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It used to be that I could sit down at a computer and innovate-up a useful program and no one could say I couldn't. Maybe even try to make a business out of it.

by jeromec 16y ago

It used to be that I could sit down at a computer and innovate-up a useful program and no one could say I couldn't. Maybe even try to make a business out of it. Well hold on now. Don't be too quick to lump things in together. You can still sit down at a computer, innovate a program and make money from it. I do agree that serious help is needed in reforming software patents (as evidenced by Amazon's famous 1-click checkout patent), but IP law is what ensures someone can't hack into your files, steal your proprietary "innovative" programming and re-sell copies of it as their own to the customers you were planning to. Incidentally, that's why I side with the Sony and the law as referenced in this article. You get to say how your own code is or isn't used. If Sony wants the PS3 opensourced they can go that route, but it's not up to anyone else to take it upon themselves to make that decision for them. If programmers don't like Sony's verdict they can build their own player games. That's how a capitalist free market works.

marshray 16y ago
Sort of. It allows lawyers to make hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawsuits if/when it happens. In general though, it's the nature of software to make it hard for someone to steal whole-products worth of code and repurpose it for their own similar-but-different product. The problem is that current laws now allow someone else to force me to stop using my own code. Which is really a more dangerous threat as far as I'm concerned.
- jeromec 16y ago
  The problem is that current laws now allow someone else to force me to stop using my own code. Well, no, not exactly. Your reply is talking about patents, which I've agreed need reform. However, you're perfectly free to use and sell your own code, as long as it doesn't duplicate some function which enjoys patent protection. (the problem here is over broad or obvious patents, like Amazon's 1-click checkout) But even then you simply have to do away with the infringing portion. For example, there was a recent post on how storenvy.com just raised funding. Well, they might have had 1-click checkout as a web store function. In the worst case they would have to eliminate that and/or find an even more innovative way for ecommerce customers to check out, but it would not likely mean the end of their business.
  - marshray 16y ago
    In the best case it means a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which I don't have. Hence, not too inspired to innovate there. I'm transitioning my career from commercial software development to data security research/hacking. There's appreciation for innovation there, the business models are new and fluid and the lawyers haven't figured out how to attack them yet.
    - jeromec 16y ago
      I'm transitioning my career from commercial software development to data security research/hacking. I'm sorry you feel so constrained. To me that signals the current system is not optimum, but that's probably a lucrative decision either way.
      - marshray 16y ago
        I have to admit it's not totally due to IP, but the infosec field has fun smart people in it and has the feel of the early days of the PC. There's a real need for it and funding to match. Plus it's usually easier and more fun to break stuff than build it. :-)
msg 16y ago
That is what copyright is for, not patenting. If someone doesn't have a license to distribute your code, you can collect damages for copyright infringement. But patenting covers independent inventions of the same algorithms. And it's frequently used for ideas that are profoundly obvious, like a straightforward application of machine learning techniques to a particular data set (Bilski). So if you think of an idea by yourself, you can be sued for implementing it. As a developer, it is recommended that I not read patents, as if it is determined that I read a patent that I then violated, it will be triple damages in a lawsuit. So I have no way to avoid implementing somebody else's patent. Now Sony's lawsuit isn't about software, or patents. It is about certain special secret integers. It so happens that used with readily available software they blow a wide hole in Sony's horrible security system for the PS3. But Sony doesn't own those integers. It doesn't own the hardware it sold to people under pretenses that it would always run Linux, and it doesn't have the right to control how people would choose to use their hardware and GPU. Hotz never used PSN software or any of Sony's other products.
- jeromec 16y ago
  Now Sony's lawsuit isn't about software, or patents. It is about certain special secret integers. It so happens that used with readily available software they blow a wide hole in Sony's horrible security system for the PS3. I'm not familiar with the particulars of that case, so it's hard for me to make an informed opinion. However, I don't entirely buy a "secret integers" defense, because that could apply to any software, or any media for that matter. For example, any Microsoft operating system can be viewed as one long string of binary code. So, yes, Microsoft would have legally protected rights to that specific combination of numbers. To suggest "secret integers" can't be owned would be to say everyone owns anything anyone creates, even before it's created. Now, if this person simply devised some code which could crack another system which did NOT involve that system's original code I would agree there should be no prosecution.
  - marshray 16y ago
    These are not secret integers. In particular they are 46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2 as tweeted by the spokesperson of Sony himself: http://twitpic.com/3xwe6h http://twitpic.com/3xwe6h
tbrownaw 16y ago
> but IP law is what ensures someone can't hack into your files, steal your proprietary "innovative" programming and re-sell copies of it as their own to the customers you were planning to. I'm pretty sure breaking into someone's computer system like that is illegal regardless of IP laws, and history appears to show that understanding what you're selling gives a rather large advantage.
- jeromec 16y ago
  Well, someone else could have done the hacking and just threw your files up on bit torrent.
  - marshray 16y ago
    ...and if you think IP laws are going to be any help at all when that happens, well, I can show you a few torrent links that have been in the news recently.
marshray 16y ago
that's why I side with the Sony [...] That's how a capitalist free market works. The free market works such that after a product is sold, the seller has no rights it any more. They cannot remotely disable features after the sale. They cannot dictate what you can and can't do with it. The PS3 hackers didn't "open source" any of Sony's code, that's ridiculous. Their goal is to bypass it and load their own. They reverse engineered it for the purpose of enabling compatibility with other stuff and extending. This has a long tradition in the US. Perhaps you're old enough to remember when Ma Bell claimed it was illegal for anyone to plug in a home answering machine or for anyone else to make compatible telephones? After 70 years of R&D you had a choice of three kinds of home phones in one of several colors. The only leg that argument had to stand on was that they were a regulated monopoly and as such deserved protection from the free market. The US decided we'd had enough of that approach and told them otherwise. I don't even have space to list the choices in communications we gained since that that monopoly was broken up. That's how a free market works dude.
- jeromec 16y ago
  The free market works such that after a product is sold, the seller has no rights it any more. They cannot remotely disable features after the sale. I agree 100% (unless such special use terms were part of the sale upfront, see pay tv channels). They cannot dictate what you can and can't do with it. Not for personal use, no, and I should insist not. However, if I sell you a book I wrote, while you're quite free to read or burn your copy of it, I don't want you to scan copies and widely distribute it. The PS3 hackers didn't "open source" any of Sony's code, that's ridiculous. Their goal is to bypass it and load their own. They reverse engineered it for the purpose of enabling compatibility with other stuff and extending. This has a long tradition in the US. If they only took actions for their own personal use I have absolutely no objection. Quite the contrary, I'd encourage it. I can't say I remember the telephone incident, but I agree with your sentiments on that entirely.
- russell 16y ago
  It was the Carterphone decision in 1968. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone The Carterphone was a device that allowed amateur radio to connect to the phone system, albeit with a Bell interface device. Another decision in 1978 removed the requirement for the Bell interface. Before this decision you had to rent modems from ma bell or use acoustic modems. Those were the good old days when you dialed up your computer and stuffed the phone handset into the side of your teletype for an astounding 300 baud connection. Fortunately teletypes were so clunky that you couldnt type any faster than that any way.

