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Linux Software

USB Forum Becomes Too Greedy? 320

Posted by HeUnique from the oh-oh dept.
I just saw this on the Linux USB Mailing List: Up until a few days ago all the class specification documents were available for anyone for free. Those classes are important for the Linux USB development. It appears now, after the USB group got the Slashdot beany award, that the access for those documents is now restricted to members only, which are required to pay $2,500 per year. Is this just a coincidence? You can test it here.
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USB Forum Becomes Too Greedy? More

USB Forum Becomes Too Greedy?

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  • Re:Mirror (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ftp://merlin.keble.ox.ac.uk/Mirrors/www.usb.org for a mirror of the stuff. It's not a complete mirror of the whole site (I think) but it does include all the members-only stuff. You'll want to look in members/data/devclass for most of the pdfs I think.
    Greetz to Microsoft for not changing their members password :)

  • Re:Why this is important (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What makes Linux more special than the rest? And why should Microsoft have to pay instead of Linux?

    Maybe because Microsoft wants input on the specs.

    As someone else posted, there is a difference between members (people who have input, and decide on how the standard should work) and developers (people who just want to write drivers for the spec.)

    USB was supposed to be open - to shut the door now is dirty, underhanded, and just plain greedy.
  • There is no "beef." Basically, the Linux niggers
    decided to run their mouths before even bothering
    to ask the source for the facts, none the less
    even research the issue at question. Slashdot
    advocates have a well-known history of sitting
    around. This type-of mentality is just as bad
    as that of which most of the readers have (i.e.
    DOWN WITH MICROSOFT!!!). People like this sit around fgrepping for anything which could make
    their penis double or triple in size. No one
    takes responsibility for their actions or words
    anymore: you won't see Slashdot posting any form
    of admittance to their mistake, either.

    You will see more and more of this kind-of
    ignorance the more popular OSS advocacy becomes.

    Summary: Everyone needs a scapegoat.

    --
    Jeremy Chadwick
    yoshi@parodius.com
  • "I can't imagine that would last long under public scrutiny." Fearsome. Yeah, public scrutiny has sure done a lot for the nonviolent marijuana offenders that constitute 22% of our penal system. Just cause a law is bullshit and backed by big business interests doesn't mean there will be a backlash from public scrutiny at all. The time a gentle hippie spent in jail for weed possession sucks just as much as spending time in the pen for illegally linking to source code. Big tobacco interests caused the reefer-madness scare at the beginning of this century and the subsequent crop of ill-formed, unfair and non-justifiable laws to persecute people who chose to smoke a non-addictive peaceful alternative to alcohol or tobacco. The big corporate money of today is working on another FUD campaign to try to halt the free transmission of information and ideas. Don't take it lightly, or think that the fight can be won by free dissemination underground. While it is true that the spread of information is truly unstoppable in the age we now live in, if that spread is forced underground we all lose. Just because 10000 sites have it somewhere in one format or another doesn't mean a damn thing to the MPAA or RIAA. When a million of people willfully break a bad law every day, it just gives law enforcement the opportunity to selectively enforce the law on the lawbreakers they choose. Jesus, I can't wait until the older generations currently making law and policy in America finally die. The current crew of geriatic power brokers have small, closed minds that have been warped by a lifetime of careful media manipulation and FUD. I'm going to throw a party the day the diseased mind of Jesse Helms finally rots past senesence into death. Daemon

  • Re:Links (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They've apparently removed the pertinent information from their contact information search results pages. it would appear that for accounts which never changed their passwords (I would guess (with no real basis in fact) a large number) that the account name and default password are both of the form "####-admin"; the #### part (I'm using 4 digits here but it could be a different number of digits -- 4 is what they used in their "example") is evidently a series of decimal digits.

    The fact that they've changed their search results to remove vendor id's leads me to believe that they know they're gonna get cracked, and (my opinion) they are most likely acting in bad faith.

    I'm posting anonymously because I know that eventually someone will crack the site and I don't wanna go to court :-)

  • Re:How to get in (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here are some nice Vendor-IDs for you:

    2248 1286 2522 1436 1750 1940 1976 1656 2106 1026 1189 1646 1282 1564 2101 5736 2500 2499 1011 2527 2172 1058 2422 1958 1761 1314 1437 1080 1725 2391 2524 2250 1655 2536 1321 1568 2320 1764 1721 1423 1949 2022 1993 1102 1234 2555 2483 1319 2345 1131 1309 1124 1908 1110 1351 2216 1519 1261 1526 1000 1572 1989 1452 2176 2002 2010 2549 1366 2583 1726 1690 1315 1367 1320 1003 1877 2303 1664 1994 1592 1404 1497 1938 1289 1992 1398 1536 2553 1956 2424 1134 1293 1795 2269 1556 1732 2390 2181 1789 1489 1543 1934 2087 1273 2235 1868 2381 1369 2298 2578 1896 1980 1193 1324 1520 1169 1996 1999 2408 1059 2485 1827 2039 2594 1942 2537 1480 1130 1534 1266 1380 1688 2038 1160 1446 2237 2510 1288 1107 2393 2515 1911 1805 1207 1183 1756 2392 2523 2169 1394 1808 2468 1937 1962 1054 1322 2354 2130 2289 1374 1179 1892 2003 2571 1204 2001 1745 1274 2086 2471 1988 2420 1281 1148 1501 1901 1894 1522 1114 1477 2301 1870 1466 2194 1701 2027 2338 1279 1388 2213 2336 1723 2551 1548 1660 1821 1088 1267 1390 2511 2018 1255 1484 2154 2297 1016 1090 2282 2058 2281 1304 1913 2310 1022 2128 1300 2316 2525 1515 2147 1457 1413 1597 1916 1456 1161 1963 1509 1442 1227 1360 2174 2319 1221 1354 1708 1031 1072 1558 1027 1272 2559 1790 1091 2085 2007 2278 1507 2057 1009 2617 2325 1622 2337 1680 1631 1943 1620 1709 1579 2417 1733 1683 1633 2183 1532 2353 2371 2584 1758 1008 2136 1115 1188 1600 1661 1241 4268 1287 1786 2585 1244 4622 1693 1211 1775 2370 1203 2339 2205 1249 1816 1379 1969 1420 1451 1910 2445 1419 1734 2365 1068 1608 1029 1340 2446 2280 1165 2454 32902 1438 2078 1393 1662 2474 1335 1311 1435 1073 1555 1233 2232 2366 2368 2173 1537 1540 1903 1612 2533 1551 2253 2396 1513 1473 1295 2296 1472 1510 1149 2447 2247 1741 1017 1995 2385 2427 1034 1224 1391 2372 2098 2521 1902 1112 1154 2024 1650 1863 1439 1844 1535 1684 1727 1500 1085 1086 2423 1617 1915 2560 1226 2277 2294 1133 2254 1909 1302 1236 1150 1093 2361 1488 1778 2129 1848 2049 1809 1582 1974 2428 2067 1038 2484 2159 1474 2395 2593 1973 1041 2501 1238 2160 1123 1421 1240 1174 1588 1869 1118 1498 1430 2426 1246 1670 2137 2023 1747 1106 1006 1342 1071 1970 8888 1061 2020 2554 1760 2317 1192 1231 14627 1024 1954 1028 2595 1033 2513 1317 2356 2118 1751 1879 2315 1599 1738 1271 1432 1406 1574 2249 1566 1094 1395 1190 1057 1117 1259 1539 2206 2620 7867 2389 2433 1010 1641 1569 1724 1802 1239 2421 2367 1972 1449 1424 1862 1955 21930 1777 1019 1626 1444 2344 1411 2467 1201 2279 1242 1755 1900 2373 1257 2618 1674 1397 1228 1494 2321 1050 1754 2369 1523 8964 2362 1720 2019 1151 2363 1971 2470 1350 1867 2397 2394 1991 1483 1426 1338 1121 1936 2255 1710 1659 2244 1529 2509 2021 1479 1478 2355 1565 1407 1469 1209 1412 1470 2535 1941 2179 2082 1527 1482 2113 2550 1205 1410 2429 1542 2388 1699 2105 1373 1256 1170 1921 1914 1336 1140 2088 2581 1230 2419 1254 1208 1561 1481 1098 1990 1405 1245 2472 2318 1308 1486 2300 1665 1101 2260 1530 1590 1736 1485 1341 1630 1111 1801 1147 2534 1583 2473 1898 2327 1175 1545 1722 2299 2552 1316 1356 2099 1621 2580 1363 1060 1305 1618 1533 1155 1864 2343 1499 1138 1851 1487 1276 1793 1897 1504 1343 1861 1706 2293 2158 1776 1581 2028 2233 1229 1078 1737 1215 1604 1752 2061 1141 1623 1323 2579 1654 2146 1378 2089 1318 2425 1740 1105 1001 1495 1691 1766 1975 1260 1635 1222 2352 1132 1642 1553 1922 2582 1817 4496 1422 2050 2314 21827 1496 1344 1074 2204 1525 1146 1441 1899 1443 1830 2621 2469 1982 1037 2561 1265 1843 1347 1663 2259 2175 1538 2444 2322 2514 2305 1386 1329 1490 1981 1919 1035 1705 1939 1611 1605 1615 1128 1046 1782 1601 1640 2508 1546 1893 2182 2577 2340 1820 2138 1349 2163 1403 1453 1177 1577 2051 1429

  • Re:How to get in (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I wrote a Perl/LWP script to grep for which ones of these numbers work as ####-admin user/pass.

