Mac OS X Intel Kernel Uses DRM 1399
An anonymous reader submits "Several people have discovered that the new Intel kernel Apple has included with the Developer Kit DVD uses TCPA/TPM DRM. More specifically, it includes "a TCPA/Palladium implementation that uses a Infineon 1.1 chip which will prevent certain parts of the OS from working unless authorized."
Who's more evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't this expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
Crack (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
I may have to rethink that strategy now.
(And no, don't say Linux - I don't have enough time to learn it well enough to use it as a desktop machine on a daily basis.)
Suprised... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:4, Insightful)
there just won't be a public backlash this time. it'll creep in slowly.
how to make amphibians edible through the use of high temperature h2o.
the GNU philopsophy will save us all... if it weren't for the fact that they are a bunch of pinko terrorists.
not that i'm saying we should give up by any means except that i just don't see this going away like the BS "test the waters" cpu serial # scandal a few years ago.
so many companies have invested heavily in digital -end user handcuffs that it's very improbable that they will give up easily. and the media certainly won't be telling the public anything negative, that much you can count on.
i would like to donate to the eff, except i don't want to be put on a list of terrorists. the only way to even have a remote chance of beating this nonsense (criminal and unethical behavior) is to educate the public at a greater rate than the "mainstream media" can "educate" them.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that the best way to learn? Using it on a daily basis.
I won't say Linux because, despite the vast improvements the last years, it takes some patience.
But if you'd rather take it as they (MS, Apple) hand it to you by all means. Just don't complain that there aren't alternatives... As the old saying - the cost of freedom isn't free.
Re:Isn't this expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
All the rest of you that are in a tizzy, slow down and think about it for just a second. How did you think they were going to prevent OS X from running on non-Apple Macs? Magic? Voodoo? Asking nicely?
Besides, it gives the 3r33t h4xx0rs something to fiddle with and crack. They'd be bored otherwise.
DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
The move to Intel is all about controlling consumers. And don't label me as paranoid. This is a strategically advantageous move. Apple knows that if they can get the movie industry to trust Apple and only allow online distribution through Apple's online store then Apple will have something others dont. If the rumors are false, and Apple lets the next OS run on all PC hardware, anyone who wants to get the highest quality movies (H.264, anyone?) must buy the Intel Mac OS or Apple hardware.
This move makes sense for both companies. Microsoft, despite its "evil nature," will not lock out the huge customer base who don't want DRM'd processors. Apple, on the other hand, has no problem doing this - after all, Apple likes to be "exclusive." And if they're launching a new OS anyway, why not start it off this way?
Again, I'm not trying to be paranoid, I just think that this development really brings a new understanding to the switch from IBM to Intel.
Before you freak out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple does not want OS X installed on every generic PC out there. If Mac sales die tomorrow, Apple and OS X go with it. And no, they wouldn't open all the source after the liquidation and you would be stuck with Linux and Windows on the desktop. With both options being crap (for differing reasons).
I would absolutely love for OS X to be sold for any machine with an Intel or AMD chip inside, but it's just not going to happen because Apple is not positioned to do so and survive.
Fortunately, Apple has never even hinted at taking a route other than having OS X run on their machines and their machines only. Any disappointment should be tempered with the knowledge that they have had their cards on the table on this for some time. I don't think there was any question of another outcome.
Apple is not screwing anyone over, they are just continuing what they have done for the past 21 years (even the brief period of Mac clones only involved the OS running on approved hardware).
Perhaps things will change sometime down the road with Apple making further inroads into consumer electronics and successfully diversifying their business. I wouldn't hold my breath, though. The seamless integration between hardware and software is at the very core of the Mac experience.
It's unfortunate that OS X is going to stay on one set of hardware, but it is just the way it has to be for the time being.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:1, Insightful)
You know... as much as it sucks, you have to admit that if people weren't pirating things, there'd be no need for DRM.
Honestly, how can you blame companies for trying to protect their profits when thousands of people are ripping them off every day?
Honestly, you should be mad at the pirates, without whom we wouldn't have this problem.
Re:Jobs and Gates: Two Sides of the Same Coin (Score:2, Insightful)
Errm...OSX is no walk in the park either (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
you'll more than likely piss off the users/fish far more than you'll prevent copying.
but that's not even relevant to this issue.
how is paying for mac os x and installing it on an x86 computer you already own, copyright infringement? paying for the software obviously means that the vendor has complete control over what you do with it.
it's a sad world we live in... because we're all responsible for our ills, in one way or another.
Can the OS authenticate the TCPA chip? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't known anywhere near enough to know if TCPA supports this. Apple would be the only user of the OS authenticating the hardware I can think of so it's possible TCPA leaves out this feature. There are plenty of uses for the hardware authenticating the OS but the other way around is rare since most software vendors want to run on as many types of hardware as possible.
