)
I don't know why they have this policy, but I doubt it was a conscious effort by ESR to put the "propoganda" (as you put it) in an article about the DVD CCA.
Anyway, it's debatable that the mere presentation of statistics is propoganda. It's up to you to interpret them however you like.
Re:Linux??????? (Score:4)
No. The original DeCSS program was a Windows program, but the purpose for writing it was to get an unencrypted VOB file on a hard disk for developing the player software while udf filesystem drivers were still in development. Shortly afterward, a Linux version of CSS was writted so that the intermediate step of unencrypting the file under Windows was unnecessary.
Re:Controlling DVD players? (Score:5)
Amen! I live in Germany right now, but I'll be moving back to the U.S. after my studies. The only thing that has kept me from buying into the DVD market is the fact that I don't want to buy DVDs which I won't be able to play on an American-bought player, or having a player which requires me to order my movies from Europe after I move to the States. I will buy a DVD player only when I can be guaranteed to play any DVD I buy.
And I can respond to the idea that people would buy a DVD in India to use in America because it's cheaper. It's simple dynamics of trade: If it's worth it for me to buy a DVD in India and have it transported to the U.S., then it's obviously too expensive in the U.S.
In my opinion if a company can't even survive competition with itself, it deserves to go under.
Chris
DVD Source Code Distribution Contest (Score:4)
BTW, there's more to this message than meets the eye. :)
Linux??????? (Score:3)
Linux hackers? Weren't they windows hackers?
Linux hackers? (Score:4)
He said:
>OK, why did they say in response to the DVDCCA complain that they had
>written the software in order to play DVDs on their Linux boxes? (Same
>thing one of the defendents told me in private email.) Am I supposed
>to believe they are lying?
My answer basicly being: Yes. I don't know why they did wrote it (It's obvious why they claimed they where doing it to view DVD's in linux), but somehow I find it hard to believe someone would write windows programs to view dvd's under linux.
Re:Good old ESR (Score:3)
Maybe I'm bitching a little here, but it doesn't sit right with me that in a community that is so, well, community-oriented, a small number of people get zeroed in on and quoted/printed like they were the second coming. Who are we kidding?
A community without spokespersons is called a disorganized mob. Our community is somewhat more with-it than most, as displayed by the fact that it works so well with so little formal organization. No one elects any of our spokespeople, no one officially presents issues to them that we feel should be presented to the general public. It just happens. Amazing.
Re:Good old ESR (Score:4)
So, I for one welcome a coherent summary from ESR as it probably does carry a little more credibility outside of the "community" than a collection of AC posts on this fine site. (no, that came out wrong, I'm not slamming AC's or anyone else). I guess I don't see the harm in having a "spokesmodel" like Raymond put a communique (sp?) out to the wire with a coherent position statement, even if it just echoes what has been said here for a while. Goody - maybe some not-too-lazy reporter will pick it up and sniff about a little harder to figure out if what ESR says carries water or not, and possibly something a little closer to the objective "truth" of this situation will appear on CNN as opposed to the one-sided headline story that I heard the other day.
Re:Controlling DVD players? (Score:3)
Either the software or hardware DVD player for you PC had to pay license fees and sign the license agreement to some sort of DVD control board. This may be the DVDCA, I'm not sure.
More importantly (and this goes a little against what ESR was claiming -- as well as being regurgitated from other
For example, they wouldn't have to play the mandatory FBI warning at the beginning of the movie.
Most importantly, probably, they would not have to obey region-locking of the DVDs. This would be bad for content makers, since if they sold a movie for 10 rupees in india (dirt cheep) and $30 US in the USA, then people could by it over the internet for the cheaper price.
I say, screw 'em! I think region locking is unfair. If I had relatives in France and brought my DVD collection of American movies, I wouldn't be able to watch them? If I was an anime addict and the movie wasn't released in the USA, I would by it off the internet from a sight in Japan. With DVD region locking, I wouldn't be able to watch a movie I had paid for!
Re:propaganda (Score:3)
Good old ESR (Score:3)
Maybe I'm bitching a little here, but it doesn't sit right with me that in a community that is so, well, community-oriented, a small number of people get zeroed in on and quoted/printed like they were the second coming. Who are we kidding?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Sigh. The Truth about CSS (Score:5)
CSS keeps the key information for a disk in a special block on the disk. This block will not be writable on consumer DVD-R blanks... you will NOT be able to duplicate a DVD using these blanks. Writable blanks will be hard to find, and IIRC they will require special commercial equipment; you won't be able to write them in your DVD-R drive.
