Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Forbes, VoIP, Firefly
Hey, this approach works for the New York Post ... digidave writes "The fallout from Dan's Linux's Hit Men article on Forbes.com has pushed Forbes.com into putting up a discussion board, where Dan [Lyons] has posted his response"
And unmadindu writes "FSF's Bradley Kuhn has responded to the Forbes article ( reported earlier at Slashdot). Read the short, but to-the-point response at Linux Today." Kuhn's response is remarkable in its restraint.
Reader Waldo Jaquith sent the text of Lyon's first posting; an excerpt serves to illustrate its tone:
"Of course the Free Software Foundation is entitled to enforce its GNU General Public License (GPL), just as other organizations are entitled to enforce their copyrights and licenses. My article simply points out that the paradoxical effect of these "enforcement actions" (FSF's term) may be to impede the adoption of Linux. By demanding that licensees publish source code for their own "derivative work" code (in addition to the Linux they're using) the FSF is, in effect, charging a royalty that approaches 100% of the value of the licensee's product."Some of the postings in response are very impressive; I especially like this one.
Dragonfly Forum Logs are scintillating reading. drdink writes "SlashNET would like to thank Matthew Dillon and everyone who attended the Dragonfly BSD Q&A forum session. Logs are available both in text and HTML formats."
You get to keep your base. Stealthgirl writes "The Hidden Agenda Game Development Contest, which received quite a bit of interest but also a lot of flak for its IP rules, has adapted the rules to appease those who were griping on sites like Slashdot. Check out this post for more info." Up to the entrants to decide if they like the rules of any contest, of course.
Leech friendly, with public Mandrake 9.2 torrents. An anonymous reader writes "Public torrents for the first two of the Mandrake 9.2 ISOs are up (I and II). Anybody cares to share the third?"
Sir? It's reality calling, on line two, from Anywhere. Marcelo Rodriguez (gardel on Slashdot), editor of Voxilla.com, writes: "We've posted the complete text of Federal Judge Mike Davis' ruling in Vonage v. Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Voxilla.com. ... It's pretty much a slam dunk for Vonage and VoIP. Judge Davis wrote that Congress mandates that 'that information services such as those provided by Vonage must not be regulated by state law.' He also wrote that 'State regulation would effectively decimate Congress's mandate that the Internet remain unfettered by regulation.'"
And thus my hopes for "Firefly taken up by SciFi" are dashed...
/. headline?!??!?
On the other hand, how stupid do you have to be to get you hopes up based on a
Here I thought I'd learn something about Firefly the TV show...
btdownloadcurses.py http://ihaveapenguin.servemp3.com/draketorrents/Ma ndrakeLinux-9.2_disk2of3.i586.iso.torrent
These errors occurred during execution:
[17:02:26] problem getting response info -
'nuff said
Where's my promised Firefly content?
"I'm a Genius!"*
*Not an actual Genius
Disk 1
Disk 2
and Disk 3
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Those links are not working for the torrents. Have they already been /.'ed?
'..responses to Forbes' unfriendly description of the FSF -- for attempting to protect their copyrights -- as Linux's "hit men."'
Excuse me but isn't this the same site that villifies the RIAA and MPAA for protecting the copyrights of their member companies? So why is it ok for the FSF to protect their copyrights and not ok for the RIAA and MPAA? Don't bother answering that, it was rhetorical. I already know what a bunch of hypocrites the editors and many of the readers of Slashdot are.
I've just installed it, and it is a lot easier than the Famous SuSE 8.0 (the first KDE 3 distro). First of all, the command line is hidden very well. This means so much for the average user. No xterm's are installed by default, and the run program dialog is disabled. Mandrake shows that a command line free Linux is possible, and is making it a reality, even if it has to drag the geeks screaming out of emacs and vim (because Kwrite is so much easier to use!). I for one will not be using it again, because Mandrake has removed all reason for me to use it.
It's already excellent hardware dectection has improved once more, EVERYTHING (even my obscureist hardware) "just works".
The new graphical boot is really slick. The previous ones told me that everything is supposed to be [ ok ], but I didn't know what the hell is supposed to be [ ok ]! So thats good too.
The faster, more reliable OpenOffice 1.1 is included too! No more waiting for ages for it to load. This is probably the most important thing of all!
Good selection of games, with games like TuxRacer, Amergnatron, Chromuim, LBreakout, FrozenBubble and more. Theres always wine as well for your DirectX games.
It now has the totem media player, which is based off the Xine Media player. Simple, no frills interface that does what its supposed to do, play video files, and do it well!
Overall, i think Mandrake 9.2 is the easiest, yet most powerful Linux distro yet. It will defenatley gain new users, as well as swiping users from other Distros! Slackware and Debian users will really appreciate the Simplicty and the package management (urpmi is very powerful, and unlike apt-get it uses the RPM format, which is required for LSB compliance.) So stop punishing yourself with the command line, and come into the cozy GUI. This is the Linux I'll be giving to my mum, my freinds and to the masses. This is the true power of opensource, with the power to harness it!
Again, sorry for the offtopic post, just didn't know where to ask this.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I found something else about then Hidden Agenda. Long link, you'll find it tinyurl-ifed here
Despite DashingLeech's long, yet vapid, response to the article claiming that Linux is somehow cheaper than BSD and that Lyons didn't conduct a cost/benefit analysis, he misses the essential point.
Linux is Free Software.
This is misread by almost everyone in the business community and seriously almost everyone in the OSS community. Even the originator of the concept doesn't fully grasp the depth of the statement as he has become one of the proponents of what I call "the Free Software Lie". The Lie is that the "Free" in Free Software is freedom for the developer. It is NOT.
The Freedom referred to in Free Software is freedom for the software under the GPL. Because of the license, the Software has gained Freedom from being exploited in a commercial sense. It is Free from the possibility of being exploited for personal gain of a company.
It is precisely unfit for business for exactly the things that Lyons says in his article. Companies can't imprison or hide the software and remain in the good graces of the GPL and copyright law. If you want a license that grants developers rights, then stick with the BSD (UnFree) license. If you care about the Freedom of Software, then go with the GPL.
FSF is, in effect, charging a royalty that approaches 100% of the value of the licensee's product.
Not always - people still will buy boxed software and services from open source companies, and this seems to be working out quite nicely. Companies like Red Hat and Lindows seem to be doing quite a nice job of keeping their software within the GPL's terms and still profitable. Granted, it's not a model that would work for everything - I can't see something like Half-Life becoming open source, because nobody really needs a fancy boxed copy or a support contract - but all in all, I'd say the GPL a pretty fair deal, especially for people who write code just for the sake of making good software, not for turning a profit.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
Wait.... no Firefly info?! Bunch of misleading bastages! God I love that show...
Keep Austin Weird!
...but you're not bitter.
You all had my hopes up with that title there....Dragonfly is not the same as Firefly.
;)
Definitely not shiny.
weak-assed troll
When is Taco going to fix the damn moderation system? Thanks to that, you're reading this shit at 0.
That's great! Now, what the hell is a Slum Drunk?
.py is the extension of a Python file.. the language BitTorrent Client is written in... 'tard
No one (that is sane and levelheaded, that is) has said the *AA's can't protect their copyrights. At least not from what I've read.. What most in here have complained about is the *way* in which they are doing so.
bork bork bork!
So why is it ok for the FSF to protect their copyrights and not ok for the RIAA and MPAA?
I'll bite! The RIAA and MPAA are limiting the freedoms of individuals for the benefit of corporations. FSF and the GPL are limiting the freedoms of corporations for the benefit of individuals. Rule #1: Always err on the side of the individual. For instance, compare "Undamaged corporations and damaged individuals" versus "damaged corporations and undamaged indiduals". In the broadest possible sense, you're a fool to pick the first over the second. Because if the individuals are undamaged, then by definition, who cares about the corporations?
So let me get this straight...
Forbes posts an article that is highly controversial and incorrect, and in return they get a huge number of people rushing to their site?
Doesn't exactly discourage posting such articles...
I look to the future for "Why Bill Gates such be knighted" and "Is Linus Trovalds actually a pseudo-name for a drug-running FBI-sponsored company?"
Though you do have a point - The 12 year old girl was downloading music she wasn't entitled to and many acted like they were bad people for trying to sue her (parents) - in general slashdot has been more or less accepting of the times when one group or another goes after the people actually committing a crime.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
hey asswipe, slashdot is not a single mind, a single entity.
people come together temporarily, to exchange ideas.
i see a wide variety of opinions here.
so piss off you simple minded little shit.
Where is it?! Another round of taunting by /.?
The MPAA at least represents the true copyright holders, after a fashion, because its member studios don't produce cheap movies. Notice that there really aren't too many complaints about MPAA trying to stop copying, rather the complaints are against region encoding and stupid DeCSS policies that prevent people from watching DVDs that they have bought on their own computers.
But to pretend that the RIAA represents musicians is a different kettle of fish altogether. Musicians don't get any money from RIAA enforcement actions, and their contracts are so twisted and evil to start with that the only people who would lose if the RIAA were to vanish overnight would be RIAA staff.
Infuriate left and right
Why "Dragonfly BSD"...
I always figure that it was like anything else Matt had ever done... he wanted people to shorten it to "dbsd". You know, like "dcron", "dcc", etc.. He likes having his first initial and then the name of the software.
