I noted last week that Jonathan Schwartz
of Sun gave an interesting, confusing and troubling (to me) presentation
at the Aspen Summit on Sun's new open source DRM solution, called DReaM.
Schwartz has responded to some of the questions in a blog entry here.
It's good of Schwartz to respond, and this is part of what makes blogs such useful marketing devices.
I still think my initial reaction was correct; namely, that all this really represents is Sun's attempt to make sure that Microsoft's DRM technology does not become the industry standard. There seems to be some concern that Microsoft will want to be paid every time its DRM technology is used, and if MS's DRM becomes the industry standard, it will become a threatening monopoly.
I see very little risk of that happening. I also have no problem with Sun trying to develop an open source DRM solution. The important thing, of course, is that Sun not try to get the government to legislate against proprietary DRM solutions and in favor of open source ones. Companies should have the right to use whatever protection technologies they think best work for their business and for their customer's desires. This is one area where we're going to have to watch how people define the term "standards."
Finally, my IP skeptic antennae picked this up from Schwartz's blog entry:
This is the problem that reasonable open source advocates are going to have: The driving force behind the open source movement is not pragmatism. Pragmatic IT directors are indeed using and incorporating open source as part of their software portfolio, which also includes a healthy dose of proprietary solutions. And my guess is that open source software will remain with us for the foreseeable future in particular niche applications. But the ones who are driving the movement are the radical ideologues, and they're going to bitterly turn on companies when they find out that these companies are not really trying to drive an economic revolution and throw off the proletariat proprietary software companies, copyright and patent industries.
It's tough to be rational and pragmatic in a movement being driven by neoMarxists.
Schwartz has responded to some of the questions in a blog entry here.
It's good of Schwartz to respond, and this is part of what makes blogs such useful marketing devices.
I still think my initial reaction was correct; namely, that all this really represents is Sun's attempt to make sure that Microsoft's DRM technology does not become the industry standard. There seems to be some concern that Microsoft will want to be paid every time its DRM technology is used, and if MS's DRM becomes the industry standard, it will become a threatening monopoly.
I see very little risk of that happening. I also have no problem with Sun trying to develop an open source DRM solution. The important thing, of course, is that Sun not try to get the government to legislate against proprietary DRM solutions and in favor of open source ones. Companies should have the right to use whatever protection technologies they think best work for their business and for their customer's desires. This is one area where we're going to have to watch how people define the term "standards."
Finally, my IP skeptic antennae picked this up from Schwartz's blog entry:
Since Sunday, I've gotten a round of communications from those that believe the whole concept of IP is suspect, and digital rights management of any form is immoral (one writer used "evil").
This is the problem that reasonable open source advocates are going to have: The driving force behind the open source movement is not pragmatism. Pragmatic IT directors are indeed using and incorporating open source as part of their software portfolio, which also includes a healthy dose of proprietary solutions. And my guess is that open source software will remain with us for the foreseeable future in particular niche applications. But the ones who are driving the movement are the radical ideologues, and they're going to bitterly turn on companies when they find out that these companies are not really trying to drive an economic revolution and throw off the proletariat proprietary software companies, copyright and patent industries.
It's tough to be rational and pragmatic in a movement being driven by neoMarxists.