[HN Gopher] Thread: Tech we can't use or teach?
___________________________________________________________________
Thread: Tech we can't use or teach?
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 353 points
Date : 2024-05-11 05:51 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (overengineer.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (overengineer.dev)
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Just be thankful they did this upfront, instead of at the tail
| end of a painful evolution from an open-source effort to closed-
| source commercial product, complete with a fig-leaf GitHub with
| all the interesting bits removed, and a graveyard of abandoned
| forks. They saved you all that disappointment.
| weinzierl wrote:
| Absolutely, sometimes I feel the mid 2020's will be known as
| the _era of enshittification_.
| kevindamm wrote:
| It merited "word of the year" last year, could happen.
| fmajid wrote:
| The Italian word for it, "Merdocene", sounds even pithier.
| quesera wrote:
| _Merdocene_ sounds like geological epoch. Pleistocene,
| Holocene, etc.
|
| WFM!
| fmajid wrote:
| Exactly, or Anthropocene, describing the changes wrought
| by humans including climate change.
| kevindamm wrote:
| Can we just call it "the scene"?
| bitwize wrote:
| The D in "Systeme D" (economic concept, not to be
| confused with the controversial init system) stands for
| _demerder_ which means "to deshittify".
|
| We're gonna see a lot more Systeme D applied in the
| future...
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Let's hope the result is that the 2030s are known as the
| decade when consumers, users of apps, figured out it was
| worth paying for software from honest developers or
| companies, rather than getting it for free temporarily and
| then getting their data used in unexpected ways,
| enshittification, etc.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Hi, I'm a time traveller from the 2030s and chuckled a
| little at the prediction that people would still by writing
| apps by then.
| leduyquang753 wrote:
| What about when the consumers pay for software _and_ still
| get their data harvested and the product enshittified?
| josephg wrote:
| Microsoft Windows has entered the chat. Apparently the
| next insiders version has even more ads in the start
| menu.
|
| This stuff is so horrific.
| einpoklum wrote:
| That is completely irrelevant.
|
| A large fraction, if not most, of potential users of
| software in the world can simply not afford paying any non-
| trivial amounts of money (by US/European figuring) for
| software of any kind; they simply don't have such money to
| spare. Look at median incomes in different countries:
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-
| in...
| generic92034 wrote:
| Country-specific pricing is not a new thing, though.
| After all, if someone in a developing country paid for a
| smartphone they might be able to also pay for some apps.
| josephg wrote:
| Also, you don't make any money advertising to poor people
| in poor countries. I imagine if they don't have money in
| their wallets, their data isn't worth much either. (Well,
| except to OpenAI).
| generic92034 wrote:
| So all the existing advertising in developing countries
| is not profitable? I wonder why anyone is doing it, then.
| ;)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Those are orthogonal; Debian is free, Windows is paid,
| guess which one spies on you and shows you ads?
| Kiro wrote:
| Such an overused word and in this context it's not even
| relevant.
| tjoff wrote:
| It is kind of relevant, we have zigbee. Which is a bit
| quirky, along comes Thread that promises to make it more
| open, better compatibility between vendors and more modern.
| If it turns out that big companies use Thread in a way to
| oppose those goals then I feel that is an attempt to
| enshittify the entire home-automation ecosystem.
|
| Which must be the holy grail of enshittification, I mean it
| is one thing to make your own product/service worse. But to
| make everyones products worse? Jackpot!
| Petersipoi wrote:
| At least back up why you think it's irrelevant if you're
| going to call someone out like this
| Signez wrote:
| Will we have to wait for a regulation body to come and force it
| open as soon as it becomes the _de facto_ standard of home
| communication?
|
| I won't make a bet on which one, because I don't want to nag, but
| we all know which one it will be.
| 9dev wrote:
| Well, Google lost against Oracle too, so it appears a mere API
| specification can be closed down arbitrarily; than is the world
| we live in. Unless the US gets a lot more tech literate and
| open minded judges and officials, I doubt that will change for
| the better. And, looking at their presidential candidates...
| well.
| franga2000 wrote:
| I thought Google mostly won against Oracle and the court
| decided just APIs aren't copyrightable...
| aero_code wrote:
| The court decided the opposite--that APIs are
| copyrightable. However, the Supreme Court ruled that
| Google's usage was fair use, so I would agree that Google
| mostly won. The Supreme Court didn't consider whether APIs
| are copyrightable (the lower court ruled that) because
| Google would win regardless because it was fair use.
|
| So I'm not sure it matters much whether APIs are
| copyrightable when what Google did was ruled fair use. I'd
| prefer if the courts ruled APIs weren't copyrightable, but
| I think it was still a good result because doing what
| Google did probably covers about any use case anyway.