by jeromec 16y ago

marshray 16y ago

Sort of. It allows lawyers to make hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawsuits if/when it happens. In general though, it's the nature of software to make it hard for someone to steal whole-products worth of code and repurpose it for their own similar-but-different product. The problem is that current laws now allow someone else to force me to stop using my own code. Which is really a more dangerous threat as far as I'm concerned.

jeromec 16y ago
The problem is that current laws now allow someone else to force me to stop using my own code. Well, no, not exactly. Your reply is talking about patents, which I've agreed need reform. However, you're perfectly free to use and sell your own code, as long as it doesn't duplicate some function which enjoys patent protection. (the problem here is over broad or obvious patents, like Amazon's 1-click checkout) But even then you simply have to do away with the infringing portion. For example, there was a recent post on how storenvy.com just raised funding. Well, they might have had 1-click checkout as a web store function. In the worst case they would have to eliminate that and/or find an even more innovative way for ecommerce customers to check out, but it would not likely mean the end of their business.
- marshray 16y ago
  In the best case it means a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which I don't have. Hence, not too inspired to innovate there. I'm transitioning my career from commercial software development to data security research/hacking. There's appreciation for innovation there, the business models are new and fluid and the lawyers haven't figured out how to attack them yet.
  - jeromec 16y ago
    I'm transitioning my career from commercial software development to data security research/hacking. I'm sorry you feel so constrained. To me that signals the current system is not optimum, but that's probably a lucrative decision either way.
    - marshray 16y ago
      I have to admit it's not totally due to IP, but the infosec field has fun smart people in it and has the feel of the early days of the PC. There's a real need for it and funding to match. Plus it's usually easier and more fun to break stuff than build it. :-)