    This is what to mirror: http://www.usb.org/members/devclass.html

    Here you go:

    2248, 2522, 1750, 1656, 1026, 1189, 1646, 1282, 1564, 2101, 2527, 1058, 2422, 1761, 1314, 1437, 2250, 1655, 1321, 2320, 1764, 1721, 1423, 2022, 1993, 1102, 1234, 2555, 2483, 1319, 1124, 1908, 1110, 1351, 2216, 1519, 1261, 1526, 1000, 1452, 2002, 1366, 1726, 1690, 1315, 1367, 1003, 1877, 1592, 1497, 1992, 1398, 1536, 1293, 1795, 1556, 2181, 1489, 1934, 2087, 1868, 2381, 2298, 1896, 1980, 1169, 1996, 1999, 2408, 2485, 2039, 1942, 2537, 1480, 1130, 1266, 1380, 1688, 2038, 2237, 2510, 1288, 2393, 2515, 1911, 1756, 2392, 2523, 1808, 2468, 1937, 1962, 2354, 1374, 1179, 1892, 2003, 2571, 2001, 1745, 1274, 2471, 2420, 1281, 1501, 1901, 1522, 1477, 1870, 1466, 2194, 1701, 2027, 1279, 1723, 1548, 1088, 2511, 1255, 1484, 2297, 1016, 1090, 2058, 1304, 1913, 2310, 1022, 2316, 1515, 2147, 1457, 1597, 1916, 1456, 1509, 1442, 1360, 2319, 1558, 1027, 1790, 1091, 2085, 2007, 1507, 2057, 1009, 2617, 1622, 1631, 1709, 1579, 1733, 1532, 2353, 2136, 1115, 1188, 1661, 1287, 1786, 2585, 1244, 4622, 1211, 1775, 2205, 1249, 1379, 1969, 1420, 1910, 2445, 1734, 2365, 1068, 2446, 2454, 32902, 2078, 1662, 1311, 1435, 1073, 1555, 1233, 2366, 2368, 2173, 1537, 1540, 1903, 1551, 2253, 2396, 1513, 1473, 2296, 1472, 1510, 1017, 1995, 2385, 1391, 2521, 1902, 1112, 1650, 1863, 1439, 1844, 1535, 1684, 1500, 1085, 1086, 2423, 2560, 1226, 2277, 2294, 1909, 1150, 1093, 1488, 2129, 1848, 1809, 1582, 1974, 2067, 1038, 2159, 1474, 2395, 2593, 1041, 2501, 1238, 1174, 1588, 1118, 1498, 1430, 2023, 1747, 1106, 1342, 2020, 2554, 2317, 1954, 2595, 1033, 2356, 2118, 1751, 2315, 1599, 1738, 1271, 1432, 1406, 2249, 1566, 1094, 1117, 1259, 1539, 2206, 2620, 7867, 1569, 1802, 2421, 2367, 1972, 1449, 1424, 1955, 21930, 1777, 1019, 1626, 1444, 1201, 2279, 1755, 1900, 1257, 2618, 1674, 1397, 1754, 2369, 1523, 1720, 1151, 2363, 1971, 1350, 2394, 1991, 1483, 2255, 1659, 2244, 1529, 2021, 1565, 1407, 1412, 1470, 2535, 2082, 1527, 2550, 1205, 1542, 2105, 1373, 1336, 2088, 2419, 1254, 1481, 1098, 1990, 2472, 1308, 1486, 1530, 1736, 1341, 1630, 1111, 1147, 2534, 1583, 2473, 1898, 1175, 1545, 1722, 2299, 2552, 1316, 1356, 2099, 1621, 1363, 1060, 1305, 1618, 1533, 1155, 1864, 1499, 1793, 1897, 1861, 1706, 2028, 1078, 1737, 1604, 1752, 2061, 1141, 1623, 1323, 2579, 2146, 2425, 1740, 1001, 1766, 1635, 1642, 1553, 1817, 1422, 2050, 2314, 21827, 1496, 1146, 1441, 1899, 1830, 2621, 1037, 1347, 2322, 2305, 1386, 1329, 1035, 1705, 1939, 1605, 1601, 1640, 2508, 2182, 1349, 1453, 1177, 1577, 1429

  • "You are greedy!"

    "Hey, that was mine!"

    "[USB] is good!"

    Really, why read Slashdot when you could be playing Gauntlet:Legends? Isn't life just an analogy for Gauntlet:Legends? Isn't it a shame that the arcade isn't open yet...

    I could care less about USB devices yet, I'll wait until some better ones appear on the market. (like I need that much bandwidth for a keyboard...) However, I would like to see some new, cool 3D games for Linux. After that, I'll think about getting a USB GamePad instead of my trusty analog one. ...maybe. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • They have a legitimate basis: one granted by society to encourage the proliferation of those works as spelled out in most of the intellectual property laws of the industrial world.

    If the FSF can band together enough people to donate $, they can lobby the government to show them that "society" doesn't want this anymore. For now, however, this isn't the case, primarily because most people appreciate the benefits gained from IP law outweigh the costs of destroying it.

    IP law has centuries of history behind it in bolstering innovation. Open source philosophy has barely 15+ years and only 3 major successes under it's belt [Linux/Apache/Perl]. It can definitely be argued that IP law *can* inhibit innovation if abused, but that's not necessarily descriptive of all facets of IP law (it's unique to some pieces of software, mainly inrastructure).

    This says nothing about the benefit of open source sofware, of course. It just says that there is justification for closed source software when it beneifts society as a whole (again due to scarcity of skill & talent).

  • Open source software has a potential for a strong future, but that may be derailed if the community continues to think they can override basic economic principles.

    Now, extending the "right of access" for a spec or source code to those that can't afford to pay money is a valid argument.

    It does, however, preclude a company from making money off of licencing a "specified" innovation.

    Furthermore, this talk of "financial elitism" is rather obtuse. By saying "business/commerce" mentality has no place in the Open(-Source) arena, you're effectively promoting a zero-sum game: no one can make money because they can't charge money, since that would alienate those 'poor homeless programmers' who need access to the specs & code.

    I'm not confusing the issue of "free" vs. "freedom" - I'm saying that if you want pure "freedom", you effectively want everything available for zero-cost. Sorry, in a world of scarcity of skill, talent & knowledge, this is unrealistic.
  • You wonder why people often mistake free software for gratis software? It's because of complaints like these.

    Ideally a spec should be GPL. Barring that, it should be open. Barring that, it should be "competitively priced". $2500 is *not* expensive for most professional developers. There should be no problem for the major Linux distributions to purchase these specs. The DVD CSS licence, on the other hand, IS prohibitively expensive.

    Open source supporters like to say over and over "yes you can make money our way", but in cases like this the message gets clouded by people who seem to just want everything in life for free.
  • I'm wgetting all the restricted stuff, it'll appear somewhere later
  • Universal Serial Bus Revision 1.1 specification (.zip file format, size 1,779 Kbytes) provides the technical details to understand USB requirements and design USB compatible products (Updated 11/23/1999). Modifications to the USB specification are made through Engineering Change Notices (ECNs).

    This link requires NO password?

    And leads to 14M of documents, which look an awfull lot like the USB Specs... I mean... I was panic-ing since I actually write USB drivers, and have come to depend on the availability of the documentation...