| josephg wrote:
| I wonder if making a device which uses Threads could be
| considered fair use in the same way, because implementing
| threads is required for interoperability with many
| devices.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| The Federal Court took up the appeal from Alsup case,
| accepted Oracles arguments that copying headers & using
| then same variable makes made the Java reimplementation a
| copyright violation (incompetent losers), sent the question
| of fair use back to a jury trial, the jury decided yeah it
| was fair use, the Federal Court ignored the jury and
| decided to ignore everyone hollering at them that they were
| being idiots & ruled for Oracle anyways.
|
| Then the Supreme Court ignored the copyrightability aspects
| & ruled for a Google on some fair use grounds.
|
| I've skimmed the write up from the ever excellent always
| recommendable Mark Lemley, _Interfaces and Interoperability
| After Google v. Oracle_ , and really hope I can go a bit
| deeper into the history & trial at some point. Section 2
| _The Long Saga of Google v. Oracle_ starts on page 27 of
| the inner pdf.
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3898154
|
| It's been incredibly disappointing watching courts like the
| Federal Circuit be so unable to handle even basic technical
| matters with even an iota of comprehension, having them
| bungle up things so badly in the face of so much easy to
| rely on precedent. Being sweet talked by Oracle's lawyers
| into believing a header file is anything greater than
| interface definiton is either incompetence, or some really
| vicious pro-business hellworld shit.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Governments have no problem allowing de facto specifications to
| be closed. 5G is heavily patent protected, for example. MPEG is
| heavily patent protected.
|
| Typically patents "essential" for a standard are licensed on
| "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms. But
| you do still have to go and pay for the license (sometimes from
| all the individual companies that have patents, sometimes from
| a consortium that represents the entire patent pool for a
| standard).
| daredoes wrote:
| I wouldn't mind if developing for it as a hobbyist was so
| difficult if it had some quality products and user interfaces.
| cryo wrote:
| The Matter specification has a similar touch. The devil is in the
| details and due clever marketing people don't understand what
| they are praising.
|
| The real problem here is people who invest money in this anyway.
| RA2lover wrote:
| Didn't it go even further by requiring device attestation
| certificates signed by a licensed PKI provider?
|
| I noped out of even considering it as a hobbyist as soon as i
| noticed that part.
| crote wrote:
| Correct, and the _intent_ is for genuine devices to refuse to
| work with "fake" ones. All certificates are registered on a
| blockchain for validation, of course.
| fulafel wrote:
| > if you're a hobbyist without access to some serious throwaway
| money to join the Thread Group, there is no way to use Thread
| legally
|
| Is this really true? I assume the licensing legalese means
| patents, and patents don't apply to private tinkering unless
| there's commerce involved.
|
| More generally aside from hobby scope - The absurdity of the
| monopolies granted by the current patent regime are made obvious
| by this arrangement: Big companies that have patent portfolios to
| countersue with can use OpenThread freely, small businesses and
| startups can't.
|
| (Obviously it still sucks and is a major chilling effect)
| IanCal wrote:
| The quoted part above is about shipping products too, so I
| don't understand why they are using that as an example about
| not being able to play around with something or write blog
| posts. Here's the FAQ question
|
| > What Would Prevent A Company From Shipping A Product Based On
| OpenThread Without Joining The Thread Group?
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Answer, also quotes in the post:
|
| > _If developers choose not to join Thread Group and ship
| products using Thread technology, they are not conferred the
| IP rights required to practice and ship Thread technology,
| and may subject themselves to legal action, including but not
| limited to licensing fees._
|
| It feels like even sharing my designs run a major risk of
| landing me in trouble. This sounds catastrophically hostile
| to open source in general.
|
| If I ever want to make use of what I've built in any even
| remotely commercial setting, everything I've built feels
| liable to be infected & polluted with this copyright. I could
| rip out Threads & still not feel safe. I definitely can't
| sell a couple copies of this cool thing to other hobbyists on
| indiegogo.
|
| The terms of use essentially outlaw community. Yes, maybe
| hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot form
| communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell boards
| to each other, they can't even talk about the protocol or
| spec on detail.
|
| So yeah, hobbyists arent expressly forbidden. But having any
| community of hobbyists seems fraught with difficulties. You
| can only hobbyist by yourself, discussing with no one.
|
| Fuck Threads.
| IanCal wrote:
| Hang on that's a huge leap.
|
| > Yes, maybe hobbyists can play with this, but they cannot
| form communities, they cannot share wisdom, they can't sell
| boards to each other, they can't even talk about the
| protocol or spec on detail.
|
| But it just says you can't _ship products_ and talking isn
| 't shipping a product. The only part I see there is what if
| you sell things built on it.
|
| Like sure it could be more open and sure having some small
| business exemption would be good but that's not the same as
| not being allowed to just make some stuff and talk about
| it.