8-)
- AC
The TV show is being released on DVD, including the unaired episodes. I'm looking forward to that.
Joss is working on a script for a Firefly Movie. It's still in the early stages, so it's still speculation if and when it might actually show up.
..wayne..
Mod parent down for your eyes' sake.
Holy ghost of McCarthy! You don't agree, so rather than address his point rationally, you scream "Troll!"
That was AWESOME! I wish I could argue as well as you can.
evil adrian
No, I belive _you_ are the "'tard." He was merely excuting BT to download the ISO.
Geeze.
I think you will find it is 'Hey, Kettle. You're black!'
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
"Excuse me but isn't this the same site that villifies the RIAA and MPAA for protecting the copyrights of their member companies?"
The RIAA is not being 'villified' for protecting copyrights, they're villifying themselves by hiding behind unfair copyright laws to protect their pound-me-in-the-ass business model.
Go buy a music CD, open it, discover it sucks, and then try to return it. Then tell me that the RIAA's 'protection' of copyrights isn't abusive.
"Derp de derp."
Do you drive 60 on the highway even though the speed limit is 55? Would you object to someone driving 60 down your residential street? Oh, theres more to it then that isnt there...
You try and compare the FSF to RIAA and MPAA and at the same time try to lump all 800k of slashdots users opinions into one big one. That sir, is far from rhetorical.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Unlike IBM, they are being pretty sleazy about this. They understand the GPL very well, they know exactly what they are doing. I've spoken at length with members of the development and managment teams about it on other products. I'd feel different if this were and oversite but they know exactly what they are doing. They are stealing code and then what's even worse, they are putting the companies that buy their products in the line of fire.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could find some kind of GPL sob story about the FSF "thugs" making somebodies life suck, I remember RMS creating a shit storm by suggesting that Linux be called GNU/Linux which seemed to offend a very vocal fraction of the libre software movement and caused a great deal of pain and suffering but this simply isn't it. (That's a joke if you're humor impaired) Forbes is just trying to sell issues, appeal to the rich want-a-bes that read it regularly. I guess that new Ford GT40 wasn't available in time to do a fluff piece on a car that none of their readers will ever have but all want... Or maybe the fall Rolexes were late, who knows?
Rule #1: Always err on the side of the individual.
Uh... who's making these rules? You? Well then, it MUST be right!
Because if the individuals are undamaged, then by definition, who cares about the corporations?
What the fuck are you talking about? You've gone from A to C, with no B in between!
evil adrian
Mandrake 9.2 Disk 1 of 3
b 3ba35cac3dfd479777e MandrakeLinux-9.2_disk2of3.i586.iso3 c927f14197ec99a0372 MandrakeLinux-9.2_disk3of3.i586.iso
Mandrake 9.2 Disk 2 of 3
Mandrake 9.2 Disk 3 of 3
MD5SUMS are as follows:
40c8812dce7b9f8fb0a3b364af62b974 MandrakeLinux-9.2_disk1of3.i586.iso
e07fe7b1474e
2b6ffc595753
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
The article didn't have it, but here is Dan Lyon's response to the outcry about his column.
in general slashdot has been more or less accepting of the times when one group or another goes after the people actually committing a crime.
Actually, no. In general, Slashdotters think that rampant piracy is OK because RIAA and MPAA are "evil" or some such bullshit, and they think that people who break into computer systems and fuck shit up should be set free.
Makes me think that most Slashdotters are 12 years old...
evil adrian
As a member of MandrakeClub for the past year, with a renewal for the next year, I have ponied up and contributed US$120 towards the continued survival of Mandrake the company--and by extension, those who eke out a living contributing to and pulling together this excellent product.
In addition, I have submitted bug reports, contributed to the technical support forums, and tried (unsuccessfully, alas) to contribute an rpm to the Mandrake contribs.
It bothers me that some of my peers clearly don't respect the approach that Mandrake has taken to attempt to supplement its meagre revenue. Some of the attitude, I assume, is an adoption of the "The net sees censorship as damage, and routes around it" perspective. I would argue that prematurely sharing the Mandrake 9.2 release images is a misapplication of that perspective. Delaying the release of the 9.2 images is a reward for those who contributed directly to the latest release, and the images will be made officially available to everyone else in a matter of weeks.
There is one case that merits consideration. In the same way that Red Hat chose leading Linux developers to receive shares of its IPO years back (ah the good old days), there are undoubtedly many developers whose code is being used and distributed by Mandrake. It would be nice if Mandrake also invited those developers to access the early 9.2 torrents--although with so many packages, tracking all of the developers and ensuring that they have authorized IDs might require an entire company in itself.
Some of it is pure selfishness, in the manner of a child's tantrum: "I want this free, and I want it NOW!"
I suspect some of the attitude is also a simple fascination with the ability to adopt technical measures to overcome business policy. While setting up a BitTorrent offers a bit of a gee-whiz factor, I predict that overcoming Mandrake's business policy by removing one of their two means of increasing revenues will have one of two effects, neither one particularly pleasant:
So I'm asking everyone out there sharing unofficial Mandrake 9.2 ISOs: please consider the larger ramifications of your actions. In isolation, what you're doing might not seem all that important--but when you're posting (and publicizing, and taking advantage of) torrents on Slashdot, your actions will have a detrimental effect on the company that's making the very distribution you're so keenly sharing.
And that distribution simply might not be available to share in the future...
What We Can Learn From BSD
By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0
Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.
Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.
These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.
As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.
Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.
The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.
according to the fox videos home page
they are releasing the complete series of firefly on 12/9
i can't wait
[echelon]
Because of the license, the Software has gained Freedom from being exploited in a commercial sense. It is Free from the possibility of being exploited for personal gain of a company.
I work as a contractor teaching RHCEs for Red Hat, based on Red Hat Linux, which is mostly Open Source Software (I think Pine's still included in the current release). I wouldn't use the word exploited (its correct, but has negative connotations) but Red Hat gains from Open Source software (they also give a lot too, but that's off topic).
They don't sell the software, but their services and training are based on their Linux distribution.
My opinions don't necessary represent my employers.
sftp://root@host.dom/etc/httpd/conf/vhosts/
If you have you ssh session keys installed in the remote /root/.ssh/ it will open the directory in your kate/kde editor file open dialogue and you can edit your apache vhosts.
sftp://user@host.dom/home/user/www/site/document .php
Yummie php syntax highlighting in kate. Hit save and your changes are saved over the network. Bookmark /home/user/www/ in the file browser if you go there often.
KDE 3 kicks all other desktops in a heap called 'obsolete' just for the incredible power you get dealing with remote hosts over ssh/sftp. I love gnome and its looks but they so badly need something like KDE's KIO file handling.
Mandrake has always been the nr 1 KDE distribution. And the most popular distribution for desktop use. Linux journalism seem not to see beyond Redhat and Suse in the "enterprise" and for the desktop and debian as the cutting edge. But Mandrake is the top desktop linux, has a great enterprise offering and mandrake cooker is arguably the most user friendly cutting edge in linux.
Vive la mandrake!
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
I tried to go to the Forbes site, but I got some strange cyclical redirection. Sort of auto-slashdotting.
It turned out that you have to enable Javascript in your browser, otherwise you will just follow the cyclical redirections.
It's a shame that some sites are so clueless about coding so they don't work without javascript being turned on.
)9TSS
it's called the server was falling over..tard.
Oh you wrote MANDRAKE! During the whole thing I read it as Microsoft.
first you complain because first guy wouldn't answer the question.
the next guy actually answers, and you pretend you don't understand?
i think YOU missed a point.
It's point A, and B, and you should C yourself the fuck off slashdot, you little maggot.
Ohmygosh, I'm famous! Now I have something to brag about to the ladies. I'll have to beat them off with a stick!
[scurries off to add "driving force behind rules change for programming contest" and "subject of slashback" to resume]
Please help metamoderate.
Oooh! Anonymous coward called me a maggot and told me to "fuck off"! I'M SHAKING.
He didn't make a logical bridge between point A and point C, that was my point. You obviously don't know how to reason, and you're too scared to post your real name because you realize that you don't know how to reason.
Congratulations on learning how to use "fuck" in a sentence! You sound like you're learning how to be a big boy!
evil adrian
Which is more evil, hiddenagenda.com or www.hiddenagenda.org? The game designers seek to design games in which imaginary people are killed; Hidden Agenda the band write songs in which both real and imaginary people are killed. Advantage: Hidden Agenda.org.
Besides, I doubt anyone in the game design contest ever recorded songs like "Kurt Cobain is Dead and I Wish It Were You", "England's Plastic Rose", "Attack of the Giant Space Hippies", or "Proud to be The Great Satan".
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
ha!...still replying to ACs.
you're a joke man. heh.
From Kuhn's response: In no violation case have we ever filed a law suit, and rarely even get the point to threaten one, because most companies feel that it is better for them and their customers to come into compliance. Compare that to the RIAA filing lawsuits against those who violated the copyrights without even giving them a warning. It's not the ends that are being debated here, it's the means.
Unpleasantries.
Obvious troll.
