On valuing freedom more than cushy jail cells
,----[ Quote ]
| In that system suppliers believe that the best customers and users are
| captive ones. Customers and users believe that a free market naturally
| restricts choices to silos. It's a value sytem in which VCs like to
| ask "What's your lock-in?". Even in 2007, long after the Net has become
| established as an everyday necessity, we still take for granted the
| assumption that living in a "free market" is to choose among jail cells. May
| the best prison win.
|
| That's why I believe that the final success of Linux, and of free and open
| source software, will be an economy that values freedom and choice as much as
| it values scarcity. It will be, in the largest sense, obeying Dave Winer's
| adaptation of JFK's famous inaugural aphorism: Ask not what the Net can do
| for you. Ask what you can do for the Net. Substitute "market" or "economy"
| or "society" or "culture" for "the Net", and the point will be the same. It
| isn't just that generosity and openness and cooperating and interop all pay,
| but that they create a culture and an environment where a lot more paying off
| can happen. This is sub-obvious for most of us today — at least in
| the "developed" world — but this will end. It has to.
`----
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000272
Related (on lockins):
Halloween Memo I Confirmed and Microsoft's History on Standards
,----[ Quote ]
| By the way, if you are by any chance trying to figure out Microsoft's policy
| toward standards, particularly in the context of ODF-EOXML, that same
| Microsoft page is revelatory, Microsoft's answer to what the memo meant when
| it said that Microsoft could extend standard protocols so as to deny
| Linux "entry into the market":
|
| Q: The first document talked about extending standard protocols as a way
| to "deny OSS projects entry into the market." What does this mean?
|
| A: To better serve customers, Microsoft needs to innovate above standard
| protocols. By innovating above the base protocol, we are able to deliver
| advanced functionality to users. An example of this is adding
| transactional support for DTC over HTTP. This would be a value-add and
| would in no way break the standard or undermine the concept of standards,
| of which Microsoft is a significant supporter. Yet it would allow us to
| solve a class of problems in value chain integration for our Web-based
| customers that are not solved by any public standard today. Microsoft
| recognizes that customers are not served by implementations that are
| different without adding value; we therefore support standards as the
| foundation on which further innovation can be based.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070127202224445
A Linux User's Perspective on the ITunes Store (and DRM in General)
,----[ Quote ]
| What if tomorrow you went to Best Buy or Walmart or Sam Goody and purchased a
| CD? What if, before you left the store, the salesman told you that although
| the CD was in all other respects a standard CD, that you could only play it
| if you owned a Pioneer or Sony stereo? Would that make any sense? Would it
| make you a bit hesitant about buying music from that store again?
|
| Well, if you purchase music or videos from the iTunes Store,
|
| [...]
|
| With content from the iTunes Store, however, users may find themselves a bit
| stuck if they ever want to make the switch to a more open computing platform,
| such as Linux. Because none of the DRM-restricted content from the iTunes
| Store will play on Linux. And it's all because that's how Apple wants it, to
| be honest, and not because of any technical limitation.
`----
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/324936/a_linux_users_perspective_on_the_itunes.html
BBC Corrupted
,----[ Quote ]
| Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft. With
| today's launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of
| duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution
| of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating
| system to view BBC programming on the web. This is akin to saying you must
| own a Sony TV set to watch BBC TV. And you must accept the Digital
| Restrictions Management (DRM) that the iPlayer imposes. You simply cannot be
| allowed to be in control of your computer according to the BBC.
`----
http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted
|
|
