Release .9: Feedback always rocks! Contact mcgucken @ authena . org. Thanks!

"Ok, there's no way to do this gracefully, so I won't even try. I'm going to just hunker down for some really impressive extended flaming, and my asbestos underwear is firmly in place, and extremely uncomfortable. I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!" --Linus Torvalds

22surf @ OSCOM4 in Zurich
Surfing Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law towards
Open Source Content and Digital Rights Management & Tomorrow's Media Businesses

"So much technology--surf's up and nothing to surf it with. Wish I had a 22surfboard." --Dr. E

Surf's up and the LAMP developer community is ready to rock out. As soon as somebody manufactures handhelds and media-servers that can readily run common Linux and LAMP (Linux/Apache/MYSQL/PHP) applications like postnuke and phpnuke, the floodgates of innovation will open. Move over iPod(TM), TiVo(TM), iPaq(TM), and Microsoft(TM). Open-source CMS and DRM will power tomorrow's content marketplaces, handhelds, computers, and media-servers, as artist-hackers create the open-source hardware, software, and standards for all-in-one media devices, record labels, movie distribution, media marketplaces, and modeling agencies.

Dr. Elliot McGucken (founder of authena.org, 22surf.org, and jollyroger.com )
Chris Mollis (founder of objectlab.com and openipmp )

22surfing is a sport. It's for individuals and businesses alike. It's about surfing along with natural laws like Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law towards your dreams. It's about riding technology's bleeding edge out to where artist-hackers, writers, movie directors, photographers, and musicians form their own media markets, as free, Open-Source Content Management Systems (CMS) surpass yesterday's proprietary solutions. Surf's up! Download the 22surf business plan. Create, publish, syndicate, share, and sell!

The 22surf Postulates (Not to be confused with patent claims)
0. You can't patent the waves. Hackers must surf them.
1. Standards must be open and free, or they will not become standards.
2. It's not the technology that's lacking to build an all-in-one 22surfboard, but it's the culture. Surf's up, and artist-hackers are hungry for a true open-source handheld which lends itself to Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP/PERL/PYTHON (LAMP) development. Give them the board, and they'll surf Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law on home to thousands of new ventures for creators and content companies. Become a 22surfer and hellp fellow surfers build 22surf ventures and design 22surfboard devices! There's room for artist-hackers, lawyers, MBAs, programming gods, UI designers, drummers, and more! Heck, we could even use some architects to design the 22surfshacks.
3. Open-source CMS and DRM, specifically LAMP-based applications, will power tomorrow's content marketplaces.
4. Open-source CMS and DRM, specifically LAMP-based applications, will power tomorrow's personal media devices.
5. Open-source CMS and DRM, as outlined by authena.org, will allow creators to define their rights and be compensated. And too, it will allow consumers to compensate creators directly rather than middlemen corporations.
6. Open-source-patent devices designed to run LAMP applications from off-the-shelf hardware, such as the 22surfboard, will surf Moore's law to all-in-one functionality, as media-servers, computers, and cell phones combine to become one. The power of today's Dell server will be found on tomorrow's handheld and the functionality will follow.
7. Tomorrow's media landscape will be defined by a global network of 22surfboard devices interacting over http via REST web services.
8. A 22surfshack will be a coffee-shop, a club, and a music and video store powered by open-source CMS and DRM. Bring your 22surfboard, browse and buy or rent your favorite movies or songs, record your favorite band's live performance, and take it with you for a small fee which goes straight to the band.
9. As Moore's law marches on, there will be less need for ASIC chips, as everything will run full Linux distributions. The hardware and operating sytem will be standardized, and device functionality will be distinguished at the programming level.
10. The technology for ventures centered upon open-source CMS & DRM is all there as outlined at authena.org--RDF/RSS for rights definitions; http and REST web services for content transfer, rights negotiation, and syndication; SSL, PGP, Media-S, and OPENIPMP for encryption and security; bit torrent for accelerated downloads, and LAMP applications such as postnuke, phpnuke, xoops, oscommerce, and netjuke for media browsing, buying, serving, and viewing. Surf's up, but there's nothing to surf it with.
11. Indy artists, musicians, and film-makers will be able to sell their content alongside media behomeths to 22surfboard devices.
12. Drummers will become record-label executives, runnning their own marketplaces, as outlined in the 22surf open source business plan.
13. Googles, ebays, yahoos, and amazons will mimic artist-hackers (22surfers) and rush to support the open standards so that they can become leading content servers for the plethora of 22surf creators hosting on LAMP applications and consuming content on 22surfboard devices.
14. By leveraging the power of the Sourceforge.net developer community, 22surfboards will gain functionality faster than iPods(TM), TiVos(TM), Microsoft(TM) media-servers, and other proprietary devices.
15. Hackers are hungry for true open-source-based handhelds. Give the LAMP community a 22surfboard handheld that can run standard Linux distros, and the floodgates of innovation will open--the first hardware company to do this will benefit greatly.
16. Chapel Hill will play host to the annual opensourcearts.org festival and conference, bringing artists, artist-hackers, and hackers together, with LAMP programmers lecturing about hosting your band's site and open-source DRM for indy film-makers throughout the day and films, and musicians rocking out at night.
17. The waves of Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Consitutional Law are bringing about a sea change in the content business. As stated in the 22 surf business plan released on Sourceforge.net, one can start the following businesses: a) sell keyword advertising throughout free OSCMS hosting services (blogs, galleries, etc.), b) sell advanced hosting options/extra disk space, c) charge 5% on content marketplace transactions, d) charge 5% on Open Source Arts freelance services marketplace transactions, e) manage/host media assets of large businesses (record labels/movie studios/etc.), f) sell printing services (or partner with businesses) for hard-copy books, prints, CDs, DVDs, etc. g) create a syndicable friendster/FOAF (friend-of-a-friend) network h) Manufacture 22surfboard hardware devices i) Become a business/legal expert with the 22surf philosophy. j) Sell your band's contnet online, or self-publish, or stream your movie over LAMP, and then offer the services to your friends, their friends, and then the world.
18. Hardware devices built from open source patents and off-the-shelf hardware will triumph over proprietary devices, which often waste resources by duplicating efforts in parallel development, after which the competing companies take each-other to court over obscure patent claims assuring mutual destruction of said companies and enriching the lawyers, leaving it up to hackers to create all-in-one handelds for aesthetic purposes.
19. Storage space will be solved by micro-drives, new memory technologies, and ubiquitous wireless networks.
20. We can beam movies about the globe in seconds, clone humans and pets, but try getting a video off your TiVo onto your Linux laptop. Try getting your music off your iPod onto your Linux desktop. 22surf aims to make content more fluid via ubiquitous standards for rights and content management, while also allowing for open-source DRM, affording creators the ability to define rights and be compensated.
21. A wired and wireless network of interacting LAMP-based media servers will define tomorrow's media networks. The same cable brings both TV and the WWW into the house, and as media goes digital, creators and content companies will gravitate towards the standards and devices that are free and widely accepted--standards and devices that allow them to profit from their creativity without paying a middleman.
22. All 22surfboard devices, be they servers, handhelds, desktops, palmtops, media-servers, or cell-phones, will meld into one as Moore's Law marches on.
23. The 22surf philosophy will benefit the creator and end-consumer, as well as all the artist-hackers, lawyers, and MBAs who learn to surf Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law.
24. Time and innovation are on 22surf's side. LAMP-based record labels, movie distributors, handhelds, media-servers, and modeling agencies will blossom.
25. Proprietary standards pave the way to dead-ends. Pouring concrete foundations on the ever-shifting beach to prevent surfers from accessing the open water is a great way to waste venture capital. Software patents are the kiss of death for any DRM system, as they ensure that the global hacker community will ignore it.
26. Linus says DRM is cool with Linux--"Ok, there's no way to do this gracefully, so I won't even try. I'm going to just hunker down for some really impressive extended flaming, and my asbestos underwear is firmly in place, and extremely uncomfortable. I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!"

THE PURPOSE OF PATENTS: WHY PROPRIETARY IS FOR SHORT-TERM PLAYERS
The purpose of a patent is to grant a monopoly. And monopolies don't float out here--they are too big to surf the waves of open-source CMS and DRM, and thus the beach is littered with proprietary standards and media devices. Proprietary piers are regularly blown away by hurricanes of disruptive technologies, software patents tend to get washed away by Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law, and media empires which try to pour concrete foundations over the shifting sands of open standards inevitably crumble; and yet, many keep trying to surf against the waves instead of with them. You can't patent the ocean of mathematical abstractions that underlies software, and if you fence off the ever-shifting beach, your device, standards, or business will soon be under water. Laid back artist-hackers will surf the waves on home, on towards open-source content and rights management, all-in-one handhelds, and open standards for wide-ranging compatibility. New content marketplaces and businesses centered about LAMP-based hardware, software, and services will emerge. We'll hang out in 22surfshacks where we'll be able to enjoy coffee while browsing and buying books, movies, and music on our wireless 22surfboards.