I love trolls
Two reasons. One is that the FSF is much more generous about what they allow people to do without argument. The GPL is very, very friendly to people who want to use software licensed under it; you can do pretty much whatever you want so long as you pass on the source code and let others do the same. If the RIAA and MPAA were pursuing people who had violated terms that genrous they'd get a lot more sympathy. As it is, they're not just trying to punish people who have violated their copyright, but they're actively trying to take away fair use rights- i.e. restrict the little freedom that's left under copyright.
The other issue is how the two groups go about it. The FSF starts out by approaching violators privately and nicely, giving them an opportunity to correct their mistakes and continue without any punishment. They believe in negotiating first and suing as a last resort. (In fact, the FSF says that they've never actually gone so far as to sue somebody for a GPL violation.) In contrast the MPAA and RIAA have taken an attitude of attacking first and seeing if the alleged violator has actually done something wrong second. Again, they'd get more sympathy if they hadn't repeatedly threatened people for things that turned out to be completely innocent, like having legitimate files on their computers with names that bore only slight resemblance to names of copyrighted material.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I respond to everybody who responds to my posts without reasoning properly... AC's included.
evil adrian
Firefly is a canceled science fiction program that once aired on Fox, and is now being made into a movie.
Dregonfly BSD is a fork of FreeBSD, taking a look at scalability.
BillG: "None of the security problems recently affected people who had their software up to date..."
Oh. You mean how my laptop, despite having the latest security patches, managed to contract the Qhosts Trojan? You know, the one that exploits the flaw that Microsoft didn't totally fix in Internet Explorer? Thanks, Bill. I had fun removing that one.
Glad to know I wasn't affected because I was up to date on my patches. You put my mind at ease.
ONLY once all licensees had an opportunity to produce their product and bring it to market. Only then, once ID Software has released their product and enjoyed the profits Copyright provides them, and all their engine licensees have enjoyed their profits, do they release the engine to the public domain under the GPL.
You don't get bragging rights until you have scored a (5, Troll).
:-)
(If you DO score a 5, Troll and brag about it, let me know exactly how much her eyes glazed over)
"I'll bite! The RIAA and MPAA are limiting the freedoms of individuals for the benefit of corporations. FSF and the GPL are limiting the freedoms of corporations for the benefit of individuals. Rule #1: Always err on the side of the individual. For instance, compare "Undamaged corporations and damaged individuals" versus "damaged corporations and undamaged indiduals". In the broadest possible sense, you're a fool to pick the first over the second. Because if the individuals are undamaged, then by definition, who cares about the corporations?"
Corporations are composed of individuals. Denying these individuals their rights is a sure fire solution to destroy productivity,k as well as an immoral act that supresses freedom. If you promote the freedom of one while denying the freedom of another, you are a hypocrite. Such a policy is only good for you until a govt. arbitrarily puts you in the bad catagory and denies you your rights, at which point I won't shed any tears for you. Giving the govt. the right to selectively enforce rights is the cause of more harm than good.
Vote for Pedro
"By demanding that licensees publish source code for their own "derivative work" code (in addition to the Linux they're using) the FSF is, in effect, charging a royalty that approaches 100% of the value of the licensee's product."
This is absolutely correct. Code where the source is freely available has a value that approaches zero very quickly. The only people who pay for Linux code, for instance, are those who are too impatient to download it, and then pay for the cds. Everyone else downloads it for free. That isn't to say you can't make money from Linux. Red hat is trying through charging for support and stupid features like up2date, which would be free normally if you paid for the OS. Suse managed to charge Munich millions for free software, which pay for support. However, even though it is possible to make money through support, a company that hires its own support can pay zero for the software legally, which is the value of that software.
Vote for Pedro
hey asswipe, slashdot is not a single mind, a single entity. people come together temporarily, to exchange ideas. i see a wide variety of opinions here. so piss off you simple minded little shit.
Why dont you do that then? you say that people come to exchange ideas? why is it that you can just flame people, without bringing any ideas into slashdot. Debating ideas is fine, but calling people simple minded little shits is not the way to express your ideas. He had a relevent point, and all you can do is throw insults at him. You are dragind down the collective intelligence of slashdot. You yourself are being a hyprocrite and not bringing any ideas into it. And if slashdot isn't a single entity, stop making it one, create your own user, or dont post AC.
This sig is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
This is very much different than protecting open source software from becoming closed source, thereby subverting the will of the lawful owners and creators.
Apart from the occasional antiestablishment extremist, most /.ers acknowledge copyright legitimacy but object to unabashed attempts by Gordon Gecko wanna-be's to hijack the donated efforts of right-hearted people for corporate profits. If I own an LP of Dark Side of the Moon and want to download an MP3 of it, that's fair use. Same with a MPEG version of my movies. Why should I be jailed and bankrupted over it? Because the record company execs have to go back to earning a living if I'm free to enjoy this lawful liberty?
This, my poor misguided, misinformed ./er, is certainly not hypocritical. But Cisco's and Broadcom's actions are in violation of the law. The irony here is that they endeavor to profit from free software, but are acting in a way that would prevent anyone else -- not just their competitors from benefiting likewise. That is hypocrisy of the highest order, outdone only by your own. And you're fat too.
That's easy, we don't like what the RIAA and MPAA does, but we like what the FSF does. The FSF is very much aligned with our needs and society's behavior, while the RIAA is not. Why does the RIAA/MPAA have to file HUNDREDS OF LAWSUITS while the GPL usually takes a few "friendly talks"? Think about it.
It's like saying something like "why do you argue against laws that legalize strip-searches without warrants upon entering a bank, but you support a law that criminalizes bank robbery"? Easy, one makes sense and is "in tune" with our society, while the other is almost nonsensical.
It's easy to generalize thoughts, but a little harder to catch nuances. Work on it, you'll figure it out.
It's not hypocritical to promote the freedom of the masses to share and share-alike while also "limiting" a corporations' (composed of a tiny # of individuals) "right" to exploit this goodwill for exclusive gain.
(Can't remember why you're on my foe list. You anti-GPL or something?)
--
Power to the Peaceful
Neither FSF nor MPAA are the government.
license. ;-)
Linksys made a decision. The article doesn't seem to take that into account. Obviously the GLP'ed code had more value to them then the rest of the available options. They decided to steal the code and should be held accountable.
Quack, quack.
(not original poster): simple minded little shit :)
I don't think you know what communism is!
With the GPL, you don't have to worry about large and powerful entities having control over you. You don't have to worry about software monopolies, because if one guy sells it for $5 another can sell it for $2 unless of course the $5 guy actually offers you $5 worth of value! That's free markets in it's most beautiful form.
People forget that free markets push profits down to zero, not because of government control and inefficiency, but because of ingenuity!
The GPL simply *removes* excess power and restores freedom and balance to software.
Communism is a terrible thing. So are too-strong "property" rights for ideas. Those two things should be lumped together.. Free software doesn't belong with them.
My article simply points out that the paradoxical effect of these "enforcement actions" (FSF's term) may be to impede the adoption of Linux.
That is an interesting but very myopic comment. One could just as easily say that the pardoxical effect of charging money may be to impede the adoption of Windows.
But no with half a brain would ever make that point. The goal of a corporation is to make profit and adoption of their software is simply a means to an end.
And my experience with my friends who license with GPL is that their goal is to affect a social change in how software is used and distributed. If their goal is simply go get as much adoption as possible, they would most likely use a different license.
Once again, the problem is that for many people, any goal that is not about making money is just incomprehensible. In the end, this story is just another sad commentary on our society's priorities.
...Forbes, VoIP Freely.
Actually, many seem to claim that it is morally acceptable to violate the RIAA's copyrights because they feel the RIAA overcharges. There have been many posts to the effect of: If they would sell a CD for $5-10 I'd buy it. Until then, I'll download my music. Stick it to the man!
"My article simply points out that the paradoxical effect of these "enforcement actions" (FSF's term) may be to impede the adoption of Linux."
Doesn't matter. The point of the FSF is not to further the adoption of Linux. The point of the FSF is to make sure Free Software stays Free. They're doing what's right, not what's popular. They don't care about any software's adoption, they care about protecting the rights of the creators. Microsoft's method of "charging money" for Windows 2003 Server impedes its adoption but they still do it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The rebuttal completely misses the point. The point of the Forbes article is that the software written using GPL has a market value of near $0, since anyone can download it for free (as in beer) and compile it themselves. That's why you don't see many sw companies writing OSS. The ones that do are usually selling hardware as their primary income (Apple, Sun, and even Linksys). Linksys could probably release all their modified code and probably still make money as the rebuttal insists, but it will make it easiers for competitors to encroach on their business, since besides writing the software, all they're really doing is putting some chips (that they didnt design) on a board without violating any specs. NVidia is in a similar predicament with their closed source drivers. Luckily for them people still use them even though it means their Linux solution is tainted.
Vote for Pedro
Using the GPL and LGPL on software is for extremely selfish, greedy, and capitalistic reasons. It means the author retains control over the software, while still letting people use it. Others cannot modify the and sell the software without the original author having the ability to see those modifications. But the original author retains the right to do anything with the software, including making closed-source modifications and selling them! In fact the GPL could be a very powerful way for a corporation to force a standard that they control onto all machines, and certainly serves as a way for a corporation to advertise it's own programming ability without losing any rights to what they wrote.
