

The Hardware Hacker Manifesto - daeken
http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto

======
pacemkr
As consumers, we are not responsible for how a company intends to make money.
If I buy something, I own it. If I license it, I explicitly know that it isn't
mine. He bought it, its his. They don't get to say "this doesn't fit our
business plan."

Some time ago I bought an iPhone, went though the contract, and then changed
carriers. I put the iPhone in a box, where it remained for the next year.

One day I needed an iPhone to do some market research for a product I was
making. "But wait, I _have_ an iPhone," I remembered. I took it out of the box
and it didn't work; it was deactivated, because I'm not longer an AT&T
customer.

I had to spend the next four hours of my life jail breaking that phone -- I
still needed it -- to make the iPhone I have "sort of" mine. This is after
paying for the device and for a year of service under contract. After all that
money spent, I still needed permission from two separate companies to use
something that was mine in the first place.

So after going though that experience, I don't really care if a company
(startup or not) goes bust, come up with a better business model, not my
problem. If I payed my money for it, I will do whatever I want with it.

------
kiba
'Piracy' seem to have evolved from making digital copies to _Stuff That Short-
Sighted Commercial Dude Don't Want You To Do_.

Maybe somebody should create a list of hacker friendly and property right
respecting companies so people don't buy stuff from companies like what is
mentioned in the manifesto.

~~~
emilis_info
You know, I think this is a wrong way to do this.

If you bought it, you own it. Period. Just do whatever you want.

It doesn't matter what the "commercial dude" wants. He's acting silly. You
should laugh to his face. Literally or metaphoricly. In public. If he gets
angrier it just shows other people what an asshole he is.

------
spiffworks
Note: I posted this to your posterous blog as well, but I want to hear what HN
has to say about this.

When I first read about Emokit, I was really excited because the biggest
barrier to entry in BCI research was being lifted. However, Emotiv is a
startup, they're practically giving away the headsets for free because they
expect to recover the expenses from the SDK licences they sell. Which is a
good strategy since developers are the ones buying this thing right now. If
Emokit becomes sufficiently mature and reliable, the number of licences that
Emotiv sells will reduce, and I think we can count on the price of the headset
going up.

What daeken is doing is great. As a relatively poor BCI nut, I am grateful for
the work he has started. However, in this case, his work is breaking the
business model of an innovative startup. Should emotiv just suck it up and
adjust?

Edit: Of course, the piracy claims are just bullshit.

~~~
patrickyeon
> However, in this case, his work is breaking the business model of an
> innovative startup.

I would argue that an innovative startup has bet on a broken business model. I
didn't feel bad when the Xbox got hacked and Microsoft was selling us all
(relatively) cheap PCs. I don't feel bad for the media industry that is trying
to hold on to a broken business model. If Emotiv knew what they were doing,
they knew they were taking this risk, and it's part of the initial cost to get
their business going.

If they don't know what they're doing (on the business side), they're doomed
anyway.

~~~
spiffworks
We should note that the subsidy is just speculation at this point, inferred
from their knee-jerk reaction to daeken's work.

That being said, I was just thinking that Emotiv could stand to make a lot
more money by removing the subsidy(if there is one) and embracing Emokit. The
existence of a FOSS SDK would lead to drastically improved sales for Emotiv,
despite the(possibly) higher price. Their manufacturing seems to be saturated,
however-the EPOC is significantly back-ordered.

~~~
icey
From my perspective, Daeken's work made me more likely to buy one of these
devices, not less likely. It sucks that Emotiv chose a poor business model;
and it's really too bad that they're too short-sighted to see how a passionate
community of tinkerers and makers can be the road to their success.

------
Cushman
I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't believe Cody has done anything
wrong, and I agree with him about his rights.

That said, I'm a bit disappointed that a self-described hacker is taking such
a narrow view of the idea of property. He starts out saying "It all comes down
to one simple question: once you've purchased something, do you own it?" And
that is the question— but it's not a simple one, not anymore. Intellectual
property has changed the game fundamentally, and accepted ideas now need to be
challenged.

This "manifesto" assumes inviolable rights contingent to ownership without
discussion. Where is the intellectual curiosity? Where do you believe the
rights of ownership derive from? What makes them valuable? Why _should_ the
nature of ownership be the way you want it to, as more and more of what makes
a physical thing valuable is not contained in the value of its materials and
the labor to construct it?

