Re: Realtime/embedded project to help with employment.

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@d2-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
: If the FSF is simply making an offer to you that you are free to accept 
: or reject, isn't that essentially what Microsoft is doing?

It is the same in so far as there are offers that you may be free
to accept or reject, but there seems to be a difference in the
kinds of offerings.

: You can 
: always say "no" and go get Linux or go buy a Sun machine or find some 
: other alternative - including not using a computer at all.

I don't think you can, if you are in computer business.
(I remember you writing "He who has the gold make the rules", roughly?)
It is the rules that are established in computer business that count for
many individual companies. If you look at the big picture, the IT market,
then questions to be answered include, "is this or that licensing scheme
good for the wealth of nations?"

There is not just one individual who makes a choice, but many.
The choices add up to the establishment of market constraints
by establishing an expectation of what is usually there
(for example, a windows media player with a number of codecs).
If some content provider now whishes to offer video streams, what
DMCA protection mechanism will they choose if any, and what will be
the cost of their choice? Do they really have a choice after
the more or less subtle and silent introduction of DMCA software
in windows media players? Do consumers and producers really have
the freedom to reject or accept DMCA players and MS streaming software?


Georg