| lelanthran wrote:
| What do you think they mean by this:
|
| > Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement,
| practice, and ship Thread technology and _Thread Group
| specifications._
| scotty79 wrote:
| That if you are a corporation that wants to use this tech
| in your products (devices) you are advised to join Thread
| Group as soon as possible because you'll be required to
| do that when you ship stuff anyways. Possibly compelled
| by court if you resist.
|
| They probably didn't expect interest from singular
| hobbyists, let alone hobbyists reading what they put out
| in the most uncharitable fashion. They have some
| clarifying to do if they decide that they care.
| ang_cire wrote:
| You are ignoring "practice", which in this context means
| any kind of operational use, including things like
| research (they also specify "implementation" separately,
| to explicitly cover development of products).
|
| Practice here is as in "practice medicine", not "practice
| for tryouts".
| scotty79 wrote:
| "practice" here probably means use in your business of
| manufacturing devices
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| You're talking to the question, but the answer is even
| more conservative & scary than the question posed,
|
| > _are not conferred the IP rights required to_ practice
| _and ship Thread technology,_
|
| Under this, it sounds like one isn't even allowed to
| dabble with Thread without $7.5k/year membership. You
| aren't allowed to _practice_ is the words they respond
| with, which seems far more constraining than shipping.
|
| Re-quoting the licensing agreement requires to download
| the spec,
|
| > _view, download, save, reproduce and use the
| Specification solely for your own_ internal _purposes_
|
| > _are not conferred the IP rights required to_ practice
| _and ship Thread technology,_
|
| > _Membership in Thread Group is necessary to_ implement,
| practice, _and ship Thread technology and Thread Group
| specifications._
|
| So yeah, actually it seems like even doing hobbyist
| things by yourself & telling no one is still far more
| than Thread group allows.
|
| Fuck Thread! It's just so unbelievably shitty having the
| connected device technologies of our world be un-
| practiceable by mere mortals.
| IanCal wrote:
| _and_ ship.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| As a software engineer, our confidence that _and_ means
| "both of these things" is high. I feel like you're taking
| quite a gamble doing that in law.
|
| Anyone posting to a blog might also be regarded as
| shipping.
|
| You're also focusing on one gotcha while ignoring the
| other terrifying clauses here. Are you still using the
| spec for _internal_ purposes if you are talking about it?
|
| IANAL but I strongly recommend any hobbyists or open
| source people steer the hell clear. These are terms for
| no engagement other than those willing to pay the anual
| fee.
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| Not conferred the rights to practice and ship, but if
| there's something which doesn't require such rights (such
| are private home tinkering) then not having rights
| conferred isn't an issue.
|
| Not saying that forgives this abysmal licensing regime of
| course.
| denschub wrote:
| Lawyers have little issue defining blogs like mine as
| "with commercial interest". I have a side-business, so
| lawyers could make the argument that I use my blog as
| advertising. I have a Ko-Fi link in the bottom of one
| specific site, that's a commercial interest, too.
|
| Unless your blog is "I'm sharing holiday photos and
| nothing else", there's a lot of instances where it could
| be define as an outlet with commercial interests.
|
| And, ultimately, I have no desire to spend any time and
| money on fighting even completely invalid claims. I'd
| rather spend my time watching cat videos on YouTube
| instead.
| scotty79 wrote:
| But their licensing doesn't care about commercial
| interests or lack of there of.
|
| It only reserves right to charge you if you ship a
| product. And by product they most obviously mean a device
| and by ship they obviously mean sell (or gift, or
| possibly rent) to some customers.
|
| All of this sounds like a thunderstorm in a glass of
| water by people who read too many software licenses.
| denschub wrote:
| This is not what the license says.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Yes. It's what it means.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Then _don 't_ use this or teach it. Don't build for it.
| Isolate it. Let it die. Cut off its supply. Make it
| irrelevant. Exclude it from connectivity options by
| default, out of caution. It seems pointless to complain
| that you can't have a bite of the poison fruit.
|
| But also make sure others know. Actively warn and
| discourage other developers away from that technology. Make
| "Threads" regret their lack of openness.
| ang_cire wrote:
| The problem is that individuals cannot cut it out,
| because big tech firms use it pretty widely. It's
| basically a moat that allows companies to ship products
| using a shared standard, but makes it impossible for
| individual developers to (especially ones who aren't
| actively trying to start a business, but even then, $7500
| a year is a lot for a garage-level startup for a
| _technical standard_ ).
|
| Imagine how much less innovation there would be if it
| cost $7,500 a year to write anything that uses the
| Internet Protocol suite of standards.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > hobbyists aren't expressly forbidden.
|
| Also, I don't think it helps to use this word "hobbyists".
|
| The entire world runs on free open source software written
| by _unpaid volunteers_ who are poorly supported, isolated,
| and exploited by mega tech corporations that are
| parasitical on their work.