I am absolutely certain that all the authors who chose the GPL (rather than BSD) license for their code did it for selfish reasons. Maybe to make money or retain the ability to make money. Maybe to refuse others the ability to make money or changes to their code. Maybe to refuse others the ability to hide their original contributions and remove attribution for their work.
We have entered into an age of Newspeak though when a license designed to protect the original author's rights is considered "communistic", while a giant corporation that controls what you can do with your personal property is considered "capitalistic"
"It's not hypocritical to promote the freedom of the masses to share and share-alike while also "limiting" a corporations' (composed of a tiny # of individuals) "right" to exploit this goodwill for exclusive gain."
Maybe hypocritical isn't the correct term, but you're putting conditions on freedom. That is a dangerous thing. Once you allow a govt. to put conditions on freedom, what's stopping them from putting conditions on your freedom someday for whatever reason they feel is sufficient. I'm not anti-GPL. I just think people who attack the RIAA and defend the FSF for enforcing copyright are hypocrites. You can't condition a right based on your opinion of who benefits from the right. It's unfair and subject to abuse by the mojority aginast the minority in a democracy.
Vote for Pedro
Yes, and they should be subject to the same govt. laws. Saying the FSF has the right to defend copyright, but the RIAA does not, is hypocritical. The motive is irrelevant (That's why we protect the free speech of Nazis, even though we disagree with what they say.)
Vote for Pedro
Do you drive 60 on the highway even though the speed limit is 55? Would you object to someone driving 60 down your residential street? Oh, theres more to it then that isnt there...
Heh. That's exactly why I drive the speed limit. I can't honestly try to point the finger at others if I'm willingly breaking the rules myself.
The speed limit is an interesting test case. Almost always, you can exceed it safely. The thing is, do you think there shouldn't be a speed limit? Let everyone drive whatever speed they like? Then you've got teenagers doing 60 in residential areas. So you need a speed limit. Well, it has to be universal (for enforcement purposes), and it has to be low enough to cover a lot of people who (by virtue of themselves or their vehicle) can't perform that well. That's in addition to forcine people to slow down for the unexpected (stalled car in the fast lane, stupid pedestrian, etc.) Hence, it's going to be at least a little too slow. So there's a simple case where the law is too restrictive for most people, but it's still basically sound and just. Do you still think it's okay to exceed it because it won't really hurt anyone?
Of course the GPL gives developers 'freedom', namely the freedom to see and modify the source of the software on which they base their work. The cost of that 'freedom' is simply that it be available to the next developer who comes along to base his/her work on that by the current developer.
Your point correctly applies to the very first developer who started to write code from scratch, but what percentage of current FOSS code falls in this category?
And saying GPL == Communism is nonsense. Software, and more generally information goods, are naturally what (capitalist!) economists call 'pure public goods'. You might as well call government provision of national defense 'Communism'! All the copy protection and copyright laws we have are merely artificial attempts to shoe-horn information goods into a private-good mold so the well understood market failures associated with pure public goods can be avoided.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Doug Moen
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
Um, isn't it missing the point to post links to three torrents and then simply state the "MD5SUMS are as follows"? It seems you should at least link the that information directly from Mandrake, since otherwise someone could simply post links to bogus torrents and state the correct-but-bogus "MD5SUMS are as follows" with them.
Just an observation.
Anyone can pretty much copy anything that can be reduced down to 1s and 0s, many Slashdot readers feel that this is in and of itself not something they think is wrong, I can copy a piece of software, whether it is a GPL, BSD, or standard-corporate licensed piece of software, and mess around with it on my computer at home and try and reverse engineer it or what have you. The same goes for a movie or a piece of music. It's fine for me to make a dub of a friend's VHS, make a rip of his DVD, or to tape the Simpsons when it comes on. I can then enjoy said entertainment and maybe even splice in some homemade porno in Boogie Nights. Many people would call those kinds of activities "Fair Use".
/. posters. We are a diverse and varied group of basement-dwelling anime-watching losers. Please try and remember that.
Now when it comes to profiteering off of copyright violations, I would say that most Slashdot readers do not think that Fair Use applies. Selling bootleg copies of an album or movie is more egregious than simply enjoying an "illegal" copy. The same applies in this Linksys-GPL case, let them violate the GPL all they want in the privacy of their own homes, but when they make millions of dollars by violating the copyrights of the software that allowed them to make those millions we have a serious problem.
These are not necessarily my opinions, or the opinions of a majority of
just put "Firefly" in your headline and then fail to comment on it. Yet, ironically it generates comments from the community as if to suggest that such practices are accepted as normal... or perhaps people just don't bother to actually read the posting (much less any articles it points to). Hmmm, this might be a "chicken or the egg" problem.
FSF and the GPL are limiting the freedoms of corporations for the benefit of individuals.
Because we all know that accepting gifts for free limits your freedom.
couple points:
As far as they knew, they were using Kazzaa like a service that they paid for.
Also, the punishment for this copyright infringement was really disporportionate to the 'crime'
Finally, we all should get outraged when corporation can have police powers.
Any entity should have to take alledged criminal behaviour to law enforcement, and have them deal with it.
What do you think would have happened if the 12 year old girl got caught shop lifting those CD's? a stern warning, a slap on the wrist, possible 86'ed from the premises. Hopefull a proper punishment from her parents. Nobody would have fined her 2000 dollars.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Believe it or not, there's an answer that makes perfect sense. But it requires a little suspension of disbelief to accept some pretty surprising premises.
Premise one: there's no such thing as property. The notion of property in the physical sense--real estate, chairs, your computer, that kind of thing--is simply a consequence of scarcity. There's only one of any given item, so only one person can hold that item at a time. Ergo, scarcity, which has given rise to the false doctrine of property.
In other words, nobody actually owns anything. It's just that scarcity requires us all to take turns.
Premise two: because some things are not subject to scarcity--computer software, digital recordings of music, et cetera--the notion of property applies even less to those things than to actual tangible things.
Premise three: property is based on the idea that exclusivity is the natural order of things. I have this and you do not and that's okay. Exclusivity gives rise to inequity and inequity gives rise to suffering. Therefore, from a simply moral perspective, property is unacceptable.
Premise four: because property is immoral (see above), the elimination of property where possible is a moral agenda. The idea of property can most easily be eliminated in those areas where scarcity does not exist, or at best is artificial: intangibles, also known as "intellectual property."
Conclusion: the moral course of action is to work to overthrow the status quo by eliminating the idea of property from our culture, first in intangible, non-scarcity-dependent areas and later in other areas.
This is the FSF's agenda: property is evil, and must be excised from our collective culture. They do this by attacking property holders, using the very same societal framework that has been established to protect property holders.
Therefore it's okay for the FSF to pursue its own property rights, because the FSF's goal is the ultimate elimination of property rights. It is not okay for regular schmoes like you and me to pursue our property rights, however, because we have no such motivation.
That's the reasoning. If you accept the premises, it makes perfect sense. That's what so insidious about it.
The problem arises when you remember that property rights are a natural and unalienable extension of essential liberty. Eliminating property rights--either in whole or for certain classes of intangible property--is a direct infringement on personal liberty.
Always remember to look behind the utopian ideals to see what you'll have to give up to achieve them. Every time, you'll conclude that the price of utopia is just too damn high. Better to live free in an imperfect world than to be slaves to a perfect one.
should 'piss off'.
He also put forth the argument that the parent was 'simple minded' and a 'little shit'
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The RIAA and MPAA are limiting the freedoms of individuals for the benefit of corporations.
Corporations are nothing more or less than organized groups of individuals. You are attempting to draw a false dichotomy here between corporations and individuals when, in fact, the two are inextricably linked.
In this case, however, the flaw in your reasoning is even more obvious than that: the same rules are applied equally to corporations and to individuals. Remember MP3.com? That was a corporation that was effectively driven out of business because they were trafficking in stolen intellectual property. Remember Napster? Same story. They were trafficking in stolen property, so they were driven essentially out of business.
It's not hypocritical to promote the freedom of the masses to share and share-alike
Let's talk about sharing for a minute. We all learned this in school, but evidently it's been forgotten along the way. So let's review.
Sharing means making your possessions available to others.
Okay, that sounds simple enough. But is it really? Let's take a closer look.
Sharing means making your possessions available to others.
Ah. There's a catch there, isn't there? Let's pretend we're six years old again. Let's pretend you have the coolest Hot Wheel. You brought it to school in your pocket, and you're playing with it during recess.
I ask you if I can play with your Hot Wheel. You say sure, but ask me not to let Big Dumb Kevin play with it, because he always breaks his toys. I agree, so I get to play with the Hot Wheel.
Along comes Big Dumb Kevin. He asks me if he can play with "my" Hot Wheel. ("My" Hot Wheel? No, of course not. Merely the one I'm borrowing from you for the moment.) Forgetting my promise to you, I hand it over.
Did I do right or wrong? We're taught to share, and I shared, so I did right, right? Wrong.
You see, it wasn't my toy to share. It belonged to you; I was just using it temporarily, with your permission but with conditions. It wasn't okay for me to give it to Big Dumb Kevin. I did wrong.
Share and share alike? You can only share what rightfully belongs to you. When you buy a CD, that CD--the atoms that compose it--belongs to you. You can share that CD. But the music on it--the bits--does not belong to you. You can't share the music, because you don't own it.