    But it all still seems to be there... Just in case... I've grabbed everything I could find... 15+ M so far ;)

    Hehe


    ---
    Live Long & Prosper \\//_
    CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
  • OOOoooops.

    I meant

    "Approved USB Device Class Specifications Building on top of the USB specifications, there are Approved Device Class Specifications by the Device Working Group. These specifications recommend design targets for classes of devices. "

    But dyslexia seems to have bitten me ;)

    http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass.html

    ---
    Live Long & Prosper \\//_
    CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
  • well...

    Its bound to happen ;)

    One wonders if you could go one step behind the voice coil and catch it just before the DAC...
    Yummy Digital Signal

    I assume you'd have to integrate the decryption into the DAC otherwise you could do what I just said.

    ---
    Live Long & Prosper \\//_
    CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
  • That the next major revision of Apple's hardware lines will have 800mbps FireWire ports... up to 4 of them...

    www.mosr.com

    ---
    Live Long & Prosper \\//_
    CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
  • Yah, It doesn't make much sense to have USBFirewire... altho FireWireUSB might make a bit more sense ;)

    FireWire & USB have always been described as complimentary ports......

    A modern architechure needs DIMMS, AGP, PCI, FireWire, USB & 100bT. I spose you have to throw a VGA plug in there as well.

    Funny, that sounds a lot like Apple's latest G4s...

    Shoot me ;)



    ---
    Live Long & Prosper \\//_
    CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
  • That's right. Serial scsi.

    Complete with its on paragraph/chapter in the Big Book O' SCSI.

    It just happens to send data 1 bit at a time, and have auto-ID negotiation...... actually it uses a unique ID for every single device ever manufactured ;)



    ---
    Live Long & Prosper \\//_
    CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
  • FireWire, Ethernet, RS232, ADB, USB, TokenRing(?) are all serial protocols.

    They are measured in bps... bits per second... Some have stop bits, start bits etc...

    Its not always a simple matter of dividing by 8 to get the byte rate. Sometimes its a simpler matter of dividing by 10 ;)

    SCSI is really measured in MegaTransfers... and the scsi interface can be either wide or narrow... wide has two bytes per transfer.

    UltraSCSI160 does 80MT/second. Its wide. 160MB/s

    Lets not also discuss baudrate ;)

    Giggle.

    ---
    Live Long & Prosper \\//_
    CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
  • This seems to be just another example of the stupiditidy of the Slashdot maintainers. They have fallen subject to yet another misinterpretaition of facts, which they haven't checked out. Don't you check anything before posting a story?

    It would seem to me that I can still get at the information regarding USB I could before, even though I am not a paid member of the USB developers. Perhaps, they have moved things around (as is their prerogative), but otherwise, what has changed? What is the beef here?

    Derry

  • Re:Does anyone have a copy? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yes.
    http://www.geocities.com/usb_dev/ [geocities.com].

  • Re:How to get in (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No, their crypto *will be* secure for once. :-) They are proposing using ec as a strong and fast public key authentication method and outline the symmetric (they mention DES and 3DES as potential algorithms) key negotiation methods. The keys will be embedded in "authorized devices" (ring a bell?). The chilling part is in the 0.9a doc they discuss why they're doing it: content protection (meaning (and yes, they state it) protection of copyrighted content) all the way through the USB chain. Read the docs.

  • treke asks:

    What restrictions were placed on redistribution by people who have already gotten their hands on the specs?

    As far as I know, as long as you aren't a member, no restrictions were added or waived. That means it's covered under normal copyright law. You can't redistribute the spec, but you can read it, write a book about it, and distribute the book anyway you want. Check the computer section of your book store, at least 10% of those books are just rehashing copyrighted specifications or documentation.

    ----
  • On the Developer Site [usb.org], there is a link labeled USB Device Class Specifications [usb.org]. Immediately underneath, it says: (USB-IF member username and password required). If you click on the link, it asks for a username and password. Therefore, it is locked on the developer side.

    If you know of an official link to the Device Class Specifications on the USB site that is not locked, please post it here and to the Linux-USB mailing list.

    ----
  • >Apple killed firewire -- nobody needed to help.

    Firewire, aka IEEE 1394, is hardly dead. Pretty much all HDTV/DTV systems use it to communicate between receivers and decoders. It's just not used a lot on PCs is all.

  • I was in the middle of mirroring the documentation, and suddenly www.usb.org is unpingable. I assume this is because someone over on their end noticed the massive hard drive churning, and the flood of wget clients in the server logs. If this is actually the result of some losers DOS attack I'm going to be annoyed.
  • They're still unpingable, but responding to web requests again. False alarm, I suppose their firewall and their current slashdotting threw me off.
  • You probably are right about why they are hiding those specs. But why not use a publically available and tested encryption algorithm instead? I, at least, would feel a lot more comfortable with that...

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • The man makes a good point. FreeBSD and OpenBSD and all the other variants would be left out in the cold with this plan. We have to remember that Linux does not live alone in the world as free OSes go.

    Also, it begs another question. How much of the core development of the Linux operating system does the community want to have taken over by the Linux corporations? One bad corporate citizen could play heck with the order of things.

    Keeping it open in the hands of the hobbyists and the coders on a crusade is the only way to keep the core of the OS out of reach of exploitation.
  • Hmmm... let's tweak this a bit, and see what we get.

    I am an expert in monetarist economics, with a particular emphasis on the politics and philosophies of Milton Friedman, and his latter-day successor in the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher.

    The whole "intellectual-property" and "copyright extension" phenomenon troubles me somewhat as an economist, so I felt I had to submit my opinions on what is obviously a fundamentally flawed economic model.

    This DCMA case is a prime example. Once again, the cheapskates in the intellectual-property community begrudge someone making a profit off of product quality and service as opposed to artifical notions of "property" -- they seem to expect a free lunch. Well, as my economics professor always used to say, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch".

    What these crypto-fascist intellectual-property proponents don't seem to realise, is that the very system they promote is nothing more than the capitalist system they despise, but with a few extra nasty gotchas bolted on. If Marx were alive today, he would recognise "intellectual property" for what it is - an attempt by the owners of capital to extract more value from the labour of the proletariat without actually allowing them to see the excess value they produced

    For example: you do "work for hire" on a project which someone else holds the "copyright" to, they continue to get paid in good old fashioned United States dollars long after you've been let go. Try taking that to your local BMW dealership and see how far it gets you.

    So in a nutshell, intellectual-property is exactly like open-source (from the "big business" point of view), except that the developer works for nothing.

    In my book, profiting from "intellectual property" produced by others is the same as being a slaveowner. For this reason alone intellectual-property must be stopped, by Federal Law if need be.

    Much better, don't you think?

    Jay (=
  • Man, I can't wait. Since RedHat releases everything THEY write as OpenSource, reverse engineering will be VERY easy! I'll just ... READ THE DAMED SOURCE!

    Honestly, why do you come to SlashDot when you're allready smoking crack?


    Bad Mojo
  • Fees like $2500 for specs are not going to make anybody rich. There may be lots of reasons for the fees. It's possible that the forum miscalculated its budget and needs extra money to pay for publication, mailing, or other office exenses (it happens with these kinds of efforts). It's also possible that they simply want to limit the number of people who participate in USB-related standards discussions (many of the documents don't seem finished yet).

    It seems unlikely to me, that they are really trying to keep the specs themselves under wraps in the long run.

    So, I wouldn't jump to conclusions. Still, whatever the reasons for it, I hope this policy gets reversed because it does seem, ultimately, short sighted and harmful to the standard itself.

  • Well, Sigma Designs [sigmadesigns.com] is making a driver for their new Netstream 2000 decoder card...they're even open-sourcing all components except the driver itself (which will be linked to as a binary library file). You can read about it in their Linux newsgroup [sigmadesigns.com] on their company news server.

    Sadly, this is a card that costs $200, as it's more of an industrial-strength info-kiosk/server type device than a consumer DVD decoder card. And they're still refusing to do even binary drivers or an unencrypted Linux file player for the Hollywood Plus out of fear that it would break their agreement with DVDCCA or be used to play deCSS'd DVDs, respectively.

    Also somewhat annoying is the fact that when someone asked about BeOS drivers in the Linux group (a perfectly legitimate question, IMO), Marshall Goldberg, their marketing director, replied, "I'm sorry, but this is the Linux area, not the BeOS area." (And there isn't a BeOS area on their server.)