Re:Hands up all the surprised people (Score:2, Insightful)
> bogus, microsoft's problem is the complete opposite as this one.
> microsoft is trying to prevent unsigned code from running on "their"
> hardware.
This situation isn't a lot different except they will allow unsigned code (WinXP or Linux) to boot instead of OSX. But once loaded it is a variant of the same thing, don't allow any unsigned code into ring0. And it wouldn't be all that much of a stretch for them to go total X-Box and lock any unsigned OS out.
But I sure hope you are right about it being cracked soon because if it isn't we are hosed. The initial posts here confirm that the Apple fanboys are more than willing to drink the Kool-Aid if Apple is serving it up.
Which means Microsoft will be forced to push up the rollout of similar lockdowns for Shorthorn because if they don't Apple will have all the video over net business locked up and Hollywood won't let Bill play.
And of course while they are at it they can lock out bootleg Windows licenses forever, win-win for them. And if not outright outlaw Linux, at least make sure only generic whitebox motherboards from Taiwan run it. The Dell and HPs will all be locked to the copy of Windows married to their TCPA module during manufacturing. And when the non-crazed Apple Fanboy civil libertarians complain they can, with a totally straight face, claim they HAD to.
Thank you Steve Jobs. Fucktard.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, if "content providers" weren't such greedy bloodsucking parasites, then there'd be no need for DRM.
Because those companies didn't actually EARN those profits by providing a desired good or service at a price that buyers were willing to pay? Like what would happen in a _real_ capitalistic market instead of a government-mandated one.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
The only real reason Apple doesn't have to treat its customers like thieves is that you already paid them through your own asshole for the hardware. I'm not sure what else the Infineon chip is good for aside from preventing operating systems not on the Palladium congress from running.
Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you analyzed the mach_kernel binary file on the Developer Kits, you would see that the kernel is vastly different than the Darwin 8.2 that Apple released as open source. For one thing, it automatically calls the oah750 daemon (better known as Rosetta) every time that it finds a non-universal PPC executable.
Before the kernel uses Rosetta to execute the PPC application (i.e. ATSServer in the case of starting a GUI), it calls the TPM kernel extension and checks the private keys in the TCPA chip. This is the only thing, as far as is apparent, that prevents Mac OS X from flawlessly running on a non-Apple system.
Re:Isn't this expected? (Score:4, Insightful)
What is not so widely known is that it is ILLEGAL [chillingeffects.org] (in the USA) to:
a) BUY a PC
b) BUY a copy of OSX
c) Make "b" run on "a".
You heard me - against the law to do it in the privacy of your own home, like sodomy in Texas.
And don't think for a second that Apple is above invoking this stupid law [google.com] (not the sodomy one)
Awww. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot of hand waving here about companies removing people's rights and slippery slope arguments along the lines of "if they do X they will eventually do Y for reason Z". This entirely ignores the fact that Tiger-x86 is probably the hottest thing to hit torrent sites in a long time. It was bad enough when developer releases of Tiger for PowerPC were making the rounds and people were making stupid assessments of the system months before release. The development kits and pre-release copies of OSX are meant to be in Mac developer hands, not Joe Dork down the street on his PC.
It is not a particular right to run OSX on anything but a Mac, the OSX EULA that you have to agree to in order to install the system specifically states that. Apple locking OSX onto Macs means they can continue to sell the machines with a straight face. No one would bother to buy a Mac if they could just grab a copy of Tiger and slap it on their PC at home. Apple would have little incentive to continue Mac development if there were no Macs being sold.
Future of Apple vs. Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the same way I feel when a cop wants to search me illegally or otherwise hassles me. Or when my employer wants to make me take a drug test even though I don't even so much as smoke cigerettes or drink alchohol and my job involves me sitting at a desk reading and writing things of little consequence.
Yep. I just think to myself "This sucks, but I don't need to be angry at the police or employers for violating my rights or my privacy. I need to be angry at the weekend pot smokers who make it necessary for people to infringe on my privacy or violate my constitutional rights".
And when the cops shoot a black man for having a candybar in his pocket or shoot an unarmed non violent black man four dozen times at close range, I just think "It sucks, but if black people weren't out there killing every person they come across, these police wouldn't have to senselessly murder any of them".
Seriously man... Get real.
Re:Before you freak out... (Score:4, Insightful)
The vast bulk of it. 80-90% if I recall correctly.
How does selling lots of copies of OS X equal Apple losing money?
You're assuming they'd sell lots of copies. That's a big assumption. Certainly their current level of OS license sales couldn't sustain the company, so even if we assume that everyone who uses OS X now were to buy a copy of "Generic Intel OS X", they'd need to expand their sales share significantly.
