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Re: [News] XBox 360 is a Trojan Horse for Lockins

begin  oe_protect.scr 
The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
><newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>  wrote
> on Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:23:17 +0000
><1300717.nfPCXpTzKJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> Microsoft's Xbox 360 Plan: VOD Trojan Horse
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | But that's just a trojan horse -- the real money and future of the
>> | Xbox 360 is as a digital media hub for the living room.
>> `----
>>
>> http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/061102/19741_id.html?.v=1
>>
>> I happen to have said that many months ago. It's part of the IPTV battle:
>> standards versus proprietary technology and DRM.
> 
> Nothing particularly wrong with that as long as customers are aware of
> it and there exist alternatives, preferably open-source alternatives.
> 
> I'm not sure, however, that customers are all that aware, or what the
> alternatives are, except maybe something like TiVo, which doesn't
> do gaming.

Well, there is something wrong with it, though.  Lock-in is an economic
exit barrier created using some kind of non-standard technology, such
that it's impossible to replace or upgrade or change just a single
component of a system, rather, it's necessary to replace the whole
thing.  Any software a Microsoft victim buys for his Xbox will not work
on anything else, so the cost of changing to another system involves the
cost of writing off that software.  

You can argue that if there're truly open alternatives, then it won't
cost /any more/ to replace this stuff, but even that's not entirely
true, as there's still effort to integrate the new items, whatever they
might be.

Lock-in, as practised by Microsoft, is an insidious and unpleasant
practice, and not something a customer should have to put up with.  It
serves just one purpose, which is to create a monopoly, and then through
price manipulation, make the supplier extremely rich at the direct
expense of the customer.

Open-source is the only reliable defence against this practice,
/although/ if Tivoisation continues, then even the positive impact of
open-source can be mitigated by a keen monopolist.  Again, this is what
GPL3 was trying to address - the prevention of economic lock-in by
technical means.

-- 
| Mark Kent   --   mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk  |
You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.  :-)

             -- Larry Wall in <199706242038.NAA29853@xxxxxxxx>

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