|
| "hobbyists" sounds demeaning, It makes it sound like the
| great under-structure of common coding is somehow less-
| than-serious, somehow outside some commercial ecosystem
| rather than the very soil and food that sustains it.
|
| This (self) perception needs to change. Big Tech would die
| tomorrow without the "hobbyists" it depends on.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > so I don't understand why they are using that as an example
| about not being able to play around with something or write
| blog posts.
|
| It's seems pretty clear-cut to me:
|
| _Q: What Would Prevent A Company From Shipping A Product
| Based On OpenThread Without Joining The Thread Group?_
|
| _A: (roughly) You will be sued_
|
| Now, what does the word "product" in _" Shipping a product
| based on OpenThread"_ mean?
|
| A product is any (or some combination of) the following:
|
| 1. A devkit
|
| 2. A book
|
| 3. A blog post
|
| 4. Any hardware that uses Thread
|
| So, yeah, you can't write a tutorial for using Thread, or
| make a doorbell for your mum's house, or tell your friend how
| to read the protocol, or start up a /r/thread community to
| help each other use it.
|
| Looks pretty damned locked down to me, without at least the
| FRAND loopholes.
| IanCal wrote:
| Where is that definition of product from? Is that in their
| license agreement?
| lelanthran wrote:
| What is _your_ definition of a product based on (from
| their license) _" Thread technology and Thread Group
| specifications"_?
|
| Why would a book, or tutorial, or blog post be excluded
| from the clause _" Thread technology and Thread Group
| specifications"_?
| scotty79 wrote:
| Obviously a device because when hardware peopl say
| product they don't mean book or youtube video.
| ang_cire wrote:
| These aren't "hardware people" writing the licenses,
| they're "legal people", i.e. lawyers.
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's way too legible to be written by lawyers. At most
| lawyer read this and said "sure, why not".
| scotty79 wrote:
| Obviously only 1 and 4. Neither book or post uses tech. It
| can talk about tech, describe it, but never use it in any
| manner.
|
| Mum's doorbell might be gray area as you can easily say
| that it's still your doorbel, you just chose to install it
| wherever you chose to install it.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| There's no way that a book or blog post breaches any
| patents.
| 542458 wrote:
| > patents don't apply to private tinkering unless there's
| commerce involved.
|
| While you're unlikely to be sued for something you do in your
| basement that has no broader commercial or cultural impact,
| it's not impossible. There is no private use exemption to
| patents.
|
| https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/24148/can-i-build-so...
| samatman wrote:
| This isn't 100% true, it's closer to 90% true.
|
| There is a narrowly-tailored "research exemption" to patents:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_exemption
|
| So "private tinkering" where you implement something patented
| in order to perform research is permitted, but not for one's
| own benefit, even privately. For the example we're
| discussing, implementing Thread on some IoT device in order
| to benchmark it in various ways is in-bounds, but you can't
| _use_ that device to your own benefit, even privately in your
| own home.
| eszed wrote:
| Aye. And, as the sibling post points out, demonstrating
| that your benchmarking project qualifies for a Research
| Exemption could devolve into a lawyer-up situation.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Something surprising that a couple lawyers have drilled into
| me: _you can be sued for anything, regardless of whether it
| 's illegal or not_. The lawsuit is the discovery & decision
| process by which the courts decide whether your personal
| circumstances make it illegal. If the law is blatantly on
| your side you can get the lawsuit thrown out, but you still
| have to defend yourself, which includes the expense of hiring
| a lawyer.
|
| A corollary (and probably what the lawyers were getting at):
| not making yourself a target is more valuable than actually
| following the law. If you have money, keep it to yourself -
| some more unscrupulous actors will find some legal grey area
| you're operating in and sue you for it simply so they can
| force a settlement and get some of it. If you're doing
| something interesting (whether it's legal or not), keep it to
| yourself. If your interests are not aligned with someone
| else, gosh darnit, don't tell them or otherwise bring
| yourself to their attention. There is probably some lawsuit
| they can bring that would at least force an expensive court
| case and legal defense and make you want to settle to make it
| all go away.
|
| And once you are a target anyway, follow the law
| _scrupulously_. This is why big corporations invest billions
| in legal & compliance departments.
| mik1998 wrote:
| Really only a thing in the USA due to the ridiculous
| American rule wrt. attorney fees.
| h4ckerle wrote:
| As always with laws this is very location specific. In
| germany there is a very clear clause about patents not
| applying to "Actions carried out in the private sphere for
| non-commercial purposes" (SS11 PatG, own translation)
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Also the patents in question are probably software patents
| which, in theory, are not granted in Europe.
| alexashka wrote:
| I wonder if this rant would've not existed if the Thread website
| said 'costs 7500$/yr to use' on the front page.
|
| To me, the issue isn't that someone wants people to pay to use
| their products, it's that they make you work to find out.
