6 ms·

The Hardware Hacker Manifesto

105 points by daeken 16y ago

kiba 16y ago
'Piracy' seem to have evolved from making digital copies to Stuff That Short-Sighted Commercial Dude Don't Want You To Do. Maybe somebody should create a list of hacker friendly and property right respecting companies so people don't buy stuff from companies like what is mentioned in the manifesto.
- emilis_info 16y ago
  You know, I think this is a wrong way to do this. If you bought it, you own it. Period. Just do whatever you want. It doesn't matter what the "commercial dude" wants. He's acting silly. You should laugh to his face. Literally or metaphoricly. In public. If he gets angrier it just shows other people what an asshole he is.
Cushman 16y ago
I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't believe Cody has done anything wrong, and I agree with him about his rights. That said, I'm a bit disappointed that a self-described hacker is taking such a narrow view of the idea of property. He starts out saying "It all comes down to one simple question: once you've purchased something, do you own it?" And that is the question— but it's not a simple one, not anymore. Intellectual property has changed the game fundamentally, and accepted ideas now need to be challenged. This "manifesto" assumes inviolable rights contingent to ownership without discussion. Where is the intellectual curiosity? Where do you believe the rights of ownership derive from? What makes them valuable? Why should the nature of ownership be the way you want it to, as more and more of what makes a physical thing valuable is not contained in the value of its materials and the labor to construct it? Define and defend your philosophy— and then you'll be in a much better place to argue it as it applies to hacking. And when you go to do that, don't stop after saying "I can and I want to." There are people who disagree with you— convince them. What will be the outcome? Why is hacking actually good for the world? What are the risks? Why are they worth it? Otherwise it's just an angry rant with "manifesto" written on top.
- pacemkr 16y ago
  "A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions" - Wikipedia That's exactly what he did with that post. He doesn't have to convince anyone. He simply stated his principles.
  - daeken 16y ago
    At the same time, I would've liked to frame it in a better way. This incarnation is largely preaching to the choir.
  - Cushman 16y ago
    Intentions he's got, but I don't agree he stated his principles. Or rather, I don't think that "hacking is fun" and "you should be able to do whatever you want with something you own" are particularly compelling or rigorously declared principles.
    - loup-vaillant 16y ago
      Here's a more precise, and realistic principle: "You should be allowed to do whatever you want to something you own".
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  > Intellectual property has changed the game fundamentally You know there's no such thing as "intellectual property". Property, or ownership, is a thing about physical stuff. Scarce stuff. Stuff you lose when others take it. Knowledge is so different that any analogy from the physical realm is bound to lead to critical misconceptions. (Just like anthropomorphism spur critical misconceptions about computers.) What people actually refer to when they talk about "intellectual property" is intellectual exclusivity, or intellectual monopoly. Copyright and patent laws are about just that: the exclusive right to copy some data, or the monopoly over the usage of some idea. Now we know that intellectual property doesn't exists, we also know that it couldn't have change the game at all. Actually, what did changed the game is the Ultimate Copying Machine, namely the internet. And as Copying Machines became more efficient, exclusivities and monopolies are harder to maintain. So naturally, those who have a stake in them stroked back. Hence the term "intellectual property", one of the most effective propaganda oxymoron I have ever seen. See, "property" is a heavily loaded term, which has an extremely good connotation. The right to property is perceived to be fundamental (I think it is, by the way). And that does it. few see that this term glosses over the fact that knowledge can't be owned at all. But the emotional impact of the starving inventor and "stealing intellectual property" are such that it become very hard to see the flaws of this analogy.
spiffworks 16y ago
Note: I posted this to your posterous blog as well, but I want to hear what HN has to say about this. When I first read about Emokit, I was really excited because the biggest barrier to entry in BCI research was being lifted. However, Emotiv is a startup, they're practically giving away the headsets for free because they expect to recover the expenses from the SDK licences they sell. Which is a good strategy since developers are the ones buying this thing right now. If Emokit becomes sufficiently mature and reliable, the number of licences that Emotiv sells will reduce, and I think we can count on the price of the headset going up. What daeken is doing is great. As a relatively poor BCI nut, I am grateful for the work he has started. However, in this case, his work is breaking the business model of an innovative startup. Should emotiv just suck it up and adjust? Edit: Of course, the piracy claims are just bullshit.
- SageRaven 16y ago
  Sounds a bit like the CueCat business model. It sounded bad back then, and it sounds bad now. It's cool that such a consumer device has come to market, and kudos to the clever folks who designed it, but everybody knows (or should know, anyway) that subsidizing hardware in this way is shaky ground to base a business upon.
- patrickyeon 16y ago
  > However, in this case, his work is breaking the business model of an innovative startup. I would argue that an innovative startup has bet on a broken business model. I didn't feel bad when the Xbox got hacked and Microsoft was selling us all (relatively) cheap PCs. I don't feel bad for the media industry that is trying to hold on to a broken business model. If Emotiv knew what they were doing, they knew they were taking this risk, and it's part of the initial cost to get their business going. If they don't know what they're doing (on the business side), they're doomed anyway.
