MPAA PWNED

Origins of the Word
Sorry. My kid gets to say "pwned" all the time (usually when I take up the controller against him on Madden) and it just looks like so much fun. According to Slashdot, Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has just slapped the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) upside the head with the DMCA, making the term pwned singularly apropos.

Such Noble Intentions
The MPAA, intent on bring Hell's wrath down upon unwary university students, developed a program which monitors university computers. The program ostensibly tracks students illegally downloading movies. According to the Washington Post, however, the software apparently does a lot of other nasty stuff as well, not the least of which is opening up university computers to anyone on the Internet.

You Were Serious About That?
Intent on suing everyone using its copyrighted material without payment, the MPAA created its new University Toolkit. The irony is that the MPAA created this new software using other people's copyrighted material without paying for it. Since the software code used was under GNU GPL license, the MPAA had a right to use the software without paying for it, but only if the MPAA let everyone know what changes it made to the software.

How Many Lumps Do You Want?
Apparently, the MPAA's license enforcement against poor college student division is so busy that it conscripted all personnel from its license compliance division (word on the street is that the remnants of the license compliance division will soon be merged in to the Do-what-we-say-not-what-we-do division). Software developer Matthew Garrett, upset over the MPAA's flagrant copyright infringement, sent a Take Down Notice to the MPAA'a internet service provider, which resulted in the University Toolkit link being removed from the MPAA website.

Too bad the link got shut down; I would have loved to have heard the MPAA arguments as to why it does not have to abide by the copyright laws it wants to sue everyone else over.

Brett Trout

MPAA Ubuntu RIAA Linux Matthew Garrett

Software industry setting the stage for mutually assured destruction

"We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property [they are going to have to] play by the same rules as the rest of the business[.] What's fair is fair."

Who does that sound like? Wrong. Incredibly, those are the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, speaking about the use of free and open source software (FOSS). According to Fortune senior editor Roger Parloff, Microsoft is increasingly feeling the pinch from open source software systems like Linux. FOSS evangelists tout open source software as cheaper, more reliable and just all around better than privately owned software programs, such as those produced by Microsoft.

In the past, FOSS has not been such a problem for behemoths like Microsoft. Installation and use of FOSS on a personal computer required a little more information technology acumen and flexibility than the average consumer possessed. Now, however, FOSS has become much more powerful and user friendly. This increasing market power may have resulted in Microsoft's most recent round of patent infringement allegations.

In response to Microsoft's allegations, Linus Torvalds, lead developer of the main Linux software code (the "kernel"), has challenged Microsoft to name the particular patents Linux and other FOSS allegedly infringe. This new found bravado, combined with an increasing consumer affinity for FOSS now threatens to bring the entire issue to a quickening, from which there can be only one.

Microsoft argues that FOSS infringes 235 of its patents, but has been reticent to instigate a patent infringement lawsuit. The arguments Microsoft would have to make in alleging patent infringement would be the arguments third parties would use to take down Microsoft in their own patent infringement suits. As it stands now, if Microsoft has the option of arguing software patents are not valid if it gets sued and that software patents are rock solid if it chooses to sue a third party.

The problem is that Microsoft cannot have it both ways, once it selects a strategy, the result is a foregone conclusion. If Microsoft pursues the first option, it will likely not be able to stop FOSS from continuing to eclipse privately produced operating systems. If it pursues the second option, the software industry will proceed toward mutually assured destruction, with only the patent attorneys getting wealthy. Ceteris paribus, I prefer the second option.

Actually, like most other consumers, I prefer the status quo. Unfortunately, given the steadily increasing popularity of FOSS, it appears the ultimate conclusion to this Mexican standoff is preordained. The penultimate scene from the movie Reservoir Dogs offers a pretty accurate glimpse into the near future of the software industry.

Not to throw in any spoilers, but you, as the software consuming public, are being played by Mr. Orange. Microsoft and third party software patent holders are Joe and Eddie. Although it will be interesting to see which is which, the outcome is the same.

Brett Trout

Microsoft Linux Torvalds Ballmer patent FOSS