IT'S NOT THE TECHNOLOGY THAT'S LACKING
It's not the technology that's lacking to build an all-in-one music-video-media-server-cell-phone-PDA operating on open standards--it's the culture. Nor is the technology lacking to build media marketplaces utilizing open-source standards wherein indy-artists can sell their content alongside big media, but again, it's the culture. The technology's all there as outlined at Authena.org--RDF/RSS for rights definitions; http and REST for content transfer, rights negotiation, and syndication; SSL, PGP, Media-S, and OPENIPMP for encryption and security; and LAMP applications such as postnuke and netjuke for media browsing, serving, and viewing. Surf's up, but there's nothing to surf it with. The first company to build a 22surfboard will rock out and then some. Hackers are hungry to write handheld LAMP applications surpassing the functionality of current devices on the market.

We can beam movies around the world in seconds, sending them to outer-space and bouncing them back to satellite dishes all about the watery globe, but try getting the music off your iPod(TM) onto your Linux laptop in the same room. Try getting your TiVo(TM) to talk to your Linux desktop--they both run Linux, and yet there exists a wall between them. There's all this technology out there--there's http, linux, SSL, RDF, and RSS, postnuke and phpnuke, and nothing to surf it all with--we're ready to rock out with the 22surfboard.

TV's, VCRs, computers, iPaqs(TM), iPods(TM), and TiVo(TM) use varying standards for content and digital rights management. A novel all-in-one device, running on open standards, will empower the creator and end-consumer. A 22surfboard will foster brand new content and services marketplaces, opening up a floodgate for innovation and business. The ultimate 22surfboard would be released under an open source patent.

Although the same piece of cable delivers both TV and the WWW, there's no way for indy film-makers and producers to sell their films nor programming alongside the established networks through the common cable set-top box, TiVo(TM), or any other current DVD player or DVR. The technology is there, but there's nothing for the indy artist to surf it with. The 22surfboard will allow them to do so.

The open-source CMS software renaissance is underway on sourceforge, and an open-source hardware revolution will follow. The financial opportunities for such entities are vast. It's time to build the 22surf media marketplaces and the 22surfboard media devices.

THE ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA CULTURE IS DUE FOR A SEA CHANGE
The LAMP renaissance is being lead by artist-hackers surfing the waves of Moore's Law and open source. Surfing is far more fun than sitting on the beach with lawyers, putting up fences for intrinsically worthless software patents. And too, there's more money to be made with an open-source philosophy that empowers the artist and end-consumer over the middleman.

A 22surfboard device will leverage the renaissance in open-source CMS and DRM being developed in LAMP. It will surf Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law on towards an all-in-one media device.

22media marketplaces will emerge where all the content in the tens of thousands of indy postnuke, phpnuke, and xoops sites can be ranked and sold alongside the content from big media. 22media links to google because companies such as google, which are bold enough to use open-source standards for DRM, will become tomorrow's trusted marketplaces for digital content.

Open source isn't just for opertaing systems any more--any big problem, like DRM, is best solved by open source. But it will require the collaborative efforts of a diverse array of professions. 22surfer.com aims to create a laid-back open-source culture and community for artist-hackers, lawyers, marketing firms, MBAs, advertising agencies, musicians, creators, and hardware manufacturers. We can all take a lesson from the hacker community who gave us Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP--technologies that power the world's biggest supercomputer (Google), and hundreds of thousands of indy sites with postnuke and phpnuke. Surf's up!

As future companies surf side-by-side instead of trying proprieterize standards, all-in-one devices such as the 22surfboard will emerge, complimented by 22surf content and services marketplaces running on LAMP application with open standards for CMS and DRM.

FOUNDED ON THE PRISTINE BEACH
The internet and world wide web were founded on a pristine beach where hackers surfed Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law to the GPL, Linux, Apache, PHP, and MYSQL. But established corporations have been fencing off the beach with patents, trying to prevent hackers from surfing today's biggest waves. The corporations are pouring concrete, trying to lay proprietary foundations for content and rights management while discouraging artist-hackers from innovating and solving the issues of DRM. Thus today, there exists no popular all-in-one handheld media device capable of recording and playing music and movies that is compatible with standard Linux distributions such as RedHat, Gentoo, and Suse. There exist no open standards to foster compatibility across an array of common household devices. There is no opportunity for indy artists, directors, and producers to sell their content alongside the networks and corporate conglomerates. The 22surf philosophy aims to change this.

EXCITING TIMES FOR HACKERS
These are exciting times for hackers and startups as the corporate establishment is too big to surf the waves. They sometimes try, but their tendency to embrace and extend standards in a proproetary direction anchors them as the waves of innovation pass them by. So many times we have seen companies start off down the open source path only to say, "just kidding." It's what happened to Caldera(TM). It's what's happening to TiVo(TM). It's what's happening to the Sharp Zaurus(TM). The first inexpensive personal media device to support a standard Linux installation will inherit the priceless allegiance of LAMP hackers.

The beaches are littered with failed devices and standards that were "imposed" on the market by corporations who thought they had a lot to gain by bottling and selling standards. Because the open-source community uses what works, as opposed to some corporation's opinion as to what ought to work so that they can charge for it, the open-source community has been far more successful in creating non-forking, universal projects such as the Linux kernel, PHP, Apache, and MYSQL.

Each and every day open-source grows in power and functionality--the first hardware manufacturer to tap into the vast wealth sourceforge offers, by manufacturing a handheld device that lends itslef to LAMP development, will have a lot to gain. Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP coupled with RDF, RSS, and SSL are well-suited to run all media client and server applications and power all future media devices, from handhelds, to home media-servers, to personal compters, to enterprise servers.

DRM which allows the artist to define rights and get compensated for their creatitivity is good. DRM which allows behemoth corporations to create monopolies and tax the creator and end-consumer isn't good, yet this is the only type of DRM corporations see as profitbale. And so it's up to the lone-hackers and startups to get out there to build tomorrow's media devices and marketplaces, and get out there they will. No amount of concrete can stop the waves of natural innovation from eroding the artificial foundations claimed by software patents penned by legions of corporate lawyers. The standards for content and digital rights management must be open and free, or they will never become standards. Open-source patents, open-source hardware, open-source CMS, and open-source DRM will define tomorrow's media landscape.

Lawyers, MBAs, and marketing firms will have an opportunity to join the open-source content revolution, and their selfless investments will pay off far beyond what is commonly taught in Business Law 101. 22surf invites everyone to become a 22surfer.

Open-source marketing firms such as charlestonmodels.com, marketing open-source-leaning hardware companies such as Neuros(TM) will succeed. Open-source law sites such as 22lawyer.com, serving lone hackers and open-source hardware and software companies with free and reduced-fees services, will profit in the new media landscape. Open-source CMS and DRM companies will provide services for indy artists and businesses wishing to maximize their audiences and profits. Open-source service marketplaces such as 22surfer.com, where indy labels go to find artist-hackers to help build out their businesses, will thrive. And open-source content marketplaces, which manage content exhanges across all the open-source content management systems such as postnuke and phpnuke, and devices released under open-source patents, such as the 22surfboard, will emerge.

The open-source renaissance has many benefits. Creators, record labels, and movie studios can charge less and make more, and end consumers will be happy to know that the majority of the content's price is going straight to the artist/author. Hackers, artists, comsumers, and businesses will all benefit as the corporate blockade against open standards is washed away by the steady beat of nature's waves--waves bearing such names as Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law.

THE 22SURF PATENTS FOR MACHINES AND METHODS OF MEDIA DISTRIBUTION

It would be fun to write a couple patents and place them in the public domain. 22surf proposes two patents:

MACHINE: An all-in-one Linux device acting as a media-server, computer, cell phone, and handheld, capable of running common Linux distros and common LAMP applications, and capable of acting as a media server and browser, as outlined by the 22surfboard.

METHOD: A method for providing content and digital rights management over wireless and wired networks consisting of nodes, each node running open technologies including Linux, Apache, MYSQL, PHP and open LAMP applications for hosting, browsing, and serving content, http, REST, and bit-torrent for content transfer, rights negotiation, and syndication; and SSL, PGP, and OPENIPMP for encryption and security.

22SURF METHODS AND MACHINES ARE SUPERIOR TO THE PRIOR AND CURRENT ART
22surf offers a solution to the DRM dilemma, software patents, the general incompatibility of media devices, and the inability of indy artists, musicians, and film-makers to sell their content in major marketplaces and through devices such as an iPod(TM) or TiVo(TM), although they're hooked up to the exact same computers and cables that carry the WWW. By open-sourcing software, business plans, and patents, 22surf aims to foster tomorrow's media marketplaces, all-in-one devices, and new media ventures. 22surf and the 22surfboard will foster the optimal surfing of Metcalfe's Law, Moore's Law, and Constitutional Law.

Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP, which power everything from Google, to Yahoo, to Amazon, to Ebay, to this site, were created by thousands of hackers who gave hundreds of thousands of hours of their time for free. Had the WWW been built by lawyers, each one of those hours would have been billed at $400, resulting in a cost greater than the total amount of capital on this planet. It would be awesome for lawyers, MBAs, marketing firms, who benefit from open source every day, to offer their services to open-source hardware and software firms. We need lawyers to pen the 22surfboard open-source patents. We need MBAs to help with the marketing plans. There's a lot to be gained by those who join in.

THE PROBLEM: It's not the technology that's lacking to build an all-in-one music-video-media-server, cell-phone-PDA operating on open standards--it's the media establishment's culture.

Nor is the technology lacking to build media marketplaces utilizing open-source standards, but it's the established players' oppositon to open standards.

This is a bad thing for artists and end-consumers, but it is a good thing for hackers and startups seeking to empower indy artists and end-consumers.

We can beam movies around the world in seconds, sending them to outer-space and bouncing them back down, but try getting the music off your iPod(TM) onto your Linux laptop in the same room. Try getting your TiVo(TM) to play with your desktop. We need better mousetraps.

THE SOLUTION: 22surf offers a multi-pronged solution, in the form of software, hardware, and culture.

1) 22surf: As outlined in the 22surf open-source business plan, Open Source CMS Software such as phpnuke, postnuke, and oscommerce will manage content and digital rights with universal, open standards. Authena open-source DRM, consisting of standard RDF, RSS, OPENIPMP, and Media-s will be layered on top of open-ource CMS such as phpnuke, postnuke, and gallery. Creators will be free to syndicate or sell their content at a price they select. Communities such as 22surfer.com will allow artists, MBAs, lawyers, and hackers to team up and build record labels, movie distributors, and more.

2) 22surfboard: All-in-one open-hardware devices such as the 22surfboard will be capable of playing any media which runs on the open-source standards. These devices will readily run LAMP applications, allowing them to naturally interact with LAMP servers, opening the floodgates of innovation for Open Source hackers on Sourceforge.net. Hackers are hungry for sleek, polished 22surfboards.

22surf's solutions for CMS and DRM will foster hundreds of new businesses.

22SURF MARKETPLACES: Think about the tens of thousands of postnuke and phpnuke sites. Think about the tens of thousands of band sites, poetry sites, and indy film-maker sites powered by open-source LAMP applications. Think about the hundreds of thousands of sites that will be launched tomorrow with ever-increasing functionality. Suppose the content could be sold off the Open Source CMS portals and/or syndicated into central marketplaces via RDF/RSS, and then streamed onto your home stereo, computer, TV, or 22surfboard, while the artist is compensated, completely bypassing the middlemen. Is it any wonder the middelmen, with billions in their coffers, haven't built the 22surfboard yet?

As google bought blogger, and as they have some cash on hand with which they can "do no evil," perhaps they will be the first to realize the 22surf open source CMS and DRM marketplaces, and the 22surfboard.

22SURF COMMUNITY: Become a 22surfer! 22surf is building a community supporting artist-hackers, hardware companies, law firms, and parties who would benefit from the 22surfboard, and who believe that the future of content and digital rights management lies in the culture of open-source software running on hardware designed for the open-source community.

22SURF SOFTWARE: Open-source CMS such as postnuke, phpnuke, netjuke, vvgallery, and oscommerce with Authena DRM layered on top.

22SURF HARDWARE: The 22surfboard is an ever-shrinking all-in-one media-server-PC-cell-phone designed to run on open standards, thus leveraging the vast power of the open-source developer community.

22SURF LAW & BUSINESS: Thousands of hackers have selflessly developed the world's most robust operating system. It would be cool for lawyers and MBAs to jump on in and join the open-source culture that benefits all of them in their daily professions. It would be cool for lawyers and MBAs to offer their services for free or for deep discounts to Open Source companies.

22SURF MARKETING: In this spirit, 22agency has launched a free publicity campaign for Neuros--an ipod-like media player running open-source software.

THE 22SURF PARADIGM SHIFT
Contrary to what is taught in MBA/Law School programs, far more opportunity exists in the open-source path than down the current proprietary route. The proprietary route has proven to be the kiss of death in thousands of cases. The first-movers to build media-server devices dedictaed to open-source software will prosper immensely. The proprietary route maps the way to thousands of smaller dead-ends, incompatibility, scorched-earth patent wars, and the wasteful duplication of efforts. Let the current state of digital rights management, the graveyard of money-losing devices, and the general incompatibility of personal-media devices offer proof.

Open-source isn't just for operating systems anymore. To profit in in tomorrow's marketplaces, marketing companies, lawyers, law firms, and hardware companies will adopt open-source philosophies.

PRIOR ART: The Problem with Proprietary CMS & DRM Illustrated: The iPod(TM) & TiVo(TM) & HP & Zaurus & how the 22surfboard Can Do Better: Build it For the LAMP Developer Community

To date there exists no popular personal media player nor home media server that runs on truly open standards. We're excited to see companies such as NeurosAudio a few heading down open-source roads, and we wish them all the best.

As soon as a popular open-source device, capabable of running Linux and LAMP applications, comes to market, its adoption by the hacker community will be rapid, giving it vast power and functionality. As Moore's law marches on, personal and home media players, computers and cell phones, are destined to become one and the same. A hardware company manufacturing an open-source device such as the 22surfboard stands to beat Microsoft and Apple in both price and functionality. The off-the-shelf components will be inexpensive, and the vast power of the Sourceforge hackers will give the device unparalleled functionality, without costing the device manufacturer.

The prior-art shows countless examples of devices which were never truly open and thus ultimately failed to gain the essential widespead use throughout the hacker community. All too often we have seen companies brand themselves "open source" for some hype on slahdot, only to require NDAs and travel on down the proprietary route. Very few of these companies have succeeded.

HP & ZAURUS(TM): "Last month, I touched a little bit on HP's screwed up Linux PDA initiative, but perhaps I was a bit too harsh. Sure, they have a research arm that's completely underutilized and they have absolutely no clue as how to turn those efforts into a product, but HP is in no way unique in their absence from the PDA and Linux device cluetrain. For the most part, the entire industry needs a swift kick in the head to see how to build and market a successful Linux handheld and to learn how to properly support open source PDA developers. I learned how the hard way, and here's my painful perspective on the whole shebang....A Painful Lesson...From December of 2002 through February 2003, I was Software Developer Liaison for Sharp's Electronics' Zaurus, probably the first handheld Linux device to enjoy any commercial success at all (although its success has been extremely limited, and at the end of the day, only the hardcore Linux faithful have remained loyal to the product.)...To make matters worse, the internal workings of the Zaurus hardware was never completely exposed to the public. Only a handful of qualified developers, all under non-disclosure, were allowed copies of the service manual, which specified the actual JTAG pinouts. Even with this guarded information, the custom chips in the device were never completely documented and it made it nearly impossible for the community to develop open source versions of its own ROMs and drivers. " --Jason Perlow, How Not to Build a Linux PDA, Linux Magazine The 22surfboard will be completely documented in an open-source fashion. Non-disclosure agreements will not be required.

"Archos AV400(TM): What's your portable entertainment dream? Ours is a small, light unit with a long battery life that can play any media format out there, where it's audio, video, or plain-old photos....There's a lot of power packed into the Archos's surprisingly thin case. On the audio side, it handles MP3 and WMA files....for video, it plays MPEG-4 files encoded with the DivX or XviD codecs. These files allow for decent video with high compression... the problem is getting video in these formats....And as far as your DVD go, conversion means using some pretty awful software, and it might be illegal as well. Once you've got the files, moving them to the Archos is a breeze, since it mounts as a USB hard drive in Windows or Macintosh operating systems. The video-in and video-out cables are accessible only through the cradle, so to watch video on the road, you have to bring the cradle (and its enormous tangle of cables)."--MobilePC, October 2004. The advantage of the 22surfboard will be that it docks with open-source operating systems such as Linux, allowing it to leverage the vast power of Sourceforge projects. Copying DVDs will be handled by open-source DRM, allowing a single owner to watch the DVD on multiple devices while still compensating the creators. And too, equipped with wireless capabilities, the 22surfboard will be able to alleviate the cables.

