3 ms·

There's nothing wrong with selling hardware and software separately. This is the kind of laziness that gave Windows a desktop monopoly.

by 794CD01 10y ago

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
There's nothing wrong with software competition, but that's not what this is. Otherwise you would be able to get software that does that under a free software license.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  Depends on what kind of software you want to buy. I can buy a computer without an operating system. I can then buy an OS separately. If I want to use that OS to run a web browser, I have many options. If I want to use that OS to run the new Tomb Raider game, which is published by Microsoft, I must buy Windows.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    But then in your example there isn't software competition. And there is no law prohibiting anyone from publishing free software that could run the game, unlike in the DRM case.
    - 794CD01 10y ago
      There is software competition to perform basic functions. There is not software competition for some more specialized cases because one competitor is far superior to the others.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
There's everything wrong with selling hardware that cannot work for its intended purpose without additional proprietary, for-profit software. Would you buy a car if you had to pay again to receive a steering wheel, a transmission, or a key? No. Or to take an analogy closer to home, NVIDIA and ATI both sell graphics cards. They also both distribute proprietary device drivers as binary blobs. They do not charge money for the binary blobs on top of what they already charged for the card itself. Nobody has to give anything away for free, but charging twice to use one piece of hardware for its intended purpose oughtn't be allowed.
- adrusi 10y ago
  There's two parts to Bluray: the storage medium and the specification for the data on the storage medium. You can burn and read bluray disks with a filesystem, and presumably you could use your bluray reader with those kinds of disks. People who don't want to use their bluray reader to watch DRM-encumbered media don't want to pay for a licensed device.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  It is not the responsibility of the hardware seller to know what your intended purpose is. To continue on your graphic card example, perhaps I want to buy them to use in my custom bitcoin mining operation, for which I have created my own more firmware that provides greater efficiency. I would then appreciate not being forced to pay extra for general-purpose graphics software I do not need.

There's nothing wrong with selling hardware and software separately. This is the kind of laziness that gave Windows a desktop monopoly.

by 794CD01 10y ago

There's nothing wrong with selling hardware and software separately. This is the kind of laziness that gave Windows a desktop monopoly.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

There's nothing wrong with software competition, but that's not what this is. Otherwise you would be able to get software that does that under a free software license.

794CD01 10y ago
Depends on what kind of software you want to buy. I can buy a computer without an operating system. I can then buy an OS separately. If I want to use that OS to run a web browser, I have many options. If I want to use that OS to run the new Tomb Raider game, which is published by Microsoft, I must buy Windows.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  But then in your example there isn't software competition. And there is no law prohibiting anyone from publishing free software that could run the game, unlike in the DRM case.
  - 794CD01 10y ago
    There is software competition to perform basic functions. There is not software competition for some more specialized cases because one competitor is far superior to the others.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

There's everything wrong with selling hardware that cannot work for its intended purpose without additional proprietary, for-profit software. Would you buy a car if you had to pay again to receive a steering wheel, a transmission, or a key? No. Or to take an analogy closer to home, NVIDIA and ATI both sell graphics cards. They also both distribute proprietary device drivers as binary blobs. They do not charge money for the binary blobs on top of what they already charged for the card itself. Nobody has to give anything away for free, but charging twice to use one piece of hardware for its intended purpose oughtn't be allowed.

adrusi 10y ago
There's two parts to Bluray: the storage medium and the specification for the data on the storage medium. You can burn and read bluray disks with a filesystem, and presumably you could use your bluray reader with those kinds of disks. People who don't want to use their bluray reader to watch DRM-encumbered media don't want to pay for a licensed device.
794CD01 10y ago
It is not the responsibility of the hardware seller to know what your intended purpose is. To continue on your graphic card example, perhaps I want to buy them to use in my custom bitcoin mining operation, for which I have created my own more firmware that provides greater efficiency. I would then appreciate not being forced to pay extra for general-purpose graphics software I do not need.