  - spiffworks 16y ago
    We should note that the subsidy is just speculation at this point, inferred from their knee-jerk reaction to daeken's work. That being said, I was just thinking that Emotiv could stand to make a lot more money by removing the subsidy(if there is one) and embracing Emokit. The existence of a FOSS SDK would lead to drastically improved sales for Emotiv, despite the(possibly) higher price. Their manufacturing seems to be saturated, however-the EPOC is significantly back-ordered.
Pyrodogg 16y ago
All rights exist on a scale from absolute to nothing. Two individuals with free will cannot completely overwill the other. There must be balance to mazimize the rights of both parties. So it is with producers of products and owners of products. If you buy something, you should have the right to do with it as you please for your personal use. The producer of said good may implicitly or explicitly (see licenses and patents) retain some right to exclusive first sale of the product that you have purchased. You still have the right to sell your good to another, but you do not necisarrily have the right to manufacture, distribute or produce it. Does sharing your insights into the design of the product on the internet equate to publishing their design content? Apparently so, according to the accusers. The internet especially has lowered the hurdles for anyone to compete in the intellectual property market. Some companies will fight tooth and nail for the rights or perceived rights to their IP. As a contrast, check out the efforts of the Open Hardware Summit. The OHS is drafting an open source hardware license that people and companies can apply to their products clearly defines that the products design can be distributed, changed and shared. http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/license/ http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/license/
- araneae 16y ago
  >You still have the right to sell your good to another ... you do not necisarrily have the right to ... distribute ... it. How is distributing something different from selling it? I just got a presentation at work today from a company, and they complained that a lot of their product was being resold by distributers, but there was nothing they could legally do to stop it besides only sell to individuals in small amounts.
  - Pyrodogg 16y ago
    I suppose I was thinking of selling the one physical device you own vs. manufacturing and distributing them en masse. If you're still purchasing things from the original creator you should be able to distribute them all you want. Granted, at scale, commercial agreements and contracts would likely come into play.
pacemkr 16y ago
As consumers, we are not responsible for how a company intends to make money. If I buy something, I own it. If I license it, I explicitly know that it isn't mine. He bought it, its his. They don't get to say "this doesn't fit our business plan." Some time ago I bought an iPhone, went though the contract, and then changed carriers. I put the iPhone in a box, where it remained for the next year. One day I needed an iPhone to do some market research for a product I was making. "But wait, I _have_ an iPhone," I remembered. I took it out of the box and it didn't work; it was deactivated, because I'm not longer an AT&T customer. I had to spend the next four hours of my life jail breaking that phone -- I still needed it -- to make the iPhone I have "sort of" mine. This is after paying for the device and for a year of service under contract. After all that money spent, I still needed permission from two separate companies to use something that was mine in the first place. So after going though that experience, I don't really care if a company (startup or not) goes bust, come up with a better business model, not my problem. If I payed my money for it, I will do whatever I want with it.
danielnicollet 16y ago
It's true that no-one should not assume that hardware tinkering is immoral. It would be so much smarter to encourage it. It's a way like another to get people engaged with your product. Tinkering, hacking, or re-purposing what you fully own is a natural process, a human right. You can't stop it. Unless you want consumers to revert to a state where we just know how to use tools, not make or modify them!!
danielnicollet 16y ago
Oh and by the way, it would be great to hear a lawyer on the issue here. This reminds me vaguely of so many debates on software and media IP. But hardware is vastly different. Legal POV?
logic 16y ago
Emokit project announcement that led to this post: http://daeken.com/emokit-hacking-the-emotiv-epoc-brain-computer-0 http://daeken.com/emokit-hacking-the-emotiv-epoc-brain-compu... Discussion thread on Emotiv's forums relating to Cody's Emokit project: http://www.emotiv.com/forum/forum15/topic879/ http://www.emotiv.com/forum/forum15/topic879/
- sqrt17 16y ago
  The basic point seems to be this: * The Emotiv business plan seems to be based on some game-console like cost structure where developers would pay Emotiv so that they can release software, with the 300$ headset being sold as a loss leader and then recoups the cost through people buying software. Emotiv's investors seem to like that business model. * Having an open ecosystem around their EEG device would mean that the loss-leader business model doesn't work anymore and their investors are threatening to do ugly things if Emotiv doesn't get it under control. Now, which one is it? "Hooray, we can build an EEG at a consumer-friendly (for some value of consumer) price"? Or "We had a broken business model from the start, but we're going to blame our users"? Note that a slightly-expensive special-purpose device gets a significantly higher share of people interested in using it creatively than a tool that has a very obvious recreational and/or professional purpose, and already fulfills this purpose very well, such as a synthesizer keyboard. Trying the game consoles business model on an EEG device is similarly sensible as selling a 300$ CNC lathe that you can only use with bought programs that were written by random other people with more money on their hands.