"For all the talk of portable video-playing gadgets, there's sure been an absense of gear to back it up...The DMTECH DM-AV10 plays MP3sand JPEGs, plus videos recorded off your telly, and most computer formats--after being converted using five crappy pieces of software. All in all we like this player, it's just a shame you get so little storage for your money." --T3, The World's Best Gadget Magazine, Sept. 2004

"The OQO Should Run Linux Posted on 2004-09-15T00:35:11:00-07 This little OQO machine is certainly pretty cool. The biggest problem though is that it doesn't run Linux. This leaves you with a device heavier than your PDA and all the insecurity and bloat of Windows and with a price tag of only sub $2000. People don't care what OS their PDA/Handtop runs. It can run an alternative OS and for the most part consumers don't care. WinCE hasn't exactly been a stellar market success. While Microsoft does have significant market share PalmOS, Symbian, and Linux are doing just fine. Also most of the WinCE devices never have the fit and finish of their Palm and Symbian counterparts. I don't know where OQO thinks they are going to fit in. If they were to abandon their Windows XP OS and run Linux by default I'd say they were onto something. Just throw OpenZaurus on there and your done!" --Posted at peerfear.org.

"Sharp Zaurus SL-C860: There needs to be more Linux on the machine. There's a huge market in the world for geeks who want SSH, GCC, and Emacs on their PDAs, and a really cut-down release of these extra features should take up no more than 10MB of system memory. At the very least, these could be provided on a CD so that they can be installed if users want to sacrifice the space. It needsWifi built in." The Sharp Zaurus SL-C680: Linuxformat.co.uk, September 2004: The 22surfboard will be designed with Linux in mind, allowing any common Linux distribution to run on it. Connect any CD ROM drive to the USB port, and install Linux from any common distribution.

The iPod(TM) "Apple doesn't provide a lot of technical information about the iPod, so the iPod on Linux project (started by Bernard Leach et al.) required lots of work to figure out what was happening inside and how to gain control. . . Caution: Installing Linux changes your iPod's firmware. . . which voids the warranty." --Hacking Ipod & Itunes, Knaster, Exteme Tech. The 22surfboard will run Linux--it will be easy to see what's happening inside.

"TiVo(TM) The series 2 TiVo, the most commonly sold TiVo today, unfortunately is not as open. To lock down the platform, TiVo, Inc. has started to add some 'secrets' under the hood. While TiVo is not against people hacking their platform, they do have a media service to run, and they don't want people to freely play around with some of the stuff they intend to make money on down the road."--Raffi Krikorian, TiVo hacks. The 22surfboard wants people to freely play with the internal workings--22surf believes that the more that hackers know, the more valuable the device and platform will become, as the standards are shared openly and freely.

"IS THE PDA DEAD? PDA sales are plummeting. Major players are leaving the American market, and as cell phones gain new skills, there's less ineterest in pint-sized computers. Unlike the smart phone market, where all-in-one devices rule, handheld makers are adapting to our collective digital organizer fatigue by specializing in certain areas, such as navigation or entertainment... SONY STEPS ASIDE: The most recent blow to the PDA sector was Sony's decision to stop selling its Cle handhelds in the U.S. market." --October 2004 LAPTOP--Mobile Solutions for Business and Life

The Septmber 13th issue of BusinessWeek reported in "MICROSOFT, THE ENTERTAINER?: Gates & Co. take aim at Apple's iPod--but their first attempts could fall short."

"The gadgets aren't likely to kickstart a revolution anytime soon. Their biggest drawback is simply that they're inconvenient. Users can copy video only from a PC, not directly from a television or DVD player." --Business Week, September 13th, 2004 All 22surfboard devices will be compatible over standard protocols such as http, and SSL.

"IDC analyst Roger Kay estimates that fewer than 1% of the world's computers have the TV tuner cards that are required to copy TV programming." --Business Week, September 13th, 2004 All 22surfboard devices will come to have tuner cards, surfing along Moore's Law.

"But even with the TV tuner cards, the only way to watch the latest episode of, say, The Daily Show with John Stewart on a Portable Media Center is to connect a cable jack to a PC, copy the show to a computer, and then download it to a portable device."

"Although there are no restrictions on copying television shows now, broadcasters could impose them in the future. To avoid all the bother, customers will need to pay companies that have partenered with Microsoft to provide content from theNet." --Business Week, September 13th, 2004 The 22surfboard will use an Open Source DRM solution such as OPENIPMP that will allow creators to define rights and networks and indy artists to get paid.

"That presents another problem: Microsoft has lined up only two video content providers so far--Major League Baseball and CinemaNow Inc. MLB.com and the movie site have less than 2,000,000 members combined." --Business Week, September 13th, 2004 The 22surfboard and 22surf philosophy will open the floodgates to all networks and indy artists alike. It will allow them to define their rights, distribute their content as they deem fair.

"The Studios remain wary of Microsoft, given its bruising monopolistic practices of the past. Hollywood execs, originally concerned that they would have to pay for every movie or show digitized using Microsoft's software, were relieved at the company's willingness to provide it for free under a 10-year agreement. But the historical distrust lingers. "Sounds great, but studios are waiting for what happens in the 11th year, when Microsoft says it has Windows 15 and it's gonna cost you a bundle," says Richard Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group. --Business Week, September 13th, 2004 The 22surfboard and 22surf philosophy will not create a monopoly in DRM, allowing first movers, early adopters, and trusted corporations to compete, prosper, and provide the best service to the end consumer.

"RealNetworks filed suit, charging Microsoft's practice of giving away free software was part of a pattern of anti-competitive behavior." --Business Week, September 13th, 2004

"Copying hassles aside, the products are hefty and pricey, at $500 each. Adding video capabilities adds bulk and reduces battery life to at most seven hours while watching videos, vs. as many as 20 hours." --Business Week--September 13th, 2004 Surfing along with Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law, using standard open hardware and open-source software, the 22surfboard's price will fall faster than any of the proprietary competitions'.

"What has been missing from indie music, until now, is a service completely devoted to the discovery of new or established independent artists," Mr. Packman (COO of eMusic.com) said. "Many indy labels and artists feel strongly that while the Web, in general, has provided many advantages in communication, marketing, promotion, and even sales, it has not leveled the playing field." --A music Site for Artists Less Known, EMusic Will Feature Independent Labels, The New York Times. The 22surfboard will level the playing field with a device that allows indy artists and musicians to sell their content side-by-side with big media. The Open Source CMS and DRM will offer a turn-key solution to indy labels and big media alike.

Linus Torvalds on DRM. "Ok, there's no way to do this gracefully, so I won't even try. I'm going to just hunker down for some really impressive extended flaming, and my asbestos underwear is firmly in place, and extremely uncomfortable. I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!"

3. The Problem with Contemporary Law and Business: Modern lawyers and MBAs too often try to block Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law.

When used properly, patents protect inventors and encourage innovation. But when abused, they harm inventors, empower corporate bureaucracies that do not invent, and discourage innovation. The 22surfboard believes in patents of the former kind.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation Eff.org has documented the misuse and abuse of patent law in the relam of software extensively. Richard Stallman has spoken to this as well.

ALL THIS TECHNOLOGY, AND NOTHING TO SURF IT WITH.

The current business and legal professions have failed in fostering an all-in-one media device. The technology is there, but the media establishment's culture is lacking. We can send audio and video all over the world in microseconds, throwing it into outer space and beaming it back down, but I can't transfer media files from my iPod(TM) to my Linux desktop. We can clone humans, but I can't transfer Donald Trump's Apprentice from my TiVo(TM) to my Linux laptop, to watch it on the road and learn how to become a billionaire. It is not the technology we lack to build widely-compatible devices capable of acting as media-severs, handhelds, cell phones, and desktops, but it is the culture. But all this is changing. The waves of Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law are just too big, and any foundations laid with spurious software patents will be washed away. Surf's up! It's time to build the 22surfboard.

When it comes to software, thousands of companies are patenting everything left, right, and center of their vision, charging end-consumers to pay legions of lawyers to throw legal spaghetti at the wall, hoping a couple strands stick now and then. This act breeds paranoia, impedes innovation, and replaces good-spirited progress with fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). Innovators and well-meaning startups fear being sued for some obscure claim in some obscure patent, which oftentimes isn't even a true innovation. And when the claim is an innovation, it is generally nothing more than a tiny contribution when compared to the mountain of intellectual property defined by the physics, mathematics, assembly language, C, and Linux that it runs upon. But the lack of integrity and authenticicty does not matter, as the innocent software innovator--teh rugged creator--will be forced to pay tens of thousands in legal fees or abandon their innovation. 22surf wants this innovator to succeed.

As Richard Stallman said, "Software is like other fields of engineering in many ways. But there is a fundamental difference: computer programs are built out of ideal mathematical objects." And as mathematical algorithms and laws of nature cannot be patented, neither should software.

