3 ms·

I enthusiastically endorse this sentiment until I remember I'm a software engineer whose career depends pretty fundamentally on copyright law. As an industry,

by sowbug 3y ago

I enthusiastically endorse this sentiment until I remember I'm a software engineer whose career depends pretty fundamentally on copyright law. As an industry, we sell things that make hardware more useful. That's what software is. But the software we sell* comes with legal restrictions on what the buyer* can and can't do with it. Which means that we're restricting what our customers can do with the hardware that they own. And we do all that for money. *Substitute whatever you think the right terms are for these words (licensor, licensee, borrower, tenant, serf...) If we sold an app on a mobile-phone store, and a h4ck0rz came out with a crack that unlocked the premium features on it, we'd take measures to stifle it (patching the code, increasing the obfuscation, sending a complaint upstream of whoever was distributing it, etc.), and I don't think any of us would think we're bad guys for doing so. We're just trying to feed our families. And I doubt any of us would feel compassion for someone who said they paid for that phone, own its hardware, and can do whatever they want with it including run your paid software for free. Tesla's sin, if any, is that they sold us hardware that's designed to work only with their software. And "their" software could include software they licensed from your company, if you work in their software supply chain. Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"?

snypher 3y ago
This is probably not productive, but I think the response would be; I bought the software from you so it's mine now.
- spoiler 3y ago
  Yeah these discussions always give me a bit of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, I like owning my software or content I purchased (talking about DRM) On the other, people expect most things to be a "live service" in terms of updates, which isn't sustainable if you only ever get paid a small onetime fee for your software. If you make the fee large, like Modo/Photoshop did, then it acts as a financial gatekeeper to your product. Even then, I feel like it creates wrong incentives for the product, so I'm not sure it's good either.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > On the other, people expect most things to be a "live service" in terms of updates Do they? Most people I know don't want anything to update as long as it's working. They don't want new features. They don't want new UI changes. They'll dismiss/ignore prompts to update for as long as they possibly can. In very very rare cases people want "live service". They want their GPS to give them traffic information for example, but otherwise they don't want anything but bug fixes. Photoshop for example doesn't need to be constantly updated and a version of photoshop from 10-15 years ago would be just fine for the vast majority of people. The idea that software has to either be insanely expensive or a subscription is a false dichotomy.
    - kentm 3y ago
      Yeah, exactly this. Companies want live services because they want to charge recurring fees. Customers want to buy and own software.
TremendousJudge 3y ago
As a software engineer, I don't sell software, I'm paid to make it. I don't even own it afterwards. I hear some people are paid to develop open source software. I don't think my career depends "pretty fundamentally" con copyright law, as if the software I produce is otherwise worthless. Most people on the planet can't do the work I do, which means that somebody pays me for this work. Changing copyright law wouldn't change this fact -- at most it could affect my pay grade.
kajecounterhack 3y ago
> Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"? If someone roots their phone or car, which they own, despite the manufacturer's best efforts to prevent this, it should be legal because they are modifying a physical object they purchased. If they teach other people to root their devices, it should be legal the same way teaching lockpicking is legal if you're just lockpicking something you own. Nobody is asking manufacturers to stop trying to get in the way of people hacking their devices. Most people won't have the skills or desire to jailbreak anyway. But John Deere will sue farmers who try to fix their tractors themselves, Sony will sue you for jailbreaking your PS3, etc etc. That's wrong. Additionally, DRM generates physical waste by making it hard for people to fix things they bought. The right to repair is important. For software, illicit redistribution is covered by copyright law, no? But the same is true: if you own a copy of software and want to hack it (e.g. mod a game you bought) why should that be illegal, provided you were able to get around the game's built-in circumventions?
lamontcg 3y ago
That isn't the only way to sell software, it is a relatively recent invention, I honestly wouldn't care if that went away.
epups 3y ago
> Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"? There's something obscene about unlocking existing physical features with more money, but there's also our mental model of what ownership means. Imagine you buy a new fridge, and it has an extra compartment that is installed, gets cooled but you have to pay to unlock. No one could ever verify that you didn't rip it open yourself. I don't think anyone would object either. The current monetization strategies for software favor the corporations. They can withhold service in case of no payment, and they are trying to do the same to hardware. I personally feel we should regulate this as soon as possible, otherwise things like right to repair will simply disappear.
Ukv 3y ago
> But the software we sell* comes with legal restrictions on what the buyer* can and can't do with it. Which means that we're restricting what our customers can do with the hardware that they own. I'd say the software equivalent to right to repair would specifically be about restrictions against inspecting/decompiling/modifying the software running on your machine. While I also think copyright is flawed in general, restrictions against redistribution of the software seem like a separate matter - in the same way hardware right to repair doesn't mean you can set up a manufacturing line for new John Deere tractors to sell to others. > h4ck0rz came out with a crack that unlocked the premium features on it If someone grafts on useful features using only what you have already downloaded to my device, I think that's fair game.

