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We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin
tres3 writes "Wired magazine has an excellent four page article discussing Brazil's new approach to Intellectual Property rights. It discusses everything from battling with the international pharmaceutical industries, to song sampling, to the national adoption of Linux. Richard Stallman
stated that India's political commitment to free software is second only to Brazil's after attending a weeklong free software teach-in for members of the Brazilian national congress, where 161 out of 594 members of congress, from a broad range of parties, had signed up with the free software caucus - making it one of the largest caucuses in the Brazilian government."
Linux is cheaper, i really don't think there's any more to it.
Take India, for example. While they may have pop singers and the like who are enormously popular domestically, the global market for such music doesn't even begin to approach that of America's. Or technology: most of India's brightest minds emigrate to the United States, where they are educated and either join universities or private industry here to continue generating IP.
It's a lot easier to take that kind of stand on IP (I.E. that it's not worth protecting) when you have nothing of your own to protect and everything to take.
to get into LinuxCon? Otherwise guys who talk into their sleeves escort you to the door.
Or maybe I'm thinking of something else...
--Coming up with something clever... please wait...
Wow, a spelling error that still makes sense on a completely different level.
The GPL utilizes copyright law, so what do you mean by "respect the copyrights of the developers"?
:)
And i have no problem respecting patients of developers
Why do I keep typing pythong?
how does free software diss the copyrights of its authors?
I suppose that I'd also gush over the lemony OpenSource goodness of my hosts, particularly if they flew me to Rio for a week.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
american corporations/government will never let something free like linux to take such a market-share that it would shut microsoft down. same thing with telco companies. there are such great alternatives out there. VOIP, way better internet alternatives to shitty 3MB cable (japan has 100MB fiber to house) american corporations hold us back, i think it's time we FIGHT! P.S. i live in america, and actually work for fed govt.
President Bush Supporter
is this.
Democratizing knowledge so that anyone/everyone can benefit.
I expect this trend wil continue to emerge.
"Poorer" countries will be the main adopter of Open Source. It will be cheaper; and it will encourage creativity and growth of IT.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
This should give Brazil's economy a big boost, too. Let's just hope that the usual suspects don't manage to undo all the progress in a few years. This should be popular with the populists, so maybe they won't screw it up. That still leaves the fascists and the socialists and the international corps to work to screw it up, unfortunately.
I predict that the most effective opposition will come from the U.S. and the E.U. governments. I hope Brazil stands up to them; I'd really like to be able to move South for economic opportunity!
See what I've been reading.
This is about freedom of information, freedom of ideas. Linux is a part of that in that embodies freedom in software, but to only look at Linux is to miss the broader context.
There is no marginal cost to the sharing of digital or intellectual content, beyond the cost of transmission and storage. This fight is about taking ideas out of the hands of a few powerful entities with a vested interest in maintaining their power, and shifting it to everyone.
The world will benefit. The fucked nature of the existing system is no better demonstrated than in the US - where you'd think that having all the power would make life better. But medicine is more expensive there than in almost any other Western country.
-- james
PS please don't start feeding me bullshit about how you have to be paying more for drugs to support the companies. I cannot believe people actually tow this line. It's human health, for chrissakes
no problem. I'll respect your copyright for 25 years and your patent for 7 years.
anything more is bullshit and you know it.
I'm all for free software and cheap drugs, but we still need to respect the copyrights and patients of the developers.
Like the hell we do. It's one thing to acknowledge their contribution to the world - it's another to assume that there should be some kind of a god given right for personal monopolies - even when millions of people in Africa are dying of AIDS. Like cows to the slaughter, people just assume that because a bunch of people declare something a glorious free market property right - that it must be so. But really, do you own slaves?
Do you really listen to "Fiddy Cent"?
If you think that's bad, see this.
Dog names really are a stupid thing to be legislating, the choice of software is certainly not. Linux will (if its advocates are right) create jobs and save large amounts of taxpayer money. That could free resources to fight corruption and poverty.
Not to mention the frivolous bills being introduced
Dog Names
Seriously, what a waste of time!
not to flame but your post is incoherent.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
No, it's Brazil, so unless you're one of the Boys From there, it'd be:
Viva vitória!