  • Firewire hasn't gotten the support it probably deserved on its technical merits. Apparently Apple, in its infinite wisdom (chuckle), tried to require licensing fees from every manufacturer and slowed its adoption. Then Intel dropped support for it in its 810, 820, 840 chipsets. But technically I think it's clearly superior to USB. I use firewire to talk to my Sony digital video camera and can count the problems I've had on one hand. I've tried to use USB, on the other hand, and finally gave up due to all the headaches to get it to work reliably (and this with just a couple simple devices like a mouse and keyboard).

    Here is a quick USB - Firewire comparison [firewireworld.com]:

    FireWire has many advantages over other digital interfaces. It has already replaced SCSI on the new Apple iMacs G3s, and G4s, and FireWire is much more user-friendly for connecting devices than SCSI. Dell, Gateway, and Compaq have also released machines that rely on FireWire for attaching high-speed peripherals. Although USB is a great low-cost solution for connecting keyboards and other low-speed peripherals, it doesn't have the speed for multimedia uses. Maximum speed for USB is 12 megabits per second, compared to FireWire at 400 megabits per second. PCI is currently faster than FireWire, at 1 gigabit per second, but plans are already in the works for a FireWire that will be as fast and will of course have the ease of use and other advantages of the current FireWire. FireWire cables can be up to 15 feet long and they have either two 6-pin connectors, for data and power, or one 6-pin and one 4-pin connector for the data-only cables. Up to 63 devices can be connected to a FirePower network. Products currently using FireWire include video camcorders, digital cameras, digital video capturing and editing equipment, hard drives, DAT drives, CD drives, zip drives, ORB drives, MO (magneto optical) drives, and printers

  • What does most of this dead technology have in common? At one point or another, it was closed off.

    This point is right on. I understand the USB Forum wants a few quick bucks for their specs, but are they ignoring the long view? If their USB specs were free (or better yet they wrote reference code for USB device drivers), there would be more software support for USB. USB would wind itself into many operating systems and the customer pool for USB hardware would grow!

    What am I not understanding?
  • Why doesn't one of the big boys license this information for use within its developers? Shouldn't these companies be supporting the development of the product they sell? I mean i would think Redhat, Caldera, or Corel would be happy to license this information for a third party to develop support or provide drivers. Microsoft provides information in SDK's and DDK's that work very well. Why complain about someone trying to controll there standard. Why not just get support for it. Just like ISO9000, it is a pain in the ass to manage according to those standards, and you pay for that. But your clients expect a quality of service and workmanship that comes about from being ISO9000 certified. So what is the big deal about being USB certified or paying for the information that the standardization group is working on and coordinating on. Again, if you don't like USB. Then work on standardizing another technology! Do the footwork instead of simply just trying to get access into someone elses! Long live linux, but long live USB. Its been the best thing since sliced bread!! Nothing like having a scanner, digital camera, digital mp3 player, snappy cam, video camera and printer all hubed in through USB and working without snagging every IRQ you got! blessed technology :) Sure firewire is fast as hell, and USB's new revision is fast as hell too.. but you have to pay for that also.
  • Good response :) hehe.

    BUT, this goes along with anything else. To get RedHat Certified, i have to pay for your classes & your training. Even though i could know the ins and outs and have access to all sorts of documentation I still have to be certified to be certified.

    Here is what your 2500 membership gets you. "The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) was established in 1995 to support and accelerate the market and consumer adoption of USB compliant peripherals. Today, the USB IF has more than 600 member companies and has led the way in helping companies introduce hundreds of USB-compliant products to the market. Members of the USB-IF enjoy many benefits including eligibility to participate in the USB-IF Compliance Program. " and here is the url for even more info. http://www.usb.org/developers/complian.html

    Your not just paying for DOC's that i'm sure you could find elsewhere, and maybe these shouldn't be charged for, but to certify your usb product and be able to have the USB logo, you have to follow the spec to the spec.

    It is a broad market with lots of competition from many different OS's but that is not an excuse to not support it under the OS your developing. Its up to the licensee to support his/her product. You dont create a standard and try and force it into the system, you certify new applications & uses that implement it and follow the spec so it will work across the board.

    We are all lucky we don't have a standard. You don't have to certify your product for side impact, you don't have to test for todler safety, you don't have to wory about physical forces or print a label that has the ingredients.. Linux has lucked out by skipping all the standards and laws that follow every other product. Thats why i don't understand the complaints against this. 2500 is NOTHING considering R&D to build anything new is usually MANY MANY times higher, and simply getting access to the USB standard and logo ability just means security and that your product WILL work and is certified TO work by the Certification Commitee.

    P.S. My spelling and grammer is bad, i'm typing this as i can.. work is busier then hell and i don't have but a few mins to say what i want to say, so don't leave me messages about it :)

    PPS :) have a good one!

  • Although it smacks of corporate greediness, and it is apparent that Linux developers who work for free can't join the members list, why can't the corporate Linux companies, such as Red Hat [redhat.com], Caldera [caldera.com] or VA Linux [valinux.com] systems join, and make their copies of the specifications available to developers. There may be copyright issues, but if the USB developers work "for" one of these companies, then surely there is no problem. The end-result would still be GPLed, and available to all, it's just a nominal shift in who you are working for.

    Linux has a number of high-profile companies now, and it's in their interests to ensure the best hardware compatibility for their distributions. $2500 is a small price to pay for that from their point of view, surely.

    -anil-
  • Humm ? Who is going to pay their $2500 a year. Or the people who dont want to work for a Linux vendor but would like to spend their spare time fiddling with a USB camera or other widget ?

    Alan
  • But how many people would need the restricted information once someone has written a GPLed interface? A properly documented interface should allow people to just talk to the device driver without needing the exact wording of the restricted information. For example, to alter the parity setting on a serial port I only have to do the proper system call without concerning myself with how the device driver author had to chat with the hardware/firmware to perform the change. And the device driver should have its operation documented well enough for others to add more devices with the proper incantations (bus address, configuration settings, buffers...).
  • Almost fair points :)

    But not so. Sure the effect of GPL et al is to reduce the amounts of money flying around - because someone can re-"sell" it on for free if they want. OTOH you can cover costs of CDs, which is fair enough; but the main thing is that you can make loads of dough off related services instead - eg support, contracting / configuring, whatever.

    Here's an example:
    Last year I produced a perl script. It took 15 minutes, from 10 mins' finding someone else's modules and 1 minute editing them to do what I wanted and about 4 mins' testing. As a result a multi-megabuck deal went through that probably wouldn't have otherwise.
    Now how much was that script *worth*? (And secondarily, how is that amount related to what I got for it, ie absolute zip?)

    Methinks "worth" is one thing that open-source deals with; something like eg Apache is worth a LOT. OTOH the idea of "what someone can be suckered into paying for it" is what the commercial scene is all about.
    Me, I'd prefer to produce a valuable, useful, high-quality application or utility, rather than any amount of generated code managed by a "quality" system, any day. And I have the right and the choice to do so if I want.
  • Working on an opensourceproject is a bit like
    charity, in the way that it all benefits the
    users and the community.

    You get paid by respect, just like when doing
    work for charity, except that doing opensource-work gives you a better chance of
    being respected as a skilled hacker/programmer,
    instead of being respected just for being "kind".

    If you really are an expert in economics, you
    should have thought this through.
    Given your arguments, giving a concert in aid
    of a good cause is slave labour.
    This also means that U2, probably some of the richest guys in Ireland, is in fact slaves.

    Slavery is only at term appropriate if you are
    _forced_ to do work for nothing.
    Opensource-developers aren't forced into anything.
    They just do what they feel like doing, hacking..
    and why not make a contribution that millions
    of other people will respect you for?

    If you don't want to code GPL-stuff, then don't.
    It is as simple as that.
  • We all know that the average slashdotter doesn't think highly of copyright law, but all this mirroring and redistribution of copyrighted material is nevertheless a violation of that body of law.

    I can see two results: either the USB people are going to realize that it's silly to try to hoard this sort of information, or they're going to send out a hardy "fuck you" to the community and redouble their efforts to charge for the info. Let's just hope they'll choose the former.
  • USB.org members [usb.org]

    USB Promoters:-

    • Compaq
    • Hewlett Packard
    • Intel
    • Lucent Technologies
    • Microsoft
    • NEC
    • Philips
    + > 600 members found on Contact Filter/Search [usb.org]
  • Hmm...

    Have you ever heard of Taylor Wines?