Calling the trafficking of stolen intellectual property "sharing" is one of the more stunning euphemisms of recent times.
Can't remember why you're on my foe list. You anti-GPL or something?
Can't remember why you're on mine, either. You anti-liberty or something? Because of course you realize that liberty goes both ways, right? Liberty means that you can't take what's mine without my permission. Liberty means it's wrong to steal.
So, what's the deal? Are you anti-liberty, or what?
have you read the GPL though?
-pyrrho
60 bucks a year to keep current, you would through a fit, wouldn't you?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
you need 5, hung like troll.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is absolutely correct. Code where the source is freely available has a value that approaches zero very quickly.
Nonsense. You are making the implicit assertion that the only value in the world with any sort of utility is monetary value, i.e. alienated labor value, value composed of autonomous capital.
TO ME, and I am of course much of what matters to me, the value of Linux and other free software is very great indeed, though I have never "paid" for any of it. Much of this value comes from the fact that Linux is at least to some extent a manifestation of unalienated labor; labor which is not stored in the form of capital but is instead given freely, in a kind of creative/generative process, to the rest of mankind. Linux is self-expression, economic utility, intellectual freedom and collective respect and solidarity all wrapped up in one helpful software package.
I would not pay for Linux because it would make me feel dirty. But at least in part because I do not pay for Linux, its value to me is almost inifinite, not zero, as you claim. Linux is one of a precious few things in our world that gives me hope.
Yes, Linux makes money for someone. But so did Ghandi for Hollywood. But in this case the money is in no way the essential value of the item; even when stripped of any indirect or tangential economic exchange, the value of Linux and many other things in the world that are not simply the collective of mankind's alienated ability, is still great.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I dare you to respond to this troll
What if we replaced "Linux" with "Windows" in the Forbes article. By making that change (and a few others), we get this article
A sample:
-jdm
Oooh, I did it. Now what.
evil adrian
From my perspective the GPL is not communism at all. As a developer I view it as a totally capitalistic endeavor.
I sell/license my product and I charge exactly what I want. You, as the consumer, choose to purchase it for the price/terms under which I sell it.
I have never understood equating the GPL with communism.
Your analogy is off. A HotWheel(TM)(R) is physical property that is naturally scarce and can easily and obviously be owned, locked up, traded, etc. An idea is an intangible that can be replicated for no cost, and cannot be owned in any real sense, but for which the originator is currently granted a temporary monopoly that he can then choose how to license. YOU can choose the usual MineMineMine!(C) license, and someone else can choose the more natural share-alike GPL.
--
Power to the Peaceful
You can make a tape off a radio, is that moral and/or legal?
You can make a cd off a radio, is that moral and/or legal?
you can make a cd1 off a cd2. If you own cd2 is it moral and/or legal? If you do not own cd2 is it moral and/or legal?
What does it mean to make a recording? If you have a song in your head, is that a recording? (Only you can hear it, but it's obviously someone else's work). At what point is a recording different then the original? If all the bits were inversed it would be 100% different, yet sound 100% the same. Is it a recording?
What does it mean to make a copy of a program?
When you copy onto another medium?
What if the medium is into memory, in order to play it through your CPU. That obviously must be ok since that is how it must be used.
What if the medium is a memory stick, that get's transferred to another computer. The same program is played on 2 computers, but has not been copied except through memory. What about networking. The same game is again on two computers, but has only been copied into memory.
My point in all these questions is that copyright seems to be fairly straightforward until you get to intellectual property, which has no equivilent in nature. By afixing copyright to IP you are trying to change the way things work, similar to inacting a law stating that the value of pi is 3.
In my view copyright on IP is very limiting, like legistating thought. It's true that many industries depend on this legislated thought process, but that in itself does not justify it. How have people been effected because of copyright on IP. How has the world changed because of copyright of IP? Think of how Napster was able to energize the music industry. People were buying CD's more then ever. Music that never got played were rediscovered. Do I support the music industry which puts in the money to make the CD's? No, I know that most of the money is put into the videos, I know that the artist who's work I am buying receives very little of my payment. Do I support the idea that if music were freely available, we would have more live bands, more variety of music and a stronger music industry. Yes!
Hey, Kettle. Your're black...
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
No. A corporation is a legal fiction in which individuals deny any responsibility for the actions of the fiction. No responsibility, no rights.
Always remember that a corporation is a creation of the state.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Yes, that's exactly the point. Laws do exist for the benefit of corporate entities, but corporations are organized groups of individuals. So if a corporate entity is harmed, but individuals including those that form the corporate entities are not harmed, then the harm is inconsequential. Asserting "harmed" and "not harmed" are just generalizations to make the argument clear -- but it can and should be extended to gradations of harm.
So for instance, the argument applied to the RIAA is that they are exploiting their concentrated power to create perversions of law that support a dying business model while stifling newer business models that would benefit the broad landscape of both artists and consumers. Here you should favor the freedoms of the many individuals versus the inconveniences of the few under an umbrella of a corporation, concluding that the actions of the RIAA are inappropriate.
Applications to the MPAA and EFF are left as exercises for the reader.
Guess what, neither the RIAA or the MPAA are getting police to raid people's houses. So fuck off and eat my hard schlong.
Dick.
I'm a 4th year computer science major, focused on coding. I enjoy it, and I see no problem with open source and GPL'ed software. What I have trouble understanding (and hopefully someone can help me out here) is the push for abolishing software licenses. I've just poured a LOT of money into getting my degree. Where would my livelihood come from if software licenses were abolished, if everything were open source? I have no interest in IT, so don't direct me there. Where do I, as a coder, make my money if my desire is to create original software?
Your brain is not a computer.
No. A corporation is a legal fiction
What does this mean? Do you mean that people claim that corporations exist in law, but that they actually dont? Or perhaps you mean that corporations should not exist in law?
in which individuals deny any responsibility for the actions of the fiction.
My corporation owns my store. If a person slips on the pavement outside my store, they may sue. Since we live in the most litigous society on the planet (13% of the population but 40% of the lawyers!), they may win, even if the "sufferer" is the one at fault. Who does the sufferer sue? My corporation. Who suffers? Me, the individual, even if they or no one is at fault.
So I don't buy your analysis. I may be held responsible for things even if I may rightly deny it. Looters and leeches see "corporation" and think, "Rich, greedy bastards who deserve to be sued".
No responsibility, no rights.
Except that there is responsibility. Maybe not as much as you or I would like, and not that they don't try and minimize the reponsibility, but corporations take their licks and often. Corporations do a lot of good for individuals that you probably overlook. The stock options provided by my former employer (The Home Depot, a huge satanic babykilling corporation, right?) paid for our store and the adoption of our son.
I think your real beef might be that you think the profit motive is immoral.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Did you miss the part about your customer being able to give it to redistribute the product to all of your other customers for free? So, for example, with Mandrake, you have a few people who buy it, and then share the "subscribers only" torrent a few days later so no one else has to purchase it. The GPL is equated with communism, because under communism/socialism, everything is shared. No one has more than any other person (except for the hopefully benevolent leader...). In a capitalistic market, customers individually purchase the product. In a communist market, people are given products for free. With the GPL, it is very difficult to sell a product your customers can give away for free. So it is usually free, and shared by the customers. Many people argue that if you continue giving away free software, you will displace commercial software. Hence, everything will be free and no one will be able to make money. Just like communism! Now you know.
see my comment 204.
You can't handle the truth.
The issue isn't the RIAA/MPAA protecting copyrights, but buying enough legislators to make those copyrights permanent along with additional laws which will eventually prevent you from being able to trust your computer/TV/camera/stereo/etc. to do what you intend. And all under the banner of protecting their copyrights, quite legally stolen from the original artists.
The FSF is simply asking vendors to follow the only licenses the vendors have to leverage the valuable software products they've chosen to include in their commercial products.
The RIAA is also idiotic for suing its customer base, (which the FSF is also not doing), but then again, you knew you weren't comparing apples to apples, didn't you?
More like comparing "pure concentrated evil" to apples. IMNSHO, of course.
Regards,
Ross
No one (that is sane and levelheaded, that is) has said the *AA's can't protect their copyrights. At least not from what I've read..
The general tone of
-a
Joe company adds 10 lines of crap to Linux. By that logic the other 2 billion lines of code that Joe company had nothing to do with is, by what sortid logic, calculated to be "100%" of THEIR value?
Maybe they should shoot for a few basic math skills before they claim to be so growed up as to pass themselves as a Business Rag(tm).
you're retarded
First of all, I'd like to say that Mandrake themselves is not griping about it. You are. While your $120 contribution may be laudable and good, it does not entitle you to ask everyone else to do the same. Furthermore, few companies are capable of surviving on charity alone -- some non-profits. I think that you're somewhat annoyed at the loss of $120, and expect that your actions would somehow be universalized. If you contribute $n, then so will everyone else. And that isn't reasonable.
Second, I don't use Mandrake (I prefer Red Hat). However, Mandrake has their *own* debt to the community. Their product is mostly based on packaging -- a relatively cheap task. They are freely provided with huge amounts of software to make money with. I have contributed code and expertise to a number of software packages that are included in the Mandrake distribution. Why should I also be expected to pay Mandrake money, on top of all this? I'm sorry if it's difficult for Mandrake to find a good business model to work with open source -- but it's their responsibility to do so, not ours. I believe that one can be had without the need to beg OSS folks to do foo or not to do bar. RH is in no financial trouble, unlike RH. IBM has already made its Linux investment back and more.
