The iPad is DRM doom, says DRM doom group
With many iPhone app vendors complaining of 80 percent piracy rates, the notion that Apple’s iPhone and soon to arrive iPad — two products that share the same operating system and online software distribution platform — are locked and impenetrable is pretty darned silly. Then again, why should anyone expect more from a group that’s named itself “defective by design”?
Cult of Mac brings us news of the anti-DRM (and pro irony) group “Defective by Design,” which is protesting the locked down nature of the iPad. Thereupon, they’ve started a petition that’s garnered more than 9,000 signatures.
The iPad’s unprecedented use of DRM to control all capabilities of a general purpose computer is a dangerous step backward for computing. We demand that Apple remove DRM from all of its devices.”
That said, I don’t like DRM, but I dislike the Free Software Foundation (FSF, the actual people behind this “protest”) even less. Whereas the area of software patents needs urgent reform and the concept of fair use needs to be defined and codified, these folks want all software to be “free,” a slippery concept that they describe as “free as in free speech, not as in free beer.”
The group’s rambling rhetoric (over 1,800 words in their full definition of “free software”) makes me think that this is how the bible would read if it had been written by software engineers, which I think is an important point to raise about these folks. That is, although Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition is in no danger of losing its place in history to the FSF, we should always make time to drag them out into the light when we catch lurking in the shadows if only for the comic relief.
I like dry furniture, thanks
That DRM is bad goes without saying. However, DRM hasn’t killed innovation in the iPhone app space — quite the opposite actually.
Still, there’s no question that the children should NOT (sorry, FSF) be allowed to pee on the furniture or burn the house down.
That said, we should keep out eyes set firmly on a DRM-free horizon while Apple figures out how to keep this new development, distribution and sales model going — there’s never been anything like this before and offering up yesterday’s canards as an “antidote” to the fastest growing, perhaps most-successful new business model ever developed is absurd in the extreme…
What’s your take?
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February 13th, 2010
The definition of free software is very simple. Users should have permission to practise four freedoms with relation to software:
0. The right to run the software for any purpose
1. The right to help oneself (the right to study and tinker software)
2. The right to be a good neighbour (the right to share verbatim copies of software)
3. The right to contribute to your community (the right to share modified copies of software)
All the other words exist specifically for people who don’t understand the simple meaning of these four freedoms.
February 21st, 2010
So, this definition is perfectly clear without those other 1,800+ words, right?
Hey, did I mention that the definition has evolved over time through dozens of changes and iterations which amounts to years of back story and footnotes?
Which begs the question, what will it mean tomorrow?
Crystal freakin’ clear…