Slashdot Mirror

Libcurl available here

http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/

If you create Windows apps and you don't want to rely on windows tranfer/internet protocals Curl is the way to go.

shadash

I've been aware of the Beta for some time. The search feature has been great, but the portal left much to be desired. It was basically a cluttered list of five sources for each news story. This new layout seems better, though it still leaves me wondering which stories are supposed to be the most newsworthy. And I see a fundamental problem with Google's approach.

Taking a cross section of all the news that's out there is not going to result in good coverage. One of the big differences between a good newspaper, like The New York Times, and a poor one, like The New York Daily News, is the collection of stories the editors choose. The Daily News needs to get its readers fired up to sell papers, so it covers the most provocative stories it can find and sensationalizes them. The Times has the luxury of knowing its readers trust it to inform them of the most important news.

I know it sounds like an elitist position -- "we know what's best for you." I was once accosted at a party by a USA Today employee who began ranting about how arrogant it was of my paper to assume people wanted to read about human rights abuses in Africa. I asked him what we should be featuring and he detailed a series of articles his paper ran on business travellers who get laid by stewardesses at 30,000 feet. I didn't argue with him, but I felt somewhat more confident that we were choosing the right stories.

If Google covers the news based on what's out there (which is primarily of the USA Today variety), as opposed to applying news values, its offering won't be very informative. It may appeal to the largest number of people who confuse entertainment with news, but I think most Slashdotters will find it very shallow.

There's also the question of Google's "partnerships" with news sites and how that will affect the rankings.

While I still like the news search feature, I prefer the collection of shell scripts I just released. They grab the top headlines and blurbs from a number of major newspapers and put them together on one page, organized by newspaper, so you can browse "trusted" news sites quickly without having to wade through cumbersome javascript navigations, flash ads, registration. You still visit the newspapers' Web sites to read the stories that interest you, but this way you get to check out the merchandise before you commit to jumping through the content owner's hoops.

My aggregator also provides updated lists of all the headlines that have appeared on the wire services in the last several hours. The editors at the news sites are watching these same lists for updates when breaking news occurs... even the major sites that have a large number of reporters. They can't cover everything themselves, and they need to have some coverage until their reporter can get to the story.

It also covers computer news sites like Slashdot (note: the list is currently very Mac-centric because the shell scripts require Curl to trick servers into thinking the download program is a Web browser... I'll try to do the same with wget for Linux, but that's not ready yet), grabs sports scores, the weather report, comic strips, and fetches slippers.

If you're using Mac OS X, or you're willing to install Curl on your Linux box, give it a try. It's free and it's open source.

Getting yourself an Archos box allows you to completely replace the stock crappy firmware with a new all-shiny and beautiful GPL-licensed rewritten-from-scratch firmware named Rockbox!

And if you get the Recorder 20GB model, it runs USB2 and functions as a usb-storage device perfectly well under Linux (just get the USB2 patches if you run the 2.4.X series).

That said, I guess Archos isn't the best device for actually *running* with as hard drives are a bit picky about tough bumps.

If you don't like the software that comes with it you could always change the firmaware. Try Rockbox , an open source project for the archos jukebox.

You need RockBox. The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players.

Get it now. It, um, rocks. Really.

Finally, you may not believe it but the recording features on the recorder are *really* useful. I can plug my recorder into an LP player and get MP3s ... instantly, no work on my part.

What is the advantage to getting one of these over a standalone player? The thing protrudes from the Gameboy, so size payoff is minimal. Cost may be a slight payoff, but what kind of battery power does this suck from your gameboy? I think one interested in the world of MP3s would be better off investing into getting a large HD-based player such as the iPod or Archos. I have an Archos, and it's great! Plus the new opensource firmware for it (Rockbox) is coming along quite nicely.

I have one and I'm actually pretty satisfied with it. It's a littse buggy, but for the most part the bugs don't really bug(no pun intenden) me. I'm satisfied with the UI, and I know of a project to replace the (incredibly easily replacable) firmware with at open-source alternative.

Nope, no Ogg. FAQ Answer 17 says "not very likely". In other words, what's the point of this whole effort?

It's been pointed out before, but I'll say it again. Read the FAQ Question 17. It will explain all.

From the site:
The archos.mod file is scrambled, but luckily not using encryption.