Tenemus pyrobolos atqui jacimus cognitiones.
India's political commitment to free software is second only to Brazil's
Well, it stands to reason. In the Indain sub-continent (which includes Pakistan and Banglsdesh) where they have railed against high software prices for decades (and incidentally Pakistan produced the first virus - apparently aimed deliberately at foreigners who could afford to fly in to buy cheap copies of pirate software), then "Free and legal" is better than "Free, 'cos it's pirated"
"She's furniture with a pulse"
The 'under Linus' part especially.
Wired magazine has an excellent four page article discussing Brazil's new approach to Intellectual Property rigths. Discussing everything from battling with the international pharmacutical industries, to song sampling, to the national adoption of Linux. Richard Stallman stated that India's political commitment to free software is, second only to Brazil's after attending a weeklong free software teach-in for members of the Brazilian national congress, where 161 out of 594 members of congress, from a broad range of parties, had signed up with the free software caucus - making it one of the largest caucuses in the Brazilian government. Later that week Stallman donned a robe and a halo made out of a compact disc and declared himself "Saint IGNUcius of the Church of Emacs" but was surprised to be upstaged when Gilberto Gil, Brazil's newly appointed minister of culture, said: "this whole process that led to the computer, to the personal computer, to Silicon Valley, this extraordinary degree of cognition that arose from the intersection of math and design and the crystallographic structures of quartz was made possible by acid trips." It even has its fair share of MS bashing for those whose goal in life it is.
The story was pending for over five hours. I think they were waiting for someone to submit one that didn't equate drug use to computers! I was merely quoting the Brazilian Culture Minister (p. 4). Just a quick FYI.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
3 MB cable is "shitty"?
VoIP is a priori desirable?
no capitalizaion?
vague references to 'corporations'?
works for the State?
All the symptoms of someone who never created anything or moved out of his parents' basement.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
By backing Linux, they are respecting copyright and 'intellectual property' rights. When the average monthly salary of the average person in Brazil is about $240, I'd say they don't have much choice in the matter. As for patients, patents, and cheap drugs, I won't go into it. That's a whole different flame war regarding life or death situations which is getting off topic.
Slashdot trolling phenomena
It's a good thing that developing nations are not overrun with banks of lawyers and corporate-puppet politicians out to abuse the legal system" in order to "enforce IP rights" and essentially abuse the legal system. Either that, or they have different more important priorities to take care of rather than pursue extreme protectionism based on artificially created property, like's happening in the developed countries.
Whatever the case is, it's good to see *somebody* take a sane stand on the issue of Shared Knowledge, which has been that way for a few thousand years in human history now.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
it is a race to the bottom on cost. Yes their are benefits like Walmart to the pocketbook but long term are they good?? I use the most expensive platform on earth and the most closed (ie hardware, software), Apple's Macintosh and find it to be far more useful than Linux. The main problem I have is Linux doesn't innovate, it copies what Apple and MS do so it is always in catch up mode. One can't make money doing that unless you rape people on the service contracts....
Which was exactly what America did when most of the IP was coming from the "Old World". Back in those days, English authors were up in arms about the blatent and widespread piracy of English books in America because of lax IP laws and enforcement. It was only after America started producing stuff on its own that it became an IP Nazi. India et al. are only doing to America what America did to the Old World when it was still young and developing.
Recent reports have Brazil as the world's #1 hardware pirate nation, due to high tarrifs. Maybe the software caucus should get together and do something about the taxes on hardware which raise the cost of a system by 50%. You thought the MS tax was bad...
Lasers Controlled Games!
A quick google for murder rates shows that the Brazil's murder rate is about the same as the US's (Both around 5.6 per per 100,000 in 2002)
Why the straw man tactics?
Why do I keep typing pythong?