Now, obviously, this will not be an issue for commercial pirates, who will find a way to get commercial blanks and commercial production equipment. However, it will be an issue for the person making small-scale copies to give (or sell) to friends. The motion picture industry is just as interested in that kind of copying as it is in commercial-scale copying. The commercial blanks will be hard to get, and the equipment to write them will not be in everybody's living room, at least for a while.
As I recall, the first time I saw a description of all this was around a year ago; I think it was in some IEEE magazine. Even then, there was a clear explanation that the whole thing was not aimed at commercial-scale copying. It was aimed at consumer copying.
Now, it's true that the weak crypto they used made it almost certain that the system would be cracked, making the whole bit-copying issue irrelevant. It's fine to point out that it was silly for them to think it wouldn't be cracked. But this idea that they didn't even think about the bit-copying issue is just stupid. The only real problem with the system is in the crypto.
In fact, they even gave some thought to how to make it harder to get drives that will give you the encrypted files for cracking... although, unfortunately for them, the early drives don't have those restrictions.
Making drives enforce the system really does help from their point of view. Sure, you can burn a new PROM for a drive, but how many people are actually going to do that? They're hoping that people will either have to spend money or manually hack hardware; that will reduce copying to a level they can live with... especially since they were (and to some degree are) probably expecting the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's ridiculously draconian penalties to prevent the spread of any hacks.
Pure software cracks are what they really worry about... and the reason they're so upset is that they didn't expect one to come out so soon.
CSS isn't perfect, and I tend to share the prevailing Slashdot view that it wasn't worth their trouble to do it in the first place. Certainly I think that the lawsuit is crap, and I like the fact that the law doesn't give them infinite rights.
Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that the designers, and their corporate masters, didn't think about the obvious ways the system could be cracked. Their goal was to reduce piracy; they've always realized they couldn't eliminate it. They are being stupid, but not as brain-dead as the bit-copying argument makes them out to be. Don't underestimate your opponents...
Why Linux? (Score:3)
- Why focus on Linux over all free Unix (aka freenix) in general?
- Why just `free' Unix instead of all Unix?
- Why just Unix instead of all systems? What's wrong with (Open)VMS, for example, on an Alpha Workstation?
It would be nice to see us all supporting open systems again instead of just jumping on the Linux cheerleading bandwagon.Re:Why Linux? (Score:3)
By not fighting against closed, proprietary drivers, you're just repeating the evil that Bill has wrought. I realize you seem to be trying to do the right thing, and that in your own heart and mind you are a kind and generous and reasonable person. But I believe that by caving in and saying, "Please, Mr Manufacturer, just my system at least," that you are displaying the same symptoms that got us all into this closed mess in the first place. I never want to see a piece of hardware that's not only made for a particular operating system, that runs on that system alone.
I don't even want to get a floppy with my C++ Journal that contains Wintel-only software. But that's another issue.
But wait, aren't they telling the truth? (Score:3)
We all know that piracy protections cannot be implemented at the content level. Content is always subject to ripping and re-recording. Therefore, effective piracy counter-measures must be implemented at the player level.
If all commercially viable players require their content to be encrypted, and if that encryption cannot be duplicated by ripping, then effectively the schema has rendered ripped copies useless.
I won't disagree that it's evil, but I would have to argue that they are indeed trying to prevent piracy.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Slightly nagging Q about RE'ing (Score:3)
Anyway, as with the trial, they said in order for the gentlemen to have reverse engineered Xing, they would of had to click through an agreement saying that they cannot. Now...Does that agreement (And I assume most other license agreement) apply to the machine and anyone who uses it, or just to the person who installed and accepted it? If it only applies to the person who clicked 'Okay', couldn't person A of installed it, and person B reversed it? I don't know much about RE'ing myself, so I don't even know if you *need* to install the software, but I'm assuming so. Anyway, back onto my topic. If person B did reverse it, would he still be subject to the agreement, since he is not actually *using* the software, but just watching what it does? I would assume, if the case is that he would not be under the terms, then the case would hold even less water then before. Someone feel free to clear that up for me.. =]
What they are really trying to control .... (Score:3)
- decryption (ie who is allowed to build players) - maybe they want to force everyone to join the DVD/MPEG patent pool?
- encryption (ie who can create DVDs) - maybe they want to protect the people who master to DVD or the film studios themselves?