What the "Why don't they just sell it for generic boxes like Microsoft does and make $$$" crowd forgets is that Microsoft doesn't actually make a lot of money off of people walking in to Circuit City and buying a box copy of Windows. The vast majority of people view installing an OS as being more complicated than building a rocket ship from scratch using only a stick of gum and some 2x4's; the hobbyist market who is comfortable with this sort of thing isn't big enough to sustain a company of any significant size.
No, the real money is in OEM licensing to large volume hardware manufacturers. If Apple sold OS X for generic Intels, everyone would be able to undercut them on hardware prices, so forget about that business. And the walk-in market isn't nearly big enough to sustain them. So unless they could secure a number of OEM deals with the Dells and HPs of the world, they'd be bankrupt within the year. And Microsoft has historically done everything in their power to prevent even insignificant companies like Be from getting their OS shipping pre-installed from the OEM. You'd better believe they'd pull out all the stops to keep Apple out of that market.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
THESE ARE DEVELOPER MACHINES AND DO NOT REPRESENT HARDWARE THAT APPLE WILL SHIP.
There. Apple has said many times they don't plan on using a BIOS in the shipping products, and have hinted at EFI. But the first developer machines have a BIOS, so everyone ignores Apple and assumes it will have a BIOS. Apple has a huge investment in driving forward with 64bit with all the marketing they have done, and yet everyone expects PowerMacs with the same Pentium chips in the developer machines that aren't 64 bit.
Nowthis DRM thing comes up. Will Apple do similar in shipping hardware? It's hard to say. But right now, noone here can say yes or no for sure (unless your sitting at Apple's HQ working on the new products right now). I myself wouldn't be suprised if they do indeed put some kind of protection on, as the Mac OS has always had some kind of odd hardware requirement that prevents it from easially just running on a clone PowerPC box.
Just settle down and wait until real products ship. Because if you have OS X 10.4.1 for Intel, you either have the hardware to run it on due to your developer program, or you pirated the ISO image off some torrent site and have it illegially.
Yeah, sure, OS X will probably be runnable on a non Apple box some day. But guess what, it's likely to be a hacked up solution that kinda sorta works, and leaves you wasting time that could have been spent earning money to just buy a $500 Mac Mini. For me, my Apple hardware is a big reason I moved to OS X. Running OS X on my Dell just wouldn't be the same.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is laughable, to say the least. Companies want DRM not because of rampant piracy, but because the technology is advancing so fast, they can't predict where the future lies; and they want to be able to make money regardless of which way the technology turns.
Tell me something: is photocopying of books (by poor students, usually) not piracy? Then why don't copier makers have DRM? Where's the DRM for FM radio? People used to make copies of broadcast songs quite rampantly.
Any fool who thinks DRM is about "stopping piracy" is nothing but a pure fool who's had too much Koolaid.
Re:Isn't this expected? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Installed base. If Apple intends to promote a movie download service that only runs on Macintels, it's going to flop big time and worse than just flopping, it's going to really piss off people who bought PPC hardware in the past couple of years.
2) Transion time frame. Apple will begin the transition to Intel next year but it won't be selling Intel boxes exclusively until 2007. That means the announcement of a service that requires an Intel box would have to wait until then or risk killing hardware sales. Somebody else will be doing it before that.
3) iTMS model? Assuming they intend to follow the same model with their movie store, where selling movies is really just a way to move a different product (video iPod, set-top box, etc), they'll want to sell movies to Windows users as well as Mac users just as they do with music now. They'll also need to allow users to move their purchased movies to another device which may or may not contain the same DRM.
Anyway, they don't need hardware DRM to open a movie store. They have a perfectly good software based DRM for music so something similar should be enough to make the movie industry happy.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
companies that want to treat me like a criminal by default can munch my taint.
Re:Isn't this expected? (Score:3, Insightful)
How did you think they were going to prevent OS X from running on non-Apple Macs? Magic? Voodoo? Asking nicely?
By not writing drivers for 99% of the hardware out there?
Apple doesn't have to do a thing to prevent people from running OS X on non-Apple Macs. They don't have to - it'll be extremely inconvenient to do so already, because drivers don't magically appear out of nowhere just because the chip is manufactured by Intel.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is business. Mac spent the time and money to develop a pretty decent OS (by all accounts) to run specifically on a given platform. They probably don't want it getting a bad name by not running correctly when people try to run it on other platforms it wasn't optimized for.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:1, Insightful)
OK this is Slashdot and you seem to be arguing somewhat in favour of DRM (meaning I would be fully justified in a flame attact) but I will put the beast back in the bottle and just offer up a few random questions.
1
2. Is there a method to stop people from using publically accessable information (via the internet)while maintaining people's right to privacy? What I mean by this is once it hits the internet it may be illegal but without question it is publically available. There seems to be no way to partially monitor the Internet to protect content (since anything you do not monitor will instantly be the choice of downloaders.) This power seems to represent a direct threat to democracy.