Third, Mandrake has made a decision to make ISOs available. I do not believe that they have clauses preventing redistribution. Their Mandrake Club product is providing a service -- namely, a fast download site to obtain Mandrake. Their service has been made somewhat obsolete by recent technological developments -- the design of BitTorrent, which makes distribution of large files much more feasible and affordable. If they wanted to, they *could* limit reproduction of large chunks of their product. They do not need to have a GPLed installer, for instance. This would allow folks to redistribute source packages, but not copy full ISOs. However, for various reasons (including maintaining community goodwill -- as evidenced by Caldera, extremely important with open source software), they have decided to allow reproduction. I have no compuctions about taking them up on their offer. They were not required to make that offer.
Again, I would like to point out -- Mandrake is a Linux company. This does not equate to "eating children", however. Let us assume your worst case scenerio -- that Mandrake goes under as a result of this. Red Hat is doing well, and Debian is happily motoring along with no commercial backing (I don't know about other distributions, though I don't know of anything other than SuSE that have had financial problems.) Linux and Linux distributions will march on, no matter what, even if Mandrake falls. Linux is here to stay.
May we never see th
Where do you get your zany ideas about 'the average slashdotter'? I need references as to who broke into computers, fucked shit up, and had slashdotters crying foul.
If you're talking about Mr. Mitnick, he never fucked anything up, he just made some archival backups of some data he wasn't supposed to see.
Also I don't see too many advocates of piracy. People are pirating music for a number of reasons. The absurd price of cd's is one, the unavailability of online music stores is two, the local unavailability of hard copies of music is three..there are just so many reasons behind it. If the record industry hadn't been sleeping for the last 5 years we would probably have a decent iTunes type online store years ago. Regardless, there aren't many outspoken piracy advocates; on the contrary, I read alot more posts from people to the effect that they'd buy more music if it was offered to them at a reasonable price, and that's the reason iTunes exploded like it did.
Seems like you're a new guy here despite your user number, because you wasted alot of time responding to AC's that were trolling you, time after time. Like the saying goes, don't feed the trolls.
Usually, big corporation does not have voluntarily an illegal comportement. Well, not really anyway.
"So, in fact, we should negociate. Yeah, I know, but I didn't have time to bother, I was trying to be first in the market, now we can clean up the situation. "
"And I know the trademark is registered, but as long as they don't sue... and when they sue, we just change it, using the opportunity to communicate with customer how we are different and best."
All that is business as usual. It is not (for non-geeks) dishonest. After the fact, if there is a problem, we can negociate. And you can slap my wrist.
Now, with the GPL, there is no possible negociation. So it is very difficult for PHB to manage business with GPL products. They lack habits. Managing is often knowing how too far you can go. With GPL, they cannot negociate, and they are lost.
So the article does not make sense for rationnal geeks, but the GPL and the reactions does not make sense either for PHB.
I already know what a bunch of hypocrites the editors and many of the readers of Slashdot are.
Not all 70,000+ of us though. I personally think the RIAA, MPAA and any other *AA are perfectly allowed to enforce their copyrights as they see fit. I may sometimes take issue with their methods (Tarring all P2P networks with the same brush is a dirty trick, and distributing "Education Kits" to school kids is just silly) but they're quite welcome to protect what is theirs.
Same as the FSF.
While we're on the subject, I find it amusing that Daniel Lyons still seems to have trouble grasping rhe basic idea behind the GPL and still continues to complain that the FSF is somehow wrong to enforce the clauses which require derivitive works to be released. I'm not sure what Daniel thinks the GPL actually is, given that being viral is pretty much the entire point.
As far as they knew, they were using Kazzaa like a service that they paid for.
Oh please, ignorance is no excuse. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what the legal maximum blood alchohol level is for operating a motor vehical, nor can I tell you how much alcohol there is any given drink. So it is O.K to down ten pints of lager and drive myself home?
Fuck speed limits, I say we ban SUV's before they kill more people in side or head-on collisions. Here in Dallas, this year, there have been at least 12 deaths attributed to SUV's and their drivers falling asleep at the wheel, careening over a few lanes of traffic, and OWNING another car full of victims. When your standard Toyota gets hit by a monster truck that weighs 3x as much doing 70mph on the highway, you're dead.
She's not yet dead, unfortunately. And even if FFII's slogan is "Copyrights yes, patents no", this doesn't mean that we are for abuse of said copyrights!
"So why is it ok for the FSF to protect their copyrights and not ok for the RIAA and MPAA?"
Concept: Because FSF is protecting us FROM copyrighting, silly.
And you know very well the difference between "their" and RIIA's MPAA's possession of something, silly.
According to you the Bill of Rights is "hypocritical" because it's LAW, the same stuff as might enthrone feudal hereditary aristocracy and chattel slavery.
So if a corporate entity is harmed, but individuals including those that form the corporate entities are not harmed, then the harm is inconsequential.
Wrong, you moron. If a corporation is harmed, then people's pension funds are harmed. If a corporation is harmed people are put out of work. If a corporation is harmed, the economy as a whole takes a hit.
Jesus, go take a fucking Economics class, will you?
So for instance, the argument applied to the RIAA is that they are exploiting their concentrated power to create perversions of law that support a dying business model while stifling newer business models that would benefit the broad landscape of both artists and consumers.
Oh, lord. Shouldn't you be out chanting something vapid but catchy in front of a WTO meeting or something? Something about our oppressed brothers... blah blah blah?
You can make a tape off a radio, is that moral and/or legal?
Depends on why you're doing it. If you're doing it for your own personal enjoyment, then yeah, it's both moral and legal.
You can make a cd off a radio, is that moral and/or legal?
Ditto.
If you own cd2 is it moral and/or legal?
Yes, both.
If you do not own cd2 is it moral and/or legal?
No, neither.
If you have a song in your head, is that a recording?
No, obviously not.
At what point is a recording different then the original?
When it is not the original. (Are you deliberately being obtuse, or what? These aren't complex questions you're asking. They're grade-school-level stuff.)
When you copy onto another medium?
Yes.
What if the medium is into memory
RAM is not a medium.
What if the medium is a memory stick, that get's transferred to another computer.
Not okay. Using a program on two computers is (almost always) in violation of the license.
What about networking.
Not okay. Using a program on two computers is (almost always) in violation of the license.
My point in all these questions is that copyright seems to be fairly straightforward until you get to intellectual property, which has no equivilent in nature.
Intellectual property does have "an equivalent in nature." Go take an anthropology class. Primitive peoples had rules about the use of songs and stories. Among the Haida, it was a civil violation (to use an analogy) to sing a song owned by another family, punishable by confiscation of property. Among the Australian aborigines, it was a crime, punishable by a variety of means up to and including death.
Besides, all of the questions you asked are entirely straightforward, despite your laughable attempts to obfuscate them by focusing on the details rather than the truths.
By afixing copyright to IP you are trying to change the way things work, similar to inacting a law stating that the value of pi is 3.
Copyright, like all IP law, is merely a civil acknowledgment of the value of creative works and a protection through law of the rights of the creator. It's not any more artificial than any other type of property.
In my view copyright on IP is very limiting, like legistating thought.
Copyright has no impact on thought. Only on your actions. Please stick to the facts here.
How has the world changed because of copyright of IP?
Well, let's see. Prior to 1710, the world was made up of a few squabbling empires and vast tracts of uncivilized nothingness. Today, we've put men on the moon, we're curing diseases left and right, and the global standard of living has skyrocketed to literally unheard of levels.
Seems to me the world has changed for the better.
Think of how Napster was able to energize the music industry.
Napster didn't energize anything but the lawyers.
People were buying CD's more then ever.
Overall CD sales have dropped 25 percent since the approximate time that Napster sprung up.
Do I support the idea that if music were freely available, we would have more live bands, more variety of music and a stronger music industry. Yes!
If music were freely available, you would have no music at all. The only reason we have music is the same as the only reason we have anything else: the profit motive.
If you want free music, buy a guitar.
Get an account for such long posts, AC.
No.
An idea is an intangible that can be replicated for no cost, and cannot be owned in any real sense, but for which the originator is currently granted a temporary monopoly that he can then choose how to license.
I don't know what kind of world you're living in, but it's sure very different from mine. You see, in my world, ideas are subject to scarcity, too. See, because I have it, and you don't. And that thing about "replicated at no cost?" Bollocks. Please cite me one example of anything that can be replicated at truly "no cost."
YOU can choose the usual MineMineMine!(C) license, and someone else can choose the more natural share-alike GPL.
A normal software license says, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is yours."
The GPL says, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine."
Which one of these is more reasonable and fair again? I keep forgetting.
Also, the punishment for this copyright infringement was really disporportionate to the 'crime'
That pretty well sums it up as to why people despise the RIAA sue-everyone approach. They're applying laws designed to tackle heavy-duty pirating for profit (think mafia / yakuza) to individuals. Those penalties were designed to be severe enough to put a criminal organization on the rocks.