Many of these comments are weak. It's not just about getting free stuff, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Brazil exports very little IP. It's about big, important, multinational patent holders playing fair. Notice that Roche sat on their patent throne until Brazil threatened to make their own drugs. Notice that they were able to sell the stuff at *less than half the original price* when Brazil actually held good on the threat. Is this unlike Microsoft's behaviour? I think not. They crank up the prices of their OS and Office constantly, even though they are raking in the dough - that is until emerging markets are unwilling to put up with it. All of a sudden code starts to be released, discount editions are offered, and cooperation with foreign governments begins. And guess what? They are still raking in the dough. Who would have thunk? Just because Americans are willing to put up monopolies, inflated prices, and unfair patents doesn't make it right. Maybe it's time to learn something from the third world.
which all sums up to::
Fatter Wallet
Is the above really flamebait? I think this person makes an understandable point. A LOT of people aren't going to see Open Source as Open Source code, they will see it as free of cost.
C'mon, man, Richard Stallman is like the *next word* in that paragraph! Show some respect!
"And India is known for having tons of programmers. I'm sure programmers never produce any intellectual property at all."
And if Slashdotters have their way, they never will.
Damn-- who gave Bill Gates mod points...it's Friday people
and the reaon for this, is that they are no corpoarate juggernaut, yet.
Looking at the country "official" telecom provider, the services sucks, costly and progress&competition is hindered by "policies".
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
And then India's turn comes, and so forth and so on. Weeee! Gotta love "eye for an eye" morality.
I find myself caught between two desires. I love the OSC, what it stands for, and the desire to see Microsofts monopoly crumble. On the other hand, I love that I live in a country where I don't get paid $240 a month for the work I do, and I realize that Microsoft and the other companies that hold patents on drugs, and other exportable goods, bring in the money to keep the US employees... well... employed. Inherently I loath the restrictions of big companies on what I want to do with goods I've purchased... for example -- on my ability to create an MP3 from a CD that I purchased. Or rip a DVD to have on my computer in digital format instead of hard copy... if for no other reason, than because I choose to. When it comes to health care, and what hurts people, I believe in, and support, Brazils move to 'bite their thumbs' at big companies in defense of the Brazilian population. I just worry that things have gotten so far out of wack within the US in terms of patent, that people can be sued for coming up with the same idea in two different locations, and in two different ways, independently, and the person who gets to the patent office first wins... what mess. Sometimes I guess you just have to take a couple steps back from the nonsense, and use common sense instead.
How do the millions of people dying of AIDS have any claim whatsover to the drugs? The drugs that wouldn't have been there if your evil drug companies hadn't spent the $$ to make them? It's not like drugs fall from the sky and they're being hoarded, like diamonds or something. Without the drug companies you know what you have? NOT A FUCKING THING. With them, you get something, an infinite percent improvement. If you get some free, or some cheap, be grateful.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
in a corrupted country, more money=more corruption, not less.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
There is no marginal cost to the sharing of digital or intellectual content, beyond the cost of transmission and storage.
I will say this as simply as possible:
The cost of reproducing a digital asset is completely unrelated to the cost of creating the asset.
People who say otherwise have obviously never created anything worth selling. If I spend 100 hours to invent a new widget, I will probably make blueprints or some other form of diagram. I can make copies of those documents in a local copy shop for ~2 cents apiece. Does that mean my time spent creating the new widget is worth what I spend for the copies? That is absolutely ridiculous: for some reason people expect commercial entities to do their R&D for free and sell the result for the cost of media. I can't imagine how that begins to make sense to anyone.
This fight is about taking ideas out of the hands of a few powerful entities with a vested interest in maintaining their power, and shifting it to everyone.
Those "powerful entities" are the ones that created the intellectual property. Their "vested interest" is completely justified: designing and developing products is expensive, and compaines recoup that expense by - get this - selling the product.
Using lofty terms like "this fight" is silly, and the result of people expecting to get everything for free. Wake up, Sparky - some things actually cost money, and trying to spin your desire for zero-cost products as some sort of noble effort makes you look like ap spoiled child.
PS I am speaking here about commercial entities and products, not F/OSS (which should be obvious).
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
The project that started it all is called FUST, a nationwide initiative to connect schools to the Internet. The project, in its first release, required Microsoft Windows in all servers and clients (such preferences are irregular in Brazil, by the way; one should only specify features and technical specs, not brand names).
Microsoft, of course, was OK with being named the sole participant in the project and saw nothing wrong with it.
But the project was changed under the new government and now it requires open source (any open source software, not just Linux).