Each data byte is inverted and ROLed 1 bit. The data is then spread over four memory segments. The two least significant bits of the address is used as segment number and the rest as offset in the segment. So, basically:

* segment number = address % 4
* segment offset = address / 4
* segment length = imgsize / 4

A 6-byte header is added to the beginning of the scrambled image:

* 32 bit length (big-endian)
* 16 bit checksum

The Rockbox people have written and made available a descrambler/scrambler for it.
How is this any different from the DECSS program that is illegal? Not that I really think DECSS should be illegal, but this seems to be near the same to me. Why isn't this deemed encryption, even if it's not a really hard tough form of encryption?

The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players. News

2002-06-01: Version 1.0 is released! Download it here.

2002-06-01: Web site has been down three days due to a major power loss.

2002-05-27: All v1.0 code is written, we are now entering debug phase. If you like living on the edge, here are daily builds.

(Old news items have moved to a separate page.)

We have a mailing list: rockbox@cool.haxx.se. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cool.haxx.se with the words "subscribe rockbox" in the body. Roadmap

This is a rough indication of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included in which versions. Naturally, this is all subject to change without notice. Version 1.1 Playlist support, scrolling, UI improvements Version 1.2 Recorder support, UI improvements Version 1.3 Resume, persistent settings, autobuild playlists, UI improvements About the hardware

I wrote a "dissection" page some months ago, showing the inside of the Archos and listing the main components. I have also collected a couple of data sheets. Also, don't miss the research notes from my reverse-engineering the firmware. About the software

The player has one version of the firmware burnt into flash ROM. The first thing this version does after boot is to look for a file called "archos.mod" in the root directory of the harddisk. If it exists, it is loaded into RAM and started. This is how firmware upgrades are loaded. Dreams

Ok, forget about reality, what could we do with this?

• All those simple mp3-play features we sometimes miss:
  • No pause between songs
  • Mid-song resume
  • Mid-playlist resume
  • No-scan playlists
  • Unlimited playlist size
  • Autobuild playlists (such as "all songs in this directory tree")
  • Auto-continue play in the next directory
  • Current folder and all sub-folder random play
  • Full disk random play
  • REAL random (if press back it goes to the previous song that was played)
  • Multi song queue (folder queue)
• Faster scroll speed
• Archos Recorder support. Most of the hardware is the same, but the display and some other things differ.
• All kinds of cool features done from the wire remote control, including controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)
• Ogg Vorbis support [unverified: the MAS is somewhat programmable, but enough?]
• Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) [unverified: I just saw the DAC docs shows how to do it switchable. we need a free port pin to be able to switch]
• Player control via USB [unverified]
• Memory expansion? [doubtful: the current DRAM chip only has 10 address lines. we'd have to pull off one heck of a hw mod to expand that]

The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players. News

2002-06-01: Version 1.0 is released! Download it here.

2002-06-01: Web site has been down three days due to a major power loss.

2002-05-27: All v1.0 code is written, we are now entering debug phase. If you like living on the edge, here are daily builds.

(Old news items have moved to a separate page.)

We have a mailing list: rockbox@cool.haxx.se. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cool.haxx.se with the words "subscribe rockbox" in the body. Roadmap

This is a rough indication of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included in which versions. Naturally, this is all subject to change without notice. Version 1.1 Playlist support, scrolling, UI improvements Version 1.2 Recorder support, UI improvements Version 1.3 Resume, persistent settings, autobuild playlists, UI improvements About the hardware

I wrote a "dissection" page some months ago, showing the inside of the Archos and listing the main components. I have also collected a couple of data sheets. Also, don't miss the research notes from my reverse-engineering the firmware. About the software

The player has one version of the firmware burnt into flash ROM. The first thing this version does after boot is to look for a file called "archos.mod" in the root directory of the harddisk. If it exists, it is loaded into RAM and started. This is how firmware upgrades are loaded. Dreams

Ok, forget about reality, what could we do with this?