|
| There really ought to be price transparency for _everything_ ,
| mandated by governments. I'm a dreamer, maaan.
| snthd wrote:
| At least we have wikipedia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol)
|
| >Thread is an IPv6-based, low-power mesh networking technology
| for Internet of things (IoT) products.[1] The Thread protocol
| specification is available at no cost; however, this requires
| agreement and continued adherence to an End-User License
| Agreement (EULA), which states that "Membership in Thread Group
| is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology
| and Thread Group specifications."[2]
| eviks wrote:
| It's missing the most important part - the sticker price to
| shock you away from it
| Terretta wrote:
| Given how much R&D expense Thread Group members have invested
| over the years developing its IP and the commercial value
| developers get from building on it, compared to, say, Apple's
| iOS APIs that developers can build on, it's interesting to
| consider the proportionality of Thread's annual licensing (USD
| 7500) being 75x Apple's dev license (USD 100).
|
| Either one of these is expensive or one of these is cheap.
| kragen wrote:
| the solution to your false dilemma is that they are both
| unconscionably high, and additionally they are both
| unconscionable because you are at the mercy of the vendor
| josephg wrote:
| Well, Apple's R&D expenses are amortised over a lot more
| developers paying their Apple tax.
|
| Most specialist stuff is like this. For example, Braille
| displays and equipment for blind people is outrageously
| expensive compared to most consumer electronics. But the
| price tag makes sense because of how few units they sell. So
| it takes a higher markup on each unit to make money.
| Solidworks is simpler and more expensive than Windows because
| it has orders of magnitude fewer users.
| Terretta wrote:
| Yes, in _cost plus_ instead of _value_ pricing.
| _factor wrote:
| It's only $20/mo. Just don't ask for how long.
| jt2190 wrote:
| Price transparency aside, do we _really_ know if it's a lot of
| work to ask them to waive the annual fee, or to provide a no-
| cost hobbies license? Why do we all assume that they intend to
| screw the little guy, and aren't just a small under-resourced
| group who either hasn't gotten around to hobby licenses, or
| hasn't even realized it's a thing that people want?
|
| Edit: Kudos to the author for actually reaching out to them. I
| do wonder what he means by "ask for clarification"... This
| sounds like the kind of email I dread receiving... vague, open
| ended, gotta call the lawyer? Did he just ask if they could
| waive the fee?
|
| > I contacted the Thread Group's support email address on
| 2024-04-19 to request clarification on non-commercial Thread
| use.
| denschub wrote:
| Here are the full texts of both emails I sent them:
| https://overengineer.dev/txt/2024-05-11-thread-group-emails/
|
| The second one to their press team sounds super presumptuous,
| sorry for that, but I found that you kinda have to talk to
| press teams in that way if you want to get /any/ response at
| al.
| jt2190 wrote:
| Thanks for being so open and sharing this. I truly hope
| that this is an oversight on their part and not something
| intentional, and we're just looking for the right person
| who can "press the button" and grant you a license.
|
| Looking at https://www.threadgroup.org/thread-group, it
| seems like they already have some access for free
| ("Academic" and "Associate"). I'll have to review your blog
| post to see if you already reviewed those and what the
| specific issues were.
|
| Edit: I see you _did_ mention their "Implementor"
| membership level, but I'm not sure which of thier points
| you need to "implement their IP" that the no-cost
| memberships lack... "Access to IP rights", maybe?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| "you're a hobbyist without access to some serious throwaway money
| to join the Thread Group, there is no way to use Thread legally"
|
| Well, there's no way to know until someone finds out if they have
| relevant patent covers.
|
| We need Compaq to clean room copy the stuff and then take the hit
| if there truly are valid patents...
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| A cleanroom process is evidence that you reimplemented without
| copying, but that's not enough to avoid infringing a patent.
| You need to redesign to avoid doing anything they claimed,
| convince the patent office that they made a mistake in granting
| some or all of the claims, hold a war chest of patents you
| could counter-sue with, or YOLO:
| https://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Yes. What I meant about valid patents is that you can't
| really know what a patent is worth until you challenge it.
| There are SO MANY filed patents which are basically just
| crap, nothing more than camouflage and bluster.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > if you're a hobbyist without access to some serious throwaway
| money to join > the Thread Group, there is no way to use Thread
| legally - the license does > not include an exception for non-
| commercial uses.
|
| Well, in this situation, and assuming Thread is technically
| worthwhile - perhaps people would start using it "illegally"
| (with or without quotes). If such use is wide enough, it might
| get effectively legalized, albeit gradually.
| crote wrote:
| Don't worry, the protocol is explicitly designed to prevent it
| from interacting with "fake" devices. Your device needs to
| present a special cryptographic certificate in order to work
| properly.
