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Old 06-01-2008, 12:20 PM   #58
delphidb96
Wizard
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Posts: 2,999
Karma: 300001
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Citrus Heights, California
Device: TWO Kindle 2s, one each Bookeen Cybook Gen3, Sony PRS-500, Axim X51V
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
But is it legal to install the firmware onto a different machine? Does the software licence permit you to do you?
I dunno. IANAL.

However, this circles around to whether you 'own' the firmware on your Cybook - as well as the Cybook itself - or whether you're just 'renting' it. While I cannot support the idea that it would, somehow, be legal to copy the firmware from one brand of ebook reader to another for the express purpose of selling the latter, I, personally, believe that doing so for one's own use is perfectly acceptable. After all, if I were to somehow figure out how to get the Sony PRS-500 firmware up and running on my Cybook (No doubt a daunting task what with all the hardware differences.), it would be only me taking the risk of damage to my Cybook and PRS-500. If I failed to do so properly - assuming it could be accomplished at all - and my Cybook got 'toasted', only I would suffer from my actions. Well, me and my property - all of which I've bought.

Firmware on a device is merely a 'component', a 'part' so to speak. Should I want to take the drive belt from one lawn mower to a different brand, I'm the one who's purchased both - I can do so. Yes, people have slaved long and hard on the development of the lawn mower - and even the drive belt. But they're not losing money if I make the attempt, they've already been paid - by me. Further, if doing so damages one of my lawn mowers, I may well have to buy another - still greater profit to the manufacturers.

The same is true if I were to attempt to port my Sony PRS-500's firmware to my Cybook Gen3. Maybe I'll end up with a functional 'clone' of the PRS-500, maybe I'll end up with a toasted Cybook. If the former, well, I get to enjoy the dubious pleasure of owning/using a PRS-500 'clone'. If the latter, I get the even more dubious joy of owning a bank account which has suddenly been depleted of $375 for a new Cybook. Fair trade for the risk involved.

But I think everyone's missing out on one fact. The attempt will be made (either Sony -> Cybook or Cybook -> STAReBOOk or Kindle -> Hanlin) not so much because one is better than the other, but because each such attempt, successful or not, yields information which will help in developing a cross-platform OS and ebook reader application.

Sony wants customers locked into the PRS, Amazon to the Kindle, Bookeen to the Cybook. This is the nature of the beast. Customers want to be able to buy the hardware they prefer and run the application that gives them the widest and most feature-laden access to the ebooks they buy. Experiments will take place. This is the nature of the curious, naked apes that we are.

Derek
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