A Posteriori

With Larry Ellison’s recent public endorsement of JavaFX at JavaOne, it looks like JavaFX has a future once the Oracle takeover of Sun. In fact, he suggested that OpenOffice be rewritten in JavaFX (some considered it a bizarre comment, but it would be a bold strategic initiative). This is good news, because the efforts by Sun’s engineers are finally bearing fruit.

Joshua Marinacci has summarized the top 5 features of JavaFX 1.2, including Linux and Solaris betas:

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/joshy/archive/2009/06/top_5_most_impo.html

Osvaldo Pinali (of java.net) has some interesting observations on JavaFX 1.2:

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/opinali/archive/2009/06/first_look_at_j.html
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/opinali/archive/2009/06/first_look_at_j_2.html

However, his most important conclusion is that JavaFX Script may be a successor to the Java language:

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/opinali/archive/2009/06/javafx_script_a.html

With that and perhaps other few enhancements, JavaFX Script would become just as “complete” as other modern high-level OOPLs. JavaFX Script really could be a very viable candidate to the role of successor or companion to Java as a language for implementation of full Java applications.

Consider this: The Java language has come to a dead-end. The community, apparently, cannot stomach any evolution that would introduce even minimal backwards-compatibility breaking. The full compatibility constraint (both source and binary) makes very hard to introduce any major feature without some big compromise in either functionality, complexity, or interoperability with legacy APIs.

This conclusion was also reached by a poster (prime21) on a java.net poll a while ago:

http://java.net/cs/user/view/cs_msg/673284

The primary language on the JVM in the future will be JavaFX Script. New language features will go there. Java will not accept new features. That’s my prediction.

Sun’s plans seem to be to let legacy components of the Java framework unchanged for the sake of backwards compatibility (or legacy constructs) languish while it builds new components in parallel. This means that deprecated libraries will be maintained as separate modules and the Java language itself will no longer evolve (ex no addition of closures). This is the goal of Java 7’s module framework (Project Jigsaw) and the enabling of multiple languages in the JVM, respectively.

JavaFX Script seems to be less of a strict client-side Domain-Specific Language (DSL), and more of a prototype for the new default language of the JVM.

After all, it has support for closures, functional programming, data binding, no primitives (everything is an object) and more compact syntax.

Still, lots of work needs to be done, including, but not limited to:

1) Open source. JavaFX can become the RIA framework of choice for the open source community, and this would give it an unmistakable advantage over Flash and Silverlight. What’s more, it would allow for better debugging, since it would be possible to step into JavaFX classes (which I can’t do now).

2) Junit or unit testing functionality. Chalk this one to Fabrizio Giudici. This is absolutely essential for any serious programming.

3) Decoupling of GUI logic constructs from any server-side implementation. Otherwise, it would be weird to instantiate any of the GUI objects in the server VM.

4) Robust native support for multithreading. Right now, this is a bit of kludge:

http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5382439&tstart=0

5) Profiling tools. Java has lots of these.

6) Some kind of native plugs into a more sophisticated database/ORM/JPA framework.\

After all, JavaFX will need to make up for around 15 years of evolution of Java tooling.

Following the revelation that Apple has failed to patch a flaw in its Java implementation:

http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/macosx/CVE-2008-5353.20090519.html

a flaw which was patched in Sun Java over 5 months ago, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time for Apple to surrender it’s control of the OS X Java implementation to Sun and the Java community.

It’s understandable that Apple’s Java will lag behind Sun Java, simply because the new code has to be adopted for OS X, which includes integration, testing, QA, developer previews, etc. However, there are many other ways that Apple has demonstrated its egregious incompetence, whether deliberate or accidental, in living up to its Java commitments and responsibilities:

