Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Am Dienstag, 30. Januar 2007 04:24 schrieben Sie: Then on what basis, Oleg, do you make the statement Free-Software-only is the goal without prefixing that sentence with In my opinion ... ? Because it's an unmoderated community list, and not an openmoko-a-lawyer-from-FIC-already-approved-my-posting list. Everybody posts his personal opinion here. From http://lists.openmoko.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/community : This mailinglist is for open discussion and feedback The official http://www.openmoko.com says : If you are interested in developing Free Software applications for the OpenMoko platform, please send information... Everyone -- thanks again for your interest in our work. Oleg. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Am Montag, 29. Januar 2007 02:52 schrieb Mike: If someone from OM chimes in and says OSS-only really is the goal, I'll buy a Palm Treo tomorrow and never look at this project again. Free-Software-only is the goal, but it's unfortunately not easy to achieve and depends on our common efforts. Oleg. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Am Montag, 29. Januar 2007 02:52 schrieb Mike: If someone from OM chimes in and says OSS-only really is the goal, I'll buy a Palm Treo tomorrow and never look at this project again. Free-Software-only is the goal, but it's unfortunately not easy to achieve and depends on our common efforts. Oleg. Are you one of the people running the OM project? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Am Montag, 29. Januar 2007 17:30 schrieb Mike: Are you one of the people running the OM project? No. Oleg. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Oleg Gusev wrote: Free-Software-only is the goal, but it's unfortunately not easy to achieve and depends on our common efforts. Mike wrote: Are you one of the people running the OM project? Oleg Gusev wrote: No. Then on what basis, Oleg, do you make the statement Free-Software-only is the goal without prefixing that sentence with In my opinion ... ? Your goal may not be shared by others on the project. Stating it as the goal only incites people. Stating it as my goal, or my opinion is not nearly so inflammatory. In general (and in my opinion), the phrase In my opinion is not used often enough on this community mailing list, and would go some way to defusing some of the heated debates ... -- Rod ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Simon wrote: GPLv3? The GPLv3 does nothing to stop people from using DRM to protect proprietary software. Yeah, but try writing DRM sofware without the GNU software, which includes glibc for your proprietary software (which realisticly, would be linked against a GPLv3 glibc in the future). And it is not the DRM on video playing on an openmoko phone that people would want to prevent. It is the flash this firmware on the phone or else the custom app won't run, where you can only decide on an all or nothing approach that I think we would want to prevent. As an example, having a commercial (protected) skype client on the phone would be good. Having the skype client disallow sip software, either by licence or by software enforcement, would be wrong (and violate GPLv3) But on the other hand, imagine someone wanting to use openmoko to build a super secure phone. One of its functions would be to not allow untrusted other binaries to run on its secure firmware image. Would this violate GPLv3? Probably not, since the user agrees to be put under a DRM voluntarily. But what if the (stupid) user wants to add one application to the secure firmware, defeating the whole security of that firmware load? Suddenly the user no longer consents to the DRM, and thus makes the secure firmware a GPLv3 violation Paul ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, David Schlesinger wrote: I still don't see how trying to limit people's choices is more free than letting them make their own choices. You are leaving out one important issue here. The free market is in fact already forcing non-free decisions on you. You can try to avoid all of those forced decisions, but like you said, you wouldn't be able to live a normal life. Look at how apple used BSD code to trap users into not running their own software on the apple hardware. Is it their freedom to enforce that upon us? Or has freedom been taken away from us? Look at Fairplay/itunes, and realise that Fairplay is proprietary code, which is probably using a lot of BSD code in there. Is that the freedom we wanted to give when writing BSD code? I guess it is, which is why I am a GPL person, despite the fact that I do own an OSX laptop. So to answer your question, are you more free due to BSD code in apple products, or less free? I believe you are less free. Paul ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 1/28/07 10:15 AM, Paul Wouters [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, David Schlesinger wrote: I still don't see how trying to limit people's choices is more free than letting them make their own choices. You are leaving out one important issue here. The free market is in fact already forcing non-free decisions on you. You can try to avoid all of those forced decisions, but like you said, you wouldn't be able to live a normal life. Life has always been full of compromise. I don't see that changing any time soon, I'm afraid. Look at how apple used BSD code to trap users into not running their own software on the apple hardware. Is it their freedom to enforce that upon us? Or has freedom been taken away from us? Look at Fairplay/itunes, and realise that Fairplay is proprietary code, which is probably using a lot of BSD code in there. Is that the freedom we wanted to give when writing BSD code? I guess it is, which is why I am a GPL person, despite the fact that I do own an OSX laptop. I don't see that Apple's trapped anyone: no one's being made to buy Apple hardware or run iTunes at gunpoint. If you want to run any of a variety of Linux-based operating systems on your Apple hardware, there's