And now you see Microsoft going around saying how wrong it is for the government to leave them out of the party. It's rich!
However, they misrepresent the situation. They were not left out of the party. All they have to do is open (really open, not "share") the source of their OS (yes, they can continue to charge for it; free as in freedom, not price). FUST is not a Linux-only project.
Microsoft IS invited to join in. They won't, of course, because they can't meet the technical requirements, but that's their choice.
n/t
I forget what 8 was for.
That must have been Steve Guttenberg's finest role.
And when India's pop singers become wildly famous internationally, thus multiplying the available funds, a local influence aggregator will take interest in passing laws to "protect" them.
I forget what 8 was for.
brazil has average of 26 murders per 100000 people/year. The us on the other hand has about 11 per 100000
How do the millions of people dying of AIDS have any claim whatsover to the drugs? The drugs that wouldn't have been there if your evil drug companies hadn't spent the $$ to make them? It's not like drugs fall from the sky and they're being hoarded, like diamonds or something. Without the drug companies you know what you have? NOT A FUCKING THING. With them, you get something, an infinite percent improvement. If you get some free, or some cheap, be grateful.
Excuse me, but your glorious pharmacutical companies are making it impossible for researchers to collaberate on AIDS remedys because they want grab key patents and lock out competitors. In addition, they actively interfere with research on cheaper and simple remidies that could be even more beneficial - but can not be patented. This is not a glorious free market forces at all - it is bullshit, and people are FUCKING dying because of it. I don't owe the pharmacuticals a Goddam thing - But people have rights and deserve freedoms inspite of them not because it suits their profits.
In order to use M$, Brazil has to pay $$ (as in "USD"). And because Brazil does not (you inconsiderate clods...) have a convertable currency, it has to convert something tangible -- soybeans will do -- into $$. Since the marginal cost of reproducing open-source software is more or less zero, whereas the marginal cost of producing soybeans (or whatever) is decidedly greater than zero, it's an easy decision.
The US, in contrast, simply prints more dollars (figuratively -- actually we sell treasury bills) and, as long as other countries (read: China, Japan) accept those freshly printed dollars, we get stuff without necessarily having to generate a comparable amount of items (a.k.a. "trade deficit").
Nice deal, as long as it works. And it will work forever, won't it? Won't it???
Start practicing your Portuguese...
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
Sadly, most of the law proposals in Brazil have nothing to do with our real problems. There's a proposal to create a "de-homossexualitizer institution" to "help those who want to leave homosexuality" and such...
If you expect to use their products. It's easy to owe them nothing; never claim any of their property as yours. You can't both have and eat your cake.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
On the flip side, if through hard work and determination, I create something useful to others and attempt to make money from it in order to feed my family should you, who did nothing to bring about its creation, be allowed to simply take it from me without compensating me for my time and effort to do with as you please?
Yes I should, because I have a family to feed to, and your invention likely builds on zillions of things, experiences, and knowledge, that society gave you freely - now to turn arround and say they owe you a monopoly is bullshit. Not to mention that 90% of patents especially cover incremental improvements that were going to be invented anyhow with or without a monopoly. So basically, you're not benefiting society - you're just getting in the way of future innovation, why should you be rewarded for that?
Holy crap, the guy from Milli Vanelli is leading their Open Source movement! Or maybe he's just faking it.
I felt lucky and got a different conclusion.
Well, it seems like those Brazalians have more than just good nuts.
For those of you that use orkut (a free freinds networks from google, currently in beta), Brazil is nearly 61% of the total users worldwide, with the US at only around 12%.
Most of the users speak English well and are active in alot on software communities of a free, open-source nature.
I think that we in the US need to stop thinking so much about profit and start thinking about the real benefits of open-source and take advantage of those, as so many others have like Red Hat.
Or perhaps it was because it was a quote taken out of context: ..was made possible by acid trips." He laughs. "Or not only by acid trips but without the slightest doubt empowered by them.
"And Stallman was like, Wait a minute there, that's not quite the way it went," Gil recalls. "It freaked him a little to think I was associating the free software movement with the movement to legalize drugs."
But in fact, that wasn't quite the link Gil was making. He was suggesting that the free software movement and the '60s counterculture had a shared goal of transforming culture from the inside out. Gil talks a little crazy, sure, but he's no fool.