Anyway enough paranoia - one thing to realise - the 'net makes a lot of tradition ways to distribute media obsolete - there are a lot of people out there who make big bucks distributing music, software, movies/video, booksAll these people are obsolete - most of them probably don't know it yet - they are going to fight like hell for their piece of the pie as it starts to get smaller.
'Copyright' was a usefull law when setting up a printing press and typesetting a book were a large capital investment - you could lose it if you got caught - but when anyone can toss something through a provate xerox machine in their house it's a prettyuseless law. The same thing that happened with paper and xeroxes is happening now with most of the traditional media and the net. It's going to change the world and whether the people making money off the old ways like it or not they are toast in the long run.
What we do need to find is a way for artists (musicians, actors, directors, writers, programmers) - people who make the stuff that goes ON the media - to make money off of their labors. Without the middle men we will all prosper and grow - consumers will cheaper products, artists will get a bigger cut (100%!).
The problem is how can we do this - how can we start a different way to pay for stuff - one that's fair for everyone? (and open source - that I think IS hard). There are alternate payment mechanisms out there already (www.kagi.com is one that's been very successfull for small programmers)
Clout my friend clout. (Score:3)
The whole point is that you can't blame people for wanting something from an entirely reputable source. To be honest anyone who uses just one or two or even all the posts on slashdot to base a major multi-million dollar decision on would be foolish not because people are stupid but because theoretically you could be getting screwed over by imposters who just happened to gt moderated to a 5 that day.
Can we accuse the DVDCA and MS of collusion? (Score:3)
Re:Controlling DVD players? (Score:4)
That is just part of the conspiracy. Not all DVD players can decode all the keys. There are regional aspects to distribution. A Japanese DVD would not play in a US player. The Windows DVD players are in line with this. The linux players are not. If the encryption is broken then a DVD in Japan is just as good as a DVD here.
Also, is it really true that you can make a bit-for-bit copy? My understanding was that this required specialized hardware, and that commdity DVD reader hardware was not capable of reading special tracks.
Bit for bit READS can be made currently. The writes require a very expensive machine to do double sided double layering 17 GBytes per disk. For not so much money you could copy a DVD onto four disks though. Bit for bit. That is part of the point though - currently it costs a LOT more to make a copy of a disk at home than it costs to buy the disk. This will likely change in a few more years though.
This and more from http://www.opendvd.org [opendvd.org]
It's not Slashdotters who need to be reading this. (Score:4)
That being said, I know that slashdotters know all this. But has anyone seen any indication in the mainstream press that the DVD CCA is full of shit? I don't think so. Until we can spread that message to people who don't already know that, we're not doing any good. Write letters to the editor, folks. Write op-eds, if possible. Make sure people outside the tech community know that the DVD folks are wrong! In fact, I'm going to propose the smae thing I did back when NASA lost the last Mars mission - write your congressmen. Use registered mail, if possible. Write your newspapers, write to everyone you can think of. Forward these Slashdot stories to your less-technically-inclined friends. Spread the word, or we don't stand a chance.
- John Doe #53, an individual
Controlling DVD players? (Score:3)
There is other mis-information as well. For example, he contents that DeCSS was developed by Linux hackers, which as we all know isn't true. I get the feeling he hasn't been following the story too well.
Also, is it really true that you can make a bit-for-bit copy? My understanding was that this required specialized hardware, and that commdity DVD reader hardware was not capable of reading special tracks.
Re:Why Linux? (Score:3)
In general, the Linux community does not realize how much they do have, and how popular and how good the support is. As a VMS user (thanks for mentioning it, BTW!), I would kill for the support that Linux has. You guys only get to choose between the latest Netscape and Mozilla? All we get is Netscape _3_. You don't drivers for all of the latest and greatest PCI video accelerators at the stores? We have support for _1_ PCI video card! You don't get Microsoft Office, but only StarOffice and CorelSuite (and whatever else)? We don't have ANY office suites!Scanners? DVD players? Music software? In your dreams!
There are tons of more systems which are far more "oppressed" than Linux is, and which are much more difficult to be a user for. I agree that we should try to support all of them, instead of just the most popular oppressed system (Linux).
We need to learn from this... (Score:5)
DVD has been revealed as being just as much of a proprietary, closed-standard product as Windows. Either you play by the rules of a bunch of oligopolists, or you're out of luck. And yet we talk of digital distribution as the future. If we allow the distribution protocols of the future to be closed, then we lose.
