Duane's too fast for me again; here's what I had:
Aremith wrote:Binks, read Duane's post (Post #3 for this thread). All I did was simplify what he said.
Ah, I think I interpreted that differently than you did:
Duane's post #3 wrote:The goal is to provide a lot of useful and interesting widgets for free. It is also likely there will be a collection of widgets that will be made available for a subscription. It is up to you whether or not you wish to pay to get access to those other widgets.
I read somewhere that there were three stages of a relese for a widget - for you, for your friends, to the world. That last step required Chumby HQ to sign off on the widget (at least to ensure that it's not a virus). Now, I may be showing my cynical side here, but the website is the one thing that's not open source, I was looking for a point of control, and the site would seem to provide that.
So, theoretically, they could prevent any "competing" widgets from ever seeing the widespread light of day. OR, since the GNU allows someone to charge for distribution of code, they could have someone upload their free, opensource code to them, and then they could charge $5.00/unit to distribute it to other chumbys. (though that wouldn't mesh with a "subscription fee" since a distribution fee can hardly be recurring)
At this point, though, I'm going very far into cynical speculation. I think it'd probably be best for all to wait and see what comes from that management meeting - making rumours does nothing for anyone.
And that's where I'd ended.
Duane wrote:I should note that we are hackers - we're part of the crowd that says "Trust the customer!" when some corporation imposes some DRM to enforce a walled garden
So, that seems to eliminate the idea of using the website as a "control point" (or, I suppose, the wall for your garden to use your analogy). That's good.
Duane wrote:Chumby is, in many ways an experiment to find out if people really want to be trusted, or whether, when nobody's forcing them otherwise, they'll steal from the penny tray.
That's a very interesting idea. I remember reading a study once of washroom graffiti (one of my professors ran it). They discovered that the best way to stop someone from causing damage to a public washroom was an ethical request, i.e. "Please don't damage our washrooms; we only have limited staff resources to deal with isssues like that". Not a threat, nor a reminder that it was illegal.
Just from the standpoint of observing THAT, the idea of whether good behavior comes from enforcement or from people's own inner being, makes this project absolutely fascinating. Will there be any information made public about whether or not people are taking pennies?
Duane wrote:There's nothing stopping you from buying a chumby and hacking it so that it doesn't use our server. Nothing at all -we know that going into the game. In fact, as hackers, we know it's inevitable, so why fight it.
I love that quote; but it's interesting that in the "authentication" section, it talks about making it difficult to share keys if necessary.
Is there some disagreement within the ranks, or is it that, instead of two ideas on how to stop theft (1. Technologically impossible 2. Unethical/"internal moral compass") there're really three views on what stops people from stealing services? (3. Not worth the bother to save $2.00) (your talk of adding more advanced encryption falling under point three)
So, is it sort of, "we know point 1 is impossible; someone'll always find a way, but let's give point 2 a shot, and if we need to we'll go to 3" (or at least, to get the venture capitalist, you needed a point three )
Duane wrote:We hope to provide a compelling enough service that people will choose to use it even though they don't have to - and I suspect all but a few hackers will eventually choose to do so.
Hmmm, I wonder - will that percentage cheat because they enjoy the challange of cheating, or because they're really that worried about getting it for free? Do you guys have any idea of what the percentages of "cheaters" would be, or can be and still have the service viable?
Well, it's been a bit of a journey tonight; I went from excited about this cool new device for a reasonable price, to worried that it would be saddled with so many restrictions and hidden costs so as to make it unusable, to just being fascinated by what the results of this "grand experiment in human nature" will be.
Is there a researcher of some kind already associated with your project? Do you want one? "The effects of an ethical plea on theft of digital service/software"; Damn that'd be interesting to compare with what's already been observed in other areas - shoplifting and satellite signal theft come to mind easily. Are today's youth (and those with a technical bent) always doing "unethical" things like stealing? What's the best way to prevent it?
From an economics standpoint, with something like software distribution, given iron-clad DRM, it's best to sell software for as cheaply as possible (as it's almost free to create additional copies, you should sell as many copies as possible) - but that's almost never done because ironclad DRM doesn't exist and there's always a fairly high percentage of theft and greed. While you're selling a piece of hardware, with a subscription fee you're essentially selling software after the initial investment. Will enough people NOT steal so as to allow you to keep prices low? Can software piracy be kept at bay through moral and ethical means, as opposed to technical ones?
It's late, am I still making sense?
You guys have stumbled into one of the most interesting topics I've ever encountered. Is there any way to find out more about this?