Democratizing knowledge so that anyone/everyone can benefit.
That's got to be the most asinine comment I've heard it a while.
Democracy is not about giving intellectual property rights of an (insert here: idea, song, book, etc.) to everyone.
Democracy is about giving everyone the chance to VOTE on how they will be RULED.
As for intellectual property, the idea is that A PERSON who DEVELOPS an IDEA can give it to EVERYONE.
Or THAT PERSON can RESTRICT IT to WHOMEVER they choose, be it a friend or a CUSTOMER.
That's the whole idea of PROPERTY in general.
If Brazil wants to create a means (or adopt a means) of allowing people TO GIVE away IDEAS, no problem.
But if Brazil wants to create a means (or adopt a means) TO SEIZE the IDEAS of UNWILLING PERSONS and give them to EVERYONE, then there's a big problem, and that's called CONFISCATION.
If you begin to confiscate IP and give it away without the approval of the originator of the IP, then you remove the monetary incentive for them to create. And you'll decrease the overall total creativity in a society. (see COMMUNISM, EFFECTS OF in Wickipedia or Google. Or read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand).
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Biopiracy, n. The smuggling of species of plants, animals and fungi, typically from tropical, 3rd-world countries to temperate, 1st-world ones, for the purpose of isolating substances which are then patented as inventions and levied as taxes on the same countries where the substances came from.
Yes, kids, it exists. You'll find it nowhere in US and European media because it's not convenient to anyone, but people are arrested regularly for it in international airports of developing nations for it (including the selfsame Brazil). The pharmaceutical industry isn't quite the paragon of correctness and hard effort you make them out to be.
Why is it that in the countries listed as most "restrictive" in terms of IP laws, that those that directly produce the least IP own the most and use/abuse the laws the most?
Take the US for example. While they have pop singers and the like enormously popular domestically AND internationally, their ownership of IP doesn't even begin to apporach that of the members corporations of RIAA and MPAA. Or technology: most of America's brightest minds take employment with large corporations and contininue to generate IP for the corporation, or have their IP taken from them ( Philo Farnsworth didn't get rich from inventing the modern television, but RCA sure got rich from his work).
It's a lot easier to take a stand on IP when you don't have to invent your own and have a crapload of money to buy it or take it from others.
I said marginal cost, not cost.
I asked for people not to pedal this bullshit about how you should be paying more to drug companies. The drug companies have a monopoly through the patent system - they can charge what they like, when market economics dictates they should be charging at marginal cost plus a reasonable profit margin.
In other words, you have a monopoly on a widget that everyone wants, you spent ten hours making it, and now you're charging $1000 a pop when it only costs you $10 to make. That's NOT how the system is supposed to work.
Well then how does F/OSS work then? Why does IBM get people working on Linux? Why is creative commons catching on?
You're incredibly noble, looking out for the interests of the drug companies. I'm sure they'll repay you for your loyalty next time you need a prescription.
I'm not a spoiled child - but these companies are run by spoiled children. Brazil is taking the fight to them, and I hope they win.
Did you even RTFA?
f/oss is the perfect example of why your logic is so flawed - IP is being passed around at it's marginal cost. FREE. And it's catching on.
That Brazilian language is Portuguese.
It's so easy to forget the original economic rationale for patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. The rationale has *little or nothing* to do with fair/deserved (or outrageous/undeserved, whatever the case may be!) compensation for the intellectual rights holders. It has *everything* to do with solving a fundamental economic problem with the provision of (nearly) public goods; goods with high initial/fixed costs and near-zero marginal costs.
Intellectual rights protections are about providing incentives for innovation and production. Perhaps it's fashionable to talk about "tropicalizing" (yes, I read TFA), but we should always ask what the incentive structure for innovation/production will look like when rights protections are changed. Perhaps there's a viable model of software development (open-source) outside traditional copyright law, but is there a viable model for producing books, music, movies, technological innovation, and all the other activities protected by IP laws?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
No, my logic is like saying: their property is theirs, not anyone else's.
