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An Open Source DRM?

·163 words·1 min
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Daniel Andrlik
Author
Daniel Andrlik
Daniel Andrlik lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia. By day he manages product teams. The rest of the time he is a podcast host and producer, writer of speculative fiction, a rabid reader, and a programmer.

I was just perusing the articles on Slashdot and I came across a link to a project whose intention is to create an open source DRM standard. Started by the folks as Sun Microsystems you can read about the project here.

On the one hand, an open source solution would provide for a non-proprietary management system that works the way it is supposed to work. If DRM is the future, this would be the way to go.

On the other hand, why the hell would anyone contribute or assist in developing technology to restrict our personal use? I certainly have no intention of restricting myself with my own code and I think any developer who stops to think about will realize that this is exactly what they would be doing.

Open source DRM is like asking us to forge our own chains. We will develop the smithing process, build the locks, hand over the keys and then put our arms in the shackles.

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