    Well, have you?

    Ok, seems that the Taylor Family had a winery that produced some popular wines, and some big corporate Behemoth decided, "Oh, look a vast expanse of gold as far as the eye can see! Let's aquire them!"

    Well, there was one stubborn Taylor who refused to sell out. [bullyhill.com]

    But the Behemoth got him, see, they didn't really care about the land or the wine so much as the name Taylor, which had mindshare and synergy and all that good stuff. So, he could continue to make wine... but he is legally not allowed to put his own name on it. This is the way corporations operate with their wonderful intellectual property laws, like patents, trademarks and copyrights.

    So, I hope this little fable may enlighten you as to why cororate behemoths love "intellectual property," but us individuals should hate it.

  • P.S. Another message on the list [electricrain.com] hints how you can hijack an account and get at the docs.

    Anyone willing to do this and post a login? Or make a mirror?

    --

  • Are the documents themselves restricted if other people have them? If so, could they not be "translated" to say effectively the same thing, but in such a way that the documents are then authored by someone else, and so open for distribution?
  • We had moved the Class Documents to the members only area, but have replaced them in the developers site. Sorry to have stirred up such commotion. This was definitely not calculated to shut down independent development.

    Darn it! Just when I had gotten my panties all into a bunch over this, you tell me it was all about nothing!! I had this really great flame of you, your mother, and your home town all typed up and ready to go. But Noooooo, you have to go and inject useful discussion onto my personal flame-board, Slashdot.

    Oh well... I have to find something else to do, like look through the list of patents granted today or use the search engines to find out if anybody said something negative about Linux today.


    --
    Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
    If you can't be informative, use my name

  • I'm not a coked-out Linux zealot, but I do realize that there are a *LOT* of standards organizations like this that only make their standards and work available to their members. Well, why doesn't someone start either a Linux coalition of just an Open Source one. People join by signing up on a website and when a set of standards like these require membership, everyone sends in the couple bucks or so and they all get a copy of the standards. As long as they're all official members of the coalition, the coalition can be a member. Hell, you could even elect a representative to go to the various conferences and deal on the behalf of the coalition. You could probably even raise a decent salary for the person if you got at least 10,000 people who wouldn't mind paying like a $1/mo dues fee...

    Esperandi
  • The specification for AGP costs $2500 also - now it is the defacto standard for video cards. So there are other factors that can come into play for any given technology to achieve widespread acceptance. With AGP, I believe it to be critical mass usage and performance that drives its popularity, not the fact that is closed or open source.
  • Boasing on headcounts is not a good thing. ;)

    I can already see the announcement on Slashdot if we did what you suggested...

    Red Hat today hired its 1000000th employee. They don't seem to be doing anything they didn't do with their 500 employees. Red Hat is like Microsoft. Red Hat sucks.
  • And I'm glad to report it was successful - the docs are back where they belong, at
    http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass. html [usb.org].

    Unfortunately, slashdot rejected the news item on it - seems bashing someone is better than reporting they fixed it. :/
  • We could of course get a license - but that wouldn't help the basic problem. They don't permit passing around access data, so basically anyone new wanting to help with the USB drivers would need to be hired by one of the Linux companies to get access to the data. (And then it might even result in different USB stacks in every distribution, impossible to maintain, depending on how well we'd manage to work together.)

    Also, Linux is not the whole world. Even if we manage to get access for all Linux USB developers, that will still leave FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and TheFreeOSSomeoneElseIsStartingRightNow(tm) locked out.

    Specs like these need to be publically accessible, or the standard is going to suck. (Anyone complaining about hardware manufacturers not releasing docs for accessing their hardware? This is just the same thing!)

    I've brought this matter to the attention of the people who actually wrote the standards, and the ones I've heard back from seem to agree with me. I'm expecting this to get fixed without anyone having to get in.
  • If I'm understanding this right, the certification is for devices (USB printers etc. being certified to be compliant with standards), not for OSes being certified to handle USB hardware.

    It's easier to certificate a device (by having a set of standard drivers trying to access it and report problems with standards compliance) than proofreading OS source code to make sure it's 100% compatible with the standard.

    If getting an OS certified, it should be done for Linux in general, not for one particular distribution. We're all using the same USB stack after all.

  • If your technology has already been put in just about every single new computer and is gaining support why not charge money? In the case of USB it's popular enough that charging for development documentation won't harm USB at all.

  • This USB case is a prime example. Once again, the cheapskates in the Linux community begrudge someone making a profit. Again, they seem to expect a "free lunch".

    What they want is not the result of anyone's productive work, but specifications, which are something needed for productive work.

    So in a nutshell, open source is exactly like closed source (from the developers point of view), except that the developer works for nothing.

    He works because he likes doing it. Besides he gets to use the result of his work as well as that of other open source developers. BTW, some open source developers are actually being paid by companies who have realized that one can make money with open source.

    In my book, working for nothing is exactly the same as slavery. For this reason alone open source must be stopped, by Federal Law if need be.

    OK, I think you've just stooped into the cesspits of trolldom. Someone moderate this moron down.

  • I think he was referring to DV devices, which are most certainly NOT dead. All the DV, MiniDV cameras and decks I've worked with support firewire/1394, and it's real fun to plug a camera into a firewire bus and have the video feed show up in Final Cut Pro. For DV, it's the preferred method.
  • If the USB group wants to play these games, switch to Firewire. It's much faster and supports far more devices on the same wire.

    It may be faster, but the current implimentations of Firewire and USB allow 63 and 127 devices, respectively. Not that I'd ever have anywhere near 63 Firewire devices to hook up, though.

  • For the same Reasons that the Moton Picture Association is trying to prevent Drivers for DVD's from being created for Linux.

    Its unfortunate that these companys aren't taking linux seriously and creating drivers for the "ALTERNATIVE" OS's, and making it difficult for us to create our own.

    Someday They might wake up and stop limiting the potential for drivers on the alternative OS's (and suing us as in the DeCSS case)

    Just my 2 cents as I move from Lurker to Poster :-)
  • From a quick look at www.usb.org [usb.org], there seems to be a lot of documentation still available, including most older documentation.

    The only document that seems to be restricted are those from the 1999 USB 2.0 conference. This may be a bad thing, but right now it looks like its just an attempt to prevent incompatible standards.

    Either that or something I missed entirely is blocked.
  • If this is moderated as a troll then how come replies that are rabidly pro-Linux get moderated up?

    Good question. Erm... can you point to an article that was moerated up for being rabidly pro-linux?. Although this was probably moderated as Troll because it seems to have been written entirely to annoy, and contained comments such as "open source must be stopped, by Federal Law if need be." which isn't exactly the most balanced way of presenting an argument.

    Couldn't be that you Open source socialists just can't take free critisism when it's offered ?

    I find it amusing that you seem to consider socialist to be an insult. Anyway, some of us will take criticism. Some will not. Some of us will allow abuse and insults (Which you supplied an abundance of). Some will not.

    It is the American way to drive to succeed, to excel, to MAKE MONEY.

    Ahh, so this is where I'm going wrong. I'm not American. Damn. If only I was I could live up to your stereotype.

    Those who work for free are already losers when measured by the yardstick of Dollars.

    I'm not working by the yardstick of Dollars (or even pounds). There are other ways to measure success. For some reason, my University didn't really consider how much money I might make when giving me my degree.

    So please, continue to work for free so the sane amongst us profit from you!

    Thanks for your permission.

    Do you actually understand what money's for? Its simply an extension of the barter system that allows for more complicated deals than a simple swap. Those who produce open source software don't need it. They want other open source software. You on the other hand seem to have an obsession with money. You really ought to develop your own opinion rather than conforming to what you think America is all about.
  • In defence, people mentioned Linux and nothing else because they don't use anything else. For the most part they've been windows users that finally started using a real OS. They've never touched anything like Unix other than Linux. Simply they are naive. They don't mean any harm to BSD (I hope) or other OSS OSs, they simply aren't worried about them.

    I'm glad you made the point that a lot of Linux development is NOT non-profit, which is why I'm not so worried about Linux USB support -- (say) RedHat will be the first to get it, and they'll make money from it, then the rest will have it, and all is well.

    This is just speculation, I don't know that the masses think this way, but they sure seem to. If it isn't the case, and they HAVE been dependant at one point or another on something else, they have no excuse.

    ---
    script-fu: hash bang slash bin bash
  • Read here [electricrain.com]. Randy is the "maintainer" for linux-usb. I believe that this slashdot article was rushed out too early.