My geo-metro is my property - a copy of it is not. In fact, please make a copy - I won't be violated. In fact, there are 10 million coppies, I am not violated. It is bullshit morality. As far as I'm concerned - 'the pharmacuticals' can have all the property they want, and I wouldn't care. But that's not what they're asking for - they are asking for controll over who can make replicas. That is NOT a property (repeat after me, the right to replicate is not a property ... repeat after me, the right to replicate is not a property) , and it is not even good for society, and I can prove it because it has all sorts of consequences that you seem to like blowing off - but other countries like brazil can not, because people are dying over it. And your assertion that cures would never be found anyhow, is bullshit.
From the article:
In 1556, not long after the Portuguese first set foot in Brazil, the Bishop Pero Fernandes Sardinha was shipwrecked on its shores and set about introducing the gospel of Christ to the native "heathens." The locals, impressed with the glorious civilization the bishop represented and eager to absorb it in its totality, promptly ate him.
Now, if only they had retained that attiude for Windows missionaries. =)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
So charge a lot for the first copy. Simple as that. You can even GPL it, just don't release the first copy until you get paid.
Our economy needs to change a little to accomodate such a system, but the current system is intolerably bad. Everyone who says it's impossible to make a living without copyright suffers from a serious deficit of imagination.
People don't expect to get stuff for free, they just don't expect to pay endlessly for stuff that's free to reproduce.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Thats YOUR definition of democracy.Not mine.
My definition is where everyone can participate. A VOTE is a CHOICE, and I do believe open source provides just that, CHOICE.
As for the rest of your comments, what in the world are you talking about.
I advocate the value of open source, where did I say or imply I support IP being stolen.
Oh wait, I just wasted 3 minutes replying a troll.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
And I guarantee you that if I go to the doctor right now with $random-ailment, they'll push some new, expensive, patented drug on me rather than an older alternative that'd probably work just as well. And they'll do that because the companies give them kick-backs.
I call BS. Can you back up this claim?
The seperation of doctor's offices from pharmacies is designed to make any
sort of direct kick-back impossible.
Doctors give out samples of the latest and greatest when they have them, but
when prescribing, they generally go over the options with the patients and then
prescribe what the patient is comfortable with. Many doctors (I'm
married to 4th year med student, so I have some opportunity to mingle with
practicing doctors) prefer to prescribe older and better understood drugs than
the latest and greatest (assuming there is a real choice).
*sigh* back to work...
The /. Ed's will also "wait out" a story, regardless of its import to the community (security news, etc), until a "suitable member" submits it. i've submitted before, once as AC, then as my main account, then a separate account (all different ip's, os, and browser...hell, one was from another country) - guess which one was chosen...even though it was a full 40 minutes behind the first and 15 behind the second?
Here's the kicker....submit the same thing in that manner, but change the news source...say, a webzine, then a real newspaper, then....oh i dunno, the NYT? You're goddamn right 10 out 10 times, the NYT will get posted...even if you submit it last.
Unfortunately this article, while interesting does not show the context of the series of articles in which this one appeared. The series was talking about Gilberto Gil and how he (and Brazil) have embraced the Creative Commons copyright licenses.
Creative Commons is based on a few simple principles, one of which being that new things are built from the past. Copying/stealing ideas and modifying or improving them is how we get new and better technology, art, and other things. Very little of what you see today is truely innovative and not based on anything prior.
The Linux pricetag isn't a marketing scheme (or at least wasn't Linus' intent originally). It's free because Linus (and others) wanted to share what a collective of people worked together to build, and invited others to help improve it. As mentioned by others, Apple does some innovation, but mostly they innovate by taking what exists and modifying it to look cool and be hip.
Apple didn't create the GUI interface, Xerox did - Apple stole it and MS stole it from Apple. Apple didn't create it's OS X core, they took the BSD kernel, tweaked it, and then slapped on a shiny UI. Don't get me wrong, I really like OS X and what Apple's done with a BSD kernel (especially after my own attempts at running FreeBSD) and a nicer UI than X. But I would not say I ever thought twice about owning a Mac prior to OS X - I didn't. They were ugly and underpowered without the ability to do true multitasking (much like Windows 3.1).