3. One cannot fax their automobile, email their home, or download a copy of their stereo. Physical and non-physical are different so why is the law trying to argue they are the same when obviously there are observable differences that need to be taken into account.
4. Is it reasonable to expect every piece of information a human being runs across should first be validated to see if it is "legal" to use? Is it reasonable and psychologically healthy to dangle Big Macs in front of dieting fat people and expect them not to eat them because of some theoretical immorality?
5. Does the scientific method suggest that stopping the spread of certain kinds of information is a better method to truth?
6. Does it make sense to keep source code closed when it represents the only way you have of validating the code doesn't have spyware?
7. Did music and art exist before the RIAA/MPAA? If they disappeared would art end?
8. Perhaps there is a cost by not having DRM and trying to control the Internet but that's the situation at the moment and guess what... the world did not end. On the other hand, are we prepared to begin a new war on drugs (downloading) that cannot be won and will only result in even more people in prison and the court system... and will use billions of taxpayer dollars to fund this war annually. Does it seem fair to expect the taxpaper to subsidize actors making 30 million a film?
9. Is it impossible for movie, software and music companies to devise new business models?
11. Is it possible that free software and ideas are in threat of being wiped outed since companies can afford to patent them out of existence?
12. uhmm.... I'm getting tired typing and need to go to sleep now. One last point. Is it possible that in fact it is the companies that are trying to "own" our common culter are the ones that are immoral?
Ok I know all these points are not great but some of them are-- and put together they make for a formidable problem. Seriously if you can answer some of these questions for me I might change my views. Believe me. I used to believe they were in the right but no more.
If anyone is evil here it is the companies that are trying hijack the legal system.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
Total additional cost "securing" my Windows machines: $0.
And I don't see Apple hacking its OS so thirdparty stuff won't run [...]
I don't see Microsoft doing it either.
You can also uninstall anything you want to remove [...]
Try removing every trace of Quicktime from OS X and see how well everything works. I suggest you back up first.
Re:copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
Yep - that would be the ability of the US Congress to control whether or not the copyrighters have a right to copyright. Note that it provides congress with a power, it does not provide the people with a right.
Importantly, it has the clause "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" - once copyright is no longer filling that role, it should not be in place...
Re:Hands up all the surprised people (Score:4, Insightful)
> prevent paying customers from running Linux or DOS or whatever the fuck
> they wanted to run? Both companies sell Linux and brag about how much
> money it makes them.
Simple. Same reason you can't buy a PC from Dell without an OS except for a couple of Optiplex lines they target at the corporate users who already have site licenses. And even for those they have to toss FreeDOS in the box to make Microsoft happy.
Now imagine a world where Microsoft requires a locked TCPA chip to boot a future version of Windows. Basically they will speak unto Dell thusly: "If you want to sell Windows you will stick this chip on each and every motherboard. And if you don't want to pay the whitebox chopshop price for licenses you will join our co-op marketing program which requires you stick this chip on ALL motherboards you sell. No exceptions. Hey bitch, you already give Intel the same 100% loyalty so now you serve TWO masters. Starting today you no longer sell Dells, you sell Windows Workstations with Intel Inside and if you don't like that I have the same contract manufacturers you job your actual work out to ready to make em for me direct and a bunch of Indians ready to roll on deploying an ecommerce site to sell them through."
Re:Awww. (Score:2, Insightful)
...and this is the problem. They should not be allowed to tell dvd vendors not to skip commercials or allow decryption. It's everyone's right under fair use doctrine to skip commercials and back up or personally manipulate media in their homes. Not all decryption is for piracy, and there are already laws in place which severely punish pirates with hefty jail sentences and life long destitution.
this was their plan however. Claim "exciting new media products" then remove fair use forcibly from the people. Hollywood claimed It didn't want to do that, yet faced with the reality of being able, went ahead and did it anyway.
do you honestly think apple so infallible? they're laying out 10 miles of road when they only need 1, do you think they're not going to travel those next 9 miles? I believe they eventually will succumb to this temptation, but I am still holding out for benevolence here.
if they choose to abuse this power, as everyone has before them (except george washington), I don't want that discovery to cost me the rather hefty price of one of their systems.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know... in more civilized law systems some rights are upheld EVEN if you signed them away.
That's why they are called "unalienable", you know.
Re:Isn't this expected? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they release the OS itself they won't have that same control over the hardware, so they have no guarantees that the software will work as intended, in any capacity.
I honestly think Apple is very smart in this. It avoids a lot of support calls asking "where do I find this control panel?" because they put it one place. In the Windows world the control panel can be here, there, everywhere, depending on who built the software image for the computer that day.
