[jevoten]

> Freedom to root/jailbreak one's phone

You don't actually have that freedom - the DMCAs anti-circumvention provision robbed you of the right to unlock your own property. You are merely permitted by the manufacturer to root them, and sometimes, for a 3-year period, the copyright office will let you do it too [1].

The company you are defending, and others like it, use every legal, contractual, technical, and economic means to restrict what you may do, so they can sell it back to you, and so they can control which companies can do it, stopping competition before it can even start. The recent ban on open-source HDMI drivers is another such example [2].

[1] https://www.eff.org/is-it-illegal-to-unlock-a-phone

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hdmi-forum-to-amd-no...

[voidwtf]

I can't stand the HDMI LA, they remind me so much of the MPEG LA. It's the same tactics over and over again, take an existing standard or create an open standard, release freely, then iterate and put future versions behind pay-wall and NDA.

HEVC is another example of this B.S. in the industry. STOP TRYING TO MAKE PAYWALLED/NDA'D STANDARDS A THING A-HOLES.

[gjsman-1000]

Reminder that in the United States; open standards and patent licensing are not incompatible.

HEVC, for example, has public documents how to implement it. You can get all the specs right now. You don’t even need to pay for the standard itself. You do, however, need to pay the people who own patents on algorithms used within the open standard.

Do I like it? No. But when there’s 50-100 patent claimants, that’s where MPEG LA shows up to simplify things. You don’t strictly need MPEG LA if you don’t mind negotiating with every patent holder individually.

[jevoten]

Hilariously, legally, software seems to be unpatentable in both the US [1] and EU [2]. Yet those laws are routinely ignored, and we continue to be plagued by software patents.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_United_...?

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur... - The wiki states that because of the "as such" clause, the exclusion of software patents does not apply to software that does anything inventive or solves a technical problem. But those are already requirements of patentability for anything, software or not. In other words, this interpretation of "as such" renders that entire clause totally meaningless - it could be struck entirely from the law, and software would be no more or less patentable. Clearly such a reading is absurd, and only shows the willingness of courts to ignore law for business interests.

[voidwtf]

You are right, I conflated the two a bit there. It is an important distinction/difference but with a similar outcome. Especially egregious to me that often the people pushing the newer standards are the same ones signing on to be part of the patent pool. I guess my feeling is that if you want to make it a standard, it should be unencumbered by patents, paywalls, and NDAs. Otherwise how can you expect me to implement the standard?

These companies often make these advancements because it's beneficial to their bottom line, because they can utilize fewer resources or provide a better product to their customers. They then expect everyone to implement their standards so they can reap the benefit of those changes with all their customers.

[gjsman-1000]

> I guess my feeling is that if you want to make it a standard, it should be unencumbered by patents, paywalls, and NDAs. Otherwise how can you expect me to implement the standard?

Well, when you are developing a standard, there is no guarantee that every person who owns a patent will reveal themselves. There’s no guarantee your due diligence will find them all either. You could develop a completely open standard, someone announces they’ve got a patent, and if they win in court, that’s the end of it being an open standard.

> These companies often make these advancements because it's beneficial to their bottom line, because they can utilize fewer resources or provide a better product to their customers.

That’s just called business. That’s not evil, and if Linux didn’t benefit their bottom line, it would not be usable today (considering over 90% of contributions are from the big evil companies).

[voidwtf]

A. I'm not defending the company, only their right to refuse service under their own terms. B. I think all devices and media legally purchased should be open and able to be modified in both form and function by the owner of said devices or media. C. Being entitled to fully own one's device does not come with an entitlement to utilize online services of a 3rd party.

I understand your position but please try not to put words in my mouth.

[jevoten]

Let me describe exactly how you are defending them then, if you really think you aren't:

"this same expectation in the Apple ecosystem is why I've received single digit spam from their messaging services" implies it can be justified as an anti-spam measure that open services can't match. But I've received also single-digit spam (cumulative over multiple years, not per year) on the WhatsApp running on my rooted Android. Nor would this even hypothetically stop non-RCS spam.

In general, companies always have some convenient excuse to cover their user-hostile moves. HP bricked printers using 3rd party ink for "security". Uncritically believing them, or even inventing excuses for them, is defending them.

"if they don't want rooted phones to use their RCS gateway I don't think they should be forced to allow it" - so we've established these companies are actively hostile to your freedom to use your property as you wish. But you are willing to disregard any monopoly/market-power abuse concerns, and grant them the freedom that they deny you (you used "should", so I assume you're not giving a mere factual description of what you think the law is). Just like letting Bell charge extra for using competitor's equipment [1] has ill effects on the market (try selling a phone when all your customers will have to pay an extra monthly fee to Bell for using it) and was rightly banned, so does letting the Google/Apple duopoly control smartphone software. Saying they should be allowed to continue to abuse and expand their market power is a defense of these companies, or rather, is a defense specifically of their anti-competitive and user-hostile practices.

The difference between a "defense" that merely seeks to correct facts, and one that justifies behavior, can be subtle (e.g. "this is necessary to fight spam" vs. "this was done to fight spam" vs. "there was no other way to fight spam"), but I think your phrasing put you in the latter category.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_System#Nationwide_monopol...

Edit as reply: "I think" and "I believe" do not meaningfully change your position. "I think action X is justified because of Y" and "Action X is justified because of Y" only differ in implied certainty, not in quality.

[voidwtf]

You conveniently left out "I think" in the first quote yet speak about subtle differences in phrasing. Please practice what you preach. I stated that I believe Apple's controls have resulted in less spam. Is that a defense of their behaviors? I think they should have opened up standards compliant gateways long ago and put the onus of spam control on the gateway operators with clearly defined repercussions for failure to control spam. I said in another comment I would like something akin to the IANA and BGP model of peering.

Why do we have to be absolutists? Why can't I buy into a platform that has the features I want and not the features that don't matter to me? It really weakens your position when you say "actively hostile to your freedom" yet I could have purchased an unlocked, rootable, Android phone. I even have several older ones in a box, my HTC One M8 was awesome. Guess what I chose in the end? Guess what I've had the best experience with? I am enjoying my freedom. Could it be better? YES ABSOLUTELY! Can we do that without being absolutists in either direction? YES ABSOLUTELY!