• All those simple mp3-play features we sometimes miss:
  • No pause between songs
  • Mid-song resume
  • Mid-playlist resume
  • No-scan playlists
  • Unlimited playlist size
  • Autobuild playlists (such as "all songs in this directory tree")
  • Auto-continue play in the next directory
  • Current folder and all sub-folder random play
  • Full disk random play
  • REAL random (if press back it goes to the previous song that was played)
  • Multi song queue (folder queue)
• Faster scroll speed
• Archos Recorder support. Most of the hardware is the same, but the display and some other things differ.
• All kinds of cool features done from the wire remote control, including controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)
• Ogg Vorbis support [unverified: the MAS is somewhat programmable, but enough?]
• Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) [unverified: I just saw the DAC docs shows how to do it switchable. we need a free port pin to be able to switch]
• Player control via USB [unverified]
• Memory expansion? [doubtful: the current DRAM chip only has 10 address lines. we'd have to pull off one heck of a hw mod to expand that]

The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players. News

2002-06-01: Version 1.0 is released! Download it here.

2002-06-01: Web site has been down three days due to a major power loss.

2002-05-27: All v1.0 code is written, we are now entering debug phase. If you like living on the edge, here are daily builds.

(Old news items have moved to a separate page.)

We have a mailing list: rockbox@cool.haxx.se. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cool.haxx.se with the words "subscribe rockbox" in the body. Roadmap

This is a rough indication of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included in which versions. Naturally, this is all subject to change without notice. Version 1.1 Playlist support, scrolling, UI improvements Version 1.2 Recorder support, UI improvements Version 1.3 Resume, persistent settings, autobuild playlists, UI improvements About the hardware

I wrote a "dissection" page some months ago, showing the inside of the Archos and listing the main components. I have also collected a couple of data sheets. Also, don't miss the research notes from my reverse-engineering the firmware. About the software

The player has one version of the firmware burnt into flash ROM. The first thing this version does after boot is to look for a file called "archos.mod" in the root directory of the harddisk. If it exists, it is loaded into RAM and started. This is how firmware upgrades are loaded. Dreams

Ok, forget about reality, what could we do with this?

• All those simple mp3-play features we sometimes miss:
  • No pause between songs
  • Mid-song resume
  • Mid-playlist resume
  • No-scan playlists
  • Unlimited playlist size
  • Autobuild playlists (such as "all songs in this directory tree")
  • Auto-continue play in the next directory
  • Current folder and all sub-folder random play
  • Full disk random play
  • REAL random (if press back it goes to the previous song that was played)
  • Multi song queue (folder queue)
• Faster scroll speed
• Archos Recorder support. Most of the hardware is the same, but the display and some other things differ.
• All kinds of cool features done from the wire remote control, including controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)
• Ogg Vorbis support [unverified: the MAS is somewhat programmable, but enough?]
• Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) [unverified: I just saw the DAC docs shows how to do it switchable. we need a free port pin to be able to switch]
• Player control via USB [unverified]
• Memory expansion? [doubtful: the current DRAM chip only has 10 address lines. we'd have to pull off one heck of a hw mod to expand that]

The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players. News

2002-06-01: Version 1.0 is released! Download it here.

2002-06-01: Web site has been down three days due to a major power loss.

2002-05-27: All v1.0 code is written, we are now entering debug phase. If you like living on the edge, here are daily builds.

(Old news items have moved to a separate page.)

We have a mailing list: rockbox@cool.haxx.se. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cool.haxx.se with the words "subscribe rockbox" in the body. Roadmap

This is a rough indication of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included in which versions. Naturally, this is all subject to change without notice. Version 1.1 Playlist support, scrolling, UI improvements Version 1.2 Recorder support, UI improvements Version 1.3 Resume, persistent settings, autobuild playlists, UI improvements About the hardware

I wrote a "dissection" page some months ago, showing the inside of the Archos and listing the main components. I have also collected a couple of data sheets. Also, don't miss the research notes from my reverse-engineering the firmware. About the software

The player has one version of the firmware burnt into flash ROM. The first thing this version does after boot is to look for a file called "archos.mod" in the root directory of the harddisk. If it exists, it is loaded into RAM and started. This is how firmware upgrades are loaded. Dreams

Ok, forget about reality, what could we do with this?

• All those simple mp3-play features we sometimes miss:
  • No pause between songs
  • Mid-song resume
  • Mid-playlist resume
  • No-scan playlists
  • Unlimited playlist size
  • Autobuild playlists (such as "all songs in this directory tree")
  • Auto-continue play in the next directory
  • Current folder and all sub-folder random play
  • Full disk random play
  • REAL random (if press back it goes to the previous song that was played)
  • Multi song queue (folder queue)
• Faster scroll speed
• Archos Recorder support. Most of the hardware is the same, but the display and some other things differ.
• All kinds of cool features done from the wire remote control, including controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)
• Ogg Vorbis support [unverified: the MAS is somewhat programmable, but enough?]
• Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) [unverified: I just saw the DAC docs shows how to do it switchable. we need a free port pin to be able to switch]
• Player control via USB [unverified]
• Memory expansion? [doubtful: the current DRAM chip only has 10 address lines. we'd have to pull off one heck of a hw mod to expand that]

The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players. News

2002-06-01: Version 1.0 is released! Download it here.