Basically, if Apple sells Mac OS by itself, they will lose their well-known reputation of "it just works." And don't say that "it's unsupported" saves them from this. Customers will still complain and call the tech support number when they're trying to install OS 10.5 on their HP and it doesn't work because the OS doesn't like that particular motherboard.
If you say they won't, try working tech support or a technician's bench in Best Buy or CompUSA or something.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple did NOT rip off Konfabulator. Arlo Rose labors under the delusion that he invented desktop widgets, which he did not. DesktopX was out years before Konfabulator was even conceived.
Now, what other features did Apple rip off hapless developers? Spotlight? Exposé? The dock? The Finder?
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, how can you blame companies for trying to protect their profits when thousands of people are ripping them off every day?
Instead of just blindly saying "pirates are bad" and then handcuffing everyone, even the law abiding people who make them money, they should examin _why_ people pirate. Obviously there is the "pay vs. free" thing, but there are other factors for why people pirate stuff.
A lot of piracy is at least partly down to the pirated material being "better" than the originals in many ways - take TV shows for example. Why do people download them from torrents instead of watching them on TV? Certainly for me, the reason for doing it is that I have to wait well over 3 months after the original air-date for most stuff to get shown here in the UK. I.e. the illegal distribution method is a lot better than the legal one.
Another example: I buy music CDs. Once I have bought them then they get ripped to MP3 so I can easilly get at the music without sorting through stacks of CDs and the CDs themselves only get used on my personal CD player and in the car. So if I buy a CD that's "copy protected" which won't let me do this, it's useless to me, whereas the MP3s of the same CD I can download work fine. I.e. the illegal copies allow me to do what I need (and should be able to do with something I've legally bought), and thus are "better".
A large proportion of people _want_ the legal version of something, but they're not going to buy it if the illegal version is so much better. The producers should look at this and rather than stamping out the illegal competition through restrictions they should improve their own systems so that they "outcompete" the illegal stuff.
Re:Just out of curiosity... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, imagine you hired somebody and you told him to do something, but now, instead of just doing it, he insists on getting permission from someone else before he will do what you tell him to do. This leaves someone else in complete power of whether or not you can get this guy to do what you hired him to do in the first place...
Its yet another layer ( possibly dozens of layers ) of additional negotiation that has to be played out before things can happen.
There are many businesses out there who are running on razor-thin profit margins as they try to remain economically competitive. Adding yet more layers of nonproductive negotiation will require cutting finances somewhere else, and often nothing is left but salary and benefits.
On top of that, DRM enables somebody else to control whether or not the infrastructure you already paid for and installed will be permitted to continue to function. Would you want a toilet which insisted on "phoning home" and getting permission to accept a load?
Believe it or not, there are many people out there which have a so-called "business" education that are completely unaware of the business risks of having somebody else at the switch which controls whether or not the business can function.
We are trying our damndest to protect their ass.
Its like trying to make sure your neighbors don't erect highly flammable houses in fireprone areas. Just as firemen know a fire in a neighborhood threatens all the houses, this DRM thing can easily get out of control and threaten all of us.
There are some of us who know there is no reason at all to pay someone else over and over and over again for work that's already been done. But we also realize using DRM to enforce that paradigm is quite doable, and there are a helluva lot of people out there which will jump at the chance to lure us all into this cat trap.
Me and a lot of other people here have been trapped before, and know what this kind of cat trap looks like and what it does.
Once that door slams shut behind you... err, well forget about a lot of stuff you used to take for granted.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll both get dragged away by the Gestapo. Together. Like old times. It'll be fun!
OK, maybe that was a little bit over the top. But you get the point: if that is your reason for not donating, then the terrorists^Wpoliticians have already won.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
And before you try to tell me "but that's not how it works," I say fuck "how it works." The scum who think up these fake "licenses" can cram them up their ass! They can claim that EULAs exist and are valid all they want, but it doesn't make it true.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'm being held responsible for someone else's ills. That's the bit that gets to me. I'm being presumed guilty before I even buy a computer, and therefore restricted in the use of my own property.
I have to deal with speed limits being lowered to deal with idiots who speed, bag searches at supermarkets because of idiots who shoplift, and even more intensive screenings at airports because of morons who want to use innocents for their own personal socio-political stupidity. Now I'm also being restricted in my personal hobby interest and profession?
I think I'll be sticking to Linux, where groups like Debian will remove software because it comes under a license that's too restrictive.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, Heaven forbid that innovative software could actually be reimplemented by third parties and offered for free to consumers. I mean, next thing you know they might actually make a whole OS by taking ideas here and there and start offering it for free ! Imagine the havoc on poor little OS developers worldwide !
Good thing that our modern democracies have invented software patents, so we can prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening....
</sarcasm>
Thomas -
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:2, Insightful)
No one group deserves more Constitutional Rights than anyone else under any circumstances. We're all supposed to be equal under the law. It's just that we've set up a system where some people are more equal and others are less equal.