Define and _defend_ your philosophy— and then you'll be in a much better place
to argue it as it applies to hacking.

And when you go to do that, don't stop after saying "I can and I want to."
There are people who disagree with you— _convince_ them. What _will_ be the
outcome? Why is hacking actually good for the world? What are the risks? Why
are they worth it?

Otherwise it's just an angry rant with "manifesto" written on top.

~~~
pacemkr
"A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions" - Wikipedia

That's exactly what he did with that post. He doesn't have to convince anyone.
He simply stated his principles.

~~~
Cushman
Intentions he's got, but I don't agree he stated his principles. Or rather, I
don't think that "hacking is fun" and "you should be able to do whatever you
want with something you own" are particularly compelling or rigorously
declared principles.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Here's a more precise, and realistic principle: "You should be _allowed_ to do
whatever you want _to_ something you own".

------
logic
Emokit project announcement that led to this post: [http://daeken.com/emokit-
hacking-the-emotiv-epoc-brain-compu...](http://daeken.com/emokit-hacking-the-
emotiv-epoc-brain-computer-0)

Discussion thread on Emotiv's forums relating to Cody's Emokit project:
<http://www.emotiv.com/forum/forum15/topic879/>

~~~
sqrt17
The basic point seems to be this:

* The Emotiv business plan seems to be based on some game-console like cost structure where developers would pay Emotiv so that they can release software, with the 300$ headset being sold as a loss leader and then recoups the cost through people buying software. Emotiv's investors seem to like that business model.

* Having an open ecosystem around their EEG device would mean that the loss-leader business model doesn't work anymore and their investors are threatening to do ugly things if Emotiv doesn't get it under control.

Now, which one is it? "Hooray, we can build an EEG at a consumer-friendly (for
some value of consumer) price"? Or "We had a broken business model from the
start, but we're going to blame our users"?

Note that a slightly-expensive special-purpose device gets a significantly
higher share of people interested in using it creatively than a tool that has
a very obvious recreational and/or professional purpose, and already fulfills
this purpose very well, such as a synthesizer keyboard.

Trying the game consoles business model on an EEG device is similarly sensible
as selling a 300$ CNC lathe that you can only use with bought programs that
were written by random other people with more money on their hands.

------
danielnicollet
It's true that no-one should not assume that hardware tinkering is immoral. It
would be so much smarter to encourage it. It's a way like another to get
people engaged with your product. Tinkering, hacking, or re-purposing what you
fully own is a natural process, a human right. You can't stop it. Unless you
want consumers to revert to a state where we just know how to use tools, not
make or modify them!!

------
Pyrodogg
All rights exist on a scale from absolute to nothing. Two individuals with
free will cannot completely overwill the other. There must be balance to
mazimize the rights of both parties. So it is with producers of products and
owners of products.

If you buy something, you should have the right to do with it as you please
for your personal use.

The producer of said good may implicitly or explicitly (see licenses and
patents) retain some right to exclusive first sale of the product that you
have purchased.

You still have the right to sell your good to another, but you do not
necisarrily have the right to manufacture, distribute or produce it.

Does sharing your insights into the design of the product on the internet
equate to publishing their design content? Apparently so, according to the
accusers.

The internet especially has lowered the hurdles for anyone to compete in the
intellectual property market. Some companies will fight tooth and nail for the
rights or perceived rights to their IP.

As a contrast, check out the efforts of the Open Hardware Summit. The OHS is
drafting an open source hardware license that people and companies can apply
to their products clearly defines that the products design can be distributed,
changed and shared.

<http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/license/>

~~~
araneae
>You still have the right to sell your good to another ... you do not
necisarrily have the right to ... distribute ... it.

How is distributing something different from selling it? I just got a
presentation at work today from a company, and they complained that a lot of
their product was being resold by distributers, but there was nothing they
could legally do to stop it besides only sell to individuals in small amounts.

~~~
Pyrodogg
I suppose I was thinking of selling the one physical device you _own_ vs.
manufacturing and distributing them en masse.

If you're still purchasing things from the original creator you should be able
to distribute them all you want. Granted, at scale, commercial agreements and
contracts would likely come into play.

------
danielnicollet
Oh and by the way, it would be great to hear a lawyer on the issue here. This
reminds me vaguely of so many debates on software and media IP. But hardware
is vastly different. Legal POV?

