What I don't like about DRM

There's a whole group of companies that decided it was better to punish their clients than to provide a good service. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is not logical, it's not a necessary evil, it's just a road full of little rocks we are supposed to travel barefoot while smiling and thanking and paying a toll.

Let me explain a little why I think DRM is bad. Let's suppose you have a computer, it runs a version of Windows. You purchased a game and played it a little, it had DRM, but for you it was almost as if it had nothing. Some years later you upgrade your machine and change to a different Windows. The new Windows has some security measures that prevent the old DRM from running. You still own a valid license of a game that's no longer usable in the old machine, because the old machine is broken. You have every right to install that game, but you can't. Because the old DRM does not work, and the company that made the game no longer supports it.

This could also happen if you changed your operating system to Linux and tried using Wine to run the game, or if you changed your computer to a Mac with OS X. The non documented tricks a DRM does to prevent unauthorized use just don't work well with emulations. A game that could have a broader gaming base just decided that it was better to cut a lot of machines from it.

Of course, this is if the DRM scheme lets you play the game in the first computer at all. A little Internet search shows that a lot of DRM software just doesn't let legal and valid users play their legally owned game. It could be something as simple as being a programmer and being told by the DRM that you can't play the game because you have hacking tools installed (in this case a debugger). So the company doesn't only tell you how and where you can play your game, it also wants to dictate what other things you do with your machine. And there's also DRMs that let you install the game a finite amount of time, and/or requires authentication via Internet. So, if the company goes broke or decides to bring down the authentication server, you can no longer install that game. Seems to me you are giving too much power to some publishers over you.

Same goes for movies or songs purchased with DRM. DRM enforces some restrictions on you, some bad restrictions that prevent you from using your legally owned media from using it in ways not covered by the DRM. Let's say I legally own a series on DVD, but some years from now the dvd format will disappear into oblivion. So, what prevents me from keeping copies in another formats? I'm not talking about copies that are used to exploit the media simultaneously in different places. I'm talking about keeping the copies for yourself. If there's no DRM, I can do it. But if the DVD or the new media format are DRM infested, then I can't do that, because it's qualified as an illegal use.

So, as you can see, I'm completely against DRM. I'm strongly opposed to letting corporations rule the way I can use things. I totally against letting them abuse me.

Sign of the times: Windows Devolution

A few days ago, something extremely important happened. An Israeli citizen became the first person in the whole world to achieve two things at the same time.

1) Devolution of the money paid for a Windows license included inside the price of a computer, after taking Windows off his computer in favor of Linux.

2) He was not forced to sign a NDA (non disclosure agreement), so he's free to talk about it.

There are several people that already took Windows of their computers, so this development will surely make the request the refund of the license money. This is the main reason why, until now, Microsoft requested those NDAs while refunding money.

It's curious that this can be linked to another news, in which we are informed that Windows has fallen below the 90% figure in the PC market. I want to state something very clearly. A little below 90% is still a good figure, but it isn't quite as good when you had 99% of the market before. Microsoft is loosing share, and that little change in the Ten's figure it's a really significant break point.

We aren't the only ones that think like this. In several sites across the web I've seen us Linux Users being accused of magnifying this kind of news. In truth, we see this news and simply write about them adding our insight into it, we write about what we see with the only point of view we have, ourselves. But we aren't alone.

Until now, in every Wall Street misstep or fall, Microsoft was one of the big companies that fell a lot less that the rest. This meant that investors (people who trust a company and it's way of doing business to the point of translating that trust into invested money) didn't sell because the still trusted in Redmond's capacity of continuing to produce record earnings, even inside a crisis.

But this last fall, Microsoft fell as much as the average of the market, showing to the world that Linux Users aren't alone in thinking that we see something working a little wrong in the giant corporation.

In this comment about reality, from this page of Too Much Information, I want to express the wish that Microsoft doesn't disappear, that they start producing real quality software, and can maintain a reasonable market share. It's just that I'm not opposed to Microsoft making business. I'm opposed to Microsoft making business with me.

Beating Predictions the hard way.

Back in 2006 I heard a lot of talk about 'the blog fever', stating that it was a momentary thing, and that because of the difficulty of maintaining an active blog, it was predicted that by 2008 there would be no more blogs left.

Before continuing, let me stop laughing...Thanks for waiting.

The argument sounded strange at first, but then I started thinking and found a certain logic behind those words. But that logic rests upon one single idea: that bloggers have an obligation of writing in a periodic way, and forever. It was thought that this would cause a rapid reaction of boredom, burnout, or simply cause blogers to stop seeing this as something they enjoy or a need to communicate and begin to see it as a self imposed hard work.

