Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!

Jamie Lokier
2003-04-24T07:43:46Z

Linus Torvalds wrote:
[a message which I found quite surreal]

I felt as though I were reading on of those April 1st fake Linus emails.
But my sleep cycle is so screwed everything feels like that today :)

I don't mind if commodity hardware becomes DRM-locked, like the X-box,
so long as it remains legal to develop alternative hardware. 20 years
ago it would have been a real problem, but I think we have access to
enough computing and communications resource today that we could
actually develop alternate hardware if needed - if there enough
motivation.

Not there will ever be a need - see how virtually all the DVD players
you can buy have "play any region" back doors. If there were lots of
manufacturers of things like the X-box (as you'd expect for a 2006
PC), expect to see some of them putting DRM-disabler back doors in.

The scary part is when it becomes illegal to use those back doors, or
(much worse IMHO) illegal to make your own equipment.

[Oh, I see that has already begun. Shit!]

On a related note, it's World Intellectual Property Day this Saturday:

http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/index.html?wipo_content_frame=/about-ip/en/world_ip/2003/index.htm

[Personally I find WIPO's cute fluffy leaflets about protecting the
small inventor from the big sharks rather creepy. They start with
generalities about one-man designers in poorest Africa, and how they
can protect their designs from being ripped off. Then lead to
examples of where this has worked, and the inventors in the examples
are all huge companies with familiar names, the very companies I see
as big sharks. Ah well.]

-- Jamie