There are only a few legitimate uses of music sharing:
- getting digital copies of music that you already own
- sampling new music
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
I read alot more posts from people to the effect that they'd buy more music if it was offered to them at a reasonable price, and that's the reason iTunes exploded like it did.
Saying it's not a "reasonable price" and using that as justification for piracy means that they advocate piracy in this situation. I don't care if they would buy it, they should buy it, or they should go and find free (as in freely distributed, not pirated) music.
evil adrian
"I just think people who attack the RIAA and defend the FSF for enforcing copyright are hypocrites."
It apples and oranges. People are attacking the RIAA because they're going after individuals who aren't breaking copyright for profit, rather people who are sharing in a way that could be considered a moral grey area.
You don't see those outcries if the RIAA breaks a piracy ring and/or a producer of counterfeit CDs. That is solid copyright infringement, especially since it is for profit. No grey area there.
You must be aware of the difference, even if you're fully in support of the corporates.
After reading the Vonage v. MPUC ruling, it's clear that the judge made his ruling based on the "clear intent" of the congress to seperate information services from telecommunications services. The former being of the type which congress clearly wishes to remain regulation free, and the latter of the type which congress enforces regulation.
But this ruling is only as strong as congressional intent. MPUC (and for that matter any PUC) and all the LECs are going to start lobbying congress to change their intent w.r.t. VoIP. All that need happen is that congress clearly state that they did not intend to include VoIP as an information service and this ruling is moot.
Call, write, email your congress critters today. Do it now. Remind them that they should keep regulation to a minimum only in areas where "full competition has emerged" (quoting the ruling).
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
My point is that under communism I would be forced to distribute my work. I as a developer choose to license my work under the GPL and the payment I receive in return is that I know that whoever modifies it will have to respect my licensing wishes.
Since I choose the license under which I sell my product I view it as capitalism. After all no one has to buy my product by accepting the license.
What, now I have to upload to download to get a Linux distro? Get a fuxing grip Timothy.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
Morons...
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
No, the previous post was right, and you are wrong here. You may the first to express a new idea, but once it is expressed it cannot be stopped. You can claim to "own" it, and the laws allow only you to exploit for a limited time, but you cannot take your idea back from somebody else. The idea may inspire others, and forcing them to keep their applications of your idea, or their own derivative ideas, under wraps for many years is counter-productive to the goal of progress.
The "limited time" part is to provide some incentive for you to exploit your ideas, thereby making them publically expressed. The point is to balance this incentive for expressing ideas (monopoly) with the overall good of progress (allowing others to use your ideas). The GPL is essentially the same -- providing an incentive for you to express your ideas and promoting progress by allowing others to use and modify them. It's just that the incentive is different. Instead of a time limited monopoly to exploit, you get to exploit everybody else's ideas for your own use. This means there doesn't have to be a limited time monopoly, and hence progress can move faster.
Really, the argument about GPL versus standard licensing is which incentive (time limited monopoly versus exploiting others' ideas) is more attractive to you.
The GPL says, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine."
No, the GPL says, "What's mine is mine but everyone can use it, and what's yours (derived from mine) is yours but everyone can use it." In terms of fairness, the GPL and standard proprietary licenses are the same. In terms of what's good for progress and society in general, IMHO the GPL wins hands down because it promotes progress at a faster rate.
Lessee....
And the list goes on.
There are some vast differences to the approach and intent between these two organizations. Add to that the fact that the FSF copyright issues are about giving MORE rights to people than copyright allows, and the RIAA is about taking AWAY rights that copyright gives.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
Interesting to note that Forbes.com is run on a FreeBSD box. Silly capitalists.
I think that people that want to totally abolish software licenses are crackpots. They, like most zealots, totally ignore the ramifications of their ideology. In order for a capitalist economy to thrive, you have to have stuff to sell, and people to sell it to. Like you, I need to feed my family, and I do it as a developer.
Now that that is out of the way, here's my view on the subject, for what it's worth.
Infrastructure (like OS's, protocols, etc) should be open. By keeping them open, you ensure interoperability, which breeds competition. These open infrastructure components can then be used as the foundation for constructing useful applications. I think this more moderate approach gives the best of both worlds. Everybody is free to use the foundation, which stays open, and you can layer applications that add value and sell them.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
Do you understand GPL, OSS?
Does Mandrake forbid (in the remote case they could) distribution?
In other words: what is your point?
If Mandrake can't come with a way to survive as a distributor of free software that is not my problem.
I am entitled to my copy of software if they decide to distribute it (which they do). There are other companies that are wiser and either become a non profit or sell services around the product.
As long as the software is out ther, because it is GPLed I am entitled to my damn copy. That is the whole bloody point.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's only second order effects that justify IP protection, i.e. the fact that we want IP producers to have an incentive to produce more (and to be guided my the market as to what kind of IP the produce).
Stephan
And where, pray tell, should they find such free music? Napster? No, that has been shut down long ago buy the copyright goons. Both the illegal and the legal content.
Kazaa? Still running, but you run the risk of falsely being accused by the copyright goons. Yes, you will eventually succeed in proving that all the songs you downloaded were legal, but this will only be a victory for your lawyer (who will be richer), not for you (who will be much poorer). Y'a know, in copyright matters, it's guilty until proven innocent, not the other way round!
There are plenty of computer companies around. The local guys put a white box together, the big guys have some stuff custom made. In the end, what you get is a box that, for the most part, does pretty much the same thing as any other box. You could shop on price, but you'll probably find that most vendors' prices are pretty close to the same. You could shop for features, but again, with a few exceptions, for a given price, you get pretty much the same thing.
Dell can add some gee-whiz gizmo to a system, but Compaq can do the same thing. Even your local computer shop can do that, too.
You could say that it is not possible for some part of a computer to be exploited by a company. I suppose that's true - no one company has a monopoly on, say, ATI video cards. But I think that you'll see that successful commodity-based companies find a way to add value to the product that goes beyond the actual deliverable. Generally, that value is service. It comes in the form of reliability, customer relations, training, that sort of thing. Dell, for instance, sells a ton of computers, but they also make a bundle from services.
Successful Open Source companies do the same thing. RedHat doesn't make much on selling Linux directly - they aren't going to sell the consumer version in the stores anymore. But they have a good revenue stream for services.
Actually, I'm not sure that I disagree with you. In fact, I probably don't, except that I do think that GPL'd software can be fit for business, if that business takes the approach that GPL'd software is a commodity and the profit must be made from adding some value to the commodity in a way that is better than that of other companies. Thus, what you really have is a service company that provides the software essentially for free, but charges for the extras.
-h-
You may the first to express a new idea, but once it is expressed it cannot be stopped.
I know how to make chocolate mousse. Do you? Even if I told you how, would you know? No, of course not.
I know how to write a Cocoa application to do (highly specific task that's none of your business here). Do you? Even if I told you how, would you know? Even if I showed you the source code, would you know?
No.
We're not talking about ideas like freedom or equality or that shoes are a good way to keep your feet dry. We're talking about intangible property. Which is just as subject to scarcity as any real property.
The "limited time" part is to provide some incentive for you to exploit your ideas, thereby making them publically expressed.
You have a tyro's understanding of the social philosophy behind property rights. No offense, but I'm completely uninterested in educating you. Go read a book or something.
No, the GPL says, "What's mine is mine but everyone can use it, and what's yours (derived from mine) is yours but everyone can use it."
The concept of ownership has no meaning if it's divorced from the concept of property rights. If you take away my property rights, saying that I own a thing is just semantic bullshit.
the GPL wins hands down because it promotes progress at a faster rate.
That statement is unproven. In fact, I'd argue that the opposite has been proven. Look at the real progress in computing over the past ten years. Where has it come from? GNU? No. It's come from companies like Apple and Microsoft (yes, believe it or not) and IBM and SGI and DEC/Compaq/HP/whatever and Cisco and so forth and so on.
Progress happens only when there's a profit motive. We have five thousand years of recorded history that demonstrates this. Remove the profit motive, and the progress doesn't merely grind to a halt. It positively crashes and burns.
Even if all software were Open Source, and even if you would publish your own specialised software as Open Source, you'd still earn your money for customisation, i.e. for adding customer-specific extensions, etc.
Unfortunately the problem with this idea is that it fails as a business model. Yes, a few have been successful with this model, but as a general rule it just doesn't work. Given the chance, most companies will choose to do the customization work on open source software themselves. It is a lot of work to push the paperwork for such a small term contract. For most cases it is easier, cheaper, and quicker to just do the customization internally. [This has been my personal experience.]
Now if you throw in the $1/hour software rates in developing tech countries such as India and China the whole "make money on customization" model falls apart. I can't compete with that price. Out sourcing to India and China is just another nail in the coffin for this already ill fated customization revenue model.
What is the solution? I don't know. Do not develop free software with the hope of making money on the customization of it. If you are going to do free software then you better have a different revenue model.
I found it paticularly funny that the background of a TV interview with one of Forbes' editors during their '400 richest Americans' show, included the bargain basement Apple 'eMac'. Even a kid like Snow (Cdn rapper) has the good sense to rent a decent car to put in his video.
From a purely economic point of view, free copying, wether of music or of software, is a good thing.
Nope. The devaluation of labor and the products of labor are never good things.
The value that is lost by the cooperations is regained by the people that get free copies.
