[NTLUG:Discuss] MI2 boycott

[Gregory A. Edwards]

Christopher Browne wrote:
> 
> 
> This is the conceptual equivalent to the MPAA saying that you can only use
> movie projectors that _they_ have approved to show movies.  Or that you can
> only use CD-players that the RIAA (sp?) has approved to play _any_ music, and
> that the use of unapproved devices to listen to music is outright illegal.
> Which is, overall, pretty consistent with the direction of the "Millennium"
> legislation.
> 
> --
> Real Programmers use: "compress -d > a.out"
> cbbrowne at ntlug.org - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
> 

I've tried to stay away from this because I KNOW that some won't like my
position on this.  While I'm the 1st to jump on the free source
bandwagon I'm also going to be the 1st to jump on the right of an owner
of property to make a profit from it.  As I understand it there does
exist a patent(s) (pending) on the DVD encryption process as well as
copyrights floating around.  Also that ownership of the
unlocking/decryption process has been established and its not public
domain.

I have not followed the DeCSS case in great detail but I could have
predicted these results the day I heard of the "breaking of the code"
for DVD key encryption.  Lets face reality in this discussion, DeCSS was
a result of reverse engineering of a process owned by others, plain and
simple fact in this case.  If you created a killer app and were looking
at the possibility of making a couple of hundred dollars you might make
it GPL out of the goodness of your heart or your dedication to the free
source movement.  However, if you had created the next Doom and you knew
is was going to make millions of dollars I can guarantee NOBODY on this
list would GPL it.  Don't use Linux as a "that's not true example"
because its too big and too many people worked on it to be individually
owned.

Whether the intent of DeCSS is to copy, play, rerecord, or just to solve
an interesting problem does not matter.  An owned piece of property was
reverse engineered and therefore stolen from its owners.  No matter what
law MPAA hangs the papers on this is really a case of theft of property.

I don't know why MPAA won't license the rights to some company in the
Linux community to do the drivers for DVD playback.  However, I'd be
willing to bet that someone in the great northwest of the good ol US of
A has their fingers in there somewhere.  If you think about it a little
the MPAA vs DeCSS developers case may not be the most interesting story
in this drama.  It makes no business sense at all for the rights to
build a driver be denied unless a bigger profit can be made by NOT doing
business with the Linux community.

And I'll make 1 more point (I know this will bring on flames) here.  If
we want Linux to be a major player with the general consumer we cannot
afford to be viewed as geeks that will steal from legitimate businesses
just cause we can.  We already have an image problem cause Linux is
viewed by the vast majority as a geek/nerd/hacker operating system that
the normal people can't use without a major technical learning effort. 
Add on top of that an image that we may even be worse than MS cause we
use theft to drive others out of business when they won't do it our way.

Now back to our regular programming:)
-- 
Greg Edwards
New Age Software, Inc.
http://www.nas-inet.com