It sometimes seems as if lawyers--fashionably late to the game of software, as they had to first attend law school--are building parking lots around the pristine beaches originally found by selfless innovators, fencing off little plots of land, and preventing today's innovators from surfing. This is why the 22surfboard has not yet been built. But no matter--the waves of Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law must be surfed, and they will be surfed. For the hurricanes of disruptive technologies pay little heed to castles built on sand.

The Ever Growing Problem of Software Patents & the 22surfboard Solution

"Patents kill innovation and are a tax on ideas." --Richard Hillesley, Linux User

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and taken out patents," Bill Gates wrote, "the industry would be at a complete standstill today." The solution to the problem of patents was "patenting as much as we can... A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding competitors." --Bill Gates, "Challenges & Strategy Memo

Regarding Gates' above statement, Lawrence Lessig said, "Here's perhaps the most concise and compelling account of just why software patents will harm new innovators and benefit old innovators."

In order to ward off frivolous patent suits, companies build software patent arsenals of their own, thereby compounding the problem. The reasoning is that if some other company sues them, then they can search through their own patent database, find some obscure claim, and take the other company to court. So it is that companies patent everything, often renaming hacker's original contributions and reclaiming them as their own.

In this system the lawyers always win while the creative individuals, startups, small businesses, entrepreneurial ventures, and the end-consumer lose. "Patent litigation is extremely expensive, costint $2 to $4 million dollars to defend against an infringement suit, by one estimate," reports Nicholas Wells in Software Patent Woes, Linux Magazine, September 2004.

"There is no doubt that software patents tie us in knots. If there's no clear and vital public need to tie us up in bureaucracy, untie us and let us get back to work!" --Richard Stallman

The domination of patent bureaucracies--both government and corporate--counters the original spirit of the Law as set down by the Founding Fathers who favored the innovator over the bureaucracy, as the innovator creates wealth--not the bureaucracy. The open-source patent for the 22surfboard will serve the original spirit of the law. By presenting a device that surpasses all prior art, and then never enforcing the patent except to prosecute companies that intimidate other companies with silly legal claims to avert the adoption of open standards across the whole spectrum of software, hardware, and methods for information and media management, the 22surfboard patent will encourage the development of the 22surfboard.

If the 22surboard patent is rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, this will also be a victory, as it means that the 22surfboard cannot be patented, and that any company can build it. If the patent application is rejected, then no company will be able to stop any other company from building a device that runs on open and free standards for software, hardware, content management, and digital rights management. No company will be able to stop anyone from building and selling a device that runs Linux and functions as a cell phone, a palm pilot(TM), an iPod, a PBX system, a GPS system, a media-server, a laptop, a desktop, a DRM server, and more.

General Solutions to the Software Patent Travesty

"First, let's kill all the lawyers." --William Shakespeare

"Fire lots of lawyers." --Larry Lessig, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

The current patent system leaves a lot to be deisred. It often counters the original spirit of the law, which was penned to protect the innovator and inventor as opposed to the bureaucracy. Here're some possible solutions:

A. Create an open-source repository where researchers and hackers can file open-source patents complete with figures, drawings, and open-source claims. To a large degree, sourceforge is accomplishing this, serving as a giant repository of functionality. It would be cool for lawyers to volunteer to help hackers express their innovations in legalese. That way, when an entity sued an open-source developer, the open-source developer could search the arsenal of open-source claims and prior art to turn the tables on the instigator of the legal showdown.

B. The inventor must pen the patent. It is kindof silly that inventors who navigate the frontiers of science and technology are often deemed too dense to pen their own patents in clear, concise language. Patents might not always be written in plain english, but tehy ought to be, and who better than the scientists, engineers, and inventors are the masters of their fields? If they know what they invent, then they should be able to describe it. And if they can't, how is it that lawyers can? Anyone who has gone through the rigor of completing a Ph.D. or coding an operating system should be well capable of filing a patent. This solution would alleviate the legal quagmire of tens of thousands of lawyers penning creative patents with abstract, nebulous claims.

C. The Open Source Patent. Imagine a patent, similar to the GPL and the Creative Commons license, that would place the invention in the public domain. Patent lawyers would freely volunteer their services to help pen the patents and keep them current. Websites could spring up which would keep repositories for claims. The current patent office could almost suffice for this, but why pay the patent office and lawyers to create open-source patents? Why not just share the technology and the vision on the web, for all to download and use? Post it on the usenet, and an instantaneous record is created, as the information propagates across servers all over the globe with a timestamp. The 22surfboard seeks to be this kind of patent. The technology described within is licensed to anyone who wants to build the 22surboard while sharing all the hardware specs and software modifications.

The 22surfboard Solution & The 22surfboard Patent: Utility, Unobviousness, and Novelty

In order to receive a patent, a device must demonstrate commercial viability, utility, unobviousness, and novelty, like Jeff Bezos's one-click-shopping, which was nothing more than renaming the cookie technology invented by hackers. So it is that lawyers pay $100,000 to get a law degree which allows them to rename what other people invented, claim the innovation for the highest bidder, and stop others from using it.

Well, maybe we can do better than that, so let's try.

22surfboard COMMERCIAL VIABILITY: Tens of millions of end-consumers would enjoy an inexpensive all-in-one media device supporting a vast array of content marketplaces. Millions of creators would enjoy an all-in-one media device that allows them to sell their content side-by-side with the major studios, major record labels, and established television networks. Consequeces of the 22surfboard would include new marketplaces for media and services, new business opportunities for hardware vendors and startups, new ventures for entrepreneurial law firms, and new business opportunities for experts in open source content and rights management.

22surfboard UTILITY:

When it comes to media serving and content and digital rights management, the 22surfboard offers a better mousetrap. As an all-in-one media-server, cell-phone, PDA, and computer operating on Open Standards which guarantee wide-ranging compatibility, the 22surfboard is novel in that it is useful on so many levels.

1) The 22surfboard allows indy authors, artists, and creators to sell their content on home entertainment systems. Prior art, such as Apple's iPod(TM) and TiVo(TM) make it difficult for the indy author and artist to get their content on personal video-recorders, music managers, and home media servers.

2) The 22surfboard, based on open source software running on top of open source hardware, fosters and encourages unprecedented compatibility between systems, allowing users to port media files between their computers, home-entertainment setups, stereos, and more.

3) The 22surfboard discourages piracy by allowing consumers to directly support their favorite bands and artists.

4) The 22surfboard provides a full spectrum of Digital Rights Management which incorporate the extensible Creative Commons licenses.

5) The 22surfboard is hardware for an Open Source operating such as Linux which can serve audio, video, and textual media, allowing it to manage music, video, e-books, and more.

6) The 22surfboard is designed to surf along with Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law, to where digital media flows freely through wired and wireless devices acording to righst defined by the creators, managed by open-source protocols. As Moore's Law marches on, the 22surfboard will come to encompass cell phones, handhelds, personal music players, personal video players, laptops, desktops, and more. The 22surfboard is thus positioned to leverage the ever-increasing processing power of a chip. The ever-increasing storage space in flash memory and hard drives, and the ever more ubiquitous prevalence of wireless networks will allow the 22surfboard to have or access all the processing power, media files, and software that a user might desire. Unlike proprietary effors on such as those promoted by iPod (Apple), TiVo, and Microsoft, the 22surfboard embraces open standards, allowing it to leverage the vast functionality of the Open Source community, granting it a utility never before witnessed. iPod, TiVo, Microsoft and other proprietary hardware and software companies don't encourage innovation at Sourceforge.net, and thus are missing out on huge opportunities for present and future functionality and compatibility.

7) All 22surfboard devices will have similar basic open chipsets, and all will be able to run Linux. Just as a single computer running Linux can behave as a server, video editor, ecommerce site, photo gallery, or CAD design platform, the 22surf hardware will be able to function as an MP3 player, a video streamer, a handheld, or a laptop, granting it a wide-ranging utility. As Moore's law marches on, and more and more power is packed into a chip, there is less need for ASIC VLSI design, and less need for proprietary firmware solutions, as everything can leverage the vast power and compatibility of Linux.

8) All 22surfboard devices will be able to communicate on the open Wireless specifications. As WiFi Max and Broadband become more prevalent, the 22surfboard's utility will only increase, surpassing the utility of devices operating on proprietary, closed networks.

9) A serious, limiting design flaw in all prior art including TiVo(TM), the iPod(TM), the Zaurus(TM), the iPAQ(TM), and cell phones is that they're not designed to run Linux, Apache, MYSQL, nor PHP-based applications. Because of this, such devices are on a dead-end path, as they will not be able to leverage the vast plethora of functionality available on sourceforge, being generated by leading programmers, hackers, and artist-hackers. The 22surfboard will thus have great and far-reaching utility for the Open Source hacker community, allowing them to further their economic endeavors. The current state of art, such as the iPod, the iPaq, and the TiVo, provides hackers limited opportunities for employment.