  • How to get in (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @01:04AM (#1238599)
    http://www.usb.org/app/db/search/contacts/ [usb.org] Look at the source to get a bunch of Vendor IDs. Then append "-admin" and use that as a username and password.

  • Re:Members vs developers (Score:3)

    by warmcat ( 3545 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:29AM (#1238600)
    um... I think you're the one getting confused. See http://www.usb.org/developers/docs.html where it says:

    USB Device Class Specifications
    (USB-IF member username and password required)

    If you click on the link you are indeed prompted for a member username and password.

    -Andy

  • Re:Why we need to support Firewire! (Score:3)

    by Sleepy ( 4551 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @04:18AM (#1238601) Homepage
    Just 7 months after the whole /. community was screaming over "Apple licensing" of Firewire, I find this most ironic.

    USB 2.0, be it an eventual product or vaporware announcement, was designed to steal mindshare from Firewire.

    USB was designed for cheap low-bandwidth plug in parts. That's what it is good at. Trying to scale up from that detracts from the original design. It makes absolutely no sense to have a mouse on the same bus as an external hard drive or video capture.

    Now that Firewire has been FUDDED into a mostly-Apple expansion port, Intel moves in for the harvest. Nice. You didn't see it coming?

    FOr those of you that don't know, "Firewire" is the same as "Sony i.Link" and 1394 ports. Sony just calls it that to prevent mindshare from Firewire.

    Bah. No more coffee this morning. :-)

  • Re:Why this is important (Score:3)

    by scrytch ( 9198 ) <chuck@myrealbox.com> on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @05:51AM (#1238602)
    > It should be noted that many other operating systems also currently support USB as well. BSD's not with standing.

    I'll suppress the flames, it didn't look like a troll ... but FreeBSD has had USB support for some time now.

  • NEWS FLASH: Microsoft releases DirectExperience (Score:3)

    by TrentC ( 11023 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @08:13AM (#1238603) Homepage
    REDMOND, Wash. -- March 1,2000 -- Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") announces the release of DirectExperience(tm), a revolutionary new system designed to provide an unparalleled audiual, visual and for the first time, tactile experience while providing optimal protection for the audio-visual-tactile content.

    By inserting a series of IntelliPlugs(tm) into the flesh of the arms, legs and spine along with a DirectExperience(tm) cranial socket, content providers can download audio, visual, and tactile sensory experiences into the cortex of the brain, providing life-like experiences unrivalled by any other streaming medium released to date.

    In addition to providing an encrypted stream of information right up to the integrated dermal and cranial sockets, reducing the chances of a successful side-channel attack, Microsoft has worked closely and secured an unparalleled deal in which all infants born after March 31, 2000 will have the plugs introduced in-vitro and connected to a DirectExperience terminal shortly after birth. Microsoft plans to use the profits from the licensing of its technology to content providers to allow for intravenous nourishment for these infants through the course of their natural lives. It is estimated that within 50 to 70 years, every person in the world will be upgraded to handle DirectExperience technology; after that, production of new consumers will be off-loaded to a separate farming location.

    Early product testers, when asked about the DirectExperience(tm) system, offered the following comments:

    "*belch*"
    "Glurgh..."
    "There is no spoon..."

    Microsoft President and CEO Steve Ballmer, when asked about the DirectExperience(tm) system, said "It's the smell, you see..."

    Jay (=

  • Re:Redistribution of Specs (Score:3)

    by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @05:21AM (#1238604)

    Since it's pretty unreasonable to expect individual OSS developers to ante up $2500 for the privilege of writing software, what about some organization such as the FSF paying the fee for the specs and signing up people to develop drivers, etc.

    Is there some sort of nondisclosure that restricts anyone from doing this? Or are only commercial software vendors invited to the USB party?

    This smells a little like the fracus that resulted when Intel closed some specs a while back. Didn't they eventually relent?

    Finally, the wiseguy who thought the editor should research before posting should have checked the links on the URL he posted. The link to go to the class specs was indeed password protected.
    --

  • Re:SPECS MIRRORED NOW! Free access... (Score:3)

    by ixx ( 11362 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @05:45AM (#1238605) Homepage Journal
    btw if you want to make a mirror of the members area off usb.org w/wget do something like:

    wget -m --http-user=1211 --http-passwd=cypherpunk -np http://www.USB.org/members/devclass.html

    the -np will make it so you do not get parent directories.

    - ixx -

    didn't mean to post anonymous on that last mirror post.

  • why members only? (Score:3)

    by Roundeye ( 16278 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:42AM (#1238606) Homepage
    Following recent news that Intel is providing mechanisms to provide encoding support all the way to the display device, and recent maneuvers by content conglomerates, perhaps USB support for such ``copy-proof'' displays is being developed. It would be better to keep such work away from the eyes of the average Open Source developer.

    Just my conspiracy theorist notion.

  • Re:Greedy? (Score:3)

    by PigleT ( 28894 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @03:06AM (#1238607) Homepage
    I suspect you might've gone and confused 'open' and 'free' and 'free' yourself, too?

    Let's use "Free" for "idealogically Open", and "free" for money for the time being.
    Then I'd say that a specification should be Open - must be! - or Free, and it should be cheaply available.
    Now, if it's Open then there are no restrictions on redistribution: therefore you can sell it to my friend for $2500 and he'll give me a copy because he's nice like that. All without license breach. And more to the point, I'll take a look at it, change it in a few places, and send it back both to my friend and the original authors as diffs.

    (Incidentally, I think your use of "GPL" there is unfortunate. LGPL, possibly, or something else. GPL is a bit inapplicable when it comes to specs, because if it's going to be a Spec, then it needs to be relatively fixed.)

    Now, this $2500 thing: is the figure reasonable? Is the documentation for USB still Open? Is it restricting distribution or biassing itself against a particular set of users? (E.g. the GPL states there should be no division of users on such things as country/ethnic/religious grounds - can I extend that to "financially able"??)

    *I*'m not "a professional developer", though. I don't see why I should have to work for A Big Linux Named-Company in order for them to afford a copy of the Spec for me. In fact, that scenario is no better than the current commercial scene. Bad.

    And while I'm here ;) The fact that "there are a lot of people who'll never need to know the contents" doesn't permit a financial elitism. That is a business/commercial mentality which has no place in the Open(-Source) arena.

  • Re:Why we need to support Firewire! (Score:3)

    by NickV ( 30252 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @11:24AM (#1238608)
    FOr those of you that don't know, "Firewire" is the same as "Sony i.Link" and 1394 ports. Sony just calls it that to prevent mindshare from Firewire.

    Firewire is not "Sony i.Link." Firewire also provides a line of power to the devices connected, whereas products plugged into Sony's i.Link do not. A subtle difference, but one that could make a difference when buying a firewire drive WITHOUT an AC Adapter.

    -Nick

  • original posting on [linux-usb] (Score:3)

    by nazerim ( 32960 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:30AM (#1238609) Homepage
    http://electr icrain.com/lists/archive/linux-usb/2000/02/msg0115 3.html [electricrain.com]

    Perhaps the Slashdot article doesn't make it clear - it's not the Linux-USB people who are restricting access, it's USB-IF who are the culprits in the matter.

    My question is, why would someone want to restrict the development of drivers for their products? Surely this is simple maths - no support, less people buy. Take the SBLive for example - this has excellent support under linux, and many Linux weenies went out and bought it [GRiN] ...

  • documentation isn't GPL'd (Score:3)

    by Mondo54 ( 48155 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:38AM (#1238610)
    While source code is GPL'd, documentation isn't. Anyone could look at the source and document the class specs and charge for it. But in the spirit of open development and abstraction(I wouldn't want to spend time interpreting what a function does if someone else could tell me), perhaps future docs need their own public license. The pace of development would quicken and the barriers to entry (spending the time to figure out wtf something does so you can write code based on it) would lower.

  • Re:Firewire? (Score:3)

    by hedgehog_uk ( 66749 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @01:26AM (#1238611) Homepage
    Linux can't just drop USB. If I go to the PC World next to my office I can buy USB keyboards, mices, scanners, printers, mp3 players, digital cameras etc. Most (if not all) new PC's and motherboards come with built-in USB. Linux needs to support USB. Therefore the developers need the specs. Whilst the specs should be freely available, $2,500 is peanuts to companies like IBM, SGI, Corel, VA, Red Hat etc.

