Examples of proprietary control

[Jonas Forsslund]

We (Royal Institute of Technology, and my company Forsslund Systems)
have very much issues with proprietary drivers for haptic (force)
feedback devices.
The drivers are not only proprietary but also really outdated and bad. The
manufacturer of the devices wants to sell licenses of their API, and doesn't
work on improving the hardware. They have patents that restricts competitors
to make similar devices and/or the competitors sees it risky to enter
that market.
So basically we are stuck with badly functional drivers and non-optimal
engineered and non-updated hardware due both to proprietary software and
patents. So it clearly harms innovation for sure

Best regards
Jonas Forsslund


2009/10/13 Carsten Agger <agger at c.dk>:
> I'm doing a text about the potential damages of proprietary software and
> have mentioned the "celebrity cases" of Windows installing "Windows
> Genuine Advantage" with the automatic updates, Apple reserving the right
> to zap any and all iPhone Apps it doesn't like and the Amazon Kindle
> censorship case - trying to argue, obviously, that if all software was
> shipped as free software as a matter of course, that kind of behaviour
> would not be as big a problem as users and organizations would be able
> to change it.
>
> Does anyone know of more striking cases, possibly a list, of people who
> have been badly bitten by proprietary software. (There's the standards
> issue, of course, but that deserves to be treated apart).
>
> br
> Carsten Agger
> Denmark
>
>
>
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