6 ms·

The quoted part above is about shipping products too, so I don't understand why they are using that as an example about not being able to play around with somet

by IanCal 2y ago

The quoted part above is about shipping products too, so I don't understand why they are using that as an example about not being able to play around with something or write blog posts. Here's the FAQ question > What Would Prevent A Company From Shipping A Product Based On OpenThread Without Joining The Thread Group?

jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Answer, also quotes in the post: > If developers choose not to join Thread Group and ship products using Thread technology, they are not conferred the IP rights required to practice and ship Thread technology, and may subject themselves to legal action, including but not limited to licensing fees. It feels like even sharing my designs run a major risk of landing me in trouble. This sounds catastrophically hostile to open source in general. If I ever want to make use of what I've built in any even remotely commercial setting, everything I've built feels liable to be infected & polluted with this copyright. I could rip out Threads & still not feel safe. I definitely can't sell a couple copies of this cool thing to other hobbyists on indiegogo. The terms of use essentially outlaw community. Yes, maybe hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot form communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell boards to each other, they can't even talk about the protocol or spec on detail. So yeah, hobbyists arent expressly forbidden. But having any community of hobbyists seems fraught with difficulties. You can only hobbyist by yourself, discussing with no one. Fuck Threads.
- IanCal 2y ago
  Hang on that's a huge leap. > Yes, maybe hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot form communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell boards to each other, they can't even talk about the protocol or spec on detail. But it just says you can't ship products and talking isn't shipping a product. The only part I see there is what if you sell things built on it. Like sure it could be more open and sure having some small business exemption would be good but that's not the same as not being allowed to just make some stuff and talk about it.
  - lelanthran 2y ago
    What do you think they mean by this: > Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications.
    - scotty79 2y ago
      That if you are a corporation that wants to use this tech in your products (devices) you are advised to join Thread Group as soon as possible because you'll be required to do that when you ship stuff anyways. Possibly compelled by court if you resist. They probably didn't expect interest from singular hobbyists, let alone hobbyists reading what they put out in the most uncharitable fashion. They have some clarifying to do if they decide that they care.
      - ang_cire 2y ago
        You are ignoring "practice", which in this context means any kind of operational use, including things like research (they also specify "implementation" separately, to explicitly cover development of products). Practice here is as in "practice medicine", not "practice for tryouts".
        scotty79 2y ago
        "practice" here probably means use in your business of manufacturing devices
        lelanthran 2y ago
        > "practice" here probably means use in your business of manufacturing devices "probably"? It's a legal document that lists the things you may not do as vaguely and as broad as possible, and lists suing you as the first recourse in their remediation. It's unwise to err on the side of "allowed" instead of erring on the side of "disallowed".
        2y ago
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  Then don't use this or teach it. Don't build for it. Isolate it. Let it die. Cut off its supply. Make it irrelevant. Exclude it from connectivity options by default, out of caution. It seems pointless to complain that you can't have a bite of the poison fruit. But also make sure others know. Actively warn and discourage other developers away from that technology. Make "Threads" regret their lack of openness.
  - ang_cire 2y ago
    The problem is that individuals cannot cut it out, because big tech firms use it pretty widely. It's basically a moat that allows companies to ship products using a shared standard, but makes it impossible for individual developers to (especially ones who aren't actively trying to start a business, but even then, $7500 a year is a lot for a garage-level startup for a technical standard). Imagine how much less innovation there would be if it cost $7,500 a year to write anything that uses the Internet Protocol suite of standards.
    - nonrandomstring 2y ago
      I don't like to make predictions, but I think it will all eventually be swept away by forced open interoperability that is coming in strong from Europe. I don't feel any loss for independent developers who feel excluded from proprietary, locked "markets". It's saving them from wasting time. Let's check-in again on this situation in a couple of years. I'll bet "threads" is not even on the map. In the long game it always pays to go with the most free, open and interoperable standards, even if it limits opportunities in the short term.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  > hobbyists aren't expressly forbidden. Also, I don't think it helps to use this word "hobbyists". The entire world runs on free open source software written by unpaid volunteers who are poorly supported, isolated, and exploited by mega tech corporations that are parasitical on their work. "hobbyists" sounds demeaning, It makes it sound like the great under-structure of common coding is somehow less-than-serious, somehow outside some commercial ecosystem rather than the very soil and food that sustains it. This (self) perception needs to change. Big Tech would die tomorrow without the "hobbyists" it depends on.
lelanthran 2y ago
> so I don't understand why they are using that as an example about not being able to play around with something or write blog posts. It's seems pretty clear-cut to me: Q: What Would Prevent A Company From Shipping A Product Based On OpenThread Without Joining The Thread Group? A: (roughly) You will be sued Now, what does the word "product" in "Shipping a product based on OpenThread" mean? A product is any (or some combination of) the following: 1. A devkit 2. A book 3. A blog post 4. Any hardware that uses Thread So, yeah, you can't write a tutorial for using Thread, or make a doorbell for your mum's house, or tell your friend how to read the protocol, or start up a /r/thread community to help each other use it. Looks pretty damned locked down to me, without at least the FRAND loopholes.
- IanCal 2y ago
  Where is that definition of product from? Is that in their license agreement?
  - lelanthran 2y ago
    What is your definition of a product based on (from their license) "Thread technology and Thread Group specifications"? Why would a book, or tutorial, or blog post be excluded from the clause "Thread technology and Thread Group specifications"?
    - scotty79 2y ago
      Obviously a device because when hardware peopl say product they don't mean book or youtube video.
      - ang_cire 2y ago
        These aren't "hardware people" writing the licenses, they're "legal people", i.e. lawyers.
        scotty79 2y ago

