To me, the issue isn't that someone wants people to pay to use their products, it's that they make you work to find out.
There really ought to be price transparency for everything, mandated by governments. I'm a dreamer, maaan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol)
>Thread is an IPv6-based, low-power mesh networking technology for Internet of things (IoT) products.[1] The Thread protocol specification is available at no cost; however, this requires agreement and continued adherence to an End-User License Agreement (EULA), which states that "Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications."[2]
Either one of these is expensive or one of these is cheap.
Most specialist stuff is like this. For example, Braille displays and equipment for blind people is outrageously expensive compared to most consumer electronics. But the price tag makes sense because of how few units they sell. So it takes a higher markup on each unit to make money. Solidworks is simpler and more expensive than Windows because it has orders of magnitude fewer users.
I'm unable to downvote this insane take so you get an angry reply instead.
This is the dumbest thing I've read today^1. Charging someone to use knowledge and understanding is insane. Here let me teach you how to do this, now if you ever do anything like this, fuck you pay me? What?!
Both charges are insane. The thread group could sell hardware implementations, or software libraries, that's an ethical way to fund Apple does sell access to it's platform. The extra fees for IP, what essentially is just understanding and know how is so stupid. And society would benefit greatly if everyone stopped pretending like thought crimes were convictable.
^1: which sounds meaningful until account that I've been up for 30m max
Edit: Kudos to the author for actually reaching out to them. I do wonder what he means by “ask for clarification”… This sounds like the kind of email I dread receiving… vague, open ended, gotta call the lawyer? Did he just ask if they could waive the fee?
> I contacted the Thread Group’s support email address on 2024-04-19 to request clarification on non-commercial Thread use.
The second one to their press team sounds super presumptuous, sorry for that, but I found that you kinda have to talk to press teams in that way if you want to get /any/ response at al.
Looking at https://www.threadgroup.org/thread-group, it seems like they already have some access for free ("Academic" and "Associate"). I'll have to review your blog post to see if you already reviewed those and what the specific issues were.
Edit: I see you did mention their "Implementor" membership level, but I'm not sure which of thier points you need to "implement their IP" that the no-cost memberships lack... "Access to IP rights", maybe?
> Q: Is membership in the Thread Group alone, at any membership level, sufficient to gain and receive royalty-free intellectual property rights (IPR) for Thread technology? A: No, membership at any level is not sufficient to gain and receive royalty-free intellectual property rights (IPR) for Thread technology.
and an Associate membership does not apply because I am not white-labeling or rebranding existing products.