2002-06-01: Web site has been down three days due to a major power loss.

2002-05-27: All v1.0 code is written, we are now entering debug phase. If you like living on the edge, here are daily builds.

(Old news items have moved to a separate page.)

We have a mailing list: rockbox@cool.haxx.se. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cool.haxx.se with the words "subscribe rockbox" in the body. Roadmap

This is a rough indication of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included in which versions. Naturally, this is all subject to change without notice. Version 1.1 Playlist support, scrolling, UI improvements Version 1.2 Recorder support, UI improvements Version 1.3 Resume, persistent settings, autobuild playlists, UI improvements About the hardware

I wrote a "dissection" page some months ago, showing the inside of the Archos and listing the main components. I have also collected a couple of data sheets. Also, don't miss the research notes from my reverse-engineering the firmware. About the software

The player has one version of the firmware burnt into flash ROM. The first thing this version does after boot is to look for a file called "archos.mod" in the root directory of the harddisk. If it exists, it is loaded into RAM and started. This is how firmware upgrades are loaded. Dreams

Ok, forget about reality, what could we do with this?

• All those simple mp3-play features we sometimes miss:
  • No pause between songs
  • Mid-song resume
  • Mid-playlist resume
  • No-scan playlists
  • Unlimited playlist size
  • Autobuild playlists (such as "all songs in this directory tree")
  • Auto-continue play in the next directory
  • Current folder and all sub-folder random play
  • Full disk random play
  • REAL random (if press back it goes to the previous song that was played)
  • Multi song queue (folder queue)
• Faster scroll speed
• Archos Recorder support. Most of the hardware is the same, but the display and some other things differ.
• All kinds of cool features done from the wire remote control, including controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)
• Ogg Vorbis support [unverified: the MAS is somewhat programmable, but enough?]
• Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) [unverified: I just saw the DAC docs shows how to do it switchable. we need a free port pin to be able to switch]
• Player control via USB [unverified]
• Memory expansion? [doubtful: the current DRAM chip only has 10 address lines. we'd have to pull off one heck of a hw mod to expand that]

The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players. News

2002-06-01: Version 1.0 is released! Download it here.

2002-06-01: Web site has been down three days due to a major power loss.

2002-05-27: All v1.0 code is written, we are now entering debug phase. If you like living on the edge, here are daily builds.

(Old news items have moved to a separate page.)

We have a mailing list: rockbox@cool.haxx.se. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cool.haxx.se with the words "subscribe rockbox" in the body. Roadmap

This is a rough indication of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included in which versions. Naturally, this is all subject to change without notice. Version 1.1 Playlist support, scrolling, UI improvements Version 1.2 Recorder support, UI improvements Version 1.3 Resume, persistent settings, autobuild playlists, UI improvements About the hardware

I wrote a "dissection" page some months ago, showing the inside of the Archos and listing the main components. I have also collected a couple of data sheets. Also, don't miss the research notes from my reverse-engineering the firmware. About the software

The player has one version of the firmware burnt into flash ROM. The first thing this version does after boot is to look for a file called "archos.mod" in the root directory of the harddisk. If it exists, it is loaded into RAM and started. This is how firmware upgrades are loaded. Dreams

Ok, forget about reality, what could we do with this?

• All those simple mp3-play features we sometimes miss:
  • No pause between songs
  • Mid-song resume
  • Mid-playlist resume
  • No-scan playlists
  • Unlimited playlist size
  • Autobuild playlists (such as "all songs in this directory tree")
  • Auto-continue play in the next directory
  • Current folder and all sub-folder random play
  • Full disk random play
  • REAL random (if press back it goes to the previous song that was played)
  • Multi song queue (folder queue)
• Faster scroll speed
• Archos Recorder support. Most of the hardware is the same, but the display and some other things differ.
• All kinds of cool features done from the wire remote control, including controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)
• Ogg Vorbis support [unverified: the MAS is somewhat programmable, but enough?]
• Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) [unverified: I just saw the DAC docs shows how to do it switchable. we need a free port pin to be able to switch]
• Player control via USB [unverified]
• Memory expansion? [doubtful: the current DRAM chip only has 10 address lines. we'd have to pull off one heck of a hw mod to expand that]

The purpose of this project is to write an Open Source replacement firmware for the Archos Jukebox 6000, Studio and Recorder MP3 players. News

2002-06-01: Version 1.0 is released! Download it here.

