Talk:More than innovation

Securing privacy and security

I added two new examples where the consumer would want to use software they trust. The motivation was this recent Wall Street Journal blog article by Dan Gallagher http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/11/is-your-videogame-machine-watching-you/

"Microsoft Corp. officials are considering using the camera on their new Kinect videogame system to target ads to people watching the games."

To which Microsoft replied, "Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE do not use any information captured by Kinect for advertising targeting purposes."

But those two examples are hardware, not software. ...or maybe the second one is software, but it talks about a "device", so it's not clear. Can you rewrite them to be simpler and to be clearly software ideas? Ciaran 11:25, 16 November 2010 (EST)

I rewrote them. Let me know if you object to any part of it. One example covers the value add that open source (open blueprints) represents, all else being the same. The other example contrasts (b) open spec hardware + consumer software vs (a) a bundled opaque system (proprietary hardware/firmware/software intertwined) out of the consumer's control.

They're still talking about hardware. Neither are on-topic in their current form and I don't see what could be changed to make them on-topic.

Also, as a side note, the first example shows a problem of communication. We're trying to be concise and explain something concisely, hopefully in a single sentence, but instead this sentence starts explaining the benefits of free software. Ciaran 06:02, 18 November 2010 (EST)

The first example covers the implied benefits of not using DRM (which is a hardware mechanism), the second covers benefits of supporting more sw platforms, the third covers benefits of augmenting the human languages supported, the fourth covers benefits of supporting privacy, the fifth covers benefit of showing blueprints to enable access and trust, the sixth covers benefit of new software to overcome a lack of software (ie, bundling hardware with firmware).

These are all different facets that involve the need for a new party to step in and create their own software to replace features found under less socially valuable conditions. Yes, open source *is* superior access (eg, to audit) and is not covered in the earlier cases. Yes, software for an open spec hw machine gives new capabilities (eg, privacy) and involves the need to write new software.

They are a little wordy, and in fact the sixth reason might be like the first in disguise. OK, so I will remove the sixth. I still don't see why the reason to write FOSS to bypass restrictions from closed source isn't exactly the sort of potential social gains this article covers. Simply put, the original company doesn't give you X, but company B does.