nothing to stop you. Yellowdog and Ubuntu, at least, work right out of the box on PowerPC systems. If you want to take advantage of the features of OS X, then, yes, you need to run OS X. This seems unsurprising to me. OS X is proprietary, in large part. Apple likes it that way. That's their right: they invested a lot of time, money and effort into it. I can't presuppose whether or how much BSD code is in either Fairplay or iTunes, but if there is, that's a freedom that the license grants. Just as free speech demands that you tolerate the speech of others even when it offends you, this sort of thing can potentially happen. Freedom can sometimes include the freedom to do things that make some people unhappy and gratify others. You can't really complain about the use which someone makes of an outright gift. If you don't like Fairplay, don't buy your music from the iTunes Music Store. I don't, for a bunch of reasons: I rip CDs and buy tracks from eMusic, and throw 'em all into iTunes on an old Mac Cube I have. There's possibly a bunch of BSD code on my iPod, for that matter, who can tell...? My iPod still does a good job of aggregating my MP3s and iTunes still does a good job of organizing my MP3s and pulling down the podcasts I want to listen to. I could make it all work on a Linux system with nothing but open source software--at the cost of some personal effort, which could range from a little to a lot--but what I get out of the box from Apple works just fine. Am I somehow less free for using the iPod, and iTunes, for this purpose? If so, how does this diminished freedom manifest itself in my life? I'd say that spending an hour, say, to pull down and configure the various pieces I'd need to manage my library, subscribe to my podcasts, and sync my iPod would diminish my freedom: it'd be an hour (or more) in which I could have been doing something else. What's the benefit of spending that hour, in practical terms? (This is all assuming I didn't want to go whole hog and make the iPod itself run Linux, too, which would increase the time by a couple orders of magnitude, maybe.) So to answer your question, are you more free due to BSD code in apple products, or less free? I believe you are less free. I don't see how it impacts my freedom at all. If Apple and all of its software, BSD-derived or not, were to vanish from the universe tomorrow, the range of free software available to me would be pretty much the same as it is today. Again, if I'm less free as a result of this, or society at large is, there has to be some concrete diminishment of some range of possible actions for me, or for somebody. What is it can't be done as a result of Apple's (supposed) use of BSD code in Fairplay that could be done if they didn't use BSD code there, but wrote it all from scratch? (Yes, you might argue that I can't for instance, fix bugs on my iPod. In practical terms, my more likely recourse--since all my tracks are backed up in iTunes--would be to reinitialize the iPod and reload my library on it. It'd likely be faster than tracking down the problem, fixing it, and then rebuilding and reinstalling the OS on my MP3 player... Vanishingly few end users are capable of doing this, so this freedom is even more theoretical for them...) ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 29 Jan 2007, at 09:52, Mike wrote: The linux community *overall* quietly wants linux to be a walled- off OSS only world. They have never quite been comfortable with commercial apps running on the linux platform. It's quite common to mistake the vocal minority for the overall will of the community. I can't be 100% sure that's the case here, since there is no comprehensive survey of the linux community, but it is a common problem. Quite a few people can't be stuffed to get involved in the flame wars and would rather just focus on the code. For most of the rest, I agree with you. For me, the attraction of the OM phone is the functionality that I can build on it, not that it's only loaded with 100% Free Software. Few, if any, other phones grant us this level of access. I'm really looking forward to the cool apps and ideas that flow when we free our phones ... Ken P.S. only-OSS-third-party-application-friendliness, then we've got linux all over again, and suffer the same marginalized fate of 0.39% (desktop market) after a full 15 years. I work in a company with 100% Linux desktops, except for the OSX laptops floating around. The desktop's ready for the workplace, but there's a lot of intertia to overcome. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 26 Jan 2007, at 8:34 pm, David Schlesinger wrote: I'd say you're instead limiting free to mean free according to the doctrine of the Free Software Foundation. (Should I only be eating in restaurants which will give me copies of their recipes, for the asking, in the name of freedom...? It's gonna limit where I can go...) Why can't a person have the freedom to run proprietary software on _their_ open phone if they choose to? No one's requiring _you_ to, presumably, if you choose not to. Does the general community need folks like you to protect us from ourselves? (And you never answered my question about the ethics of Photoshop...) It's not a matter of should. A person DOES have the freedom to run proprietary software on their open phone if they choose, but that freedom, if acted on, has consequences (called an externality in economics). And that consequence is that the more people who do it the more reliant on non-free software free software becomes, and the more reliant free software is on un-free software the less free the whole system becomes: meaning, when you look at the whole picture, users will have less freedom to use software, and the systems run by that software, in the way they want. Renaissance Man ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On Saturday 27 January 2007 17:23:14 Renaissance Man wrote: It's not a matter of should. A person DOES have the freedom to run proprietary software on their open phone if they choose, but that freedom, if acted on, has consequences (called an externality in economics). No that's not what is generally called an externality. It would only have externalities (which BTW can be be good or bad, which is often overlooked) if it had effects on third parties which is probably not the case as weird philosophical arguments such as this is morally bad so it affects me generally aren't allowed. And that consequence is that the more people who do it the more reliant on non-free software free software becomes, and the more reliant free software is on un-free software the less free the whole system becomes: meaning, when you look at the whole picture, users will have less freedom to use software, and the systems run by that software, in the way they want. That is not following from people using non free software on a system. If I chose to use TomTom on my Neo, nothing gets any less free than it was before. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Gabriel Ambuehl wrote: On Saturday 27 January 2007 17:23:14 Renaissance Man wrote: It's not a matter of should. A person DOES have the freedom to run proprietary software on their open phone if they choose, but that freedom, if acted on, has consequences (called an externality in economics). And that consequence is that the more people who do it the more reliant on non-free software free software becomes, and the more reliant free software is on un-free software the less free the whole system becomes: meaning, when you look at the whole picture, That is not following from people using non free software on a system. If I chose to use TomTom on my Neo, nothing gets any less free than it was before. And if people who would not have bought the phone without tomtom - or an equivalent free app, now buy it as they can install tomtom on it, the market as a whole gets more free, compared to the other phone they may have bought that runs some flavour of windows or symbian, or ... And that person now can recommends it to their friends, because it does what they want and doesn't crash, when they would not have done, and the platform grows. And now the platform is larger, and may attract more people to develop a free tomtom clone. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
2007/1/26, Ortwin Regel [EMAIL PROTECTED]: hotsync ID, one device, one SD card... Even if it does not work. It would be nice if some more developers could be convinced that Prepare fancy build system with compilation on demand, then build dedicated software package for every customer, with his name hard-coded in binary. Does not prevent copying, but owner name in splash may lower piracy rate. -- Tomek Z. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Combine a SoC and memory on a SD card or Usb device...Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Dnia piątek, 26 stycznia 2007 13:55, Robert Michel napisał: For real paranoid sellers: Build a chip with memory and an embedded system on a microSD card or mini usb device and sell this. Use an unique encryption for every embdded system so that even hacking out the program from the embedded memory wouldn't run. If part of application will run on this external device then it will be quite good protection. But if it will be used as sort of 'protection key' only then it will be breakable like it was with PC software which used hardware keys connected to parallel port. All what is needed is good cracker, legal copy and some time to analyze connection applicationkey and software emulator of key will be created. -- JID: hrw-jabber.org OpenEmbedded developer/consultant I saw what you did and I know who you are. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Combine a SoC and memory on a SD card or Usb device...Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Salve Marcin! On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote: Dnia pi?tek, 26 stycznia 2007 13:55, Robert Michel napisa?: For real paranoid sellers: Build a chip with memory and an embedded system on a microSD card or mini usb device and sell this. Use an unique encryption for every embdded system so that even hacking out the program from the embedded memory wouldn't run. If part of application will run on this external device then it will be quite good protection. I thought to let the important part or even the full application running on the external device. Such an external SoC could also boost up the power of the device, e.g. when you want to have a game or more multimedia power... Beside the Network/Webbrowser idea, it could be also FreeNX. So when it is not about protection of software, take a NSLU2, a laptop or Playstation3 (5kg) with you, plug it with 12/230V connect it with Bluetooth/USB to your Neo and use your OpenMoko/Neo1973 as terminal with FreeNX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NX_technology *g* rob ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
There is no management in a company of one or two people. Two guys I know invested time into porting their game from PalmOS to phones. It didn't sell at all but was pirated quite a lot. Indeed, it was not about the DRM in this case: There was some variation of it and it was easily cracked. The problem was that it was more easy to pirate the game than buy it for many people and that there was no respect for developers in the phone scene. That's why I think that a central official marketplace with fair rates for developers would be a good idea. In the Palm scene there are central marketplaces so software is easy to buy but they take advantage of that by ripping off developers. On 1/26/07, Mikhail Gusarov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Twas brillig at 01:17:56 26.01.2007 UTC+01 when Ortwin Regel did gyre and gimble: OR I share your opinions but try to tell that to some OR developers... :-/ They feel safer if they can bind their program OR to only work with one hotsync ID, one device, one SD card... I bet it's not the developers, but management who enforces this. -- JID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: Possibilities for commercial software?