| surajrmal wrote:
| You're thinking about matter
| advisedwang wrote:
| Pirate adoption just helps cement thread as the winner in the
| IoT space. Which forces organizations in the IoT space to use
| thread. And they are afraid of being sued, so will follow
| Thread rules.
|
| So tactically I think this actually plays against making it
| effectively legalized.
| devjab wrote:
| One of the reasons my city decided to go with LoRawan is exactly
| because it's less complicated from the legal side of things. It's
| much more complicated to work with, however, and because of
| Danish telecom laws any such tech comes with ridiculous
| restrictions that give telecom a sort of monopoly on high speed
| "internet". This would also apply to threads though.
|
| Anyway, one of the advantages a city gets is that it has a lot of
| locations to set up antennas. A public school, a library and so
| on, are all good locations that local citizens wouldn't have
| access to. So the trick is to get your city to open up their
| LoRawan equivalent to the public. At least if you want to deploy
| things all over the city. Luckily mine does. It also gives you
| free access to power supplies if your project is benefiting the
| city (and open), and they are often interested in supporting you
| financially as well.
|
| But as a whole, just don't use threads.
| tjoff wrote:
| Threads would never scale to that anyway? Isn't it a completely
| different usecase than what Threads was made for?
| lakid wrote:
| are you mixing up Thread with Digital Threads ?
| https://www.ptc.com/en/blogs/corporate/what-is-a-digital-thr...
| jensenbox wrote:
| I have not read the fine print of all of this so my idea here may
| be dead in the water but...
|
| What if we (the community) were to establish an entity that would
| pay the licensing for whatever required level and pitch in a
| small amount each towards the fees and we could all then be
| legal?
|
| Essentially the new entity would be licensed and we all would be
| licensed unter the entity. Fractionating the larger dollar figure
| across us all.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _I have not read the fine print of all of this so my idea
| here may be dead in the water..._
|
| Many commercial software patent licensing agreements for at
| least the last twenty years (the timeframe I've noticed
| contracts tend to have realized open source and networks are a
| thing) have clauses that specifically prevent or limit this,
| called "preemptive sublicensing restrictions":
|
| https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2019/10/sublicensing-considera...
|
| In the "fine print" of the Thread agreements including IP
| agreement -- reading not very closely and while commenting here
| -- they ensure this a little obliquely:
|
| https://www.threadgroup.org/Becomemember
|
| In the various agreements they've defined Implementor as what
| you need to, well, implement it, and it does allow sublicensing
| to affiliates, but separates out Participants and Associates
| from Affiliates, and puts a high bar on what can be an
| Affiliate.
|
| _Based on the provided definition of "Affiliate" in the
| context of the Thread Group, Inc. Implementer Participation
| Agreement, an Implementer cannot simply sign agreements with
| third parties to make them "Affiliates" in order to sublicense
| the Implementer's license. According to the definition, an
| "Affiliate" must be a corporation, company, or other entity
| that either owns or controls the Implementer, is owned or
| controlled by the Implementer, or is under common control with
| the Implementer, with a significant threshold of more than
| fifty percent ownership or control._
|
| _This means that the relationship defining an entity as an
| Affiliate is based on substantial ownership or control rather
| than merely contractual agreements. An Implementer would need
| to have a majority ownership or control over another entity for
| that entity to qualify as an Affiliate and thereby enjoy the
| rights and privileges, including any sublicensing rights,
| granted under the Implementer 's license. This ensures that
| Affiliates are closely tied to the primary Participant,
| maintaining a direct and substantial connection rather than a
| loose contractual relationship._
|
| // IANAL, YMMV, ask your attorney, standard disclaimers apply
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Besides what Terretta wrote... why would we? This seems like
| such a hostile approach to releasing a protocol that I wouldn't
| want to support them financially.
|
| Especially when our use cases are something like "make a home-
| made coffee bean counter last 90 days on battery power instead
| of 55".
| odo1242 wrote:
| Do these license terms apply if you use OpenThread directly
| without ever agreeing to the license on the Thread specification?
| I don't see how you could be sued if you never agreed to anything
| except the BSD license lol
| p_l wrote:
| Similar to how you have to join certain patent pools even if
| you have otherwise an open license to the code.
| 542458 wrote:
| The BSD license just selectively releases the copyright on the
| openthread code. It doesn't affect other legal constructs, like
| patents or copyrights outside the repo.
| josephg wrote:
| What are "copyrights outside the repo"? The BSD license
| doesn't grant any patent or trademark rights. But how would
| copyright cause problems?
| 542458 wrote:
| OpenThread is by Google, and not the thread group. Google
| has released their copyright claims with the BSD license,
| but the thread group could still C&D you for copyright
| issues I.e., that your project that includes openthread
| code violates their spec's copyright.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > OpenThread is by Google, and not the thread group.
