[sldev] Re: property rights in distributed systems

[Dale Glass]

On Saturday 08 September 2007 17:54:45 Ben Byer wrote:
> Nope.
>
> All three examples you just named are cases where the operating
> system is enforcing some rules for the benefit of the user (owner) of
> the system.  Accordingly, all can by bypassed in some way by a local
> user.

Never used a multi-user Linux system?

Shared hosting, parents managing a system for their children, etc work 
exactly this way: You're subject to somebody else's will. If the admin 
doesn't want you to read /etc/fstab then you can't and there's no way you 
can bypass it (excluding explots, but that's a different topic).

> The "DRM" or property rights issue is the complete opposite -- it's
> my computer trying to prevent me from doing something I might want to
> do (copy objects I didn't create).

But it's not "your computer". In SL it's LL's asset server, on a shared 
hosting system is the provider's server, in a family it'd be the parents' 
computer.

This isn't DRM. DRM stops the rightful owner from doing what they want with 
their own content. But that's got nothing to do with a situation where 
you're using something that actually isn't your in the first place.
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