Dave, whilst all software is free - rent isn't (oh and that nasty habit of eating every 6-8 hours is a real bitch as well). Of course there will be commercial software available for the OpenMoko community. And once a developer puts a price on an application, should you 'share' or 'unauthorise copy' an application then you are a pirate. Unless of course you don't mind me coming over and 'sharing' your refrigerator. Regards, Dean Collins Cognation Pty Ltd [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1-212-203-4357 Ph +1-917-207-3420 Mb +61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial). -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Crossland Sent: Friday, 26 January 2007 10:55 AM To: OpenMoko Subject: Re: Possibilities for commercial software? On 26/01/07, Ortwin Regel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Two guys I know invested time into porting their game from PalmOS to phones. It didn't sell at all but was pirated quite a lot. Proprietary software developers often refer to unauthorised copying as piracy. This terms implies that copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. If you don't believe that sharing is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word piracy to describe it. There are neutral terms, like unauthorized copying, and positive terms like sharing with friends. That's why I think that a central official marketplace with fair rates for developers would be a good idea. I think that selling free software is a great idea, and totally support a central official marketplace that allows developers to recieve money for their great work. I do not think that proprietary software should be allowed though, because it contradicts the spirit of free your phone -- Regards, Dave ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 26/01/07, Dean Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dave, whilst all software is free - rent isn't (oh and that nasty habit of eating every 6-8 hours is a real bitch as well). Of course there will be commercial software available for the OpenMoko community. If this is commercial free software, that is fantastic :-) If this is commercial proprietary software, that is a real shame :-( And once a developer puts a price on an application, should you 'share' or 'unauthorise copy' an application then you are a pirate. Are you seriously telling me that all your software is licensed, and you never, ever, do anything outside the license terms? :-) Unless of course you don't mind me coming over and 'sharing' your refrigerator. I would mind because you can't copy food in the refrigerator. If you took it without asking, that would be stealing, and stealing is wrong. But copying isn't stealing. If I shoplift some food from my local store, no one else can buy it. But when I copy software, no one loses it and another person gets it. There's no ethical problem. -- Regards, Dave ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Can I call you a 'pirate' if you do share his fridge? Joking aside I think that you may have missed the point here. When I write an app for OpenMoko _if_ I decided to ask for money for that app I'm the sort of guy who wouldn't mind if someone else shared it with friends, modified the code etc. Hopefully they will send changes back to me. I believe the idea being put forward is to offer a market place where free software can be sold on the basis that a user would like to express their gratitude and that hopefully the marketplace will also be the easiest way to get hold of an application. You could in many ways consider the market place to have failed if it is easier for joe blogs user to get the software from another source. I am, obviously, not refering to proprietary software. If you want to sell that through the market place then it should be just as easy. if you want drm to lock down your app then I don't want that in any way to impact ease of use of the market place - deal with that yourself. I am guessing that people more idealistic or eloquent then I will explain the moral dilema of providing proprietary software, and supporting it. I am not sure it's something that needs to get flamed here. In summary: The market place should be so simple to use that is always the easiest and quickest place for average users to get hold of apps. -Pete On 26/01/07, Dean Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dave, whilst all software is free - rent isn't (oh and that nasty habit of eating every 6-8 hours is a real bitch as well). Of course there will be commercial software available for the OpenMoko community. And once a developer puts a price on an application, should you 'share' or 'unauthorise copy' an application then you are a pirate. Unless of course you don't mind me coming over and 'sharing' your refrigerator. Regards, Dean Collins Cognation Pty Ltd [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1-212-203-4357 Ph +1-917-207-3420 Mb +61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial). -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Crossland Sent: Friday, 26 January 2007 10:55 AM To: OpenMoko Subject: Re: Possibilities for commercial software? On 26/01/07, Ortwin Regel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Two guys I know invested time into porting their game from PalmOS to phones. It didn't sell at all but was pirated quite a lot. Proprietary software developers often refer to unauthorised copying as piracy. This terms implies that copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. If you don't believe that sharing is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word piracy to describe it. There are neutral terms, like unauthorized copying, and positive terms like sharing with friends. That's why I think that a central official marketplace with fair rates for developers would be a good idea. I think that selling free software is a great idea, and totally support a central official marketplace that allows developers to recieve money for their great work. I do not think that proprietary software should be allowed though, because it contradicts the spirit of free your phone -- Regards, Dave ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
The point I bring from this is that if, for instance, TomTom has mapping software that I want to use, I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it. I should just be able to go into the market place, go to 'Non-Free Software', and buy the TomTom app. Your argument may be 'but every software for the phone really should be free - people will write it'. However, if someone hasn't come up with an absolutely free, modifiable mapping software, I should just be able to get the proprietary, closed version. It should be easier to do that than to look in the marketplace, conclude 'oh, this doesn't exist', and not get an OpenMoko phone because of it. If you feel allowing proprietary, closed software in hurts the 'free your phone' spirit, and the market place is closed to them, it only hurts the amount of applications available for the phone. I'm going to write a finance application for OpenMoko. Is it going to be free and open source? Yes. However, if I were trying to live off of it, it would be very hard to make it free and open source. Even in areas such as being a waiter where tips are expected and there is a known steady stream of customers giving tips, tips alone aren't sufficient. Thanks. Richard ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: Possibilities for commercial software?