|
| Wow. So Google is _in_ the Thread Group, and so is
| licensed to practice and ship the technology; which they
| do, in the form of OpenThread, under a permissive
| licence.
|
| BUT anyone that uses OpenThread for _anything at all_ is
| exposed to legal action unless they cough up the fees. Is
| that right?
|
| So this is hard for me to understand: Google's OpenThread
| code is open to be inspected, and you can contribute to
| it, under a BSD-like licence; but Thread Group holds the
| IP, and reserves the right to sue. As always, the patents
| covering it are not listed, and some of them might be
| submarines. I don't see why it's called "Open" Thread, if
| you probably can't even use the library without a Thread
| Group licence.
| denschub wrote:
| This is the reason why this notice exists in the
| OpenThread repo: https://github.com/openthread/openthread
| /blob/1fceb225b3858a...
| ang_cire wrote:
| I'm sure Thread Group would love to stop Google making
| OpenThread available, but unless they want to tee-off
| against Google's legal team over patent infringement, the
| easier route for them is just threatening everyone else
| out of using it.
|
| All the combined wealth of every individual who has ever
| wanted to tinker with Thread is a fraction of Google's
| warchest.
| denschub wrote:
| > I'm sure Thread Group would love to stop Google making
| OpenThread available
|
| Google is a founding member of the Thread Group.
| OpenThread exists publicly because it's the only widely
| available implementation that's shipped in a lot of
| places. Nordic's SDK, for example, uses OpenThread.
|
| OpenThread is built by and for members of the Thread
| Group, and used by them. It's fairly clear that Google
| doesn't care much about anyone else.
| tomxor wrote:
| > OpenThread code is open to be inspected, and you can
| contribute to it, under a BSD-like licence; but Thread
| Group holds the IP, and reserves the right to sue. As
| always, the patents covering it are not listed, and some
| of them might be submarines
|
| Sounds like they are trying to have their cake and eat
| it? Release code on a copy left license to try and gain
| open source contributions, but also force people to pay
| if they want to use it by crippling it with patents and
| some weird licensing BS.
|
| Except no one outside of large corporations already
| paying for it are going to ever contribute code... how
| could they, you can't contribute code in a vacuum.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Release code on a copy left license
|
| It's not a copyleft licence, it's a modified BSD-style
| licence. Basically, you can do what you like with it,
| except (a) delete or replace the licence, and (b) trade
| on the names of Open Group or it's developers.
|
| > crippling it with patents and some weird licensing BS.
|
| Not to mention that part of the lock-in is that certified
| implementations MUST validate a certificate from a peer,
| which MUST have been issued by Thread Group, and they
| will only issue one to a licensee. That is, it literally
| won't work unless the implementor has a licence.
| delusional wrote:
| The 3-Clause BSD doesn't NOT release copyright. The copyright
| holder extends you a perpetual license to redistribute and
| modify the copyrighted work, provided you adhere to the
| license. They still hold the copyright. Without them holding
| the copyright, the 3 clauses would be meaningless, since
| they'd have no way to enforce them.
|
| Releasing the license is commonly refereed to as "public
| domain", but it's not actually possible to relinquish the
| copyright in all territories, and therefore people generally
| prefer some kind of license.
| advisedwang wrote:
| They likely have patents, which restrict use even to people who
| have not agreed to a license.
| sneak wrote:
| Which patents cover implementing Thread if it's just IPv6 on
| Zigbee?
| indeyets wrote:
| Yup. Just use zigbee. 3.x is open and well specified. And dongle-
| bridges for HomeAssistant are cheap
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Prediction: the world will move on and probably choose something
| less wrapped up in a legal Trojan. Although not IP based, LoRa is
| pretty neat. Slow, but so easy to play around with
| Petersipoi wrote:
| "Slow" meaning what exactly? There is going to be a delay
| between pushing the button on my phone and the lights turning
| off? Or is it more a "theoretical" slow that doesn't matter too
| much in practice?
| oohshiny wrote:
| I'm not super familiar with licensing at this kind of level - how
| does the licensing for Thread compare to e.g. Bluetooth, which
| also requires payment to integrate into products?
| https://www.bluetooth.com/develop-with-bluetooth/join/member...
|
| (I've also been playing around with Thread this week, as it
| happens. Surprised how easy it was to flash the example project
| to an ESP32 and start pinging it from my laptop)
| squarefoot wrote:
| I'm also not familiar with this legalese stuff, however in the
| case of Bluetooth, it has been "illegally" implemented in many
| (mostly imported from far east) devices that use it but don't
| show its complete name. If you encounter a Bluetooth device
| that claims "BT version x" compatibility and not Bluetooth
| version X, then it might be one of them.
|
| This makes me think that should Thread gain some traction among
| users, cheap clones implementing it under a similar name, yet
| without any licensing, would appear shortly on sale at the
| usual vendors.
