Re:Microsoft furious at $2,000 bounty for open source Kinect...
by tptacek on Friday November 05, 2010 @09:18PM
(#1875580)
You see the right to do whatever you want with any physical object you exchange money to possess.
I see the right to design, build, and offer a product to the market under whatever terms I'd like.
These rights are in conflict, and I see that, but let's not pretend that there's no other side to this.
Re:Microsoft furious at $2,000 bounty for open source Kinect...
by 1337p337 on Friday November 05, 2010 @10:49PM
(#1875761)
Sure, there's another side to this, but it's not a valid side. Your side merely capitalizes on the present legal murkiness of the software/copyright issue. Console manufacturers, phone manufacturers, and a legion of other device manufacturers have spent three decades capitalizing on abuses of patent and copyright law.
Patents exist not to lock out competition or allow total control over an invention, but as a method for making sure your work isn't stolen (for a limited time) and thus give you a commercial incentive to innovate. It is outright abuse to say that it gives anyone the right to dictate how devices are used, but is sadly an abuse that has become the status quo.
Er, yes? Claiming the opposite eviscerates property rights even more than the DMCA already does.
My unfounded suspicion is that if the tables were turned, and Microsoft focused its (considerable!) systems research capabilities on, say, disrupting Wattvision's business model, Hacker News wouldn't be leaping to the defense of forced interoperability.
Barring antitrust issues I have no legal or moral issues with that.