Two guys I know invested time into porting their game from PalmOS to phones. It didn't sell at all but was pirated quite a lot. Proprietary software developers often refer to unauthorised copying as piracy. This terms implies that copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. If you don't believe that sharing is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word piracy to describe it. Perhaps you might care to look into the definition of piracy. While it doesn't particularly have anything to do with either kidnapping or murder, _theft_ (or unauthorized taking if you prefer) is certainly at the core of it. What Ortwin has described is theft. The term piracy is apropos. Why do you appear to think stealing and profiting from the work of others, or at the very least taking legitimate profits away from those who are entitled to them, is ethical? And why are you attempting to suggest more politically correct terminology for criminal activities? Why would anyone want a neutral term for having had something stolen from me...? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 10:58 -0600, Jonathon Suggs wrote:Dave Crossland wrote: But when I copy software, no one loses it and another person gets it. There's no ethical problem. Sorry Dave, but you are wrong. There IS an ethical problem. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that you should. I don't think that that's Dave's argument. It's not doing something because you can that you should. (I can steal a bottle of Coke, but I shouldn't.) I think what he's trying to say is that you're not taking anything from a person that lessens what he originally had. With physical items, this is easier to comprehend: steal his car and he has one less car to use. Things like music, software and ideas aren't as tangible, but they can still contribute to a loss. It's kinda tricky, though. Let's say you never had intentions of buying a piece of music. In that case, you would never be a sale. So if you downloaded that piece of music, it wouldn't be lost revenue. But if you gave it away to others who might have been potential buyers, that's lost revenue. Ideas. Stealing ideas for profit (or to take someone's profit away) is the whole concept behind patents. Software is just an idea turned into code. There's tangible and measurable work done there. Perhaps in this case it isn't that somebody is losing something but that their work is taken advantage of for free. Grey areas. -- Richi ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
-- Forwarded message -- From: Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 26-Jan-2007 18:06 Subject: Re: Possibilities for commercial software? To: Peter A Trotter [EMAIL PROTECTED] (offlist) On 26/01/07, Peter A Trotter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: proprietary software. If you want to sell that through the market place then it should be just as easy. if you want drm to lock down your app then I don't want that in any way to impact ease of use of the market place - deal with that yourself. Could you explain the difference between proprietary software with a license that legally tries to get users to only use on one computer at a time, no studying, no sharing, and proprietary software that uses DRM to technically prohibit these things? -- Regards, Dave ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 10:04:54PM +0100, Ortwin Regel wrote: What about DRM, is there a way to bind a program to a sync ID like it's usually done with PalmOS or to a device ID? (It should be possible to bind it to an SD card ID, right?) While I'm not in charge of marketing or strategic decisions, the whole point of this project is to provide a truly open device, which gives all freedoms to the user. Any form of DRM will inevitably restrict the user and take away his freedom. I see a fundamental incompatibility with the mission and ideas of this project. So I sincerely doubt that OpenMoko would ever actively support proprietary applications (e.g. by DRM hooks). We certainly cannot do anything against them, though. Every user is free to decided whether he would want to run proprietary software (yes, that even includes the unfortunately proprietary GPSd) on his Neo1973. -- - Harald Welte [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://openmoko.org/ Software for the worlds' first truly open Free Software mobile phone ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 26/01/07, Jonathon Suggs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I really hate to get in on this discussion Talking about freedom is important, so thank you for your polite and rational contribution. Dave Crossland wrote: But when I copy software, no one loses it and another person gets it. There's no ethical problem. Sorry Dave, but you are wrong. There IS an ethical problem. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that you should. I agree that software (in most cases, but is still ultimately up to the creator) *should* be open and free as in speech. But whether or not it should be free as in beer is not your decision to make...it is the creators. So, just because you can share the software, doesn't mean that you should. If you do, then yes...you have an ethical problem...sorry. I'm sorry if my message was not clear. I totally agree with you. The original point was: It doesn't make sense to equate copying digital information with stealing physical objects. Of course, if you have an agreement not to copy, it is wrong to break that agreement. But it is more wrong to not share with your friends. Most people have an intuitive understanding of this, and share unauthorised copies. The agreement not to copy is based on copyright law, and this was originally created to benefit the public when they could not make their own copies. Now that we can make our own copies, a law prohibiting copying does not benefit us, so we break it. Most people have an intuitive understanding of this. How can we escape this moral dilemma, where we are being unethical with either choice? We can refuse to use proprietary software, and only use software that can share legally. That is the best thing to do. Besides, if you find the software useful don't you want to help in succeed? The software is only useful in so far as it benefits us. If it tries to divide our communities by prohibiting sharing, and makes us helpless to see how it works or change it, I don't think it benefits us. So I think it deserves to fail :-) -- Regards, Dave ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: Possibilities for commercial software?
