Unstoppable Rockbox
Some of the most exciting open source action is on the fringes of legality, for example emulators, media players and so on. These hobbyists dare to tread in the domain of corporations and proprietary systems.
One such project that caught my eye recently is Rockbox. A skilled bunch of european hackers have reverse engineered a number of mp3 players. They have produced a replacement firmware which enables the players to do things they previously couldn’t. For example the new firmware can have voiced menus which are a revolutionary feature for blind users. Many other features that users want are added to players that have been abandoned by their manufacturers.
Many mp3 players are developed under pressure to get them out onto the shelves as soon as possible. An accepted side effect is that the software is often buggy. To cope with this, almost all players have the ability to upgrade the firmware. Breaking into this system is the first hurdle.
The technical challenges are plenty. But there are free tools (gnu compilers), reference designs from hardware manufacturers and some datasheets. Code can be borrowed from Linux or other open sources. Original firmware is small (compared to typical PC software) so reverse engineering how a part of the original firmware is used is made easier.
The legal problems can be more of a show stopper. It looks like Rockbox have just ignored the issues and continued anyway. One problem could be circumventing copy protection – if a device is designed to prevent copying in some way, but Rockbox enables it to copy, is that legal? Another could be the use of patented and licensed file formats and compression algorithms – eg. mp3. Yet another problem is the license that Rockbox is released under – the GPL, which is generally seen as incompatible with patents. Rockbox seem slightly concerned but aren’t behaving in a concerted way. The Fedora Linux distribution by comparison has very strict rules on what software can be included. This stance would force rockbox to leave out many features. All Rockbox have done is taken the dubious step of banning pseudonymous contributions.
In spite of the potential legal problems, for now Rockbox seems unstoppable. I think they are a good example of why it’s sometimes right to break the rules.