I consider drug tests and drm and all the other assorted crap to be punishment for someone else's inability to control their own urges in a manner that's socially responsible. Actually, it's way more complicated than that, because I don't consider pot smokers to be all that harmful to society, in general.
Nonetheless, we keep getting saddled with the stupid laws because someone in Washington gets their dander up when some well-funded "public interest group" pays them to and it occurs no matter which side of the political fence our "honorable" representatives take, because a) the public has limited understanding, b) it looks and sounds good, or c) it's for the children.
Sorry, started ranting.
Washington has become divorced from reality in a very real way. Most of our Representatives and Senators can't connect with the people they're affecting beyond any superficial manner, regardless of their personal wealth. It may not even be possible, considering the number of people they're supposed to be representing. The only thing they're sure of connecting with are fat checkbooks and sleazy fuckers like RIAA or TCPA, who have a vested interest in limiting the rights of consumers.
Re:DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
The most likely reason for this is just what it appears to be: a way for preventing Intel OS X from running on anything but Apple hardware. We'll see if Apple ends up adopting everything that would make the movie industry happy -- but no matter what they do along those lines, it has nothing (NOTHING!) to do with the reasons for the switch to Intel.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:2, Insightful)
If I write a piece of software which can improve someone else's lot, I have a duty to the rest of the world to make that software available to them. If that means I can't sit on my arse all day making money just selling that programme, then so be it.
If you light your {unlit} candle from my {lit} one, does my room get any darker? Will my candle last any less long? I have lost nothing, you have gained something. So it goes with computer software. The effort in replicating software already written is comparable to the effort in sticking the end of a wick in a flame. Yes, somebody wrote that software in the first place; but they were going to write it anyway, whether or not anybody paid them for a copy. I lit that candle {which, by the way, was a non-trivial effort involving a flint and steel, tinder and kindling -- matches have not been invented in this figure of speech} because it was dark, not because I thought I could make money charging people for a light. How could there be anything fair or right about denying someone something which would cost me nothing to do, knowing that but for me they might fall in the dark with an unlit candle in the house?
Somewhere in a parallel universe, there was a person a bit like Bill Gates who wrote a whingeing "open letter to hobbyists" a bit like this one [blinkenlights.com]. At the following week's meeting of their computer club, a resolution was passed calling for the troublemaker to be hauled into the Gents' toilets and given a Bloody Good Kicking {probably a couple of head-flushes with seat-whacks too for good measure, and to prevent the casualty from losing consciousness before satisfaction was achieved}. Thenceforth, on that planet, a law was passed, and it said this: That the author of a computer programme has exactly one right in respect of that programme, and that is the right to be identified as its author, for as long as any living person remembers any true fact about the person or the programme; and that everybody has the right to distribute the source code of any computer programme ever written, with or without modifications and whether or not accompanied by an executable version, so long as they did not try to change the original author's name.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
You have got to be a troll. I can't honestly believe any grown adult (I presume you are an adult as you appear to work) would hold such a narrow minded view of the world.
I wouldn't normally lay into someone expressing their opinion on a public forum but I believe you, and the thousands like you, who adopt the view given to them by the media are stealing the rights and freedoms of the thinking people.
The mass media has the sole goal of making as much money as possible and will attempt to achieve that by any (legal) means. This means that they are not necessarily out to protect your best interests even if they appear to be. Therefore you have to make a judgement call about how much you can trust their information.
Several years ago I gave up television the only mass media I really partook in, I never read newspapers and only really listened to music radio, and the change in my world view has been amazing.
It took time and I only realize it now but I am no longer paranoid. I actually it find quite scary to listen to many of the sheeple now-a-days. They have been whipped up into a frenzy about terrorists and see evil round every corner. You might argue that I have become insular and lack a world view but I still get a daily dose of news from the Internet and am knowledgeable of world affairs. The difference is my intake is more controlled and it is easier to ignore the hyperbole.
As an example take your comment about weekend pot smokers. Why is there wide spread paranoia about them? I believe that it is almost entirely mass media induced. The media need something to scandalize the masses about so they pick something new, because sheeple all suffer from neophobia, and something that a weak portion of society enjoys, because they have no voice with which to defend themselves.
There is little evidence that pot has any negative effects beyond those caused by the tabacco it is often smoked with and the studies that do show it has an effect only appear to indicate that extremely heavy usage is harmful (IIRC somewhere in the region of 20 joints a day). Over here in Europe we don't have the same paranoia of pot and drug tests are almost unheard of in civilian jobs. Amazingly the world hasn't come to an end and our productivity hasn't dropped through the floor. So I ask you: why are you employers insisting on drug tests? Could it perhaps be a form of control? Something to help make you ascribe to their world view?