by IanCal 2y ago

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

Answer, also quotes in the post: > If developers choose not to join Thread Group and ship products using Thread technology, they are not conferred the IP rights required to practice and ship Thread technology, and may subject themselves to legal action, including but not limited to licensing fees. It feels like even sharing my designs run a major risk of landing me in trouble. This sounds catastrophically hostile to open source in general. If I ever want to make use of what I've built in any even remotely commercial setting, everything I've built feels liable to be infected & polluted with this copyright. I could rip out Threads & still not feel safe. I definitely can't sell a couple copies of this cool thing to other hobbyists on indiegogo. The terms of use essentially outlaw community. Yes, maybe hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot form communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell boards to each other, they can't even talk about the protocol or spec on detail. So yeah, hobbyists arent expressly forbidden. But having any community of hobbyists seems fraught with difficulties. You can only hobbyist by yourself, discussing with no one. Fuck Threads.

IanCal 2y ago
Hang on that's a huge leap. > Yes, maybe hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot form communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell boards to each other, they can't even talk about the protocol or spec on detail. But it just says you can't ship products and talking isn't shipping a product. The only part I see there is what if you sell things built on it. Like sure it could be more open and sure having some small business exemption would be good but that's not the same as not being allowed to just make some stuff and talk about it.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  What do you think they mean by this: > Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    That if you are a corporation that wants to use this tech in your products (devices) you are advised to join Thread Group as soon as possible because you'll be required to do that when you ship stuff anyways. Possibly compelled by court if you resist. They probably didn't expect interest from singular hobbyists, let alone hobbyists reading what they put out in the most uncharitable fashion. They have some clarifying to do if they decide that they care.
    - ang_cire 2y ago
      You are ignoring "practice", which in this context means any kind of operational use, including things like research (they also specify "implementation" separately, to explicitly cover development of products). Practice here is as in "practice medicine", not "practice for tryouts".
      - scotty79 2y ago
        "practice" here probably means use in your business of manufacturing devices
        lelanthran 2y ago
        > "practice" here probably means use in your business of manufacturing devices "probably"? It's a legal document that lists the things you may not do as vaguely and as broad as possible, and lists suing you as the first recourse in their remediation. It's unwise to err on the side of "allowed" instead of erring on the side of "disallowed".
        2y ago
nonrandomstring 2y ago
Then don't use this or teach it. Don't build for it. Isolate it. Let it die. Cut off its supply. Make it irrelevant. Exclude it from connectivity options by default, out of caution. It seems pointless to complain that you can't have a bite of the poison fruit. But also make sure others know. Actively warn and discourage other developers away from that technology. Make "Threads" regret their lack of openness.
- ang_cire 2y ago
  The problem is that individuals cannot cut it out, because big tech firms use it pretty widely. It's basically a moat that allows companies to ship products using a shared standard, but makes it impossible for individual developers to (especially ones who aren't actively trying to start a business, but even then, $7500 a year is a lot for a garage-level startup for a technical standard). Imagine how much less innovation there would be if it cost $7,500 a year to write anything that uses the Internet Protocol suite of standards.
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    I don't like to make predictions, but I think it will all eventually be swept away by forced open interoperability that is coming in strong from Europe. I don't feel any loss for independent developers who feel excluded from proprietary, locked "markets". It's saving them from wasting time. Let's check-in again on this situation in a couple of years. I'll bet "threads" is not even on the map. In the long game it always pays to go with the most free, open and interoperable standards, even if it limits opportunities in the short term.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
> hobbyists aren't expressly forbidden. Also, I don't think it helps to use this word "hobbyists". The entire world runs on free open source software written by unpaid volunteers who are poorly supported, isolated, and exploited by mega tech corporations that are parasitical on their work. "hobbyists" sounds demeaning, It makes it sound like the great under-structure of common coding is somehow less-than-serious, somehow outside some commercial ecosystem rather than the very soil and food that sustains it. This (self) perception needs to change. Big Tech would die tomorrow without the "hobbyists" it depends on.

lelanthran 2y ago

> so I don't understand why they are using that as an example about not being able to play around with something or write blog posts. It's seems pretty clear-cut to me: Q: What Would Prevent A Company From Shipping A Product Based On OpenThread Without Joining The Thread Group? A: (roughly) You will be sued Now, what does the word "product" in "Shipping a product based on OpenThread" mean? A product is any (or some combination of) the following: 1. A devkit 2. A book 3. A blog post 4. Any hardware that uses Thread So, yeah, you can't write a tutorial for using Thread, or make a doorbell for your mum's house, or tell your friend how to read the protocol, or start up a /r/thread community to help each other use it. Looks pretty damned locked down to me, without at least the FRAND loopholes.

IanCal 2y ago
Where is that definition of product from? Is that in their license agreement?
- lelanthran 2y ago
  What is your definition of a product based on (from their license) "Thread technology and Thread Group specifications"? Why would a book, or tutorial, or blog post be excluded from the clause "Thread technology and Thread Group specifications"?
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Obviously a device because when hardware peopl say product they don't mean book or youtube video.
    - ang_cire 2y ago
      These aren't "hardware people" writing the licenses, they're "legal people", i.e. lawyers.
      - scotty79 2y ago