The idea has some merit, but all we need to tear it down is to take a little step to the side, and do as I did. I stopped writing when I didn't feel like it, or when I didn't have things internally processed enough to pour them here. I started writing again when I found things I wanted to talk about, when I felt I needed to write again.

Is so simple as remembering that the blog is, after all, absolute property of the blogger, and even when readers can feel it as their own thing, it isn't. That's why promises of writing with a certain rhythm shouldn't be made, because eventually we'll find it will be impossible for us to keep the rhythm. It's far better to clarify things beforehand and write only when you should. This way we can guarantee something far more important: a higher quality content.

Because as everybody knows, quality almost always beats quantity.

Law Problems: lack of understanding

Today I was reading an excellent article in Groklaw where I learned about the case of a teenager that killed herself (apparently because of peer pressure over the Internet)

What raised my attention was that they are convicting someone accused of actions against the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act. This law was written in the United States with the purpose of punishing those that gain illegal access to internet sites or do abusive things with their computers, clearly meaning hackers, crackers, spammers, virus distributors, etc. Not peer presure.

This is a worrisome issue, because the person charged didn't do any of those things. She simply lied while creating her MySpace profile. This is against MySpace's TOS (Terms of agreement ). What they are trying to do is raise this break of agreement (written and interpreted by MySpace) to the status of federal felony.

I'm going to try to make you understand what this means. Suppose that I said somewhere in this blog that I don't want any kind of Spam in it. Now someone spams in one article's commentaries. According to this interpretation of the law, I'd have the right to criminally acusse him just because of an arbitrary policy created and interpreted by myself. Quite disproportionate, isn't it?

Anyway, I'm not from the United States, and this article isn't only for United States people. It also isn't a detailed description of the case, for that check people that know about law, like Groklaw. This article is here simply to make yourselves aware.

If we let each of our contrie's legislators make the laws they want, if we let advocates and judges use them badly, it will be us, the ones that have computer knowledge, the ones left with a great share of guilt. That would be because we didn't show our disagreement, we didn't document the problem with technical knowledge non technical people can understand. We just kept on sitting in our comfy chairs while people without the knowledge or understanding of the real issue did what it was within their reach.

Think about it. We are living in a time where legislations are being made about what we do in Internet and what we generate with our computers. Can we afford the luxury of let them do whaterver they want, or simply whatever they can do with their limited knowledge?

Cigarettes and me

There's a conflictive type of relation between cigarettes and me. I'm opposed to them, as I consider them harmful, but at the same time it fires up an intolerant side in me, when I always try to be as tolerant as possible.

Before I continue, let's start at the beginning. My relation with cigarettes started when I was about 12 years old. Some school mates were starting smoking as a sign of rebellion and 'maturity'. So, faced with that, I made some simple and straightforward thinking. I was no genius, nevertheless it's still a reasoning that fills me with pride. 'I know cigarettes are harmful. I also know some people like to smoke. So, if I try it, I migh end liking something that's harmful, it would be better not to try it'. That was it. Thanks to that I never tried one, even when I really like fire.

So, I never tried it and yet I'm thinking about it. It's because through time I've had smoker friends, and I find me battling with myself, because by accepting them I ended up accepting their habit, that harmed me.

It's a bad situation, I can't give up friends, they are important to me, yet something they do harms me. It's even worse. Can I stand quietly when they smoke when I know they are harming themselves too?

If they are our friends, shouldn't we try to help them when they are hurting themselves and us? Wouldn't that nagging make them stop being our friends or start evading us without knowing why?

This kind of things followed me trough a lot of friendships, but time has passed down and lately I'm finding myself less tolerant that I was. Perhaps it has to do with the validation non smokers felt when anti tobacco laws were passed down, perhaps it only has to do with growing up and learning to take a stand in things that really matter. I really don't know, but the fact remains, I've turned from non smoker to anti tobacco enforcer.

A theory about "old" Part III : Games

As you can see, I've kept apart Games from Software. This has not to do with games not being software, because they are. This has to do with my own position about games, which is quite different from the one about software.

I simply LOVE games, I think I'll never stop playing. Perhaps I'll change the type of games I play over time, but I'll never stop playing. That being said, there's something seriously wrong about this activity. Marketing, a powerful force behind all kinds of software, becomes overwhelming when it comes to games. This generates hordes of people wanting to play the latest game that just came out, clearly influenced by the never ending bombing of information we are constantly under. I don't share that position.

