Weekly Edition
Return to the Press page
| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer)
Over the years, your editor has seen several "platform X will lock Linux
out of the market" stories. Here's the latest installment: a lengthy Inquirer
article on how Intel is handing the digital video market to Microsoft.
"The vehicle to do this is called East Fork, the upcoming and
regrettable Intel digital media 'platform'. The funny part is that the
scheme is already a failure, but it will hurt you as it thrashes before it
dies. Be afraid, be very afraid."
(Log in to post comments)
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 15, 2005 19:51 UTC (Fri) by thompsot (guest, #12368) [Link]
Long live AMD
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 15, 2005 20:23 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Long live Linux. Long live FreeBSD. Long live VxWorks. Next generation of Mars rovers will run Windows CE. Because everybody needs to watch "Matrix Reloaded" on every digital device, from a pocket player to the largest supercomputer.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 15, 2005 20:31 UTC (Fri) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] So I read the article and I still don't see how this affects Linux.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 0:35 UTC (Sat) by philips (guest, #937) [Link] I do see how. While M$ will play with content locking toys from Intel, Linux might gain a number of new users. The users burned they fingers with M$' DRM and friends. (*) No other relation.
M$ can do what ever stupid things they have money for. P.S. Just try to imaging what kind of pain could be recovery DRMed OS. Windoze is now barely recoverable - DRM will make it only worse. And after recovery all your precious data "gone with the wind". Something similar happened to me. I do not do such things anymore: say chances that valuable info in open format will be stolen vs. it will be dumbly lost to DRM are equal. But open data have advantage of being at least recoverable from OS/hardware failures.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 15, 2005 20:52 UTC (Fri) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link] They're going to segment their own weakening market. That is great news for AMD and also provides a new market for them to reach into.
Isn't this a bad time to take on the image of a monopoly player when they already have an anti-trust suit filed against them?
BTW - there are no tintel CPUs on my MOSIX clustered Puffin Farm.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 15, 2005 21:47 UTC (Fri) by mormop (guest, #13775) [Link] It's funny you know. I run Linux at home and Linux servers at work but Iwork on a network running 200+ computers and that number is set to expand. I also build PCs for myself, friends, relatives and their friends. I also get regularly asked by various people which PC spec to go for. Now I may only be one Linux user but when you look at it I have a pretty wide net of users and PCs that basically do what I tell them and I suspect that there are many more Linux techies in the same position. What am I on about? Well simple. From now on I will recommend nothing but AMD to people. OK so I already do (generally) but I now wish that the dual Xeon I specced at work had been a dual Opteron and in future any new servers will be. So what, you may be thinking, but I've already stolen several hundred sales from Intel and I will continue to do so. If a thousand people did the same we're talking hundreds of thousands, possibly millions if enough do the same. So spread the word, Intel Suck!
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 17, 2005 19:57 UTC (Sun) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] I've the almost the same responsabilitys. I recommend AMD because for many tasks it is already a superior CPU. But boycoting Intel wont do the trick, because the *REAL* lock would be a CPU+chipset+BIOS work.
For years that the Linux/FOSS should have approached the more general hardware industry probably with some kind of "split driver model" (me again) that would cut the fear and avoid the patent ridlled hardare designs of general hardware industry( meaning Nvidia,VIA,SiS,ATI,Creative,...), and launch the possibility of having an evolving Linux/FOSS hardware platform with an Open/Linux BIOS.
But no, the approach was always that harware should bend over, and many with responsabilitys in many projects embraced the campaing! (wonder if those call RMS a zealot?!!) because they feel save in the intensive feature competition of the *if not moribund certainly each time more niched* Big Iron server arena.
In justice it must be said that most of those "hardware should bend over" evangelists, of whom the world must be thankfully for their geniality and altruism, were/are employed by big vendors apparatus that had long time established Linux/FOSS in server, M$ on Desktop & Ubber tier small server, with many *Linux not ready for Desktop* campaigns launched, and now Microsoft wants to make friends(who needs enemys?);... so even if those wanted to do something they have their hands tied. There is no hipocrisy in here or a harsh bashing, only the constatation of facts.