1. Contemptible slowness in issuing security updates, especially those based on existing patches from Sun. For a company that brags about how secure its OS is vis-a-vis Windows, this is totally unacceptable.
2. Obsessive secrecy and total lack of transparency in dealing with Java developers. Instead of having a public bug database, it forces developers into signing unwieldy NDAs (non disclosure agreements) before allowing them to download developer previews for new versions of Java. This means any bugs are security issues are not disclosed publicly. Issues can only be disclosed to Apple directly. This is in sharp contrast with the totally open development model for Sun Java, which has already been open sourced and has a public community with public communication.
3. Poor communication with said developers about its plans for future versions of Java. At WWDC 2007, Apple allowed only those Java developers who had paid to attend WWDC to know its Java plans for OS X Leopard when that OS would be released in October of that year. Those plans included omitting the year old Java 6 from Leopard and instead distributing only Java 5. The result was developer outrage over the omission because it was expected that Java 6 would have been included. Apple made the situation worse by deleting posts on its own forums confirming this fact, because they still had an obsessive need to keep it secret.

For these reasons, Apple is unfit as a steward of the Java platform on OS X. It has demonstrated contemptible irresponsibility in living up to its commitments:

We’re going to bring the Java platform back to the desktop in a really big way,” said Jobs to enthusiastic applause. “We are working really hard to make Mac the best delivery vehicle for the Java platform on the planet. We’re going to be there [with the Java platform] right out of the box, on your Mac.
— Steve Jobs, June 2000

Furthermore, Apple negotiated with Sun for the exclusive right to develop and distribute Java for OS X.

By failing to live up to their promises and commitments, Apple no longer deserves of being the sole provider of Java for OS X.

Fortunately, enterprising developers such as Landon Fuller are working to port OpenJDK, which is the open source version of the Java Development Kit, to OS X:

http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/java/OpenJDK6_MacPorts.20090516.html

I wish them the best of luck. This version of OpenJDK doesn’t come with graphical capabilities, although graphical applications can still be developed in X11 mode. Depending on whether or not Apple open sources its graphical Java code, the process of enabling this functionality could take years.

Let’s review my record for 2008 predictions:

1) Cheap Linux PC’s will take 10% of the U.S. PC market, mostly at the expense of Windows.

Although Linux has between 30 and 50% of the netbook market, I was WAY off on this one.

2) Java will become 100% open source, both Java 7 and Java 6 (with compensations for encumberences). Most Linux distros will come with OpenJDK loaded by default in place GCJ and GNU Classpath.

This has largely happened, so I’ll take credit for this one.

3) The iPhone will handily surpasse Steve Jobs’ goal of 1% of the mobile phone market.

This definitely happened. The iPhone is among the top sellers in the smartphone market.

4) A fully implemented version of Soy Latte will be added to the OpenJDK ports, along with a complete Swing implementation as other developers contribute to Landon Fuller’s work.

The bsdports project was started last year. Still, it’s very young and there’s no Swing implementation yet, so I could probably give myself 0.5 out of 1 on this one.

5) Microsoft will completely scrap Windows Genuine Advantage completely out of fear of Mac and Linux adaption, but this does not reverse Windows’ fortunes.

This definitely didn’t happen.

6) Apple and RIAA labels will agree on selling DRM-free music on iTunes in exchange for limited pricing flexibility, which Apple will cave in on. The only remaining non-DRM holdout, Sony, will start selling its digital music DRM-free.

I was totally right about this one. Unfortunately, it happened in early 2009, so I can’t claim this prediction

7) Apple and Google will join forces to clean up at the upcoming U.S. 700 Mhz wireless auction, putting massive pressure on U.S. telcos and cell phone service providers to become more competitive.

This did not happen.

8) Client-side Java will finally take off, with the help of the Consumer JRE in the Java 6 N Update. Swing and Applets become the new vanguards of rich GUI applications and rich internet applications for non-media business applications that require rich GUI functionality. Flex market share, as well as AJAX toolkits such as Ext JS will decline as a result.

Hasn’t happened, at least not yet.

9) Apple open source WebKit will gain feature parity with Firefox, and in some cases, surpass it. Firefox mobile efforts will fail to gain traction.

I nailed this one, but to be fair, it was an easy prediction to make.

10) OpenSolaris’s Project Indiana will be complete and will surpass Ubuntu in reliability, hardware support, and ease of use. Features such as the superior Solaris kernel, DTrace and ZFS will make it a favourite among developers.

I was totally off on this one.