My computer is a little bit old, although is still a powerful machine. It was built with one idea in mind: stability. This doesn't mean it doesn't have any power, only that power was not the idea behind it's design. This PC can run between 65 and 70% of PC games (that is, If I install a Windows on it). As 65 is over 50%, I still can play more than half of the games out there, and I don't have the time to play even 10%. Thus, the main limitation is in my free time and not in my PC.

Between 70% and 95%, there are games I can run, but only with low textures and detail, no shadows, lower fps, etc. So I don't think it's a good idea to play them now that I can't fully enjoy them. In the future, when it comes the time to build myself a new computer, I'll be able to run that same games with full details, so there's no rush to play them.

A lot would say, 'you didn't play Doom 3' or Crysis, Oblivion, etc. I really don't care. I still have jewels like Half Life and Half Life II, Portal, Morrowind to play, and I still haven't found the time to do it. If I play a watered down version of Oblivion instead of a full detailed version of Morrowind, I'll be making a big mistake, falling to temptation to have less fun that I could.

So, instead of getting angry about not being able to play the latest games, I prefer to investigate carefully and play forgotten jewels that I find in the oddest corner of a game shop or in the webpage of a game manufacturer which understands the value of good games. For example, I see X3:Reunion in my near future.

Always remember, we play to have fun, not because we are told to play.

A theory about "old", Part II : Software

There are some programs whose purpose itself generates the need of having the latest version. This kind of programs, like antivirus, anty spyware, firewalls, need to be updated to be fully functional, so that they can stand against the latest known hazards. The same reasoning can be applied to programs that are used to access internet, such as navigators, mail clients, rss readers. Some operating systems also fall into this category, as does any program that has a free patch that improves it's stability/speed/capabilities/security.

All these things have to be up to date simply because it's necessary, if they are not updated they loose efficiency. This is why we can say that we update this programs because we have to, it's a real need.

Another different situation is where we find out they are releasing a new version of a program, and we can update if we pay for the update. Before deciding if we are going to make the change, we have to evaluate carefully if the program we already have covers the needs we have, and whether the new program corrects any problems we have with the old or covers a real need we already had. Let's clarify it.


* Needs: If what we already have covers what we need to do, we don't need more, the update isn't needed.

* Points of failure: if anything on the actual version makes life hard for us and it's corrected in the new version, it might be worth to update. This has to be carefully checked, a demo version might do the trick as long as we don't blind ourselves with flashy candy.

* New and shiny: Of course, new versions bring lots of small little preety things. It's highly probable we won't use 90% of those, so we won't need them even if they are good looking (refer to the demo explanation above). You'll need a cool head to evaluate which new things are really needed for the things that you do (or plan to do).

By evaluating this three points, you'll see that in most cases we don't really need the upgrade, so it would be best to keep our money for other things and keep using our 'old' and trusted programs. Don't forget that hype and marketing are part of the price of every program just because the company needs to generate the need for the program to get money. So we will be told we can't live without that things, but we need to be strong and be able to think for ourselves to check if that beautiful phrases hold truths or lies for us.

Don't forget also that with any new version of the program there's a training time needed to be able to use it in an effective way. That's why a lot of the new and shiny stuff will be unusable for us at first, and can be forgotten and never used just because of lack of time.

Lastly, this would not be complete without one final word of advice. If you are facing a need for a non free update, take a little time and check for open source alternatives. As you are already faced with a retraining period, it might be worth training yourself in a program that's free and has free updates, a program that you are free to give to your friends if you like it.

A theory about "old" Part I : Hardware

I know a lot of people that are always running behind the latest piece of hardware and trying to play the latest game that just got out. Sincerely, I don't share those positions.

Let's start with Hardware. The latest hardware is always overpriced (it has to do with it being new and powerful, but also because prices tend to fall when something gets mass produced). When they buy it, they obtain the maximum possible performance, but they don't get the best power/price relation. The price of the latest video cards can cover the purchase of 3 great video cards, not so powerful as this one, but with enough power for most things.

Other computer pieces don't have a 3 to 1 relation, but a 2 to 1. That means that the price I pay for the greatest computer I can get right now would buy me two computers that each are capable of outrunning 95% of the other computers out there, or even 4 or 5 capable computers. I think that nobody here misses the point that 4 or 5 capable computers combined have more computing power than one extremely powerful one (of course, that's not counting the new Nvidia Tesla card).