DELL tryed to create some slack by presenting DKMS for the most important FOSS project the Linux kernel. It could(*SHOULD*) have turned into the default module management system, but even that will not do the trick because there is no consistent HAL or HALs, or APIs at each subsystem level or any other interface(not necessarly ABI imperative) differentiating a kernel tree from the *out of kernel tree non derivative modules*; that is, if 'Hardware Device Drivers' specific modules are Open or Closed source in nature should make no difference because either way they can't be considered derivative works;... but even if there were i´m convinced that the *apparatus* would try to severely downplay it.
The official kernel policy is in favor of that "no API" tye, because they lack the vision of common Joe user needs and mentality, and honestly belived they could educate the world in the ways of the better suited hacker developer approach, and so no need for any API compliance since it in fact gets in the way of *FAST & FURIOUS* open source development methods. But true is that common Joe dosen't even want to ear about source code and angers at those that try to enlight them.
The *bad thing* is that *WITHOUT* some critical adoption mass, and for that the desktop and the common Joe behind it are crucial, even Big Iron server is at danger because the DRM lock will be in control from the desktop place, impeaching to collaborate with any server that they dont want to. So Microsoft is approaching the 'Big Vendor'-Unix/Linux/Server/CPU /Others: hey! lets make friends!... our servers for big tasks is a crap(doubt they ever be honest, but anyway...), you can have the market that you already have, you'll have better profits dealling with our insecure desktops since services are central to Linux/FOSS and yours business models, you can also have more profits with a DRM protected web service paradigma;... so jump on our bandwagon, and help us cut the air of the fanatic Linux/FOSS Desktop people that are threatening our business model and *REALLY* competing with us in a market that you are not??!!!...
Of course i'm speculating above, but the scenario fits to the milimeter with the reality, at least the reality i perceive... and Intel seems to be the Big first to jump on it!
Nothing is lost,.. because if at first i also belived that a kernel with a superior hardware detecting mechanism, should have all 'Hardware Device Drivers' completly integrated, because that could simplify insertion and changing and be better suited for even the dumbest common Joe user, the simple fact that the 2 most important Hardware Manufactors Nvidia and ATI wont comply is reason enough to abandon that approach for something more fited, since Graphics are the most crucial piece of any Desktop you could think of!... and though the sympathy and thankfulness we all have for "benevolent dictators" and many many others, the reality is that the Linux kernel is probably the most forked software project ever!... only misses some fork that will not have a "no API compliance what so ever" complex, and a serious try to work togheter with graphic vendors, to start to make Microsoft eat some seriuos dust there in the back.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 18, 2005 22:44 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] That was a heck of a rant, but unfortunately quite incoherent.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 15, 2005 22:58 UTC (Fri) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link] Ha!
Have we mentioned lately that this is a free market economy?
No likee, no buyee. Simple.
And think another way: Intel is locking themselves into Microsoft on this platform. This is not a compulsory MS-only DRM rollout across every Pentium X chipset in existence. This is designing hardware around offered software, while also providing proof-of-concept material.
Nobody freak out. Exert your capitalist energies in useful channels, according to your desires as tool users.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 20:11 UTC (Sat) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] "Have we mentioned lately that this is a free market economy?"
When we are talking of goods protected by patents or copyrights, we are not talking of goods that are a part of a free market economy. There is, by definition, no free market in such goods. If I am wrong on this, please explain.
I had a long talk at dinner about this with some friends on Sunday past.
This morning I was wondering if free market thinkers think that copyrights and patents are worth the damage they must surely do to the free market.
Anyone care to take a shot at what percentage of the trade in the market involves goods protected by government awarded patends and copyrights?
all the best,
drew
http://yp.peercast.org/?find=bysa&Submit=Search
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 21:01 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link] > If I am wrong on this, please explain.I think the original poster wasn't referring to DRM-ified media, but rather to the Intel "media server PC" itself.
Boycotts are Obsolete Posted Jul 17, 2005 10:02 UTC (Sun) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link] Personally I tend not to buy movies or music. (I watch movies through my Netflix subscription or sometimes at the cinema, and I don't listen to much music except for my collection of old classical and folk CDs. So I'm not a pirate either).
However, the modern "media" market is far from the capitalist ideal of a "free and competitive market." It's dominated by a very small number of interlocking syndicates and conglomerates such that the vast majority of music and video/movie media which are available to consumers are only available in a limited number of ways.
In a truly free market then one could buy legal copies of a movie or CD disc anywhere in the world, ship it anywhere else in the world, and re-sell it at any price that this other market would endure. The whole idea of "region coding" in CSS and DVD players was to artificially segment the market --- so the conglomerates could charge one price in the U.S. and Western Europe and a much lower price (at a later date) in India, and other countries where the incomes and currency exchange rates are so disparate that virtuallly no one could afford the products.