So, I get 2.5 out of 10 for 2008. Unfortunately, I can’t claim the Apple DRM prediction, which would have given me 3.5 out of 10.

1) Microsoft starts scaling down and completely vacates at least one of its auxiliary business lines (MSN, Windows Mobile, XBox, search/portal).
2) Apple makes a serious push for enterprise customers, exemplified by features in Snow Leopard, which will sport of much more toned down GUI (ex no more red, yellow and green buttons on windows).
3) Sun Microsystems gets a stay of execution, as its gambles in storage, MySQL and virtualization pay dividends and return the company to marginal profitability.
4) The iPhone/iPod touch displace the Nintendo DS as the #1 mobile gaming device after hardware and software updates reinforce the device’s gaming functionality and attract more game development shops.
5) BluRay continues to stagnate as the recession hits the format hard. Digital movie downloads also become more attractive. Upscaling DVD players get improve marketing as cheap alternatives to BluRay.
6) Open source databases like MySQL and Postgresql benefit tremendously from the recession, as Oracle and other large database vendors finally lose traction.
7) At least one mobile operating system provider (WindowsMobile, OpenMoko, Android, Symbian) throws in the towel.
8) Apple scales back its iPod models and introduces at least one more lower-end iPhone line (ex “iPhone Nano”) in order to gain subscribers who can’t afford the full iPhone data plan and want to carry one device instead of two. The new phones will be available in CDMA and GSM, so Apple can do an end-run around AT&T for the non-smartphone business.
9) At least one major PC OEM, frustrated with Microsoft’s recent failures with Vista and the difficulty in extending Windows XP’s life, puts serious resources behind making Linux more user friendly in order to sell a line of Linux desktops and laptops. This could be a joint effort among Dell, HP, and several notebook vendors who realized there’s no way for them to install Mac OS X on their computers.
10) Cloud computing doesn’t take off, due mostly to the limits of internet connectivity and bandwidth and somewhat to consumers’ distrust of cloud computing vendors with their data.

Since I did so well (60%) in 2007, I figure it’s time for another shot.

1) Cheap Linux PC’s will take 10% of the U.S. PC market, mostly at the expense of Windows.

2) Java will become 100% open source, both Java 7 and Java 6 (with compensations for encumberences). Most Linux distros will come with OpenJDK loaded by default in place GCJ and GNU Classpath.

3) The iPhone will handily surpasse Steve Jobs’ goal of 1% of the mobile phone market.

4) A fully implemented version of Soy Latte will be added to the OpenJDK ports, along with a complete Swing implementation as other developers contribute to Landon Fuller’s work.

5) Microsoft will completely scrap Windows Genuine Advantage completely out of fear of Mac and Linux adaption, but this does not reverse Windows’ fortunes.

6) Apple and RIAA labels will agree on selling DRM-free music on iTunes in exchange for limited pricing flexibility, which Apple will cave in on. The only remaining non-DRM holdout, Sony, will start selling its digital music DRM-free.

7) Apple and Google will join forces to clean up at the upcoming U.S. 700 Mhz wireless auction, putting massive pressure on U.S. telcos and cell phone service providers to become more competitive.

8) Client-side Java will finally take off, with the help of the Consumer JRE in the Java 6 N Update. Swing and Applets become the new vanguards of rich GUI applications and rich internet applications for non-media business applications that require rich GUI functionality. Flex market share, as well as AJAX toolkits such as Ext JS will decline as a result.

9) Apple open source WebKit will gain feature parity with Firefox, and in some cases, surpass it. Firefox mobile efforts will fail to gain traction.

10) OpenSolaris’s Project Indiana will be complete and will surpass Ubuntu in reliability, hardware support, and ease of use. Features such as the superior Solaris kernel, DTrace and ZFS will make it a favourite among developers.

I made several predictions for IT in my blog for 2007:

IT Predictions: 2007

Let’s review how I did:

1) The Wii outsells both the PS3 and XBox 360 in 2007 (each, not combined).

According to site http://www.vgchartz.com, the Wii sold 19.04 million consoles, compared to 16.02 million for the XBox 360.

Verdict: Narrow win.

