Intel to cut Linux out of the content market?!

[Magnus Therning]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2005 at 08:05:35AM +0100, david wrote:
>On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 21:06 +0100, Magnus Therning wrote:
>>On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 09:07:36AM +0100, david wrote:
>>>Think of it this way. You own a record label and a TV station. Piracy
>>>is a problem. Along come M$ who say "use this codec on everything and
>>>pay us per copy". Your content is safer because no one will be able to
>>>share their content (not even with their own mp3/media players). Once
>>>it takes off everyone will have to go out and rebuy all their
>>>cd's/DVD's again.  Since Windows is on at least 90% of all world PC's
>>>you daren't say no (if other companies go along and you don't you're
>>>screwed, if you do and they don't, you get to advertise as "Windows
>>>media compliant" and trumpet your anti-piracy stance). No one would
>>>dare risk having their catalogue unavailable for the Windows platform
>>>so they will comply.
>>
>>There is a healthy amount of fear of M$ in the content-provider-camp.
>>The risk of your scenario playing out is not that big.
>
>Never-the-less, I think it would be naive not to suspect M$ of having
>some "creative commercial strategies" in line for all things not M$
>(Linux).

Absolutely. M$ simply can't be trusted to have FLOSS's best interest at
heart. To be fair, I don't think _any_ company can be trusted with that.
Not even the current big public supporters. Back-stabbing for a buck or
two on the short term is in the nature of business (it seems).

The most amazing thing is that these plans on DRM so clearly is
equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot, and still companies push
on. AFAICS people are used to technology allowing them to do _more_, not
less. Expecting people to pay extra to _not_ be able to do something
they've done before (legally or not) is not a sound business strategy.
The only reason why people keep on pouring money into it is because
there is a chance they strike gold, i.e. introduction of law that DRM is
obligatory.

The FLOSS community should continue doing what they do best. Make the
computing power available to the owner of the computer, without
limitations. The public may be stupid when acting together, but each
individual, when acting alone, will spend money where it makes sense.
DRM just doesn't make sense.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                    (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
magnus at therning.org
http://therning.org/magnus

Software is not manufactured, it is something you write and publish.
Keep Europe free from software patents, we do not want censorship
by patent law on written works.

  The point of academic attacks is not exhibiting practical breaks;
the point is that only a trained cryptographer can tell whether a
given algorithm is secure or not. The author of an algorithm says: "My
cipher is secure, and trust me, I am an expert at this. And to prove
that I am a real good expert, I challenge other experts to find even
the most impractical, academic flaw in my cipher".
  Just like glue. Commercial ads state that the foobar glue can stick
an elephant to the ceiling. Who needs to stick an elephant to the
ceiling? But if it can do that, people will trust its sticking
strength.
      -- Thomas Pornin, sci.crypt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20050722/83a406c8/attachment.sig>