10) The 22surfboard overcomes the design flaws inherent in proprietary systems by publicizing all the hardware and software choices so as to maximize compatibility and functionality. To date there exists no handheld device nor home-media center which takes advantage of the vast renaissance in open-source content management systems (CMS) being built in Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP (LAMP). By being built with open hardware specs, capable of running an Open Source operating system, the 22surfboard will serve as both a handheld device and home-entertainment center that will be capable of leveraging the renaissance in open-source Content Management software underway at sourceforge. Thus the 22surfboard will be granted utility towering over its proprietary competitors.

11) Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP (LAMP) projects such as postnuke, phpnuke, and netjuke will readily run on the 22surfboard, differentiating it from other handhelds such as the ipod™, ipaq™, palm pilot™, and other handhelds. Linux-based devices such as the Sharp Zaurus do not readily run standard installations of Linux, making the installation of Apache, PHP, and MYSQL more difficult, and thus limiting the leveraging of the LAMP-based Open Source CMS Renaissance. The TiVo uses proprietary methods for DRM running on top of the Open Source Linux platform. This limits the content the TiVo can serve. Unlike TiVo, the 22surfboard will use Open Source DRM specifications such as Media-S or OpenIPMP running on top of Open Source CMS systems which run on the Open Source Linux system. Thus unlike TiVo, the 22surfboard will embrace the Open Source Community, and allow indy TV stations to grow and blossom, thus providing an unprecedented utility to indy artists, creators, and record companies, further supporting the United States Consitution.

12) Furthermore, another problem solved by the 22surfboard is the distribution, both comercial and public, of artistic, scholarly, and scientific creations. A common website cannot stream video to a TiVo, without difficultly, because the TiVo will not readily accept a stream delivered over apache. Thus a professor cannot beam his lecture to absent students over TiVo. The 22surfboard will allow this, thus providing great utility for professors, lecturers, and any other content creator. And too, the 22surfboard will allow professors to get paid.

13) P2P: Unlike the prior proprietry art, the 22surfboard will be able to leverage peer-to-peer networks and open source protocols such as bit torrent to enhance and speed media distribution.

Unlike the prior art, the 22surfboard is positioned to take advantage of the renaissances in Open Source CMS and Open Source DRM. Applications that cannot be readily run on the prior art such as the TIVO, the Ipod, the ipaq, and the Palm Pilot include php, mysql, and apache. Lower level applications include oscommerce, postnuke, phpnuke,

14) Unlike the prior art, the 22surfboard is better positioned to serve a wider range of markets, including education and research, as the Open Source LAMP community has been and will be authoring this functionality. As Blackboard offers little more than discussion forums and content delivery, its functionality can be fully duplicated by aggregating sites in the postnuke family. And all the LAMP CMSs will readily run on the 22surfboard.

Half Open Source Is Not Open Source: Proprietary Standards --> Dead End:

Although products such as TiVo(TM) are built on the shoulders of giants like Linux, unlike Linux, products such as TiVo(TM) often seek to pen hundreds if not thousand of patents, fencing off land on the mountain tops built by the ingenuity, creativity, and industry of living hackers. While TiVo(TM) might gain in the short term, convincing traditional MBAs and lawyers that it owns enough intellectual property to merit its market capitalization, it will eventually lose to products such as the 22surfboard, which are built to operate on completely open standards.

Because TiVo must focus on immediate market solutions as opposed to higher ideals and aesthetics of functionality, it is probably not a good long-term investment. There's some irony in this, but it seems that teh adoption of a proprietary system generally spells the inevitable obsolence of any device, unless it obtains a global monopoly. But there's something about a free market that opposes monopolies, and SCO's campaign of FUD can't stop Linux from replacing Microsoft on many levels. Simply put, Linux is a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to its door.

Caldera Linux tried to integrate open-source and proprietary code. Because they had the money to buy a proprietary version of unix, and because their MBas and lawyers belied owning proprietary code would be a good move, they lost the open-source developer community. Shortly thereafter they lost out to Red Hat as theleading Linux distributor. Today they play legal games rather than innovating--how fun it must be to work there! Surf's up, and they're sitting inside, "nailed to desks ????? as Melville wrote in Moby Dick.

"TiVo(TM) The series 2 TiVo, the most commonly sold TiVo today, unfortunately is not as open. To lock down the platform, TiVo, Inc. has started to add some 'secrets' under the hood. While TiVo is not against people hacking their platform, they do have a media service to run, and they don't want people to freely play around with some of the stuff they intend to make money on down the road."--Raffi Krikorian, TiVo hacks. The 22surfboard wants people to freely play with the internal workings--22surf believes that more more that hackers know, the more valuable the device and platform will become, as the standards are shared openly and freely.

Tivo uses the Tivo Media File System (MFS). As William Von Hagen wrote in Hacking the TiVo, "Much of the information about the contents and organization of the MFS filesystems has been found by exploring and reverse-engineering the filesystem. The 22surfboard will utilize standard filesystems such as ext3, along with standard open databases such as MYSQL or POSTGRES, augmenting the ease with which the system can be enhanced by hackers, increasing its functionality and compatibility.

An Open Source patent will allow the Open Source community to write the software to power tomorrow's 22surfboard devices. Furthermore, it ensures that 22surfboard devices will interact with one-another, thus augmenting their usefuleness in accordance with Metcalfe's law.

Feel free to download the 22surfboard patent. If you would like to build on this patent, please share your claims in our community forums. We have lawyers standing by ready to patent your invention so that it might be protected from

The Novelty of the 22surfboard: Knocking the Prior Art

To date, there exists no all-in-one device operating on Open Standards. The state of the prior and current art testifies to this, with the fragmentation of the media markets, the incompaitibilty of common household media devices, and the inability of indy artists to sell their content side-by-side with major corporations on home media centers, even though the exact same cable which carries both the WWW and the TV and Studio Networks. A device such as the 22surfboard will provide unprecedented utility, compatibility, and extensibility.

The new and unexpected results of the 22surboard abound. Such a device will create thousands of new companies, jobs, and marketplaces, acorss the services, content-creation, and hardware categories.

To date nobody has built a hardware device fully compatible with Open Source operating systems, Open Source CMS, and Open Source DRM. For this reason there has been a fragmentation in the media-server market with many competing devices that lack compatibility. 22surfboard proposes a line of Open-Source-based devices that will all be able to run the identical operating system.

Just as the Linux operating system can be installed on laptops, desktops, and servers from identical CDs, the 22surfboard operating system will be installed on handhelds, ipod-like devices, cell phones, laptops, and home-media servers. The obvious choice for the 22surf operating system is Linux, and we have faith that as time progresses, the Linux community will author the code that will provide all of 22surfboard's functionality for a full range of devices including handhelds, ipod-like devices, and laptops.

As Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law march on, the wide spectrum of 22surfboard devices will converge into one, as the chips and storage devices become so small, and wireless access becomes so prevalent, that a 22surboard device will harbor or be able to access all the processing power, media files, and software functionality that a user desires.

Whereas proprietary hardware running proprietary software using proprietary DRM will wander down dead ends, fall behind, and fade, Open Source hardware running Open Source Software, will triumph.

To date there is no patent for a device that serves the original intent and spirit of Constitutional Law.

Prior Art:
There are hundreds of media products designed to run proprietary (closed source) software utilizing proprietary, patented digital rights management (DRM) technologies. The proprietary nature of these products places severe limitations on them. The proprietary products suffer from reluctant adoption, incompatibility, high costs, limited media archives, and uncertain futures.

There are media-server products which use proprietary methods for the storage of media.

There are media-server products which use proprietary methods for the delivery of media.

There are media-server products which use proprietary methods for the encryption, decryption, and digital rights management of media.

The 22surfboard uses Open Source methods for the storage, delivery, encryption, decryption, and digital rights management of media.

Time is on the side of Open Source based products.

Simply put, the 22surfboard is a better mousetrap.

22surfboard represents a line of media-server products, computers, and handhelds designed to run Open Source operating systems upon which Open Source Content Management and Open Source Digital Rights management resides.

The hardware and software configurations of all 22surfboard products will remain completely transparent, allowing the Open Source community to get under the hood and build a unified, standardized platform for serving all media.

Instead of being controlled by major corporations, Digital Rights Management will be determined by what works best. As software is based on mathematical principles, the standards which are most elegant will be adopted.

1. 22surf: 22surf is devoted to the Open Source philosophy

The Unobviousness of the 22surfboard

In addition to being novel and providing new and unexpected results, the 22surfboard is nonobvious for the following reasons:

1. Previous failures of others:
DRM is the holy grail of the internet. On one hand, many technologies enable the pirating of content and software, and on the other hand, the draconian proprietary approach to DRM severely limits the use of content and software which has been rightfully purchased. For instance, when Cory Doctorow's Macintosh was in the shop, he couldn't listen to his iTunes music on a different computer, as he couldn't disable the rights in the broken machine, which he would have to do before enabling rights in a different machine.