105 points by daeken 16y ago

kiba 16y ago

'Piracy' seem to have evolved from making digital copies to Stuff That Short-Sighted Commercial Dude Don't Want You To Do. Maybe somebody should create a list of hacker friendly and property right respecting companies so people don't buy stuff from companies like what is mentioned in the manifesto.

emilis_info 16y ago
You know, I think this is a wrong way to do this. If you bought it, you own it. Period. Just do whatever you want. It doesn't matter what the "commercial dude" wants. He's acting silly. You should laugh to his face. Literally or metaphoricly. In public. If he gets angrier it just shows other people what an asshole he is.

Cushman 16y ago

I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't believe Cody has done anything wrong, and I agree with him about his rights. That said, I'm a bit disappointed that a self-described hacker is taking such a narrow view of the idea of property. He starts out saying "It all comes down to one simple question: once you've purchased something, do you own it?" And that is the question— but it's not a simple one, not anymore. Intellectual property has changed the game fundamentally, and accepted ideas now need to be challenged. This "manifesto" assumes inviolable rights contingent to ownership without discussion. Where is the intellectual curiosity? Where do you believe the rights of ownership derive from? What makes them valuable? Why should the nature of ownership be the way you want it to, as more and more of what makes a physical thing valuable is not contained in the value of its materials and the labor to construct it? Define and defend your philosophy— and then you'll be in a much better place to argue it as it applies to hacking. And when you go to do that, don't stop after saying "I can and I want to." There are people who disagree with you— convince them. What will be the outcome? Why is hacking actually good for the world? What are the risks? Why are they worth it? Otherwise it's just an angry rant with "manifesto" written on top.

