AllSeen Alliance Wants To Open-Source the 'Internet of Things'

Nerval's Lobster writes "The so-called "Internet of Things" has rapidly become a buzzword du jour, with everyone from tech-giant CEOs to analysts rhapsodizing about the benefits of connecting everyday objects and appliances to the Web. Despite all the hype, some significant obstacles remain to fulfilling that vision of a massively interconnected world. For starters, all the players involved need to agree on shared frameworks for building compatible software—something that seems well on its way with the just-announced AllSeen Alliance, which includes Sharp, Cisco, LG Electronics, Qualcomm, Panasonic, D-Link, and the Linux Foundation (among many others). In theory, the AllSeen Alliance's combined software and engineering resources will result in open-source systems capable of seamless communication with one another. The Alliance will base its initial framework on AllJoyn, an open-source framework first developed by Qualcomm and subsequently elaborated upon by other firms. Applications and services that support AllJoyn can communicate "regardless of manufacturer or operating system and without the need for Internet access," according to the Alliance, whose Website offers the initial codebase. "Open source is the ideal, neutral staging area for collaboration that can provide the interoperability layer needed to make the Internet of Everything a reality," read a Dec. 10 note on the Linux Foundation's official blog. "When everyone jointly develops and uses the same freely available code, companies can develop innovative services on top of it and get them to market faster." However, not all companies interested in exploring the Internet of Things have joined the AllSeen Alliance. For example, Intel isn't a partner, despite having recently created a new division, the Internet of Things Solutions Group, to explore how to best make devices and networks more connected and aware."

Re:Big Data

[gstoddart]

Who wins with the Internet of Things? Corporations and Governments. If you're not a hobbyist, why do you need a *BSD-powered toaster?

Not the consumer.

See, once these things have a digital component, your toaster isn't technically "yours", but is covered under a 'licensing agreement' which says the data about how you use your toaster is theirs, and removing/disabling this is illegal.

I don't see any benefit for the consumer, and I see a lot of downsides.

When the DMCA applies to your toaster and the like, you don't own anything and your information becomes the property of someone else. It's just more scope creep of corporations more or less asserting control and ownership of the things we buy for their own ends, and giving us zero in return.

And then you quickly find there are no devices which don't have this shit in it, and it's a criminal offense to remove it since that would be violating the 'rights' of the companies who sold it to you.

Behold, the dystopian future is upon us. The corporations have all the power, cut our jobs, and leave us beholden to them.

Even before Windows 95

[jabberw0k]

Back in 1993 there was Microsoft at Work [wikipedia.org], "a short-lived effort promoted by Microsoft to tie together common business machinery, like fax machines and photocopiers, with a common communications protocol allowing control and status information to be shared with computers running Microsoft Windows..."

Bad idea then, ... bad idea now?