    HH

    Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.

  • Re:Motives? (Score:3)

    by dufke ( 82386 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @01:13AM (#1238612)
    Makes me wonder if the Beanie can be revoked.

    As far as I understand, it was the Linux developers, not the Forum, that got the beanie. They'll need (and deserve) it more than ever.
    -

  • I have a better idea (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @05:33AM (#1238613) Homepage Journal
    Start recruiting hardware manufacturers, take the last open version of the spec, Fork, and start working from there. Come up with a sticker for device and motherboard manufacturers (OpenUSB?) and refuse to buy any hardware that doesn't have the sticker.
  • Linux companies could indeed join the members list (but probably not redistribute the obtained material, shutting out everyone else) - but (aside from the possibility of looking at Linux code and guessing why it's doing that) how would this help other OSes, like the various BSDs?

    For something like USB to become a <i>real</i> standard, it has to be truly cross-platform, usable on every OS. I don't intend to switch hardware every time I boot into a different OS.

  • Alan Cox says... (Score:3)

    by billybob jr ( 106396 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @06:58AM (#1238615)
    "Methinks the editor should have done some research himself and put some of these in the story."

    If you had read all the messages you would have seen that HeUnique was not only reading those links, he posted to the thread asking for more information and their (usb developers) opinion on posting this story to slashdot.

    Interestingly, Alan Cox suggested [electricrain.com] waiting for a week before posting to Slashdot to give them a chance to explain and/or change back graciously before being "hit by a nuclear warhead"

    Maybe Slashdot could make some sort of community watchdog section where things that seem suspicious could be posted, but in sort of a beta state before going to the main page.

  • A Bit Hasty? (Score:3)

    by GhostCoder ( 108387 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @10:06AM (#1238616)
    Typical Slashdot.org rush to judgement. Here slashdot (or, more specifically HeUnique) is trying to be a breaking news journalist...without getting all the facts. This is the same thing authors and readers of slashdot bash other publications for doing. Mr. Cox brings up a very valid point, that even i you didn't or couldn't get comment by the USB-IF you could have at least echoed.
    HeUnique:
    What's your response to this message? http://electr icrain.com/lists/archive/linux-usb/2000/02/msg0115 9.html [electricrain.com]
    • To: hetz@nospam (Hetz Ben Hamo)
    • Subject: Re: [linux-usb] USB specifications made non free
    • From: Alan Cox
    • Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 12:37:15 +0000 (GMT)
    • Cc: greg@nospam (Gregory P. Smith), linux-usb@nospam
    • In-Reply-To: from "Hetz Ben Hamo" at Feb 29, 2000 11:30:46 AM
    -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

    > Hi, I'm Hetz (also nicked HeUnique) - and I'm a slashdot.org author..
    > Should I post this as a story on slashdot? what do u say?

    I think it might be a good story to post - in about a weeks time. Right now people are knocking politely on USB forums doors saying 'this might be a bad idea'. Its going to be much easier for them to say 'hey you might be right' or 'that was a mistake' if they haven't been hit by a nuclear warhead as well.

    If nothing comes of it then you have a better story at the end of the week and time to phone the USB forum and ask them for their side of the story.

    You know...I really should start making posts of actual substance, instead of continually tearing down Slashdot, but I think Slashdot could be an excellent medium if some issues with it were addressed - such as journalistic integrity (as if there were such a thing).

  • Re:Why we need to support Firewire! (Score:3)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @08:14AM (#1238617) Homepage
    IEEE-1394 and FireWire are the same thing, but iLink is a standard for sending video over FireWire links. It's thus a higher-level protocol on top of FireWire.

    FireWire supports both synchronous stream data, like video, and block data, like disk drives. Most of the action is in synchronous stream data, primarily video. Block devices for FireWire are rare, but they do exist. I just saw a Zip drive, of all things, for FireWire. The big problem isn't Apple, it's Intel and Microsoft. Intel has backed away from block-device FireWire support [intel.com] and is now pushing USB 2 for that purpose. Microsoft was late with FireWire support in the OS.

  • Re:Troublw with Firewire? (Score:3)

    by Yardley ( 135408 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @01:59AM (#1238618) Homepage
    There are a huge number of FireWire devices.
    Here's a short list [michael-amorose.com] (not for 28K modems).

    Some related articles/sites:

    The GNU/Linux IEEE 1394 Development Project [uni-klu.ac.at]
    FireWire: The Fast, Easy to Use, Multimedia Interconnect Standard [apple.com]
    IEEE 1394, the A/V Digital Interface of Choice [1394ta.com]
    FireWire -- For Footage That Flies [dtvgroup.com]
    Papers on IEEE 1394 Technology [skipstone.com]
    Texas Instruments Interface Products [ti.com]

  • Re:How to get in (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @01:46AM (#1238619)
    I have the full set (~5.5Mb tarred & gzipped). Recommendations on how to get them out? :-)

    Btw, on cursory examination I can tell you why they hid them. There are a set of specs on how to do "content protection" via various encryption methods including elliptical curve algorithms. They are going private to avoid another DeCSS.

  • Re:How to get in (Score:4)

    by phil reed ( 626 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @02:52AM (#1238620) Homepage
    There are a set of specs on how to do "content protection" via various encryption methods including elliptical curve algorithms. They are going private to avoid another DeCSS.

    Seems unlikely. I took a quick look at the encryption specification (the "security" on that site pretty much sucks), and it generally concerns itself with communication protocols for key exchange. It talks very little about the actual encryption, and I didn't see any limits on key length.

    Besides, if you've done any studying on crypto, you'll remember that you can't keep the algorithm secret - the algorithm has to be publically secure. The security comes solely from the key length and the quality of the encryption. If their encryption is any good, then public exposure of the algorithm is not a security hole.


    ...phil

  • We found out why the new specs are private (Score:4)

    by tilly ( 7530 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @02:31AM (#1238621)
    In the links thread where people broke in, a "coward" [slashdot.org] broke in, got the specs, and noticed exactly why they want this rev hidden. It has nothing to do with the money that the USB folks just got, and everything to do with trying to do security the stupid way.

    Cheers,
    Ben

  • Re:Why we need to support Firewire! (Score:4)

    by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @05:10AM (#1238622) Homepage
    FOr those of you that don't know, "Firewire" is the same as "Sony i.Link" and 1394 ports. Sony just calls it that
    to prevent mindshare from Firewire.

    No, sony calls it that because APPLE won't let people use the word "firewire" without paying a fee. That's why it goes by so many names.

    Apple killed firewire -- nobody needed to help.

  • Clarification (Score:4)

    by The Musician ( 65375 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:39AM (#1238623) Homepage

    One thing should be noted also, since the posting is somewhat unclear on this topic.

    The suggestion is not that the group who received the award has now closed off some specs. See #15 [slashdot.org] for example.

    The suggestion is now that this USB group got $10k to use, the specs suddenly cosy money. (See post from Alan Cox [electricrain.com]).

    --

  • Re:Why this is important (Score:4)

    by rtaylor ( 70602 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @02:31AM (#1238624) Homepage
    It should be noted that many other operating systems also currently support USB as well. BSD's not with standing. I think it should be opened for EVERYONE not just Linux.

    What makes Linux more special than the rest? And why should Microsoft have to pay instead of Linux? Oh, being not-for-profit is entirely false. Ask Redhat how much their stock is worth.

    Not to mention once Linux, or a BSD used the standards in opensource, other places would just take the API calls from there.

    Whats the object of this message? Stop fighting a Linux vs. the world battle, and fight an opensource vs. the closed source world battle. You might find you have better luck as the number of opensource people is greater than linux people. Especially as far as large corporations are concerned.

  • SPECS MIRRORED NOW! Free access... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @02:16AM (#1238625)
    Before they fix their security leaks, I've mirrored the members only pages at

    http://www.geocities.com/usb_dev/ [geocities.com].

    Feel free to mirror this...

  • More info about the documents... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @03:11AM (#1238626)
    [I was the mentioned coward poster]

    Additionally, another AC has posted a mirror where the docs can be viewed (scroll down if you're interested). [I have personally been fucking with mixmaster trying to send off some mails, damnit] Of particular interest are two particular documents: "Device Class Definition for Content Security Devices 0.9a" and "Content Security Method 4 - Elliptic Curve Content".

    The first of these docs outlines roughly why: "Protected Content typically refers to copyrighted content. Content Protection Methods (CPM) have been developed for the controlled distribution of protect [sic] content." and also uses an example of a pair of USB speakers which allow protection of content up until the hardware induces analog playback.

