[softfalcon]

When I'm in these situations, I try and put myself into the IP holder's shoes.

"if I spent the time, risk, effort, and money to develop the pre-eminent protocol and hardware used by most TV's in the world... would I want to give that work away for free?"

I think the answer is probably no for most people.

Because most of us are not the IP holder, they think this technology should just be free (as you stated earlier).

This lack of empathy and care for others (even IP holders) is largely why these draconian IP rules and contracts exist. It's why there are whole crazy NDAs around the HDMI spec. It's because every time someone is given even a slight look under the covers, they try and steal it, because it's worth a lot of money.

This is a nuanced variant of "this is why we can't have nice things" all over again.

[shkkmo]

The HDMI Forum isn't "most people", it's a non-profit run by some of the largest companies in the space that self describes this way.[1]

I think it is reasonable to complain when "someone" is being so hypocritical and arguably engaging in anti-competitive practices. How do the crazy NDAs in any way server the self stated mission of the forum?

> [1] https://hdmiforum.org/about/

Chartered as a nonprofit, mutual benefit corporation, the mission of the HDMI Forum is to:

    Create and develop new versions of the HDMI Specification and the Compliance Test Specification, incorporating new and improved functionality
    Encourage and promote the adoption and widespread use of its Specifications worldwide
    Support an ecosystem of fully interoperable HDMI-enabled products
    Provide an open and non-discriminatory licensing program with respect to its Specifications

[rpdillon]

> "if I spent the time, risk, effort, and money to develop the pre-eminent protocol and hardware used by most TV's in the world... would I want to give that work away for free?"

Only if you want people to use it. Developing a protocol is an investment in defining the direction a technology follows; the benefits are not best accrued by charging for access to the standard, but rather by leveraging the ability to direct the trend.

The alternative is that the licensing charge causes a bunch of stupid friction and prevents the standard from being truly universal.

EDIT: Implementing a standard is enough work, paying for the privilege to do so is often a non-starter.

[dwattttt]

> "if I spent the time, risk, effort, and money to develop the pre-eminent protocol and hardware used by most TV's in the world... would I want to give that work away for free?"

This is absolutely fine. But it should preclude them from becoming a public standard.

[throw0101a]

> This is absolutely fine. But it should preclude them from becoming a public standard.

Define "public standard". And how is HDMI one of them?

HDMI is a private bundle of IP that the license holders are free to give (or not give) to anyone. We're not talking about a statue by a government 'of the people' what should be public. No one is mandated by any government to implement it AFAICT: and even if it was, it would be up to the government to make sure they only reference publicly available documents in laws.

[andybak]

Devil's Advocate time. Would the result of that be better or worse quality public standards?

(I don't actually know what I think off the cuff - but it's the obvious follow on question to your statement and I don't think your statement can stand on it's own without a well argued counter)

[archagon]

The idea that you can “steal” knowledge and ideas is farcical. One reason why China is so good at iterating rapidly on technology is that this notion of intellectual “property” doesn’t really exist there. Any cool new invention is immediately iterated on by a hundred different makers.

And the reason to release a standard is to make your own products better. TVs would be awful if every manufacturer brought their own proprietary video connector to the table, and those manufacturers who grouped together to create a standard would accordingly dominate the market.

[transcriptase]

China quite literally and unambiguously stole trillions of dollars in IP, trade secrets, and data from research labs in the West by explicitly and systematically embedding spies, hacking, and blackmailing/threatening employees/students wherever economically beneficial information existed for nearly 20 years. And this is on top of the practice of CCP sanctioned theft from and screwing over of nearly every company that outsourced manufacturing there from 1990 onward. The fact that they finally have enough domestic knowledge to actually innovate as a result of that isn’t some testament to what you think it is.

If someone spends a billion dollars researching some new technology and you have someone exfiltrate the blueprints, improve on it slightly, and then undercut who you stole from in the market because you had no investment to recoup… you’re not some enlightened morally righteous free thinker. You’re just a parasite.

[reactordev]

It’s the same entitlement that determined one could just download all the content available online to train your models against.