msg 16y ago

That is what copyright is for, not patenting. If someone doesn't have a license to distribute your code, you can collect damages for copyright infringement. But patenting covers independent inventions of the same algorithms. And it's frequently used for ideas that are profoundly obvious, like a straightforward application of machine learning techniques to a particular data set (Bilski). So if you think of an idea by yourself, you can be sued for implementing it. As a developer, it is recommended that I not read patents, as if it is determined that I read a patent that I then violated, it will be triple damages in a lawsuit. So I have no way to avoid implementing somebody else's patent. Now Sony's lawsuit isn't about software, or patents. It is about certain special secret integers. It so happens that used with readily available software they blow a wide hole in Sony's horrible security system for the PS3. But Sony doesn't own those integers. It doesn't own the hardware it sold to people under pretenses that it would always run Linux, and it doesn't have the right to control how people would choose to use their hardware and GPU. Hotz never used PSN software or any of Sony's other products.

jeromec 16y ago
Now Sony's lawsuit isn't about software, or patents. It is about certain special secret integers. It so happens that used with readily available software they blow a wide hole in Sony's horrible security system for the PS3. I'm not familiar with the particulars of that case, so it's hard for me to make an informed opinion. However, I don't entirely buy a "secret integers" defense, because that could apply to any software, or any media for that matter. For example, any Microsoft operating system can be viewed as one long string of binary code. So, yes, Microsoft would have legally protected rights to that specific combination of numbers. To suggest "secret integers" can't be owned would be to say everyone owns anything anyone creates, even before it's created. Now, if this person simply devised some code which could crack another system which did NOT involve that system's original code I would agree there should be no prosecution.
- marshray 16y ago
  These are not secret integers. In particular they are 46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2 as tweeted by the spokesperson of Sony himself: http://twitpic.com/3xwe6h http://twitpic.com/3xwe6h

tbrownaw 16y ago

> but IP law is what ensures someone can't hack into your files, steal your proprietary "innovative" programming and re-sell copies of it as their own to the customers you were planning to. I'm pretty sure breaking into someone's computer system like that is illegal regardless of IP laws, and history appears to show that understanding what you're selling gives a rather large advantage.

jeromec 16y ago
Well, someone else could have done the hacking and just threw your files up on bit torrent.
- marshray 16y ago
  ...and if you think IP laws are going to be any help at all when that happens, well, I can show you a few torrent links that have been in the news recently.

marshray 16y ago

that's why I side with the Sony [...] That's how a capitalist free market works. The free market works such that after a product is sold, the seller has no rights it any more. They cannot remotely disable features after the sale. They cannot dictate what you can and can't do with it. The PS3 hackers didn't "open source" any of Sony's code, that's ridiculous. Their goal is to bypass it and load their own. They reverse engineered it for the purpose of enabling compatibility with other stuff and extending. This has a long tradition in the US. Perhaps you're old enough to remember when Ma Bell claimed it was illegal for anyone to plug in a home answering machine or for anyone else to make compatible telephones? After 70 years of R&D you had a choice of three kinds of home phones in one of several colors. The only leg that argument had to stand on was that they were a regulated monopoly and as such deserved protection from the free market. The US decided we'd had enough of that approach and told them otherwise. I don't even have space to list the choices in communications we gained since that that monopoly was broken up. That's how a free market works dude.

jeromec 16y ago
The free market works such that after a product is sold, the seller has no rights it any more. They cannot remotely disable features after the sale. I agree 100% (unless such special use terms were part of the sale upfront, see pay tv channels). They cannot dictate what you can and can't do with it. Not for personal use, no, and I should insist not. However, if I sell you a book I wrote, while you're quite free to read or burn your copy of it, I don't want you to scan copies and widely distribute it. The PS3 hackers didn't "open source" any of Sony's code, that's ridiculous. Their goal is to bypass it and load their own. They reverse engineered it for the purpose of enabling compatibility with other stuff and extending. This has a long tradition in the US. If they only took actions for their own personal use I have absolutely no objection. Quite the contrary, I'd encourage it. I can't say I remember the telephone incident, but I agree with your sentiments on that entirely.
russell 16y ago
It was the Carterphone decision in 1968. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone The Carterphone was a device that allowed amateur radio to connect to the phone system, albeit with a Bell interface device. Another decision in 1978 removed the requirement for the Bell interface. Before this decision you had to rent modems from ma bell or use acoustic modems. Those were the good old days when you dialed up your computer and stuffed the phone handset into the side of your teletype for an astounding 300 baud connection. Fortunately teletypes were so clunky that you couldnt type any faster than that any way.