21 year old Jon Lech Johansen is embarking on a new project, called 'Oboe', with Michael Robertson. Chances are you've heard of both of these people before. Jon Lech Johansen is the guy who, at 15 years old, cracked DVD encryption, paving the way for the likes of VLC, and DVD playback on Linux & other open source OSes. Michael Robertson is a name you'll often hear associated with Linspire, of which he is the co-founder, along with other ventures such as MP3tunes, SIPPhone. Back in April we interviewed Robertson, who was wearing his Linspire hat at the time.
So, what are Johansen and Robertson doing together? Well, it's not a Linspire venture, rather an MP3tunes project. MP3tunes is a music download site that doesn't feature DRM, and given DVD Jon's dislike of rights management, it's perhaps no surprise to see him working for somebody like Mr. Robertson. That still doesn't answer exactly what he'll be doing, though. All we know is that it's a project called 'Oboe'. In fact, in yesterdays announcement about Johansen joining MP3tunes, made by Robertson, it reads as though even Johansen himself isn't yet fully clued up about the thing.
Oboe will, whatever it is, be launched "before the end of the year" and is something that Robertson is very excited about. "It's as momentous as anything I've ever done in my technical career," writes Robertson.
From Robertson and MP3tune's perspective, it's not about the project, it's about the employee. The news isn't meant to be about Oboe, we'll have to resort to wild speculation on that, something that's no doubt already taking place on the net. The news is that DVD Jon, the very clever DRM-hating programmer, who has (unsuccessfully) been taken to court twice, is joining the MP3tunes crew. Let's hope that he and the rest of the Oboe project team can put something nifty together, whatever it may be.