by sowbug 3y ago

snypher 3y ago

This is probably not productive, but I think the response would be; I bought the software from you so it's mine now.

spoiler 3y ago
Yeah these discussions always give me a bit of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, I like owning my software or content I purchased (talking about DRM) On the other, people expect most things to be a "live service" in terms of updates, which isn't sustainable if you only ever get paid a small onetime fee for your software. If you make the fee large, like Modo/Photoshop did, then it acts as a financial gatekeeper to your product. Even then, I feel like it creates wrong incentives for the product, so I'm not sure it's good either.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > On the other, people expect most things to be a "live service" in terms of updates Do they? Most people I know don't want anything to update as long as it's working. They don't want new features. They don't want new UI changes. They'll dismiss/ignore prompts to update for as long as they possibly can. In very very rare cases people want "live service". They want their GPS to give them traffic information for example, but otherwise they don't want anything but bug fixes. Photoshop for example doesn't need to be constantly updated and a version of photoshop from 10-15 years ago would be just fine for the vast majority of people. The idea that software has to either be insanely expensive or a subscription is a false dichotomy.
  - kentm 3y ago
    Yeah, exactly this. Companies want live services because they want to charge recurring fees. Customers want to buy and own software.

TremendousJudge 3y ago

As a software engineer, I don't sell software, I'm paid to make it. I don't even own it afterwards. I hear some people are paid to develop open source software. I don't think my career depends "pretty fundamentally" con copyright law, as if the software I produce is otherwise worthless. Most people on the planet can't do the work I do, which means that somebody pays me for this work. Changing copyright law wouldn't change this fact -- at most it could affect my pay grade.

kajecounterhack 3y ago

> Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"? If someone roots their phone or car, which they own, despite the manufacturer's best efforts to prevent this, it should be legal because they are modifying a physical object they purchased. If they teach other people to root their devices, it should be legal the same way teaching lockpicking is legal if you're just lockpicking something you own. Nobody is asking manufacturers to stop trying to get in the way of people hacking their devices. Most people won't have the skills or desire to jailbreak anyway. But John Deere will sue farmers who try to fix their tractors themselves, Sony will sue you for jailbreaking your PS3, etc etc. That's wrong. Additionally, DRM generates physical waste by making it hard for people to fix things they bought. The right to repair is important. For software, illicit redistribution is covered by copyright law, no? But the same is true: if you own a copy of software and want to hack it (e.g. mod a game you bought) why should that be illegal, provided you were able to get around the game's built-in circumventions?

lamontcg 3y ago

That isn't the only way to sell software, it is a relatively recent invention, I honestly wouldn't care if that went away.

epups 3y ago

> Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"? There's something obscene about unlocking existing physical features with more money, but there's also our mental model of what ownership means. Imagine you buy a new fridge, and it has an extra compartment that is installed, gets cooled but you have to pay to unlock. No one could ever verify that you didn't rip it open yourself. I don't think anyone would object either. The current monetization strategies for software favor the corporations. They can withhold service in case of no payment, and they are trying to do the same to hardware. I personally feel we should regulate this as soon as possible, otherwise things like right to repair will simply disappear.

Ukv 3y ago

> But the software we sell* comes with legal restrictions on what the buyer* can and can't do with it. Which means that we're restricting what our customers can do with the hardware that they own. I'd say the software equivalent to right to repair would specifically be about restrictions against inspecting/decompiling/modifying the software running on your machine. While I also think copyright is flawed in general, restrictions against redistribution of the software seem like a separate matter - in the same way hardware right to repair doesn't mean you can set up a manufacturing line for new John Deere tractors to sell to others. > h4ck0rz came out with a crack that unlocked the premium features on it If someone grafts on useful features using only what you have already downloaded to my device, I think that's fair game.