Linuxcare: Arne Flones: Eye Opener Redux

[ Thanks to Linuxcare for this link.
]

Netpliance received lots of attention on Slashdot when they
attempted to block geeks from hacking their i-opener hardware and
BIOS to add a Linux hard drive. Arne illustrates how the company
now recognizes that if you can’t beat the hackers, join ’em.
http://www.linuxcare.com/viewpoints/view/05-02-00.epl
“Obviously, Netpliance was taken by surprise. They never
expected anything like this to happen. Furthermore, I got the
feeling that although they’re excited about the attention, they’re
also concerned about their business plan.” Currently, newly
sold i-openers require the customer to activate service within 30
days and pay for at least 90 consecutive days at a rate of $21.95
per month. There is a $499 penalty for early termination of the
service.”

“This seems reasonable, given that the i-opener costs much more
to make than the $99 price suggests. Unfortunately, this does not
explain why Netpliance took the action of blocking the hack. If
their profit stream is protected by the contract, why does
Netpliance also need to block the hack? This is particularly
puzzling because shortly after the anti-hack i-openers entered the
market, a new hack appeared on the Net that circumvents that
protection. I wonder whether Netpliance will now block those
hacks.”

“In spite of this incipient arms race, and to Netpliance’s
credit, they are making a fairly strong overture to the open source
community. They will give away 100 development i-openers to
developers in the community who wish to help them work on some key
issues, including the porting of embedded Linux, an HTML 4.0
capable browser, Macromedia Flash, JVM 1.2/2.0, etc., to the
i-opener. They are also inviting developers to come up with their
own ideas.”

Complete
Story