We could complain, but mainstream news organizations, who drink from the same trough as the DVDCCA, will never hear us.
We could fight in court, but the opposition will always be better-funded. Now I don't believe money buys judgments, but it does buy time in front of a judge. We may win here and there, but can we afford to keep the fight up on every front? Not without a lot more organization, and money.
But the piracy issue will not just go away, and the media industry's desire for ever-more draconian controls will only grow as digital distribution grows.
The open-source community needs to do something about this. Unless a system which protects some freedoms is developed, then we will gradually lose all of our rights. I have many ideas about how this could be done, but the point is *we* need to do it, and offer it as an alternative.
Anyone interested, email cwkingsbury@hotmail.com
-cwk.
Re:Why Linux? (Score:3)
I see what you mean, but I don't attribute such a simplistic attitude to requests to support Linux.
If people used a more strictly correct phrase, like "please make sure your hardware is supported under other systems, such as Linux, OpenBSD, VMS, MVS, etc.", the reaction is likely to be "There's no way we can afford to write drivers for so many systems", and the response therefore likely to be "no".
If people say "please make sure your hardware is supported under *BSD", the reaction is likely to be "okay, let's see how many proprietary copies of that OS we can sell and compare that to the cost of writing a proprietary driver for it", and the response is therefore likely to be either "no" or "okay, here's your proprietary, non-Open-SourceTM version of *BSD that supports our hardware -- oh, on Intel Pentiums only, by the way".
If people say "please open your hardware so people can write their own device drivers for other OSes", the response is likely to be "we don't want to give our competitors that advantage".
So, instead, people say "please make sure you hardware is supported under Linux". The hardware vendor has probably the best opportunity here to realize the advantages (to all of us) hinted at above, due to the rabid publicity Linux has gotten for the past couple of years.
I.e. the vendor first thinks "hey, that is the cutting-edge OS, so supporting it makes our hardware seem cutting-edge". Then maybe "hey, they say Linux is written by volunteers, maybe we can get volunteers to write the drivers for us by sending some freebies out, and maybe that'll scare up some more early adopters for our product". Maybe "well, might as well open our specs then, since that's the upshot of any device driver this Linux community apparently cares about -- if we provide a proprietary module, they'll probably reverse-engineer it anyway, but that doesn't seem so bad given the size of the Linux community, and once we're in, our competitors will have to play catch-up anyway".
In the end, I tend to think that if a driver gets written for any single OS other than an MS or Apple one, Linux would be the best choice, because it'd offer the best opportunity for all users of off-beaten-path OSes.
For example, the *BSD community already accepts, enthusiastically, the prospect of binary-only proprietary versions of their OSes being shipped, so I assume convincing a vendor to do a driver for a *BSD OS would be much less likely to help Linux programmers "bring it over" than vice-versa.
However, a big caveat here is that I'm basing my speculation on my observations of OS and licensing discussions over the past N years here and on USENET, not on actually participating in driver-writing activities on any recent OS of note. If I've got my pertinent facts wrong, please consider my speculations withdrawn, and simply point them out for everyone to see.
Re: You are mistaken, sir... (Score:4)
DeCSS and Betamax (Score:3)
From our vantage point here in the 21st Century, we see that studios and production companies garner a sizeable portion of their income from video sales. And direct-to-video has saved projects that otherwise would have been total losses in theaters, if they weren't scrapped before that to cut distribution losses. So, far from ruining the film industry, the VCR has built a whole new market segment that generates a great deal of additional profit. I expect DVD-R will do the same thing. There is a good book on the Betamax case, "Fast Forward" that is well worth rereading in light of the DeCSS issue.
One issue I'd like to see tested in the courts, is the clause in US Title 18 that permits the owner of a copy of digital material to "make, or cause to be made, a copy, including an altered copy of the material for archival purposes". (Not an exact quote, and emphasis added). The 'altered copy' phrase has always struck me as applying to removing any copy protection. And, of course, I should be able to pay someone else to make that deprotected copy for me.
While all this is quite legal, I've never understood how the statute would create a 'right' to make copies, which ESR seems to think is being infringed. That is, there is nothing here that can be construed as forcing authors to provide their material in easy-to-copy format. It simply declares that if you can do it, it's not a crime.
(Anyone interested in opening a 'copy shop' to provide customers with legal, deprotected duplicates of their DVD's? I wonder what the DVD Association would say about that?)