| nox101 wrote:
| And Apple and Google signed up for this.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > If you're like me and want to write a series of blog posts
| about how Thread works, there's also no legal way.
|
| I feel like their conditions are refering to manufacturing and
| delivering products that use Thread tecg to some third party
| (selling, gifting, possibly renting). Not about teaching,
| publishing or experimenting. As long as you don't transfer what
| you've built to another person you should be fine.
|
| Am I misreading?
| advisedwang wrote:
| The section of the license agreement excerpted:
|
| > Thread Group, Inc. [...] hereby grants you a [...] license
| [...] to view, download, save, reproduce and use the
| Specification solely for your own internal purposes
|
| uses the term "internal purposes" which doesn't seem to include
| writing a blog post for the external world to see.
| scotty79 wrote:
| When you write a piece that you publish externally the
| research you do for it is still done by you internally.
| maufl wrote:
| I'm a little confused, I thought Thread was exclusively based on
| open standards, like 6LowPAN, that already existed before Thread.
| How can a licence be required for those? I understand the
| application layer Matter is new (although also using open
| standards like CoAP) and might not be that open.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Thread adds mesh networking on top of 6LowPAN. Thread, and
| Zigbee and ZWave, don't have range to cover whole house so need
| relays and added mesh.
| gdcbe wrote:
| The latest "Decoder" episode was about local smart homes. Mainly
| about "Matter", but also about Thread:
| https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/decoder-with-nilay-pat...
|
| Might be of interest if Thread is of interest to you.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Does it touch on the legal issue this post is about at all?
| gdcbe wrote:
| Not at all. That is why I did not mention the legal part.
| Which is a bit disappointing as the host has a lawyer
| background. Oh well...
| zackmorris wrote:
| This tickles my spidey sense. Real tech is what we can't use or
| teach, that Neo lived for in the Matrix, stuff like: Tor Browser,
| BitTorrent, pre-Microsoft Skype, WebRTC, Bitcoin, etc etc etc.
| It's anything that lets the mind seek the truth uninhibited to
| get closer to the divine.
|
| The tech purgatory we live in today between utopia and dystopia
| is mostly walled gardens and surveillance capitalism. We pay a
| fortune for 5G and streaming services that technically have no
| reason to exist. It would be borderline trivial to develop real
| p2p networking for smartphones that self-organizes with others
| near them to share some fraction of their bandwidth and create a
| darknet. Like BitTorrent, performance would increase with the
| number of peers, so it would run faster at a festival for
| example, not slower. Which means that a gigabit radio would fully
| saturate and we'd be enjoying internet speeds perhaps 10-1000
| times faster than we have now, even millions of times faster when
| the protocol runs on wired networks. Maybe something like Thread
| would facilitate the creation of a p2p network running on and
| alongside existing infrastructure.
|
| I believe that this free p2p network should have been developed
| around 2007 when the iPhone and Facebook exploded, but greed took
| us into this alternate timeline where expenses rise faster than
| wages so we never have the time, money or resources to escape the
| rat race long enough to get the real work done that gets us
| closer to a Star Trek UBI economy and self-actualization.
| Meanwhile there are countless Mark Zuckerbergs, 1000 billionaires
| and millions of tech influencers who have won the internet
| lottery but don't pursue the goals that I'm talking about here.
| They just seem to build out ever more infrastructure to expand
| their wealth, creating a black hole that shrinks the wealth of
| the working class. I can only think of a handful of benefactors
| like MacKenzie Scott who might do it in reverse and seek out
| eager minds to offer them what they need to work at the pace
| they're capable of outside the status quo.
|
| Which brings me to my point: the legalese obfuscating the Thread
| protocol isn't to protect their working group, but to prevent the
| disruption of the status quo in order to protect the fortunes of
| the biggest tech companies.
|
| The thing is, we're crossing thresholds now where I don't think a
| lot of people under 50 expect the future to get better. They're
| waiting to have children because they don't have enough money.
| Children are dying in proxy wars and we can't even call out the
| political party responsible because the other one is scarier.
| We're facing enormous geopolitical threats like the rise of
| authoritarianism and we can't even call it out because we depend
| on products made by child labor in those same countries, created
| using minerals and fossil fuels which only exist there. I mean
| this is like, really serious stuff. If we want to actually invent
| the real innovation that heals the world and improves the quality
| of life for everyone, it starts with the most fundamental
| disruptive tech like this.
| kazinator wrote:
| I wouldn't use anything called Thread regardless of its
| qualifications and pedigree, because I don't want to face months
| and years of meetings in which people will be be forever heard
| explaining whether they are talking about operating system
| scheduler threads, or the framework by that name. (Imagine non-
| native English speakers who don't distinguish plurals like
| "threads" and "thread" talking to other such speakers). Just kill
| me now.
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