I'm not saying that there is a big conspiracy. I don't believe there is. I think it is human nature. People will always want to dominate people whether they realise it or not and grouping together under a common banner is a good way to achieve that end. The problem is that it causes wide spread exclusion and the victimisation of minority groups. Once gangs, clubs, parties, etc begin to form and grow it is easy to view people that don't subscribe to the same world view as evil or wrong which is the mistake I believe you are making.
The pot smokers and "black people" are still people they just don't agree that your world view is right. I suggest that you learn to live with the fact that the universe doesn't have a concept of right and wrong and try and accept the people around you because surprisingly most aren't actually out to get you. I hope that you think about what I have said. We can create a relaxed world where we get along it just takes a little understanding.
Re:How is the TPM used? (Score:3, Insightful)
The BIOS part is the one I am slightly worried about. As soon as mainboards come with a BIOS that insists on booting only an "attested" OS, Open Source users will have a problem. Something to look out for when buying hardware in the future.
Re:time to boycott apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Signing a contract doesn't make it legal (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't true. Contracts can contain illegal terms, and if they do then they're invalid. An obvious example would be if an employer inserted a clause saying they could kill you if your performance fell below a certain level. If an employee signed their life away like that for whatever reason, it's irrelevant. The contract clause is illegal, and any employer that followed through on it would be in a lot of trouble.
There are legal protections on the content of employment contracts to stop employers from demanding unreasonable conditions from their employees, current or future. It's also why we have things like minimum wage. Some rights can be given up in a contract, but others can't.
Whether a drug-testing clause is or isn't okay would depend on your local legislation. Some governments would definitely consider it a breach of personal rights, and would disallow an employer from deciding who to hire based on their acceptance of submitting to a drugs test. Chances are there would sometimes be exceptions with this, however. It might be acceptable, for instance, if it's an obvious safety issue on the job, and/or if there's reasonable cause for suspicion that you're taking drugs. An employer might have to provide convincing evidence for suspicion, however, regardless of what a contract states.
Personally I don't think that nearly enough is done to stamp out ridiculous and illegal clauses in contracts. This is exactly the same reason why we have hopelessly one-sided terms of service on shrink-wrapped software. There's very little, if any, penalty for putting in highly dubious or illegal clauses and then pressuring someone to agree to them.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is about the kernel, not the hardware.
Really, if we take this attitude, we're forced to conclude that NOTHING about the developer platform can be counted upon to be in the commercial product. That's completely absurd. No, not everything will be in the commercial product, but it's not like they deliberately build the developer platform to be completely different from what they eventually release to the public.
Common sense tells us that if there's DRM support in the OS X on Intel kernel, there's at the very least a chance that it'll be in the shipping product.
If we're going to make noise over it, we damn well ought to do it as soon as we have first inkling of it, not when it's already too late. You don't wait until your neck is in a noose to hire a lawyer.
Re:DRM in a GPL kernel, and When Should We Panic? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure but I believe the DRM stuff is cryptographically bound - ie, just bypassing a check is not going to get you to what you want. If that is all it takes to get around the DRM then man, I need to go patent something real quick
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:4, Insightful)
To play movies full-screen in QuickTime Player out of the box: CMD-F (and pay $30) (and pay $30 for the next version) (and $30 more for the version after that)
Yeah, Apple's a saint among corporations.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Licensing has nothing to do with the right to make copies. It is about controlling how and what you do with your copy, and to avoid consumer rights we recieve by a sale. For example, to only allow playback on approved devices to limit features (disable fast forward), collect player royalties, enforce artifical market barriers (zones)
or to tie licenses to specific hardware or activation schemes to prevent resale, or to remove the rights you normally would have under fair use and other laws.
Anything that isn't lent, rented or leased, I consider sold. You sell me CDs, DVDs, iTMS songs and Windows XP. Not the copytight, the copy. That is my personal philosophy at least. The law is bought.
Kjella
Why do you people care?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me repeat OSX WILL ONLY RUN ON APPLE HARDWARE!!!
Ok? Got it? If you really wanted OSX as much as you purport you would have bought a mac mini.
Oh I know $500 for a computer costs too much, and you just want to steal OSX and run it on you klone or dell.
Honestly go back to your Linux, and fight over your KDE or GNOME nonsense, and how Linux is loosing out just as Unix did wthat that CDE vs Windows nonsense, when infact it just canabalized the unix market in the 80-90s.
As for the DRM, what did you expect? Apple would just flood the market? Since you probably have never download or installed Darwin, I guess you have never noticed just how device driver poor it is, or just how un linux it is.
So put up or shut up, go buy a mac mini, or just keep plodding along with your x86, since you are too cheap to get a named OEM peice of hardware.
Sheesh.