In a free market economy the price of the most common goods will tend to migrate towards the cost of materials, production, and distribution (with enough margin to motivate the producers and distributors).
A movie might start out at one price (for those willing to pay a premium to see it sooner) and over time it would lower in price until the sales volume peaked; eventually it would then be available for an even lower price as the demand waned to the point where it was no longer economically viable to continue mass production (and the last inventories were discounted to clearance levels). Finally there might be a catalog of titles produced on-demand and priced at a level that roughly matched the low volume production costs with enough margin to support that segment of the industry. That model works even though each copyright is a "monopoly" for one particular work.
However, in our economy we have mega-conglomerates that own exclusive and long-term contracts on musicians, own studios, movie chains, distributors, chains of radio stations, music distribution channels and retailers, and the broadcast networks, publishers and newspapers in which all of this is advertised, and even the electronics companies which produce the devices on which these products are to be played. We have a situation where these mega-corps conspire with one another to control and limit the use and re-distribution of content beyond the rights that are guaranteed by our laws.
Effectively they are forming trusts which create their own laws --- then they buy politicians (through campaign financing) in order to enact extensions to their rights and new laws to enforce their extra-legal limitations. They implement "copy protection" technology and then pass a law making it a crime to bypass those features for *any* purpose. In that process they effectively eliminate many forms of fair use.
It's patently obvious that they intend to further constrict fair use.
Currently I can buy a CD and listen to it as often as I like and anywhere I like (so long as I'm not engaging in some sort of "public performance" of the work). Clearly they want to have a world where they can sell me a product that I can only use a limited number of times, preferably from a limited number of devices. They don't want to sell products they want to license access to individual performances.
It's fine for them to "want" that. It's wrong for us to allow them to create laws that enforce that.
Now, we could all boycott the big conglomerate produced movies and music. If enough people simply said: "No, I'll entertain myself for a change." than that would put a quick end to all of this. However, there are too many bi-pedal hairless sheep in the world. They comprise a critical mass of consumers that is large enough to sustain the media mega-corps for the foreseeable future. Also the media mega-corps control most of the public discourse (because they *are* the media and the majority of the sponsorship for the media).
Personally I think the future looks pretty bleak for media and entertainment computing.
JimD
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 21, 2005 6:46 UTC (Thu) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link] bingo. DRM is another battle, which is harder to fight because it's a vendor-to-vendor push. But a DRM platform has to become a tangible good somewhere along the line, and you can *politely, professionally, and rationally* explain to Intel why this particular implementation is not a market-desired good. If this is a test balloon, which it could easily be, future lines will succeed or fail based on its success or failure. Don't buy it. Teach a friend. Not a boycott, boycotts are stupid and ineffectual. Intel makes useful things. Just make sure that they know that you don't find this to be one of them. Then tell them how they can do better. Educate them. Consumers have power. Sensible corporations listen to their markets.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 15, 2005 23:12 UTC (Fri) by dang (subscriber, #310) [Link] The thrashing that I most fear would be thrashing that involved legal and economic pressure on AMD to likewise "enforce" DRM. Depending on who wins currently unsettled political battles, this could suck a whole lot harder than people seem to think.
DRM is ultimately a brain dead monster, true; but we could all be pretty inconvienced until the market or the politicians figure that out.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 0:03 UTC (Sat) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] One tinfoil-hat question to loft is, could this be the real motive for Jobs to position Appel in bed with Intel?Of course, I for one find it more feature than bug, the prospect of movies I wouldn't find appealing in the first place having even less playability on my hardware. To each their own. Go, AMD!
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 0:53 UTC (Sat) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] >One tinfoil-hat question to loft is, could this be the real motive for Jobs to position Apple in bed with Intel??