There's of course a hidden cost in buying the latest technology: support and standards. Let's take for example a piece of hardware that got out a pair of years ago, the AGEIA PhysX, a pci board designed to crunch numbers related to physic models. This was planned as a sort of coprocessor to relieve the CPU and the video card from doing a lot of physics calculations, needed for example for the fast implementation of the rag doll concept

It was a concept similar to the first 3d acceleration cards (so similar that the technology is now inside video cards): freeing the processor from the most heavy and common 3d tasks. It wasn't an expensive card, but it lacked game support, with only one game implementing it's API by the time of launch.

A small number of other games announced projected support, but it has to be noted that the card wasn't really needed to play any of those games, being capable of emulating most of it by software. This was because standard PCs don't had that card, and as the game developers don't want to release something for just a few, they had to program it for machines without the expansion board.

It would have been nice to get one of that AGEIAs, the nerd inside me agrees, but the lack of support and the lack of standards around it, made it a risky business to buy one of those at that time. The same is happening right now with the Nvidia Tesla, although the niche market of science labs and supercomputer users might provide a nice launching area.


This is happening again and again in the PC industry. Whenever you buy something new and not common, you risk being trapped with something that might loose support quickly. This is why it's a good idea to buy proven technology. It has already been incorporated into some standard, it has already been evaluated, and they are definetely cheaper.

One little final word about going for something just because it's better. BETAMAX and VHS were fighting for the video standard. BETAMAX was superior, but VHS was cheaper. VHS finally became the standard, so betting on something just because it's better isn't always safe, there are always other things to consider.

Remembering the past

Clearly, the past isn't better in every way than the present, but at the same time not everything in the present is better than the past. This is specially true when we talk about computers.

A known fact is that one of the barriers computers had to trascend so that they could reach us in a massive way was the fear they generated in the unexperienced user. Nowdays that barrier has been greatly overriden, but I find myself missing it quite a lot.

Fear of computers comes from ignorance, we fear what we don't know. A hammer is used to hammer things, a screwdriver screws and unscrews, and sometimes opens a paint can, a microwave oven heats. But with computers something different happens. In their case their own nature, their own lack of clearly defined purpose due to their conception as expansible and programmable machines, generates the ignorance that produces fear. If we add an user interfase assumed as easy that really needs training to be used, we find wourselves in front of a machine capable of paralizing people by their mere presence.

Of course, that barrier has been breached and somehow trascended, and that's good and bad at the same time. The tool that's been used to achieve this is marvelous and tricky, it's called marketing. With marketing techniques computers have been lowered to mass comsumer products. They are sold in computer chains, but also in big general purpose stores. There are "new easier to use" interfases for "new easier to use" operating systems (that still require training and readapting periods). Those shiny new interfased are based on the concept of separating the user from the real computer, and at the same time they need access to the bellies of the beast for some chores. There are guarantees that don't let people open their own expansible machines (not even for cleaning the dust). All this is aimed to present computers as easy to use black boxes you don't need to understand at all to use.


In the corporate world this is an advantage, it lets the user use the computer and the systems people deal with backups, data integrity, security handling, etc.

But in our homes is where the idea of transforming a computer in something 100% accesible without knowledge becomes real troublesome. There are lots of home computers without reliable antivirus protection, without a serious firewall, without a daily inspection for spyware, no control of installed programs by each member of the family, no security updates. Lots of users that by their ignorance are unkownligly lending their computers and IPs so that people of devious purposes make massive spam deliveries, hide their own IP for ilegal actions (be it attacks on other systems or ilegal sites hosting).

That machines and that users are chain mail repeaters, and generate lists of hundreds of emails that are used for furthering the spam plague. They also are victims of a level of abstraction so strong that they don't understand at all what's going inside their computers. So they usually end slaves to an operating system just because they don't have any idea that choices are out there. The same ignorance about their own computers is what frustrates them when they find the new game they bought or that program someone at work recommended doesn't work on their machines, or does so at crawling pace.

I'm not looking for every computer user to understand 100% about computers, but it would be good if there's a stop to the deceiving they are subject to when they are sold a computer (a computer sometimes so powerfull that they probably don't need half as much anyway). It would be good if a friend comes around and opens their eyes so that they know there are other possibilities, that without being an expert and without giant efforts they can learn a lot about their computers. If we get them to have some sort of control over their computers, if we get them to know which things they can make on their own and which ones they could use some outside help, all our lives would be a lot easier. And to achieve that we have to reinstall the idea that computers are not impossible to use, but require some time from the user to learn how to enjoy and not suffer them.