2002-06-01: Web site has been down three days due to a major power loss.

2002-05-27: All v1.0 code is written, we are now entering debug phase. If you like living on the edge, here are daily builds.

(Old news items have moved to a separate page.)

We have a mailing list: rockbox@cool.haxx.se. To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cool.haxx.se with the words "subscribe rockbox" in the body. Roadmap

This is a rough indication of which features we plan/expect/hope to be included in which versions. Naturally, this is all subject to change without notice. Version 1.1 Playlist support, scrolling, UI improvements Version 1.2 Recorder support, UI improvements Version 1.3 Resume, persistent settings, autobuild playlists, UI improvements About the hardware

I wrote a "dissection" page some months ago, showing the inside of the Archos and listing the main components. I have also collected a couple of data sheets. Also, don't miss the research notes from my reverse-engineering the firmware. About the software

The player has one version of the firmware burnt into flash ROM. The first thing this version does after boot is to look for a file called "archos.mod" in the root directory of the harddisk. If it exists, it is loaded into RAM and started. This is how firmware upgrades are loaded. Dreams

Ok, forget about reality, what could we do with this?

• All those simple mp3-play features we sometimes miss:
  • No pause between songs
  • Mid-song resume
  • Mid-playlist resume
  • No-scan playlists
  • Unlimited playlist size
  • Autobuild playlists (such as "all songs in this directory tree")
  • Auto-continue play in the next directory
  • Current folder and all sub-folder random play
  • Full disk random play
  • REAL random (if press back it goes to the previous song that was played)
  • Multi song queue (folder queue)
• Faster scroll speed
• Archos Recorder support. Most of the hardware is the same, but the display and some other things differ.
• All kinds of cool features done from the wire remote control, including controlling your Archos from your car radio (req hw mod)
• Ogg Vorbis support [unverified: the MAS is somewhat programmable, but enough?]
• Support for megabass switch (req hw mod) [unverified: I just saw the DAC docs shows how to do it switchable. we need a free port pin to be able to switch]
• Player control via USB [unverified]
• Memory expansion? [doubtful: the current DRAM chip only has 10 address lines. we'd have to pull off one heck of a hw mod to expand that]

How weird. My 20GB Archos Recorder had just that when they shipped it to me.

Rockbox comes optional though! ;-)

Trouble configuring vorbistools on .. oh, say.. Slackware? Get your libcurl here.

He's talking about curl, not cURL.

At least thats what thinkgeek claims here. Too bad it is not officially supported by archos. The drivers are here.

Lots are being said about cURL in these discussions, both favourable and some things not so favourable. Feel free to stop by and make your own opinion.

We host our project web pages at http://curl.haxx.se/ and we welcome your contributions!

You've got to be a troll. Anyone who's been around *NIX for 2 months or longer knows the difference between cURL and Curl. The fact that the context is either using "curl" or "wget" makes this incredibly clear.

...something as absurdly proprietary as Curl...

Uh, what exactly is "absurdly proprietary" about this? Try and get your facts straight before your pour more salt on licencing wounds, OK?

The Archos players are supported by Linux as of kernel 2.4.8.

See here for more info.

cURL is a library that transfers files via protocols that use URL syntax. Given the trademark happy nature of the web site mentioned in this article, I suspect that there'll be a name fight in the future.

No, there aren't any such issues.

The names curl and libcurl have been used by our project (curl.haxx.se) for more than three years now, which should make any claims on trademark infringements look silly.

The last time this "news" was brought up here on slashdot, one of the curl.com employees even said he was sorry about this name clash but that they were too far in the process to turn around, when they discovered our projected was already present and named identically.

http://curl.haxx.se/

What will the fine folks who made cUrl ("the client that groks the urls") say of this ?

We say we've named our project curl since 1998, but we weren't the first 'curl' even then so you won't see us complain or rant about curl.com walking in with the big boots on.