The 22surfboard solves the DRM dilemma by serving the spirit of the Constitution, and allowing creators to define their rights

2. Solves an unrecognized problem.
To date no handheld device takes advantage of the renaissance in Open Source Content Management systems being developed in Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP, and thus handheld devices are unable to run postnuke, phpnuke, gallery, and oscommerce.

A problem that has not yet been solved by a device is the exaltation of the bureaucracy over the creator.

3. Solves an insoluble problem.
A prevailing Open Source DRM standard has not yet been realized.

4. Commercial Success

5. Crowded Art
There are thousands of patents for DRM and media-server devices. By adopting an Open Source philosophy, the 22surfboard surfs ahead of the proprietary devices, ensuring future compatibility, a robust development crowd, and

6. Omission of Element
If proprietary DRM and software are eliminated in prior inventions, as they have been in the 22surfboard, then the path to universally-accepted standards is blazed.

7. Unsuggested Modifications
To date there is no record of a media-server device based on 100% open and non-proprietary standards.

8. Unappreciated Advantage
Micrsoft and Apple might not care that your MP3's on an ipod cannot be transmitted and burned to a CD on a PC. The 22surfboard will allow this, compensating the music industry or indy artist as they wish to be compensated.

9. Solves Prior Inoperability: Incompatibility, DRM

10. Succesful Implementation of ancient idea where others failed.

11. Solution of long-felt need. Compatibility, DRM, increased marketplace for indies and artist-hackers

12. Contrary to prior arts teaching. A lot of people say that DRM and open-source DRM cannot and should not work. It’s a Catch-22. Universally trusted DRM and syndicated commerce can’t work unless the business methods are open, and it is common wisdom that a business must keep its methods secret. Unless of course the business aims to build syndicable marketplaces with universally-trusted DRM riding on Open Source CMS. By surfing along with Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law, this can all be accomplished.

13. The 22surfboard offers a combination of functionality not previously found in any device. The results achieved by the combination are greater than the sum of the results of prior-art references. The 22surfboard is a computer, video camera, still camera, cell phone, PDA, music-file manager, video manager, laser-scanner and barcode reader, capable of wireless communications both in the RF and infrared range, credit card, digital photo manager, blog manager, and more. Moore's law guarantees that it will all fit into one's pocket, and Metcalfe's law, expressed in the development of Open Source software, guarantees that it will be able to deliver optimum functionality.

14. The prior-art references could not be combined physically, because the Apple iPod is not directly compatible with the palm pilot which is not directly compatible with the Sharp Zaurus, and so on.

15. Even if physically combined, the prior art refrences would not show the invention, as they would be unwieldy, awkard, and duplicate some functionality, while lacking the over-riding ease of use that makes the totality of the 22surfboard's design greater than the sum of its parts.

16. The prior-art references, such as TiVo, the iPod, the iPaq, and the Zaurus, due to their disparate, proprietary protocols for content management and DRM, would not operate if combined.

17. Over three previous devices would have to be combined to to come close to representing the 22surfboard, and still they would fall short, as no combination of the prior art delivers the Open Source DRM that allows both Open Source community, artist-hackers, and corporations to leverage the power and extensibility of the 22surfboard.

18. The prior-art teaches that the devices should not be combined. The current corporate mentality and legal system of the software industry encourages a close-mindedness and general paranoia that prevents the development of open source protocols. As Bill Gates said. Most corporations have not recognized that there is more money to be made surfing the waves of Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law rather than fighting them.

The prior-art teaches that Open Source cannot prevail nor manage digital rights management. Rather than providing useful services, companies such as SCO spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about Open Source projects with the intent of enriching lawyers at the expense of creators via extortion as opposed to creating useful products and services.

19. Awkward, separate, and involved steps are required to combine the prior art.
Corporations tend to adapt specifications that give them more control and help their bottom line. The Open Source community tends to adapt specifications that work.

20. The references are from different technical fields than each other of from the invention.

21. The 22surfboard provides synergism-the results are greater than the sum of the results of the referenced prior art. There are handhelds, there are media-servers, there are wireless devices, there is Open Source software. By combining all of these in one device, an opening the hardware specification of the said device, all of a sudden the playing field is leveled as never before, empowering the individual artist. It is difficult for the lone composer to get his music into the proper format for an ipod™. It is difficult for the indy film maker to get her movie onto a TIVO™. But the 22surfboard will allow the indy artists to compete with the media goliaths and get their content onto home-enteratinment systems and handhelds everywhere.

By leveraging high-bandwidth wireless connectivity, the 22surfboard alleviates the need for massive storage devices by allowing data to be readily transmitted to remote storage devices. Thus all uploaded or recorded data may immediately be transferred to remote locations.

The prior art teaches that software has to be closed and proprietary.

The 22surfboard will leverage such Open Source peer-to-peer technologies such as bit-torrent, allowing it to accelerate the delivery of media files. By combining this with an Open Source DRM specification, the 22surfboard will enable artist, authors, and creators to be compensated at a rate the artist or author determines.

Unlike the myriad of other devices which are generally incompatible, the 22surfboard will be able to transport media freely and easily from one device to another.

The Open Source nature of the operating system, and the content and digital rights management systems will ensure that the 22surfboard will triumph where other similar products have shown lackluster progress.

22surfboard scenarios: To be updated.

I. Digital Rights Management
a. Strikes fear in consumers and Record Label execs alike.
b. Why?
i. Without DRM, media executives (and some successful artists) fear that their current business will be in jeopardy.
ii. With DRM, consumers feel that their personal privacy and "fair use" rights will be marginalized.
c. Suffers not from lack of interest, but from conflict of interest
i. Existing systems lack the technological and business process interoperability that would reconcile:
1. disparate encoding and protection schemes
2. choice in technology deployment options
3. choice of distribution channels
4. easy access to a wide variety of content.
d. If DRM software existed that:
i. Was free from patent-infringement issues
ii. Enabled artists and intermediaries to benefit economically from their creations by enforcing fair and reasonable intellectual property distribution laws
iii. Worked in all devices and operating systems so seamlessly it would appear non-existent?
iv. Programmatically implemented consumer 'fair use' requirements while enforcing the copy-protection requirements of the artist thus enabling new business models
v. Would you still complain about it??

II. OpenIPMP
a. Mission
i. To capitalize on opportunities in the emerging market for the distribution of digital media by focusing on the
1. design
2. development
3. promotion/education
4. adoption
5. integration of open standards-based technology solutions allowing for the management of
1. Intellectual Property
2. Users
3. Content/Digital Assets
4. Rights

b. Business and Market Development
i. Establish and validate standards
ii. Promote and educate
1. OpenIPMP released as open-source
iii. Participate/Collaborate/Partner
1. MOSES
2. MPEG
3. ISMA
4. Content Reference Forum
5. 22surf.org
c. "Digital Rights Management only serves to promote antiquated business models". Really? Is compensation for artistic expression antiquated? Probably not. But the media industry as it exists probably is.
d. .
i. Provide a demonstration of how commercial DRM systems could be built
ii. Demonstrate the working integration of known standards (ODRL, XRML, MPEG-4 audio/video/systems, ISMA).
iii. Provide a 'reference implementation' for the industry
e. Alternately, our agenda was to promote a 'software' foundation that would bridge the ideological camps. In open-source 'biology', ideas are manifested through software, not necessarily patents. In purely Darwinian terms, open-source software becomes the 'DNA' that evolves/mutates to form the most successful system. There was simply no software platform available that would enable balanced philosophical and (more importantly) technical contribution from both sides:
i. Artist compensation is NOT an antiquated business model!
ii. Attempting to preserve the distribution hegemony of "big media" probably is (but we can't be sure : until it's proven).
f. As we've learned, one of the basic rules of any successful software product is its ability to interoperate with existing systems. Does this work for DRM too?
i. Most successful eco-systems are composed of heterogeneous sub-systems (so are most companies!)
ii. The uniform nature of digital rights management functions require that a consistent protocol exists between its constituent components (e.g. rights authorization, key acquisition, decryption prior to decode, etc).
iii. This is impossible to implement across the multitude of operating environments that exist today without the source code!
1. One company can't possibly become an expert in each new OS and chipset that becomes available.
2. Even Microsoft understands this. MS DRM 10 "Janus" now distributes ANSI C source code specifically for porting to non-Windows devices (http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/c/2/6c28f56f-c8b8-4941-b525-1b7c9a8e0dec/Introducing_DRM_for_Portable_and_Networked_Devices.doc)