Grey areas. Actually, I don't think it's grey at all. The decision maker, as far as how a work can be published and/or sold, is the copyright holder. Copyright is the _right_ to _copy_. If you're not the copyright holder, and you haven't been granted a right to copy by the copyright holder, then copying the work is an infringement. I don't see it as unethical for authors to choose to sell their works. If people don't like the price or the terms under which the works are offered, they shouldn't buy them. If enough people refuse to buy particular works because they dislike the terms, the owners of those works will suffer, and they'll be incented to change those terms to ones which are more attractive. I _do_ see it as unethical to copy works for the purposes of redistribution where you have no right to do so simply because you _can_: technical ability does not equal an ethical privilege. In specific terms, it's illegal republication and an infringement under the copyright laws of pretty much every country on the planet. Please remember: copyright is what protect GPL code, every bit as much as it protects the music on Sony-BMG CDs with bonus root-kits. If anyone wants to start inveighing against copyright law, they should keep in mind that they'll be arguing in favor of removing anyone's ability to redress misuses of GPL'd code in courts of law at the same time. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 26/01/07, David Schlesinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: See whether you get charged with something like theft (or infringement of copyright, which is tantamount to theft...) Infringement of copyright is very, very different to theft. If I shoplift some food from my local store, no one else can buy it. But when I copy software, no one loses it and another person gets it. There's no ethical problem. Um, wow. There's no ethical problem, perhaps, as long as the author's agreed that you can give away copies of his work. Yes, I agree. Otherwise, there's a very large ethical problem, which you seem to be inexplicably unaware of, somehow. No, I think we are discussing at cross purposes. If it's not the author's wish that the software be freely copy-able, which is certainly a desire the author's quite entitled to have I am less certain, and judging from most people's actions, I think you are in quite a minority with this belief. I mean, most iPods are full of unauthorised copies, even if some of their tracks are licensed from the iTunes Music Store. you simply have no right whatsoever to make (i.e. publish) copies of a copyrighted work and give them away. It's illegal. I'm astounded that breaking the law this way presents no ethical problem for you. It is illegal, but the law is not an authority on ethics. It is, at best, an attempt to achieve justice. You seem to be saying, If copying is forbidden, it must be wrong. But the legal system - at least in the US - rejects the idea that copyright infringement is theft. You are making an appeal to authority, but misrepresenting what that authority says. The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. To say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down. If you copy software (music, books, other media, etc.) without permission of the author, there most certainly _is_ an ethical problem: you're stealing the possibility of selling a properly paid-for copy from the author. I'm not sure you can steal a possibility. Or do you believe that it's unethical for an author to a) want to be paid for his work No, it is totally legitimate for them to want payment, and for us to pay them. and/or b) be able to set the terms under which his work is made available...? No, I am not against this. Afterall, without authors being able to set the terms under which their work is made available, we would have no free software :-) As always, thanks for taking the time to discuss issues of freedom and community with me. -- Regards, Dave ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 1/26/07 10:33 AM, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The original point was: It doesn't make sense to equate copying digital information with stealing physical objects. No...? If you were to come into possession tomorrow of a copy of the yet-to-be-published seventh Harry Potter book, and you reposted it on the web, would _that_ be equivalent to stealing a physical object? Or would it be _worse_? Of course, if you have an agreement not to copy, it is wrong to break that agreement. But it is more wrong to not share with your friends. Most people have an intuitive understanding of this, and share unauthorised copies. So, if I've paid $500 for a media asset management package, it's more wrong for me to tell a friend, I'm sorry, you have to buy your own copy than it is for me to steal $500 from the author of the package, is that what you're saying? The agreement not to copy is based on copyright law, and this was originally created to benefit the public when they could not make their own copies. Now that we can make our own copies, a law prohibiting copying does not benefit us, so we break it. Most people have an intuitive understanding of this. What? How did copyright law _ever_ benefit the public when they could not make their own copies? Uncontrolled copying would have benefited the public by making more copies available, and more cheaply, but at a cost of bankruptng authors who would never get paid for illegitimate copies. Copyright law has _always_ been about protecting authors, i.e. creators, from the undesirable economics effects of uncontrolled copying of their work. Period. Your statements on copyright law are completely contrary to actual fact. How can we escape this moral dilemma, where we are being unethical with either choice? How is respecting an author's wishes regarding his own work unethical? To quote Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it does. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Harald Welte wrote: So I sincerely doubt that OpenMoko would ever actively support proprietary applications (e.g. by DRM hooks). We certainly cannot do anything against them, though. GPLv3? Paul ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On Thu, 2007-01-25 at 22:04 +0100, Ortwin Regel wrote: I like open source and stuff but some things, especially games, are closed in many cases. What are the possibilities for selling closed software for OpenMoko devices? Will there be a central online marketplace? What about DRM, is there a way to bind a program to a sync ID like it's usually done with PalmOS or to a device ID? (It should be possible to bind it to an SD card ID, right?) Any creative ideas how to solve the usual issues people have with stupid DRM systems etc. and still being able to get money for software development? There are as many possibilities for selling closed software on the OpenMoKo platform as there are on any other device; probably more, since the SDK doesn't cost a mint for a developer license. As for DRM, it is my honest opinion that it is entirely wrong-headed and causes more harm than good, and I would be very surprised if anyone implements it on this platform. I know that when (not if) I buy one, I will absolutely not allow any of that crap on my hardware. But I'm not averse to buying software, including games, especially if it's good. As for getting money for software development, people were doing that long before DRM was the gleam in a corporate monopolist's eye. Again, it is my honest opinion that one can make money selling software for the OpenMoKo, but it will probably require time, patience, and talent. and passion for your work. If your software is good, reasonably priced, and easily attainable, you should be able to make some money. Make it easier to buy the software from you than to pirate it and you should do alright. While I can't speak for the company, I'm sure there