Finally, your analogy is weak in that WalMart is a large (multi?)national chain owned by a single, small group of people/stakeholders. Linux is an open, community-owned system that cannot easily be contributed to one person anymore. Yes, Linus is still in charge of what gets into the kernel, but he's not developing it all. He's not writing all the kernel modules for new devices and hardware.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
... if Julian Dibbell, author of this long winded article, is somehow realated to John Katz ?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Democracy is about giving everyone the chance to VOTE on how they will be RULED.
Right. So I gave a democratic choice to the ants in my kitchen. If they wanted me to be their absolute ruler, they should walk to the right, otherwise they should turn to the left. Then I dropped some sugar on the right side.
Without free access to information, democracy is useless, it does not exist at all.
As for intellectual property, the idea is that A PERSON who DEVELOPS an IDEA can give it to EVERYONE.
Or THAT PERSON can RESTRICT IT to WHOMEVER they choose, be it a friend or a CUSTOMER.
What if the idea is developed independently? Ironically, in the 1970's Gilberto Gil himself sued Rod Stewart for plagiarism, and won. I'm not sure that Stewart actually copied Gil's music, perhaps it was a coincidence that the same sequence of notes occurred to both of them independently and Gil was lucky to publish earlier.
That's what I consider the biggest weak point in declaring that an idea can be considered property. The telephone is another good example, the patent was granted to Alexander Graham Bell because he filed it at the USPTO a few hours before Elisha Gray submitted a remarkably similar invention.
Ideas happen to people in a given intellectual environment, and similar ideas may happen to people living in similar environments. Elisha Gray worked hard to develop his ideas, he should not be denied their use just because someone else, working in secret, developed similar ideas.
If you begin to confiscate IP and give it away without the approval of the originator of the IP, then you remove the monetary incentive for them to create.
That practical consideration is the only reason for the whole concept of "intellectual" property. IP law is NOT motivated by any ethical reason, just practical ones. In case of doubt, read the Constitution of the USA.
And today IP law is having the opposite effect. Lobbying to prolong copyrights has a much better return on investment than creating new intellectual works.
And you'll decrease the overall total creativity in a society. (see COMMUNISM, EFFECTS OF in Wickipedia or Google. Or read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand).
You are ignoring the difference between the communization of physical property, where the giver loses the property when it's given away, and the sharing of intellectual property, where no one becomes more ignorant when they give information away.
What about China, Thailand and the rest of those buddies.
I knew it. Orders to obtain "free software" come from the Top, actually seems more like national policy.
Now that Brazil is also giving immunity for free software peddlers, I should reconsider expanding my business empire.
Dude, I didn't even read the whole submission, much less TFA. This is Slashdot!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
That this is happening anyway is sad. Sadder still is that people are buying into it: "Hey, I thought of this first, it's mine, all mine!".
To figure out why owning ideas is bad is left as an exercise to the reader.
For those people who want to establish the validity of "Intellectual Property" and have it treated as property, I say the government should levy an "Intellectual Property" Tax on your "Intellectual Property."
Here is one way it could be done:
Newly created "Intellectual Property" comes with a short "Intellectual Property" Tax exemption period. Say 18 years at the outside - could easily be much shorter.
After this period, the "County" tax assessor values your "Intellectual Property" and you start paying your "Intellectual Property" Tax.
Now, after the exemption period, you can choose to place your "Intellectual Property" in the public domain, in which case you will be exempt from paying taxes on it, or you can start paying your tax bill based on a percentage of the assessed value.
Politicians should go for this in a big way - new source of revenue. Could this have any bad side effects for the common man?
A Nony Mouse
But my argument isn't affected -- OS X borrows from others, be it BSD for the whole core or just the user portion and Next for the core.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
When we Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin, do we do so Under God? Or is that unconstitutional?
America, if you dont know, its a continent. There is South America, NORTH AMERICA and Central America. So, if you say that the Bush page cant be visited by people outside America then you are referring to the entire continent! We live in Argentina, and i cant visit the Bush's page. Argentina its in America Continent!!! how could be that people who reads slashdot cant understand the difference bettwen A CONTINENT and a COUNTRY!!! The worlds go bads if the people of the most powerful country of the earth are so ignorant. Sorry my english. Here in Argentina we have subway, internet, cars, directv. For those that thinks that we lives like the indians (in old times!).
