On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Well, actually, the reason is clear.
In the old days, IBM was stupid and didn't want anyone to learn about
their computers.
I wouldn't call it stupid, the goal was profit, but I get your
drift :-) I'll let the IBM fans rip you up. Bandaids are in the
cabinet.
A similar but much more richly-deserved fate awaits the miserable
SOB f*cks like Disney et al; in 5, 10, 20, 50 years much of their
content will be utterly and completely inaccessible to the world
due to their proprietary DRM lockdown mentality.
The increasing use of little security engines running inside your
peecee (that you have no legal access to) that have dynamic
relationships with the software-distribution website do the same
thing.
I am definitely an open-source fan, but not fanatic, I do think
there's plenty of space for proprietary works and DRM in general,
but there still is some justice in the fact that the more-open
stuff will be more likely to be historically accessible.