will be tons of on-line software clearinghouses for OpenMoKo software. If the company doesn't create one, someone else will, and if you're serious about selling software on the OpenMoKo platform, you'll have it listed on all of them. Personally, I'm really excited about this phone, even though it doesn't have everything my heart desires, and I've already been working on ideas for enhancements to existing (proposed) software as well as new software. However I'm not planning on trying to make any money off of it, and will be releasing it under a Free license. -KW ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 1/26/07 11:01 AM, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If it's not the author's wish that the software be freely copy-able, which is certainly a desire the author's quite entitled to have I am less certain, and judging from most people's actions, I think you are in quite a minority with this belief. I mean, most iPods are full of unauthorised copies, even if some of their tracks are licensed from the iTunes Music Store. Weren't you the one who was asking whether an error, commonly made enough, became correct? If everyone does it, it can _still_ be wrong. (People need to be very careful about their intuitive understandings. People frequently intuitively understand that they haven't had so much to drink that they shouldn't be driving. Typically, they're mistaken.) you simply have no right whatsoever to make (i.e. publish) copies of a copyrighted work and give them away. It's illegal. I'm astounded that breaking the law this way presents no ethical problem for you. It is illegal, but the law is not an authority on ethics. It is, at best, an attempt to achieve justice. You seem to be saying, If copying is forbidden, it must be wrong.' No, I'm saying, If copying goes against the author's expressed or implied wishes, it's wrong. If the copyright notice says, All rights reserved, then the author's reserved the rights, and it's unethical for you not to respect their wishes in that regard. But the legal system - at least in the US - rejects the idea that copyright infringement is theft. You are making an appeal to authority, but misrepresenting what that authority says. This is a quibble. If there's value in the work, i.e., if the infringement has an economic impact, then the infringement can be dealt with just as severely as the theft of a physical asset. The judicial route is different, but you're straining at gnats here. The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. To say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down. If you copy software (music, books, other media, etc.) without permission of the author, there most certainly _is_ an ethical problem: you're stealing the possibility of selling a properly paid-for copy from the author. I'm not sure you can steal a possibility. Well, if you can establish that, in the absence of a free but infringing copy, a person would have bought a copy sold in accordance with the author's wishes, you've stolen a sale. If that makes you happier. Again, you're quibbling. Okay, 'splaina me this: I travel a lot. I take a lot of photos when I travel. I actually sell photos here and there as stock for magazines, advertisements, etc. You'd seem to be of the opinion that the instant I post a reasonably high digital image someplace where you can get at it, if you happen to have a friend who likes my photo enough to want it in his magazine but doesn't want to pay me the asking price, it's more wrong for you not to share it with him than it is for him to weasel out of paying me. (Please correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong.) I'm not sure how the relative balance of more versus less wrong between you and your pal impacts my not getting paid for your friend's use of the photo which I took and which I own, by the way. I'm still out the fee. Or do you believe that it's unethical for an author to a) want to be paid for his work No, it is totally legitimate for them to want payment, and for us to pay them. So, you've been paying the artists for all those unauthorized copies of songs on your iPod, or buying the CDs on which the songs you've decided you like appear...? and/or b) be able to set the terms under which his work is made available...? No, I am not against this. Afterall, without authors being able to set the terms under which their work is made available, we would have no free software :-) Absent copyright law, you'd have no legal means to _keep_ it free. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 1/26/07, Paul Wouters [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Harald Welte wrote: So I sincerely doubt that OpenMoko would ever actively support proprietary applications (e.g. by DRM hooks). We certainly cannot do anything against them, though. GPLv3? The GPLv3 does nothing to stop people from using DRM to protect proprietary software. The aim of DRM provisions in that license is to prevent people from using GPLv3 licensed software on a hardware device, and then using DRM to remove the user's freedoms to change the GPLDv3 software on the device. The most widely cited example of this is Tivo, which runs Linux, but uses DRM to prevent users from modifying the software that runs on their Tivos. It's a controversial clause, Linus Torvalds has said that he thinks hardware sellers should have the freedom to do this, as long as they comply with the GPLv2. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 1/26/07 10:47 AM, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Your argument may be 'but every software for the phone really should be free - people will write it'. However, if someone hasn't come up with an absolutely free, modifiable mapping software, I should just be able to get the proprietary, closed version. It should be easier to do that than to look in the marketplace, conclude 'oh, this doesn't exist', and not get an OpenMoko phone because of it. You are expanding free to free to give up your freedom, which destroys the meaning of freedom with something like a Russell paradox. I'd say you're instead limiting free to mean free according to the doctrine of the Free Software Foundation. (Should I only be eating in restaurants which will give me copies of their recipes, for the asking, in the name of freedom...? It's gonna limit where I can go...) Why can't a person have the freedom to run proprietary software on _their_ open phone if they choose to? No one's requiring _you_ to, presumably, if you choose not to. Does the general community need folks like you to protect us from ourselves? (And you never answered my question about the ethics of Photoshop...) The amount of applications available for the phone is not the goal; the goal is to have a 100% free software phone. But that's at a base level, I don't recall any stated goal of making sure that everyone who ever gets their hands on one _keeps_ it that way! You don't feel people should be able to customize their phones other than in approved ways? (Slavery is Freedom...?) However, if I were trying to live off of it, it would be very hard to make it free and open source. Even in areas such as being a waiter where tips are expected and there is a known steady stream of customers giving tips, tips alone aren't sufficient. You can also charge for specific improvements, and for support, and many people have earned a living from free software in this way. Is that the only acceptable business model in your view? If someone comes up with a legitimately innovative piece of software, you seem to be saying that they'd be unethical to simply charge folks who are willing to pay the asking price binary-only copies of that software. I still don't see how trying to limit people's choices is more free than letting them make their own choices. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: Possibilities for commercial software?