Re:Before you freak out... (Score:1, Insightful)
Ok, ok, we'll sell OS X for generic PCs.
Oh my, I would so like to use OS X, but the $129 they're asking for it is just absurd. They're forcing me to pirate it instead!
There isn't much profit in trying to sell to thieves and cheapskates.
Re:Damn Microsoft! (Score:3, Insightful)
But none of that stops you from starting a company and putting a big sing on the door saying "Help wanted - dope smokers welcome!" Well nothing except the extra attention you would get from the police but even that could work out if you lowered your local crime rate. It might work out that your employees are so gratefull for your keeping out of their personal lives tht they never once come to work impared. Or they could come to work impared, get hurt and sue you out of existance for failing to prevent them from hurting themselves.
This is exactly what the open source community has done with DRM and now we all have a choice between one product with DRM and one without. Most people will see the good of DRM free software and not abuse it to blatantly rip off other people hard work. Some will not. Im talking going beyond fair use to selling soneone elses work as your own. We will see which will survive long term. I would rather have the DRMless software but I understand the need to protect IP.
The open market will decide if your "Pot Smokers Friendly" business will survive and thrive and in an ideal world the open market would decide the DRM issue. I say ideal because I think the media companies iron grip on content will give DRM an unfair advantage but they still might lose.
It's the reduction of choice that helps OS X rock. (Score:5, Insightful)
LOOK AT SOLARIS. Ask anyone who needs a Solaris box to stay up for critical stuff (not FTP server, talking about critical stuff at the core of a company / government / hospital) and it will be on one on Sun's servers, it will NOT be Solaris for Intel. Big metal + Tested Metal = Solaris uptimes of years if need be. Small metal + Tested Metal = OS X I know and love.
Re:copyrights (Score:3, Insightful)
The Constitution grants congress its powers. Congress has, theoretically, no powers that are not granted directly or by implication in article 1 or by a subeseuqent amendment. So far so good. But like "Thou Shalt Not Kill", there's countless ways to pull out loopholes by means of clever interpretation. The problem with this is how to interpret the relationship between "To promote the progress of science and useful arts," and "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". L. Lessig has argued that the power being granted should be read thus:
I think this is reasonable. However, sometimes too much expertise means you can't see the forest for the trees. The SC reads it more like this:
Notice that this reading expands Congress's powers in a dramatic way. By reducing the preamble to a mere commentary, Congress's use of copyrights and patents becomes an unlimited power to control ideas and expression. For example, if they can create a fundamental property right to ideas if they are so inclined ideologically, even if it could be conclusively demonstrated that this would actually retard progress. They can grant copyright extensions, even though it is clearly counterproductive to incent people to produce work they've already done. This also castrates the term limitation. They could set the term limit to a million years, even though this clearly does nothing to promote anything.
You can't escape the fact this clause is very poorly written from a standpoint of clarity, although it fits nicely into the rhetorical structure of A1.
Personally, I find the presence of constitutional appendages like "to promote the progress" very suspicious. It suggests to me that the rights/powers in question are ones most people agree on in principle, but disagree on in details. I think that the framers knew there were potential problems with this clause, but they had bigger fish to fry like preventing the President from levying taxes and raising armies on his own authority. So, they weasled out by putting some vague qualifications on it and hoping the details could be worked out later. The other famous preamble (er apppendix?) is of course "a well regulated militia..." in the second amendment. This is another mistake. To some people it sounds like a limitation on the right granted; to others it's just a bit of commentary on why the right is granted. I doubt this disagreement is new. I can imagine that a fat cat Federalist merchant would imagine a "well regulated militia" very differently than a "blood of patriots" Jeffersonian agriculturalist.
Re:Objectivity (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, but the problem is, that's not his fucking problem. What is his problem is having to wait a few hours to listen to the latest music because his internet connection is temporarily down. Or not being able to listen to it in his car without an "authorized" piece of hardware.
There are a hundred ways DRM could be the cause of future customer aggrivation. And in their mind, all these problems with piracy are not their problem, because they were good little consumers and coughed up their hard-earned dough.
Something I learned early on in business: it can take millions of dollars to get a new customer, but a single stupid mistake to lose them forever.
Re:Objectivity (Score:3, Insightful)
So rather than just getting angry and saying, "Hey, you're trying to take away my fair use rights, I demand everything that's coming to me and screw what's fair to you," you treat them as the enemy, which encourages them to treat you as the enemy.
I think that if the Slashdot community took the attitude of trying to come up with a fair solution, the **AAs could be convinced to embrace it. You offer them a point at which they can be happy and you can be happy, and they'll go exactly where you're saying: happy customers buy more stuff.
Maybe there isn't a better solution than, as the great-grandparent post suggests, just getting people angry. It doesn't really fight DRM, of course, but it gives you a great opportunity to scream about it on Slashdot.