Nope. Once a thing has been illegally copied, the value that it had disappears. It can no longer fetch a price on the open market, so it no longer has value economically speaking. Piracy destroys economic value.
And since more people get copies if they are cheaper, the economy comes out on top.
Uh? That made zero sense.
In other words, if GE stops buying licenses for Word, but uses OpenOffice instead, Microsoft loses value, but GE gains it.
What does that have to do with piracy?
It's only second order effects that justify IP protection
Nope.
I renew my sentiment: go take a fucking Economics class.
Me too! We need a good dose of communism (read "community").
I'm as big a fan of Capitalism and the American way as the next guy, but man 'o man, let's shelve it.
I've tried to study economics, game theory, politics. I've read everything from the Communist Manifesto and Chomsky to Kissinger and Friedman. And man, those are some smart people, and I would love to see them in a celebrity death-match.
But you know? When it comes to economics or business practices.. nobody knows anything for sure. Chomsky said it best:
He goes on to talk about how economics is, and always has been used as a weapon in class struggles, and really, I think that's right. Look at the Forbes article demonstrates this very well. The economics of Microsoft, and yes, the tactics of the FSF are further examples.
Capitalism as an ideology is fine, just so long as it does good things. Does it make people thrifty and hard working? Then keep it. Does it make people selfish and craven? Throw it away.
Same with Communism. Does it help people work together? Keep it. Does it discourage free thought and experimentation? Throw it away.
Free Software is good, right now, because it's helping us break free of a horrible selfishness that we see exemplified in companies like Microsoft (how selfish? Real selfish). In our lives, we have a hard time being unselfish, since we live in a mechanism of selfishness.. being unselfish means tempting the reaper.. there's just not much room in our lives for it.
That's why we need Free Software right now. We need to take the visceral medium of the Internet and Computers and experiment with what would otherwise be a vast waste of time. Free Software when Stallman started was only really useful at a utility level. As Stallman says, he was just trying to fix a printer problem.
What that experiment has grown to, though, is a real potential to start working together again. Given that the Internet is global, that has deep implications. Free, Open Software may become Free, Open *. We've just gotta keep on nurturing it.
Will Free, Open * remain good? Probably not... but I doubt we'll see it in our lifetimes. But really, keep it while it's good, throw it away when it's not. Focus on the good, not the ideology.
[...]
Stephan
Hello anonymous coward. I see you answering everyone. :)
>>You can make a tape off a radio, is that moral and/or legal?
>Depends on why you're doing it. If you're doing it for your own personal enjoyment, then yeah, it's both moral and legal.
It's one action. It cannot be both moral and legal, and inmoral and illegal.
>>You can make a cd off a radio, is that moral and/or legal?
>Ditto.
Ditto.
>>If you own cd2 is it moral and/or legal?
>Yes, both.
I agree.
>>If you do not own cd2 is it moral and/or legal?
>No, neither.
Why is that? (You are mistaken).
>>If you have a song in your head, is that a recording?
>>No, obviously not.
Actually it is. Your memory is the medium. It just isn't viewed as one by the copyright laws.
>>At what point is a recording different then the original?
>When it is not the original. (Are you deliberately being obtuse, or what? These aren't complex questions you're asking. They're grade-school-level stuff.)
Yes I'm being deliberately obtuse, and your answer shows why. Every recording is different then the original. It's on different atoms. At somepoint, you must decide that the recording is a new piece of work, or is the same piece of work. As it cannot be the same, (different atoms) then it must be new.
>>When you copy onto another medium?
>Yes.
So we agree. A copy onto another medium isn't a copy of the original.
>>What if the medium is into memory
>RAM is not a medium.
Are you sure about that? (You are wrong).
>>What if the medium is a memory stick, that get's transferred to another computer.
>Not okay. Using a program on two computers is (almost always) in violation of the license.
You see how this get's tricky. In one question you say that RAM isn't a medium, but in the next you say it is.
When you play a game, the game get's loaded into memory (1st copy), get's swapped out to the disk (2nd copy) get's moved through the cpu (3rd copy) and get's represented on the screen(4th copy).
You can honestly say that a 4 copies are the same game, yet you can also honestly say they are totally different.
>>What about networking.
>>Not okay. Using a program on two computers is (almost always) in violation of the license.
Even when only one copy is used? Is it a copyright violation (copying into the 2'nd computer's memory) or a license violation. I'm talking about copyright which isn't the same thing.
>>My point in all these questions is that copyright seems to be fairly straightforward until you get to intellectual property, which has no equivilent in nature.
Intellectual property does have "an equivalent in nature." Go take an anthropology class. Primitive peoples had rules about the use of songs and stories. Among the Haida, it was a civil violation (to use an analogy) to sing a song owned by another family, punishable by confiscation of property. Among the Australian aborigines, it was a crime, punishable by a variety of means up to and including death.
Interesting. But what I was refering to was physical laws. Like the law of gravity.
>Besides, all of the questions you asked are entirely straightforward, despite your laughable attempts to obfuscate them by focusing on the details rather than the truths.
I'm glad I made you laugh. My questions were honest questions, that have bothered me for sometime, my conclusions (that copyright is a stupid idea) are different then yours. I deal with the details of everyday life. If you don't look at the details then you miss the truths.
>>By afixing copyright to IP you are trying to change the way things work, similar to inacting a law stating that the value of pi is 3.
>Copyright, like all IP law, is merely a civil acknowledgment of the value of c
Try to remember that there are a bunch of different people here with lots of different mindsets.
You note responses one way, but there are differing opinions on the matter here... Personally I only get involved or upset when they abuse the law, ie trampling on personal rights. They might not be doing it to me, but if they are allowed to then it's only a matter of time before someone starts doing it to me...
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Yeah, might as well outlaw that toyota to, ever seen what one of them does to a dog or pedestrian?
Since 12 people screwed up I don't think that any of the 4-6 million people there should be allowed to drive... Grin....
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Your logic is faulty -- you don't need peer-to-peer to find free music.
Start at mp3.com, or even google!
evil adrian
The RIAA would also shut google down, if they only could! And this new IPE EU directive may just be what they need to pull this off!
I realize your response was tongue-in-cheek, however, SUV's have been proven time and again that they are more dangerous to other cars on the road. Most minor accidents involving SUV's result in death. That's not safety. It's gotten so bad that other manufacturers like Subaru, Honda, etc. have felt the need to re-engineer their cars to make them survive side collisions better. Lots of companies have built side-impact beams into their vehicles now, along with side curtain airbags, etc. My wife's new Accord coupe has about 8 airbags in various places. Makes us feel more comfortable about sharing the road with the titans of excess.
OK, now I get it. You're trolling, not serious. The obvious answer is yes. Teaching somebody something does end up with them knowing how to do it.
We're talking about intangible property.
No, we're talking about algorithms, ideas, recipes, plans. As a simple example, today we were looking for an algorithm to make random numbers with a Gaussian distribution from random numbers with a uniform distrubution. Sure enough, we found such an algorithm in some code that someone made available online. Just the algorithm would have done, but they actually had written out the source code. Saved us a lot of time figuring it out, writing it, and debugging it. Made us progress to our final product a lot quicker.
You have a tyro's understanding of the social philosophy behind property rights. No offense, but I'm completely uninterested in educating you. Go read a book or something.
This convinced me you're trolling, it's a standard ploy, "You're wrong, but I'm not going to explain why, go figure it out yourself." In other words, I'm right and you can't come up with a valid argument. See, I could say the exact same thing to you, that you should educate yourself because you are ignorant. It's a pointless exchange because it doesn't go anywhere.
Look at the real progress in computing over the past ten years.
First, most progress in computing in the last ten years has arguably come from researchers whose findings are largely in the public domain. Sure, many companies have applied this research in their products, but that doesn't mean they created it.
And yes, much progress has been made by the companies themselves, but you confuse quantity with efficiency. If 100 people push a box up a hill it will get there faster than 1 person pushing it on a wheeled cart, but it certainly isn't a more efficient (or better) way. There is significantly more work being done using proprietary development, because it is the traditional business model, than through open source or shared development, so obviously you'd expect to see significant progress from it. Perhaps we'd see even more progress faster if everyone switched to a shared development model.
Progress happens only when there's a profit motive. We have five thousand years of recorded history that demonstrates this.
Troll, troll, troll. Most of the progress in civilization has been shared community work for everyone's benefit. The wheel wasn't pattented by it's inventor. Neither was the development of farming, irrigation, houses, roads, schools, mathematics, language, writing, astronomy, art, and most other developments over the last 5000 years. Only in the last 100-200 years have we seen significant profit-driven protectionism of ideas, and at first it was fair -- because of the limited time involved. Now the balance has passed the point of usefulness and is an impedance to progress.
Please, if you are going to troll, put a little more effort into at least trying to make your arguments sound like they make sense.
Does astroturfing pay well? Is the pay dependant on how convincing you sound? Is there a commission if you get your posts modded up? A penalty if they get modded down?
Oh, please. Don't just make statements, back them up with some evidence!
evil adrian
Were you born stupid, or did your mother drop you?
Fuck you, you racist!
For someone with such a tone of righteousness in their post, you need to learn some basic grammar, you twatwaffle.
Dumb-ass loser. "address his point rationally" Please. Get a brain.