pacemkr 16y ago
"A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions" - Wikipedia That's exactly what he did with that post. He doesn't have to convince anyone. He simply stated his principles.
- daeken 16y ago
  At the same time, I would've liked to frame it in a better way. This incarnation is largely preaching to the choir.
- Cushman 16y ago
  Intentions he's got, but I don't agree he stated his principles. Or rather, I don't think that "hacking is fun" and "you should be able to do whatever you want with something you own" are particularly compelling or rigorously declared principles.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    Here's a more precise, and realistic principle: "You should be allowed to do whatever you want to something you own".
loup-vaillant 16y ago
> Intellectual property has changed the game fundamentally You know there's no such thing as "intellectual property". Property, or ownership, is a thing about physical stuff. Scarce stuff. Stuff you lose when others take it. Knowledge is so different that any analogy from the physical realm is bound to lead to critical misconceptions. (Just like anthropomorphism spur critical misconceptions about computers.) What people actually refer to when they talk about "intellectual property" is intellectual exclusivity, or intellectual monopoly. Copyright and patent laws are about just that: the exclusive right to copy some data, or the monopoly over the usage of some idea. Now we know that intellectual property doesn't exists, we also know that it couldn't have change the game at all. Actually, what did changed the game is the Ultimate Copying Machine, namely the internet. And as Copying Machines became more efficient, exclusivities and monopolies are harder to maintain. So naturally, those who have a stake in them stroked back. Hence the term "intellectual property", one of the most effective propaganda oxymoron I have ever seen. See, "property" is a heavily loaded term, which has an extremely good connotation. The right to property is perceived to be fundamental (I think it is, by the way). And that does it. few see that this term glosses over the fact that knowledge can't be owned at all. But the emotional impact of the starving inventor and "stealing intellectual property" are such that it become very hard to see the flaws of this analogy.

spiffworks 16y ago

Note: I posted this to your posterous blog as well, but I want to hear what HN has to say about this. When I first read about Emokit, I was really excited because the biggest barrier to entry in BCI research was being lifted. However, Emotiv is a startup, they're practically giving away the headsets for free because they expect to recover the expenses from the SDK licences they sell. Which is a good strategy since developers are the ones buying this thing right now. If Emokit becomes sufficiently mature and reliable, the number of licences that Emotiv sells will reduce, and I think we can count on the price of the headset going up. What daeken is doing is great. As a relatively poor BCI nut, I am grateful for the work he has started. However, in this case, his work is breaking the business model of an innovative startup. Should emotiv just suck it up and adjust? Edit: Of course, the piracy claims are just bullshit.

SageRaven 16y ago
Sounds a bit like the CueCat business model. It sounded bad back then, and it sounds bad now. It's cool that such a consumer device has come to market, and kudos to the clever folks who designed it, but everybody knows (or should know, anyway) that subsidizing hardware in this way is shaky ground to base a business upon.
patrickyeon 16y ago
> However, in this case, his work is breaking the business model of an innovative startup. I would argue that an innovative startup has bet on a broken business model. I didn't feel bad when the Xbox got hacked and Microsoft was selling us all (relatively) cheap PCs. I don't feel bad for the media industry that is trying to hold on to a broken business model. If Emotiv knew what they were doing, they knew they were taking this risk, and it's part of the initial cost to get their business going. If they don't know what they're doing (on the business side), they're doomed anyway.
- spiffworks 16y ago
  We should note that the subsidy is just speculation at this point, inferred from their knee-jerk reaction to daeken's work. That being said, I was just thinking that Emotiv could stand to make a lot more money by removing the subsidy(if there is one) and embracing Emokit. The existence of a FOSS SDK would lead to drastically improved sales for Emotiv, despite the(possibly) higher price. Their manufacturing seems to be saturated, however-the EPOC is significantly back-ordered.