2) Apple makes a major push for the gaming market, releasing their own killer app game that does for Macs what Halo did for the XBox.

Apple has made virtually no gaming announcements aside from its WWDC announcement that EA would write games to the Cider Wine implementation for OS X, resulting in simultaneous Windows-Mac game releases. Still, the verdict is still out on whether EA has succeeded in this endeavour.

Verdict: Loss.

3) One major record label will give up on selling only DRM’d music, and will license the sale of their content in MP3 format.

This is one is in the bag. Not only did EMI start selling DRM-free digital music downlaods, but so did Universal and Warner Music (albeit the last two specifically refused to sell that DRM-free music on iTunes).

Verdict: Overwhealming victory.

4) Leopard will allow multiple OS’s to run real-time, and enable fast switching between those OS’s.

Totally wrong. Apple never made such an announcement, having left the dirty work of Windows emulation to Parallels and VMWare.

Verdict: Crushing defeat.

5) Linux GUI developers start abandoning GTK and Qt in favour of OpenJDK Swing to do their development, at the same time submitting fixes for Swing to run better on Linux.

Aside from Trolltech announcing a Java-Qt compatibility layer, there has been no such Swing adoption by the open source community. This may be due to the unexpected development that Sun was not able to open source 100% of the Java API’s by the end of 2007.

Verdict: Total loss.

6) Firefox development stagnates even further.

This is debatable. The Firefox 3 beta came out, but it was well behind schedule. Still, I’ll declare victory on the basis of the fact that Firefox 3 is not yet production ready, as some were saying at the begin of 2007.

Verdict: Narrow win.

7) Consumers reject HD-DVD and BluRay.

According to this NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/business/31dvd.html?ex=1356757200&en=5fd426e7a62710f4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Consumers are thus far not flocking to buy Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players. Things may change in 2008, but this is outside the scope of this prediction.

Verdict: Victory.

8) Thin clients finally start taking off due to SOX and regulatory compliance/security/cost issues, with Microsoft as a possible vendor.

As far as I can tell, this has not yet happened.

Verdict: Clear loss.

9) At least one Linux distro tries to completely imitate OS X.

It’s not much of a distro, but it is Linux and it does try to imitate OS X:

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Window-Managers/Etoile-23982.shtml

Verdict: Narrow Victory.

10) Vista sees no uptake significantly beyond new users being forced to buy it for new PC’s and any corporation that needs its DRM features.

I have to admit this one was easy, but I was right.

http://www.news.com/Running-the-numbers-on-Vista/2100-1016_3-6207375.html

Verdict: Dishonourable victory.

Total record:

6/10 — 60% success rate.

I narrowly avoided losing overall. Still, as a rookie “IT forecaster”, I think I did pretty well

Apple’s 2007 World-Wide Developer’s Conference takes place from June 11th to June 15th. Here are my predictions as to what Apple will announce:

1. Apple replaces the MacMini with a new product that will serve a similar purpose and market segment, much like the iPod Nano replaced the iPod Mini (no MacNano jokes please )
2. Leopard features an enhanced BootCamp that will allow for easier emulation of Windows programs within OS X. The requirement that the user purchase and install a copy of Windows will still apply.
3. Finder will no longer be the centre of OS X. It will be replaced by a version of Spotlight on steroids. The Finder will still be available, but it will not be running by default.
4. The iMac loses its chin and will allow users to swap hard drives as they do RAM. They won’t be able to open up the back as they did with the very first iMac.
5. Leopard includes a graphical version of MacPorts that can also be used as a repository for open source .app programs.
6. Apple open sources its version of Java. Now that Sun’s version is open sourced and Apple’s Java 6.0 is over 6 month behind Sun’s, Apple has to do this. Also, since Apple’s devs are also working on the iPhone and Apple TV, they no longer have the resources to maintain a separate version of Java on their own. It will not open source the native Aqua code that’s used by Swing, only the Java classes that access that native code.
7. Bonjour takes a prominent role in Leopard, as well as the AppleTV and the iPhone (this is inspired from roughlydrafted.com, so I can’t take full credit for this prediction).
8. Now that all first party apps (Finder, Safari, iTunes) have had their themes unified, Apple will replace the Mac look n’ feel with something radically different from Aqua, far more significant than the change to brushed metal from pinstripes and just as significant as the move to OS X itself.

