Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

Theodore Ts'o
2003-04-29T05:46:36Z

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 05:09:04PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> This constant "I know how the law works and you don't" is no match for
> "Microsoft has enough money to change the law". There was this little
> anti-trust case, maybe you heard of it, it was obvious that they should
> have lost and they didn't. How does your opinion, which would clearly
> have been that they should have lost, reconcile with the fact that they
> didn't lose? I don't get it, you apparently see something I don't.

Well, there is the question about whether Microsoft would really want
a law which made it illegal to duplicate the (unpatented) design of a
competitor's product, given that Microsoft does that *all* the time.
(Think Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel, just to name one example.)

In the business world, engineers purchase competitors' products and
rip them apart to see what makes them tick *all* *the* *time*. Ford
does it GM cars, and Crystler does it to Toyota cars, etc., etc.
Anything important where they don't want that to happen is patented.

So I would find it very hard to believe that Microsoft or any other
corporate lobbiest would try to convince their national legislature to
pass laws that would prohibit some open source developer from cloning
and/or reverse-engineering BitKeeper. After all, that would also
outlaw a good part of what goes on all the time in the corporate
world...

- Ted