    The second document discusses the technical details of Elliptic Curve cryptographic methods to provide authentication, and authentication + encryption. This is no CSS. This is good old fashioned high grade badass crypto. Some of the inline commentary regarding illegal intent there is somewhat chilling.

    Anyone still have doubts as to why this dinner is being held behind closed doors and costs $2500 a plate?

  • Why this is important (Score:5)

    by warmcat ( 3545 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:25AM (#1238627)
    I am deisgning a USB device in VHDL and I downloaded some of the Device Class specifications previously - it sucks that the otherwise very open (there are no licensing fees to create USB devices, and you can download the protocol specification from the website for free; they also run a very active and useful Developers Webboard for free) USB site should clam up on the critically important Device Class specs like this.

    The Device Class specifications outline standard ways to use the USB protocol for, say, Modem devices, or Mass Storage Devices. If you make your hardware compliant with these Device Class specification ''APIs'' then you don't actually need to write a device driver! The major OSs write inbuilt support for the defined Device Classes, and your new Modem or whatever is recognized as being compliant with the ''APIs'' and ''just works''.

    It is a bit numb to publish the physical and transport layer specifications for free but not the higher level ones! I wonder what made them decide to change?

    Anyone concerned should email admin@usb.org (this is the correct address from the website) and request that the Linux implementation efforts are allowed a complimentary membership as they are not-for-profit.

    -Andy

  • Re:Why this is important (Score:5)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @07:13AM (#1238628)
    Oh, being not-for-profit is entirely false. Ask Redhat how much their stock is worth.

    For the last friggin time:

    Red Hat != Linux

    All of the Linux Community is not getting Red Hat's chunk of change. And most, if not all of the programmers who code additions for the kernel are NOT getting paid for it.

    That is called Non-Profit. Red Hat is a COMPANY. Linux is a KERNEL. How the hell do you equate the two?

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • This can only damage the average developer (Score:5)

    by Ektanoor ( 9949 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @03:05AM (#1238629) Journal
    Frankly a year charge of $2500 can only affect individuals or volunteer groups. Companies and major software development groups may feel this as a bless as it shrinks USB potential market to their products.

    Sincerly I am not absolutely against charging such things. Anyway things must be supported, one should pay for common expenses and many people would like to have conferences or meetings to settle up questions. and this demands money.

    However USB group makes out of this an elite club. There are no chances. Either pay $2500 or hit the streets. And this does not just end here. If anyone has taken a look at their application form, then they consider ONLY companies as possible members. Besides:

    "Renewal and Size of Forum. The Forum Sponsors reserve the right to limit the number of participants or to discontinue the program upon written notice. Upon any such, Company shall receive a refund of a portion of its subscription fee proportional to the amount of time otherwise remaining in its enrollment period."

    The Forum sponsors are: Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM PC Co., Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom. So one may well think were this beautiful family of sponsors are pushing us to. Specially if we consider that this membership allows "early access to specifications".

    In any case I would highly recomend anyone to read this membership form. It presents some more interesting points that may develope discussion:
    http://www.usb.org/developers/data/usbifapp.pdf

  • Rampant mirroring is no solution. (Score:5)

    by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @01:43AM (#1238630) Journal
    It seems to me that the rampant mirroring some people are suggesting isn't going to be particularly effective, in the long term at least.

    These specifications are 'in various stages of development' and the folks working on this stuff would probably like to keep up with these developments, not be stuck with what was freely available yesterday.

    This needs to be sorted out sensibly and diplomatically, hijacking accounts and mirroring (potentially superceded) documentation is going to win us no friends nor be of much long term use. What it will do is make us look like a bunch of petulant children.

  • Digging their own grave (Score:5)

    by Zigg ( 64962 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @05:15AM (#1238631)

    I've read all the comments on this article, and visited a few links. There's quite a few rumors and half-truths going around, so I won't try to address most of them. I will, however, address the simple act of trying to close off the device classes.

    If we look back on the path computing has taken over the past two decades, we see it littered with dead technology. What does most of this dead technology have in common? At one point or another, it was closed off. Ridiculous fees were charged for redistribution of specifications. Those who paid were prohibited from sharing their information with anyone but the others who paid, and sometimes not even them.

    By contrast, if the steward of a particular technology practices open computing, whether the technology lives or dies depends on technological rather than political (and no, I don't mean governmental) merits. If these stewards need money; it would stand to reason that whomever stood to benefit from the technology's wide adoption should contribute more to it in the hopes that their investments would be returned.

    USB's move here could undermine its previously open stance, and that would be a bad thing for USB. I hope they reevaluate it. USB is a very useful technology in its own right and need not be squelched in this manner.

    Oh, and I can't pass up contributing to a USB thread without telling you that salespeople in a local electronics store recently told one of my friends that the USB port on some home entertainment equipment was for the brand-spankin'-new ``Universal Stereo Bus''. :-)

  • Links (Score:5)

    by The Musician ( 65375 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:23AM (#1238632) Homepage
    Perhaps these are some things people would be interested in: Methinks the editor should have done some research himself and put some of these in the story. A slashdot story with no links? Bah!

    --

  • Slashdot Weenie Awards? (Score:5)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @03:40AM (#1238633) Homepage Journal

    Although it appears people are confusing the group that got the award (developers), and the people who are charging for access to docs (USB-IF), perhaps it's time to split the Beanie Awards concept in twain.

    • Slashdot Beanie Awards
      For laudable service to fellow geeks.
    • Slashdot Weenie Awards
      For all the FUD-spewing, patent abusing sorts.
    (Slashdot Weenie Awards =anagram> So, what ideals answered?)

  • Might get fixed soon... (Score:5)

    by bero-rh ( 98815 ) <bero&redhat,com> on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @05:53AM (#1238634) Homepage
    I've contacted the individual authors of the documents being restricted, and most of them appear to agree with my points. I think we can expect this situation to get fixed with either usb.org putting it back into a publically accessible spot or the same documents being published elsewhere.

  • USB Forum Becomes Too Greedy? (Score:5)

    by RSS ( 158204 ) on Tuesday February 29, 2000 @12:46PM (#1238635)
    I am the Technical Marketing Engineer managing the USB web site. We had moved the Class Documents to the members only area, but have replaced them in the developers site. Sorry to have stirred up such commotion. This was definitely not calculated to shut down independent development.

    That was the net/net of this situation so if you are concerned with getting at the information there is nothing further to worry about. If you are interested in the background, I will try to explain.

    The USB-IF charter has always been to support the development of USB products. It has also always included the FOCUS on members and anything that was made available to the general public was fine as long as it didn't become a support or financial burden. This is based on the belief that USB technology is close enough to "rocket science" that most all individual companies will have trouble if they don't have support from the spec architects in the form of education, information centralization, market message commonality, a compliance program.... These things just ain't free. Ergo the membership organization does most of these things for its members and charges an annual membership fee to cover the cost.

    USB-IF is a non profit corporation that spends over 20% of its budget on web information distribution, over %30 percent of its budget on a compliance program, slightly under %20 of its budget on administration. Whats left is now destined for on of the most often requested services from it's members, an improved compliance and logo program. The members feedback has been for a long time (this is an expensive change and it took a lot of effort to make it) that we should have a better way to stop the slipshod manufacturing and design of things that call themselves USB products. I don't know how this will work out, but we are doing our best to accomplish what the members are asking within our budget.

    Now the place where this community can help!! As part of our compliance testing we verify product electrical characteristics and protocol capabilities. When it comes to the qualification of drivers and therefore the statement that a product works with a certain OS we only have one set of tests that we can use. They were developed and given to the IF for this use by the promotor companies (yes Microsoft is a promotor company). There were some big costs to develop these tests, by the way, that were covered by the promotor companies themselves. Currently for any other OS we have to simply take the peripheral vendors word for their drivers compliance to the OS. If the Linux community can find a way to judge driver quality for USB products the OS column for Linux on the USB-IF product list would mean much more. We are open to a proposal that would help seperate the functional products from the non functional.

    PLEASE NOTE;Our compliance program is primarily a feedback tool to developers. We get more repeat attendees at workshops that come back even after their products have "passed" because the workshops allow them to learn so much and develop so much easier or quicker. As most of us heard in high school or college, "the score is not the goal of the test, it is the feedback on the learning that is of real value".

    RSS

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