When looking to consume music, it is important to act morally. Given the politically charged and complicated subject of music downloads, it is easy to choose the wrong course of action.

Contrary to the predictable knee-jerk interpretations by those at both extreme ends of the music downloading debate, this is neither a lecture on the evils of, nor a rationalized condoning of, what is described as “illegal” file-sharing.

Here are the central planks of my moral position on obtaining music:

1) Boycott Digital Rights Management (DRM):

Paying for music with DRM, which should be called Digital Restrictions management, offers little value over and above paying for bottled air. The selling of content with digital protects flies in the face of the doctrine of first sale. If I pay for a good in a transaction that has been described by the seller as a “sale”, from that that point forward I should obtain total control of the product, aside from giving copies to other people. There should be nothing preventing me from using said product in the way that I choose. Were it be practical to do expect me to do so with a digital product, it should be permitted for me to sell my last copy to a third party, removing all other copies. The act of placing restrictions on my legally obtained copy of song, whether it be from making so many personal copies for personal use, transferring them to the devices of my choice, or using them in other ways I choose, amounts to an egregious violation of my rights as a customer. Furthermore, there appear to be no mechanisms at any of the major music stores that sell DRM’d music to obtain a replacement copy should my song intentionally or unintentionally deactivate itself.

Music rented for a short period of time should obviously have some sort of DRM to enforce the length of the transaction, but the music must be provided with that explicit caveat. So far, services offering music rented as part of a subscription service have done poorly. Also, even rented music should not be trusted, because the rented copy could deactivate itself before the consumer expects it to.

* Music obtained morally is music obtained with no DRM whatsoever.

2) Refuse to pay for or otherwise encourage any record label’s immoral or illegal behaviour:

Recently, Sony was sued as part of a class-action for including a rootkit in their music CDs.

According to Google Define:

Google Define: Rootkit

A rootkit is a program that runs hidden on a victim’s computer that obtains information about a user’s activities and sends them to either the author of the rootkit or a third party.

This rootkit installed itself irrespective of whether the user agreed or declined that End User License Agreement that appeared when that user inserted the CD into their computer. Such as action represents what is in my opinion an act of wanton vandalism on Sony’s paying customers. Furthermore, it was a flagrant violation of those users’ right to privacy. Sony was effectively spying on its users.

Other immoral acts by record companies involve suing people for copyright violations that were either incapable of committing those acts, or too young to be considered criminals.

Such companies don’t deserve the business of honest customers. They should not even get business indirectly though allofmp3.com, which is legal under Russian law and has attempted to send royalty checks to major record labels (who have refused to cash the cheques).

If you object to the practises of a particular record label and refuse to buy their music, then don’t obtain that music at all. If you download a particular song from a company you’ve chosen to boycott (ex: Sony), then you shouldn’t be listening to their music at all (aside from as background noise in shopping malls, etc). Downloading that music sends the wrong message to the record label you’ve deemed immoral. It tells them there’s demand for their music: demand that they could somehow monetize. This could be done either with a copyright infringement lawsuit, or some sort of government-sanctioned internet tax for music sharing.

* Music obtained morally is music that is not obtained (paid or otherwise) from companies that don’t seek to inflict harm upon their customers.

3) Pay a fair price for music that is offered fairly:

There is no moral justification for downloading music that the copyright holder has not agreed not to share freely. Granted, such legally free music exists, and should not be ignored when making arguments about file sharing. There are also works license under a Creative Commons license. Such works become freely available after 14 years, for any works the copyright holder chooses to license under the Creative Commons.

Record labels who sell music morally deserve financial support for their business. Selling music morally involves:

A) No DRM
B) No rootkits
C) No unfair lawsuits
D) No other immoral behaviour against customers or artists
E) Charging a reasonable price for that music

Music sold at a dollar a track is extravagant. Given the proliferation of independent labels and independent music stores:

* emusic.com
* zunior.com
* magnatune.com
* beatport.com
* and many others…

… it makes no sense to pay top dollar (no pun intended) for music. Independent music (with some notable exceptions) is by and large more innovative, creative and artistic than large record label music.

