When you go in the morning to shave, do you read the label on your can of shaving cream and see that it recommends you use a particular brand of razors for best effect? Chances are, even if it did you’d ignore the crap out of it because it presents a silly argument: a certain brand of sharp metal would in combination with a certain brand of chemicals give a closer shave. Imagine a refrigerator that specified it would only allow foods from a certain resaler. The magic of cold holds no more magic to the average person these days than air travel, so this idea is utterly preposterous to us.
Now imagine the same scenario but with a computer and an operating system. How about a website and a browser? This is the false argument presented to technology consumers throughout the modern history of technology. And increasingly, consumers accept it without much more than a blink and a click.
Apple’s Mac OS X, built on top of a BSD kernel, is perfectly capable of running atop any hardware configuration the kernel supports. The only thing preventing a normal person from doing so is bypassing some encryption and ignoring the dire warnings in the End User License Agreement. The technical challenges are not insurmountable, but doing so violates the contract of sales and bypassing the encryption is a criminal violation of the DMCA. Psystar, a company monetizing on the ability to put OS X on non-Apple hardware, was sued successfully for doing just that. The implication in the suit is that one ought never separate Apple’s operating system from Apple’s hardware offering, even if one can. Much like the fridge that will only hold one vendor’s foods, Apple’s software is only legally allowed to reside on Apple’s hardware. Would you pay twice for the Apple fridge just to hold Apple’s fruit? If you do, Apple will guarantee you the best food preservation experience in the industry.
In April of 2010, Sony removed the OtherOS feature from the PlayStation 3. Doing so was a response to iPhone hacker Geohot having compromised portions of the PS3 security features through a hardware glitch. The method he used required a venue of access provided by the PS3 running Linux, the OtherOS feature Sony touted during the product’s launch. The original marketing positioned it as a feature to provide an open platform for developers interested in the Cell Engine to experiment. Even then, the platform was limited to what was available through Sony’s hypervisor, a piece of software allowing selective access to the system hardware. When Sony’s control over the hardware was threatened, they removed the feature altogether in the name of security which was perfectly allowed by the End User License Agreement the hardware owner must accept to use the hardware. Sony demonstrated that their fridge will not only not allow you to put “unauthorized” foods in, it will protect you, the consumer, by locking the door so you never make that mistake again.
Data, in the purest sense, are simply bits of information which, outside their context, has no intrinsic value. Computing machines, in their purest sense, are simply machines that manipulate data. They are as separate as your hair and your razor, your food and your fridge. And unlike in chemistry, they do not do some sort of fusion dance for extra magic. It is understandable that an entertainment company like Sony would want to protect their profit venues by maintaining control over distribution. It is also understandable that Apple being a consumer electronics company would want to preserve their image. However the unfortunate casualty in all such contests of control is the consumer. When a consumer or body of consumers is willing to put in the effort and time to make a hardware machine do something outside the expectation of the machine’s makers, why should words on a screen prevent it? What moral right does a corporate entity have in banning the use of products fully paid for? Do car enthusiasts have to agree not to tinker under the hood when they buy a car? Or are we, as technological consumers, simply renting the privilege to use technology in ways deemed “secure”?
The binding between hardware and software is enforced only by laws of man, rather than of nature. Since when is true innovation a crime?