As opposed to working with both Intel and AMD, you may be on to something--this possibility was also floated on a couple of the Mac sites...considering Mr. Jobs wants to own all the multimedia disinfotainment floating out there. I also agree with your sentiment regarding the industry's current offerings... I find it hard to care about a lot of their current stuff, since I'd almost pay them to keep it away from me. But in a principle sense, of course I'm rather annoyed at them.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 12:28 UTC (Sat) by riteshsarraf (subscriber, #11138) [Link] The simple solution to it is:Don't purchase there bundled offering. Once they run out of sale, it will die itself.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 12:58 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] This is easy in theory, hard in practice: people are stupid and we do not have $300'000'000 to spend for campaign. This is really bad thing. When we had 10'000 incompatible DRM schemes it was wonderful: "normal" consumer was biten often enough to understand why DRM is bad. If there are single DRM scheme "normal" consumer will be content and minority will be ignored. This is why I have over 1'000 unwatched DVDs in my house: I know I'll be able to watch them in the future, I know my friends will be able to use them to produce AMVs and so on. Once "new dark age" (era where most information is lost forever for future historician since DRM does not offer a way to decrypt something 100 after it was sold) will come - I'll have something to watch and hear. For many years to come in fact :) P.S. Will term "new dark age" used as exlanation of what Intel and Microsoft are doing be good for campaign or not ?
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 16:00 UTC (Sat) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] > This is why I have over 1'000 unwatched DVDs in my house
Er... you've spent $20,000 or more on DVD's that you can't watch?
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 17, 2005 1:10 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I never said "I can't watch them" - I've just not had time to watch them all. There are of course hundred or two (may be more, but who's counting?) of DVDs I've already watched. Some - for more then one time...
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 18, 2005 1:27 UTC (Mon) by stock (guest, #5849) [Link] A population which allows itself to be dumbed down, will also be badlyaffected on other matters. If this Intel/DRM/TCPA/Microsoft deal becomes successful, it will mean that our society has also become a global Orwellian state. The signs to that are all over the place. The rate at which this proceeds, is closely dependent on the total number of Al-Qaeda bombs exploded per month. BTW , did i already mention that : "Al-Qaeda Is Fiction: The Organization Doesn't Exist" http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/040705doesn... Robert
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 16, 2005 16:39 UTC (Sat) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] s/there/their/More importantly, while individuals may well tell Wintel to talk to the hand, Companies and governments making large purchases are to be feared for creating an installed base of such. Betamax in the US Navy comes to mind; ships had those things long after the format had passed into legend elsewhere.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 18, 2005 20:14 UTC (Mon) by ronaldcole (guest, #1462) [Link] Congressmen will rue the day when they can't watch pr0n in the privacy of their homes/offices without Bill Gates knowing about it.
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market (Inquirer) Posted Jul 17, 2005 23:59 UTC (Sun) by roger (guest, #20985) [Link] Dunno about you guyz, but think I would rather get my news from something other then something called "The Inquirer".
(I've always used Intel cpu's and playing around with the AMD cpu boxes in stores seemed slow to me. Maybe it's just because they were running Windows?)
I think Intel knows if it does such a stunt, it would hurt it's market share significantly.
And??? Posted Jul 18, 2005 1:26 UTC (Mon) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] Another scheme to try to lock down a market. Wow.So then people will buy an Intel gizmo that will download movies. I can do that with my cable outfit already. So I may have the ability to watch movies purchased in this manner on some Apple gizmo. I already have a 50 dollar gizmo that I put the shiny discs I buy from Walmart for a low price, and it shows up on my TV. So I can watch !any! movie I want. Right now I can go to my video store and rent almost any movie that I want for a couple of bucks. These people are stupid. The only reason that computers are involved at all with movies is so that people can copy them. No other reason. Walmart doesn't dedicate shelf space to blank dvd's because they look nice. So they are trying to change peoples viewing habits, get them to purchase expensive new hardware whose primary focus and most important feature is preventing copying. Why should I do anything but buy a cheap dvd player and plug it into my tv if that is all I can do anyways? Derek
And??? Posted Jul 21, 2005 7:05 UTC (Thu) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link] Insightful. Either it's a computer, and it acts like a computer, in which case it'll be harder to use than a set-top box, thence smaller novice user population, or it's Yet Another Set-Top Box (YASTB) that nay idiot can plug in. One is innovative. Two is competition. Five is annoying. If it's a valuable service, it will get commoditized, and Intel and Microsoft will lose their investment to cheaper and more integrated competitors who reimplement the concept without the constraints. See TiVo and digital cable. You can't patent an idea. (So far.) The more specific the component specifications, the more prone to abstraction away from a specific implementation. The cheaper parts aren't DRM enabled, but can perform the same end-user function, and DRM isn't an end-user function for playing media. So who needs it?
|
|
||||||||||||