It may seem obvious to you that copyright law is about protecting authors... Only because it says so, right there in the US Constitution: Congress is granted the right to enact statutes 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. As I said, it's about securing for authors the exclusive right to control who gets to make copies of their works. The GNU Foundation benefits from, and relies on, copyright law every bit as much as the members of Metallica do. If it weren't for copyright law, someone who (ab)used GPL-licensed code and refused to release the sources for their modifications could do so with impunity. That case to which you refer reportedly took place in the Sixth Century. Not BC, admittedly, but I still think it's of extremely limited relevance here. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Only because it says so, right there in the US Constitution: Congress is granted the right to enact statutes 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. As I said, it's about securing for authors the exclusive right to control who gets to make copies of their works. You're missing the most important part... A limited monopoly is granted with the intent of providing an economic incentive for authors to create, and therefore to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. The entire history of western copyright law, right back to the statute of anne and even before to early grants of letters patent supports the position that a copyright monopoly is granted not so much in recognition of some natural property right in intellectual property, but rather as an economic incentive to creators to create works which serve to advance the collective body of human knowledge. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
I'm sorry to stick my nose into this possible bees-nest. But I feel I have to object a little here. On 1/26/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/01/07, Richard Boehme [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The point I bring from this is that if, for instance, TomTom has mapping software that I want to use, I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it. I should just be able to go into the market place, go to 'Non-Free Software', and buy the TomTom app. Your argument may be 'but every software for the phone really should be free - people will write it'. However, if someone hasn't come up with an absolutely free, modifiable mapping software, I should just be able to get the proprietary, closed version. It should be easier to do that than to look in the marketplace, conclude 'oh, this doesn't exist', and not get an OpenMoko phone because of it. You are expanding free to free to give up your freedom, which destroys the meaning of freedom with something like a Russell paradox. Freedom also means freedom to choose what software I want to run. If I want to run an OpenMoko version of the closed source program 'TomTom' for my navigation, then who are you to decide that I can't? Sure, it would be nice if every piece of software available for the OM was open sourced (under whatever licence), but we all know that there will be software that will not be opened (TomTom could be one of them). Not every person likes to be _restricted_ to only GPL-licenced software. I want to have the freedom to choose to install closed-source software as well as open sourced software, and if I have to pay for that, then that would be just fine. If you feel allowing proprietary, closed software in hurts the 'free your phone' spirit, and the market place is closed to them, it only hurts the amount of applications available for the phone. The amount of applications available for the phone is not the goal; the goal is to have a 100% free software phone. No, the goal is to have a usable phone. A phone that works, with software that people want and need. That the phone's completely free is also great, but please leave ME the freedom to choose to add closed-source to the stack too. You don't have to, but it's not up to you to say that I can't choose that. Freedom remember? (I just don't allow any DRM system to live on my machines, that is where I draw the line :)) I understand your line of reasoning, I just happen to disagree with you. I run Ubuntu here, on my home computer. But I do have Opera installed (not open-source, but still a great application), and I do have some closed sourced games installed (because there aren't a whole lot of good open source games that actually interest me). Just to name a few apps that I use regularly. -- Marcel ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Am Donnerstag, 25. Januar 2007 22:04 schrieb Ortwin Regel: What about DRM Defective by design ? is there a way to bind a program to a sync ID like it's usually done with PalmOS or to a device ID? (It should be possible to bind it to an SD card ID, right?) Don't forget that all data goes through the kernel. Oleg. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Hello Ortwin, On 1/25/07, Ortwin Regel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I like open source and stuff but some things, especially games, are closed in many cases. What are the possibilities for selling closed software for OpenMoko devices? Will there be a central online marketplace? I think that there will be places for people to sell closed software. What about DRM, is there a way to bind a program to a sync ID like it's usually done with PalmOS or to a device ID? (It should be possible to bind it to an SD card ID, right?) Any creative ideas how to solve the usual issues people have with stupid DRM systems etc. and still being able to get money for software development? It's pretty clear that DRM does not work (just look at the recent 'cracking' of HDDVD and BluRay discs by one person). And I personally hope that there will be no DRM on this device. (which would be pretty hard, considering that almost everything about the phone is open source) My experience with DRM'ed products is that they only hinder your honest customers, and not the pirates. If someone wants to get your software for free, chance are (s)he can get it. The best way is just to trust your customers. sincerely, Marcel de Jong ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
On 1/26/07, Ortwin Regel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I share your opinions but try to tell that to some developers... :-/ They feel safer if they can bind their program to only work with one hotsync ID, one device, one SD card... Even if it does not work. It would be nice if some more developers could be convinced that selling without restrictions can work. However, that makes a central marketplace even more important: It has to be easier to find a legal copy of the game than to find a pirated one. I think that most developers that are on this list have a pretty strong opinion against DRM. --- Marcel de Jong ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possibilities for commercial software?
Twas brillig at 01:17:56 26.01.2007 UTC+01 when Ortwin Regel did gyre and gimble: OR I share your opinions but try to tell that to some OR developers... :-/ They feel safer if they can bind their program OR to only work with one hotsync ID, one device, one SD card... I bet it's not the developers, but management who enforces this. -- JID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