III. Open-Source DRM (hey, isn't that like 'Jumbo Shrimp'?)
a. Interoperability
i. As we've learned, one of the basic rules of any successful software product is its ability to interoperate with existing systems. Does this work for DRM too?
1. Most successful eco-systems are composed of heterogeneous sub-systems (so are most companies!)
2. The uniform nature of digital rights management functions require that a consistent protocol exists between its constituent components (e.g. rights authorization, key acquisition, decryption prior to decode, etc).
3. This is impossible to implement across multiple operating environments without the source code!
4. Even Microsoft understands this. MS DRM 10 "Janus" now distributes ANSI C source code specifically for porting to non-Windows devices (http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/c/2/6c28f56f-c8b8-4941-b525-1b7c9a8e0dec/Introducing_DRM_for_Portable_and_Networked_Devices.doc
b. What about the keys?
i. Many people ask: why would you make the source available if they content encryption keys are what you want to protect?
1. First, it's not clear whether or not content should be encrypted for distribution. This should be at the discretion of the content owner.
2. Second, the market has already dictated that interoperability and choice is paramount in end-user digital media consumption. We've discussed that the economics of choice require open-source engineering models, particularly in consumer electronics. What the markets have NOT yet shown (not quite: see Apple Computer), is whether an open-source DRM can support both the interoperability requirements and fair use requirements of the consumer in addition to the business models desired by the artists.
3. Third, just because the source is available does not necessarily mean the software is insecure. Introducing a high degree of entropy to the compile-link process could yield a highly secure binary, yet would enable the source to be distributed freely. There are numerous open-source software obfuscation transforms available today (see: obcode: http://echelon.pl/pubs/obcode.html
4. Last, do most 'normal' people care? What's easier: buying a track for a dollar in about 30 seconds, or spending 6 hours downloading and compiling some obscure hack for a song I already bought? As long as DRM is in software (which I suspect it will always be), it will continue to be hacked by those precious few who write assembly language much better than I can communicate an idea in English. These people are the exception, not the rule in the mass market. Their contributions should be embraced and re-used, not criminalized (DMCA).

IV. Apple's FairPlay: an (almost) open-source DRM
a. Overview
i. According to the technical information regarding the reversed Apple FairPlay DRM found at (http:// http://www.nanocrew.net/blog/ and its various links), it would appear that Apple's FairPlay is more akin to a "conditional access" system than the classic digital rights management system in that:
1. it appears that Apple does not express "rights" in an encoded form (e.g. XrML)
2. it appears the "rights" are not delivered separately from the content.
3. it appears that Apple does not have an 'engine' to enforce the rights that are expressed or delivered separately.
ii. In doing so, it would also appear that Apple has skirted the so-called Intertrust/ContentGuard "portfolio" of patents that govern much of the above (however, as all things 'legal', this is subject to the interpretation of the courts, which, of course, is a function of its economic potential)
iii. It would be very difficult to implement more complex rights management business models (e.g. "rent for 30 days") with FairPlay
iv. Moreover, Apple seems to employ no tamper-proofing technology whatsoever in the iTunes software (e.g the Win32 PE's aren't packed (to avoid static disassembly), there is no debugger detection employed (although it's pretty easy to do so), and the assembly would appear to be a simple release build.
v. From a hacker's perspective, it may as well be open-source!
b. Conclusions from FairPlay:
i. One of the most successful DRM systems available is also the least secure. (Did Apple do this on purpose? Or do they really not know how to detect an INT 3 on Win32?)
ii. Evidently, expensive tamper-proofing technology and potential patent licensing issues will dictate the business model (or vice versa).
V. The Future of open-source DRM
a. DMCA and GPL Collision Course : "The unstoppable force meets…"
i. If DRM were open-sourced (including the key management system) and modifications to the source were released that enabled a definition of "fair use" (AND perhaps enabled a current definition of infringement), then:
1. GPL is upheld.
2. DMCA is violated. (..I think this is called 'loggerheads')
ii. The DMCA was put in place to protect both software makers from being liable for faulty DRM systems (1201) and to protect the business models of copyright holders. We sincerely doubt that the framers of this broad legislation expected that its limits would not have been tested and modified by the economic forces of the case law. However, this seems to have been the case. If it can be proven that DMCA is somehow anti-competitive (as in it's incompatibilities with a proven, economically viable open-source licensing system), then it's legal boundaries will most certainly be amended.
b. MPEG DRM Licensing model
i. The MPEG LA has undertaken the unenviable task of navigating the DRM patent claim morass in an effort to make the licensing of DRM technologies simpler for those companies seeking to do so (see http://www.mpegla.com)
ii. This will doubtless be a "pool" licensing implementation similar to MPEG-4 audio and video patent structures.
iii. It's unclear whether or not the patent licensing has any promotions or restrictions with regards to open-source deployments, presumably due to the over-arching structure of the DMCA provisions.

22surfer.com: An Open Source Services Marketplace

As 22surf and the 22surfboard takes off, all sorts of jobs and companies will be created. There will be hardware companies seeking publicity companies and hackers, hackers seeking lawyers, record labels seeking movie distributors, and more, all needing one-anothe'rs expertise.

Basic 'live-tv' functionality. Pause/Fast Forward/Rewind "live" TV.

Support for multiple tuner cards and multiple simultaneous recordings.

Distributed architecture allowing multiple recording machines and multiple playback machines on the same network, completely transparent to the user.

Compresses video in software using rtjpeg (from Nuppelvideo) or mpeg4 (from libavcodec). Full support for Hardware MPEG-2 encoder cards (Hauppauge PVR-250 / PVR-350). Preliminary support for DVB cards and the new pcHDTV tuner card.

Support for the (very nice looking) hardware MPEG-2 decoder and TV out present on the Hauppauge PVR-350.

Completely automatic commercial detection/skipping

Grabs program information using xmltv.

A fully themeable menu to tie it all together.

22surf posits that the future of content and rights management, as well as media software and hardware, belongs to an open-source philosophy. Surfing along with Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, and Constitutional Law, the open-source community will develop all-in-one media devices such as the 22surfboard, fostering renaissances in open-source content and services marketplaces. In addition to the usual hackers, other players in business and law will have opportunities to benefit from the 22surf renaissance. Lawyers, MBAs, and marketing firms will have an opportunity to join the open-source revolution, and their selfless investments will pay off far beyond what is commonly taught in Business Law 101. 22surf invites everyone to become a 22surfer.

Open Source marketing firms such as 22agency.com, marketing open-source hardware companies such as NeurosAudio(TM) will thrive. Open-source law sites such as 22lawyer.com, serving Open Source hardware and software companies, will profit in the new media landscape. Open Source CMS and DRM companies such as 22surf and OpenIPMP will provide services for indy artists and businesses wishing to maximize their audiences and profits. Open Source service marketplaces such as 22surfer.com, where indy labels go to find artist-hackers to help build out their businesses, will thrive. And open source content marketpklaces, which manage content exhanges across all the Open Source content management systems such as postnuke and phpnuke, and devices released under open-source patents, such as the 22surfboard, will emerge

Security standards will only emerge if artist-hackers trust them. While Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law make processing power and software free and abundant commodities, talent and trust will never be commoditized. Over time, marketplaces that are best able to establish trust will prevail and snowball. These will become tomorrow's media companies, and first movers in "trust" will have a lot to gain. Like the mathematical algorithms they are based on, DRM standards must be transparent and free.

Up until now the corporate conglomerates have viewed the majority of artists as commodities--the corporate marketing muscle often determined the success of the author or artist more than the creator's inherent talent. This led to a bloated, centralized industry with thousands of agents, marketers, and middlemen that cut into the artist's profits, while often replacing quality with hype. But technology is reversing the commoditization. Online record company startups and print-on-demand services are a dime a dozen, while an artist's talents remain unique. 22surf encourages artists and authors to sell in traditional markets including amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, but also to always use Open Source CMS such as oscommerce to sell their creations directly to their fans, simultaneously undercutting the traditional marketplaces' prices, building their own brand, and retaining a greater profit for themselves. Thus fans can enjoy supporting their favorite artists, and artists can receive greater revenue, which they can invest in better equipment, another CD, or a video camera. As the Open Source CMS renaissance progresses, fans will be afforded more music, movies, and books at lower prices, and creators will make more money.

The business model of centralized conglomerates marketing the digital rights of a handful of artists is outdated. Both the artists and end-consumers have become flustered. A new model, consisting of a distributed network of thousands of creators hosting their content on Open Source CMS and syndicating it to trusted archives and marketplaces, is emerging. In order to build a trusted network of marketplaces supporting common standards for syndicated commerce, the business plan should be shared openly. The transparency provided by Open Source will foster the adoption of open standards for DRM and syndicated commerce.

Release .9: Feedback always rocks! Contact mcgucken @ authena . org. Thanks!