Also, given the large choice of competing entertainment options, from video games to DVDs to YouTube to blogs, large record label music has no business being this overpriced. It’s proposterous that most DVDs (most of which offer special features) continue to be far cheaper than most music CD’s. It’s also preposterous that the very best video games offer months of continuous entertainment, whereas the best music CD’s have far less continuous value.

* Music obtained morally is music obtained with only a reasonable financial sacrifice according only to fair terms (paid or free) set forth by the copyright holder.

4) Support The Artists:

This is the hardest one of all. Music would be nothing without musicians. However, RIAA rhetoric aside, most musicians are exploited by their record labels. Most of the time, the artist assigns his/her/their full copyrights to their record label.

The only internet music store I know of (I hope there are more) that insists on fair payment for their artists is Magnatune:

magnatune.com

It’s the first internet-only record label. According to its FAQ, it offers 50% of album, licensing and merchandising profits go directly to the artist(s) responsible for each album:

http://www.magnatune.com/info/model

* Music obtained morally is music obtained with a view to ensuring the artists are compensated fairly, instead of merely either paying lip service, or believing others’ lip service, to fairly compensating those artists.

Microsoft has recently made the headlines by making allegations against various open source projects of patent violation:

This patent attack is not motivated by rational thinking. It is motivated by fear.

Fear is forcing Microsoft into abandoning rational decision making processes. Fear is forcing Microsoft to intimidate its own clients who maintain anything less than a pure Microsoft IT environment.

Microsoft’s recent behaviour is analogous to that of a wounded animal. Feeling threatened, it lashes out against anyone and anything it perceives can do it further harm, keenly aware that it has very little to lose.

So what exactly is Microsoft so afraid of? What has them clawing in all directions?

According to Roughly Drafted, Microsoft has three core business that allow it make money:

These are:

1) Windows (retail and corporate users)
2) Office
3) Server products (Windows Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, etc)

1) flows through Microsoft’s monopoly in PC operating systems (OS). It achieves this by strong-arming computer retailers such as Dell and HP to install Windows by default on all PC’s they sell, to the explicit exclusion of all other OS’s.

2) flows through Microsoft’s near-monopoly in desktop Office software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access. This near-monopoly was achieved by using Windows’ monopoly profits to cross-subsidize early versions of office. Microsoft sold early versions of office for the cut-rate price of USD$40, effectively starving competitors like Lotus and Borland, who couldn’t afford to take a loss on their products. The result is that MS Office is the de-facto standard for Office programs. Their file formats are secret and proprietary, raising the cost of switching to competing office products like OpenOffice.

3) was achieved with the help of 1) and 2). Microsoft developed the Exchange email and calendering product partly by tightly integrating it with Windows and Office. Competitors have thus far failed failed to come up with competing products, despite the rise of Linux in the server market.

For several years, Microsoft has been losing money attempting to get a foothold in new businesses such as internet (MSN), gaming consoles (XBox), and mobile computing, as well as continuing anti-trust lawsuits.

So long as their three core businesses of Windows, Office and server products bring in billions in revenues, Microsoft can afford to subsidize its infant money-losing ventures.

A few weeks ago, a major development occurred that threatened to substantially reduce the profitability of market 1).

Now that Dell has promised to sell desktop computers with Linux pre-installed, Microsoft is in danger of losing its monopoly on PC desktop operating systems. The only thing holding back Linux on the desktop has been issues with running that OS on certain kinds of PC hardware, and that OS not coming pre-installed on new PCs. Now that Dell has promised to pre-install Linux on some of its PCs and laptops, those two problems have been eliminated.

Dell is the first major PC retailer to sell Linux PCs. It most assuredly will not be the last.

Couple this with the very tepid uptake of Vista, the latest version of Windows, and Microsoft is in serious trouble. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has even resorted to an ad hominem attack, effectively blaming the slow sales on pirates:

To add insult to injury, Vista has only sold a couple hundred copies in China:

Somehow, Microsoft was ill-prepared for these two developments, either having not seen them coming or refusing to accept them. Now, Redmond is in full panic mode. Sensing a dramatic reduction in profitability, Microsoft is compelled to so something anything to stem the tide.