Pyrodogg 16y ago

All rights exist on a scale from absolute to nothing. Two individuals with free will cannot completely overwill the other. There must be balance to mazimize the rights of both parties. So it is with producers of products and owners of products. If you buy something, you should have the right to do with it as you please for your personal use. The producer of said good may implicitly or explicitly (see licenses and patents) retain some right to exclusive first sale of the product that you have purchased. You still have the right to sell your good to another, but you do not necisarrily have the right to manufacture, distribute or produce it. Does sharing your insights into the design of the product on the internet equate to publishing their design content? Apparently so, according to the accusers. The internet especially has lowered the hurdles for anyone to compete in the intellectual property market. Some companies will fight tooth and nail for the rights or perceived rights to their IP. As a contrast, check out the efforts of the Open Hardware Summit. The OHS is drafting an open source hardware license that people and companies can apply to their products clearly defines that the products design can be distributed, changed and shared. http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/license/ http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/license/

araneae 16y ago
>You still have the right to sell your good to another ... you do not necisarrily have the right to ... distribute ... it. How is distributing something different from selling it? I just got a presentation at work today from a company, and they complained that a lot of their product was being resold by distributers, but there was nothing they could legally do to stop it besides only sell to individuals in small amounts.
- Pyrodogg 16y ago
  I suppose I was thinking of selling the one physical device you own vs. manufacturing and distributing them en masse. If you're still purchasing things from the original creator you should be able to distribute them all you want. Granted, at scale, commercial agreements and contracts would likely come into play.

pacemkr 16y ago

As consumers, we are not responsible for how a company intends to make money. If I buy something, I own it. If I license it, I explicitly know that it isn't mine. He bought it, its his. They don't get to say "this doesn't fit our business plan." Some time ago I bought an iPhone, went though the contract, and then changed carriers. I put the iPhone in a box, where it remained for the next year. One day I needed an iPhone to do some market research for a product I was making. "But wait, I _have_ an iPhone," I remembered. I took it out of the box and it didn't work; it was deactivated, because I'm not longer an AT&T customer. I had to spend the next four hours of my life jail breaking that phone -- I still needed it -- to make the iPhone I have "sort of" mine. This is after paying for the device and for a year of service under contract. After all that money spent, I still needed permission from two separate companies to use something that was mine in the first place. So after going though that experience, I don't really care if a company (startup or not) goes bust, come up with a better business model, not my problem. If I payed my money for it, I will do whatever I want with it.

danielnicollet 16y ago

It's true that no-one should not assume that hardware tinkering is immoral. It would be so much smarter to encourage it. It's a way like another to get people engaged with your product. Tinkering, hacking, or re-purposing what you fully own is a natural process, a human right. You can't stop it. Unless you want consumers to revert to a state where we just know how to use tools, not make or modify them!!

danielnicollet 16y ago

Oh and by the way, it would be great to hear a lawyer on the issue here. This reminds me vaguely of so many debates on software and media IP. But hardware is vastly different. Legal POV?

logic 16y ago

Emokit project announcement that led to this post: http://daeken.com/emokit-hacking-the-emotiv-epoc-brain-computer-0 http://daeken.com/emokit-hacking-the-emotiv-epoc-brain-compu... Discussion thread on Emotiv's forums relating to Cody's Emokit project: http://www.emotiv.com/forum/forum15/topic879/ http://www.emotiv.com/forum/forum15/topic879/

sqrt17 16y ago
The basic point seems to be this: * The Emotiv business plan seems to be based on some game-console like cost structure where developers would pay Emotiv so that they can release software, with the 300$ headset being sold as a loss leader and then recoups the cost through people buying software. Emotiv's investors seem to like that business model. * Having an open ecosystem around their EEG device would mean that the loss-leader business model doesn't work anymore and their investors are threatening to do ugly things if Emotiv doesn't get it under control. Now, which one is it? "Hooray, we can build an EEG at a consumer-friendly (for some value of consumer) price"? Or "We had a broken business model from the start, but we're going to blame our users"? Note that a slightly-expensive special-purpose device gets a significantly higher share of people interested in using it creatively than a tool that has a very obvious recreational and/or professional purpose, and already fulfills this purpose very well, such as a synthesizer keyboard. Trying the game consoles business model on an EEG device is similarly sensible as selling a 300$ CNC lathe that you can only use with bought programs that were written by random other people with more money on their hands.