If I had a chance to sue some vaporware e-bullshit company out of existence, I'd sure jump on the occasion :)

You won't see that happen from the main cURL crew. We have really nothing to gain nor do we have a good case. We won't whine, we'll continue to improve.

curl and libcurl, transfers those URLs from command line and now feature APIs for at least nine programming languages.

I am the lead developer and maintainer of curl. More than 60 people are remembered for non-trivial changes. This is truly free software/open source (yes, both!)

As being the main person behind the curl they "could shut down" I think I could answer to this:

I named my project curl back in 1998. They came marching in a lot later.

There already is a project at MIT named curl, they were already in game before me. I didn't take proper notice until way later.

As curl and libcurl grow bigger and more popular, I expect this could cause some not so amusing mixups and confusion...

http://curl.haxx.se

The name "Curl" has been in use for years by a open source url downloading program by Daniel Stenberg. This program is now in its seventh major release version. See the Curl web site for more information.

As an erstwhile contributor to the original Curl, I am a little annoyed they did not bother to check freshmeat.net first to see if the name they had chosen was already in common use.

Other than that, I do not see how this technology has any serious potential unless they plan to submit it as a fully documented, patent-free international standard capable of independent implementation.

As of July 31, there were 150,000 downloads of Stephen King's new work, of which 116,000 paid the $1 fee. He's made these $116,000 just because of his high reputation, but, he spent more than that just to market that book.

For a multi-million-seller like a platinum album or Harry Potter book, the "please donate a dollar" scheme just isn't going to work. On the other hand, if you look at the recent furor over the Harry Potter book, and all the pre-sales, and so forth, you can easily see that it would have been very easy to ask people to pay upfront, and very lucrative.

Also, I hate to say this, but most of the music being produced for free is worth every penny---i.e., it's just not that great. (Especially in the classical genres. The MP3 artists in the classical genres completely suck. I'm sorry to say that, but it's true.) At some point, certain artists are going to become more popular than the others, and are going to be allowed to demand more.

If your next song gets you $400,000, rather than $400, then I know you'll start thinking to yourself, "Hmm, now that I've got a reputation for quality...."

A lot of people confuse my opinion that "prepay is inevitable" with the fact that I think "prepay is good". I don't think anything is good or bad. I download free things all the time. I started using linux in '94, when 0.99 was made official, and my experience with the 'net goes back way before then. I know all about free. I was a regular user of Gutenberg even before there was such a thing as the Web; and more recently, you could say I made a major contribution to the HTTP logs of the free book section of ebooks.barnesandnoble.com,due to my clever use of curl. :-)

But I'm also a grown-up, and I know all about the world works, and how bills need to get paid. My opinion is that prepayment is inevitable, not that it's good or bad, and that once an artist becomes famous and/or popular, they will start thinking "do I devote myself to this full time, or not? Do I get paid for it, or not?", and at that time, they will decide to convert from a donation-only model to a prepayment model.

I think that only time will tell, but I'm pretty confident that prepayment will arrive, one day or another.

P.S. Microsoft killed Netscape because they are a zillion-dollar company, and can afford to put out IE as a "loss leader". Also, because they were able to develop IE5 while Netscape spent their money on plastic dinosaurs and Corporate Headquarters With Waterfalls. There are lots of little software companies, but there's only one M$, and it's the M$s of the world who will demand the prepayment.

People think that artists like Van Gogh were "starving artists" who never sold their art. That's pure baloney. Van Gogh was the son of a rich industrialist, and had a brother who supported him. The "starving artist" is a myth. There isn't a one on the planet, and there never was.

Finally, unlike Mozilla, the various forms of artwork like music, art and literature absolutely do not lend themselves to open-source collaborative development. You can't "fix a bug" in a Picasso or "add a feature" to a Nirvana tune. It still takes unique people with unique visions, and some of those visions are going to be worth more than others.

If you put up a form saying "Prepay a required $1 for the next release of Metallica when it comes out", or "Pay a volutary $1 for Anonymous Artist to download their new music", I think Metallica will get plenty of $1 payments, regardless of the extreme vocal opinions on the subject at places like slashdot.

But hey, let's not argue. Let's test the theory. We're all scientists, right? Let's see if we can get a high-profile artist to try it. I really think people will be surprised.
--
Orlando, Paladin of Charlemagne