My last act as a Hungarian journalist was translating the speech against DRM @pluralistic gave at Microsoft. For free, obviously. By then I was well on the way of becoming a full time Drupal developer but I felt it important enough.
So I am heavily biased towards him. With that disclaimer out of the way https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/ is nothing short of brilliant.
@chx was that the one from the mid-2000s that started with "Yar"? I helped set that up -- I connected @pluralistic to the person organizing talks for Microsoft Research 😎
EDIT: and here's the link! I had misremembered, it actually starts
"Greetings fellow pirates! Arrrrr!"
@crowbriarhexe Microsoft Research had a lot of autonomy at the time and prided themselves on allowing critical viewpoints. Also it was still an open question about what to do about consumer DRM -- they released the first version of Zune without DRM. And I had written a BillG Thinkweek paper on "Why Microsoft should abandon DRM" and he had forwarded it on with "not sure I agree but we should think about this" (or something like that).
@jdp23 @crowbriarhexe @chx @pluralistic
Speaking as someone who left MSR in 2000 (not all that long after we got the memo from legal that roughly went: Giving aid and comfort to open-source projects = TREASON), I'm likewise astounded.
Also surprised your DRM memo didn't end up being a career-limiting move.
@wrog Yeah the Craig Mundie "open source is cancer" perspective certainly set the tone for corporate policy. And with consumer DRM, at the end of the day Microsoft wound up siding with Hollywood et al and against their individual users. Oh well.
Interestingly the ThinkWeek paper wasn't a CLM -- in fact Gates continued to support the other stuff I was working on (as did Ballmer).
chx
The Witch of Crow Briar
Roger Crew✅❌☑🗸❎✖✓✔