Microsoft feels fear. It feels the kind of fear it hasn’t felt in at least a decade, when Java was first released. After so many years of inciting fear, Microsoft is finally getting a taste of its own medicine.

The European Union (EU) is holding hearings with the goal of trying to force Apple to “open” its iTunes Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme to multiple vendors. This would mean that, among other things, songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) would work with competing MP3 players like Microsoft’s Zune, and the iPod would support music downloaded from Microsoft’s Zune music store. Sounds good, right?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070311-eu-com…

Except that the EU’s hypocrisy in the whole Apple DRM affair is staggering. Were I a European citizen, I’d be more than a little irate that my tax dollars were going to fund what is essentially the RIAA’s guerilla warfare against Apple’s media business.

Allow me to explain.

First of all, Apple’s position as the #1 online music retailer with around 80% of the market gives it an enviable position in negotiations with the RIAA. More specifically, it allows Apple to demand licensing terms for downloaded music that are more consumer-friendly. Among these terms are the 99 cents (U.S.) per song pricing, the ability to authorize the content for playing across 5 computers, and the ability to burn analogue music CD’s. The RIAA has had to swallow hard to make these concessions, and the unfavourable negotiations have no doubt left a very bitter taste in their mouths. The RIAA would like nothing better than to jack up music download prices for more popular songs conceivably as high as 2 dollars.

On the other hand, Microsoft’s various “open” and “interoperable” DRM schemes, which effectively force a self-destructing music rental scheme, have failed to resonate with customers. The reason is that the WMA music “rental” scheme amounts to nothing more than a legalized racket that forces consumers to pay a monthly “protection fee” to prevent their music collection from dissappearing. Consumers have not fallen for the scam, and Microsoft’s overt and one-sided complicity with the RIAA has led to its music download business becoming a massive money pit for the company. Microsoft, in a vain attempt to replicate Apple’s iTunes-iPod business model, has yanked the rug out from its former PlaysForSure partners and architected its own DRM/music player lock-in framework with Windows Media Player and the Zune.

This Ars Technica user hit the nail on the head:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/174…

It could be argued that Apple’s dominant position has kept music download prices low. That’s because Apple’s music download business is merely an avenue to more purchases of iPods. iTMS merely breaks even. This means that Apple doesn’t make money off an increase in the download price. However, it stands to lose a lot of customers not willing to pay more than 99 cents a song. This means that it would lose iPod sales.

With the RIAA’s original plan of multiple competing Microsoft-backed WMA DRM download services failing to result in a competitive marketplace, and thus a prime target for negotiations over price and terms, the RIAA has had to rethink its strategy. Apple’s dominant position in the music download and MP3 player business threatens to compromise their control over the music business. Enter the European Union hearings.

The EU consumer affairs department/bureau/office likes to wave the banner of “consumer protection”. This rhetoric serves as a very thin smokescreen for the EU’s true agenda of fortifying the RIAA’s negotiating position against Apple for music distribution.

Steve Jobs, knowing this, called for the RIAA to abolish DRM:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

And my previous blog asserted that Apple was sincere about eliminating DRM:

http://wordwarrior.blogsome.com/2007/02/16/apple-is-against-drm

With the above as a backdrop, there are three big reasons why the EU’s “consumer protection” rhetoric is not to be believed:

1) Two and a half of the four RIAA labels are based in Europe. Apple is an American company whose presence in Europe is much smaller.
2) After Steve Jobs’ letter the EU commissioners did not mention eliminating DRM, and continued to engage in baseless platitudes about Apple “making excuses” and “deflecting the blame”.
3) The EU wants to support the notion of a “cooling off” period, where consumers could “return” music purchases. This is not possible with MP3 downloads. This is only possible with DRM.

Don’t believe the European Union. They’re merely pawns of the RIAA, whose agenda is to squeeze honest music customers out of every last cent, maintain control of the industry, and control how their product is “consumed” well after the sale and effectively destroy the concepts of fair use and the right of first sale.