"Why is it that the countries listed as the most "permissive" in terms of intellectual property laws are the ones that seem to create the least amount of intellectual property worth protecting?"
The restrictive IP laws in the US are a recent invention. 15 years ago, there was no patents on software or business methods. We've been a first world country for 100 years, and we've built up a considerable lead over India et al in that time. So for 7 years, we have restrictive IP laws.
Yes, of course we still have a lead. The question is, will we keep that lead or is India closing the gap quickly because we're being foolish?
Nobody knows the answer to that, so please don't pretend like you can draw some sort of false comparison based on a few years history; its like looking at the stock market from 1994-98 and then claiming the market always goes up.
So charge a lot for the first copy. Simple as that. You can even GPL it, just don't release the first copy until you get paid.
Let's say I run a commercial software company. For the sake of using round numbers, let's say I have five developers who all work full-time for two weeks, and each developer costs me $50/hour. Let's further assume that I only want to break even (i.e. not make a profit).
5 developers * 80 hours * ($50/hour) = a cost to me of $20,000.
Does it make sense for me to charge $20,000 for the first copy and then GPL the rest? Of course not, because I would never be able to sell the first copy. Would you pony up and buy the first copy if you knew the app would be GPLd immediately thereafter? I doubt it. Neither would other right-thinking people. Now what?
We are left with the idea of selling 20 copies for $1,000 each, 50 copies for $400 each, or at some other price point until I recoup the $20,000. The number of copies (and associated price point) would have to be based on a realistic assessment of the market: I wouldn't want to charge $1 and expect to sell 20,000 copies.
In the real world I would expect to make a profit through sales of the product. Let's say I decided to sell it at $400/copy, and I have sold 100 copies. That's $40,000 - a profit of $20,000. If the product is still selling well, what is my motivation to cut off the revenue stream by releasing the product under the GPL?
From an economic standpoint it really only makes sense for me to GPL the software when I will no longer make enough money from it to justify support, patches, etc. Ideally - for the F/OSS community at large - the app will be GPLd as soon as possible. However, I suspect the F/OSS community is not the primary concern of a commercial entity; if the company is public, i.e. has shareholders, the F/OSS community better not be a priority. (The primary focus should be the shareholders.)
It appears (to me, at least) that quite a lot of purported members of the F/OSS community don't give a rip about the ideals [of F/OSS] and just insist that all software should be free-as-in-beer, regardless of the associated development costs. That is a naive, irksome, and ultimately harmful attitude.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
...which brings us to the Psychology lesson of the day:
A spelling error that still makes sense on a completely different level is also known as a "freudian slip"
^^
Just add the word "India" to any /. story and all the bashers (and much worse) are all over it like white on rice. Quite a sad state of affairs for /.
I support open source/free software and have voted for and support the current government, but the article is about all that's wrong about free software becoming more or less mainstream. Government-sponsored open source events are full of feminists, anti-globalization activists and rappers. The average Brazilian nerd is not that different from the average Slashdot nerd, and I suppose you can understand what our reaction was when these kinds of people started coming to our events and pretending they know more about free software than ourselves.
Please do not judge us from what you learn from this mediocre article.
My GOD man! Those are THIRD WORLD pissholes ! Brazil? India? Linux? Sounds about right ! France may be a saving grace (SECOND WORLD). We can only hope they HOP on board.
Bleached rice is white.
And Brazilers are hippies, and nuts. Yes, Brazilers !
"Those "powerful entities" are the ones that created the intellectual property."
Here you are assuming the rightness of your view as a fact to prove the rightness of your view.
Many of those opposed do not believe it is property so you cannot assume they will accept this sort of thing.
By the way, would it be ok with you if the government levied a property tax on this porperty that they created?
A Nony Mouse
And PLEASE, somebody take Canada. Australia?
Duh, you get people to commission the creation of the project in advance. If all software is free after it's purchased, then people will find it perfectly normal to pay for the creation of this sort of software.
If I am a customer and I am paying for development of a new product, why the heck would I sign an agreement by which you take my money to develop the product, you retain the rights, and you subsequently release the source under the GPL? I have the product, but it is now available to everyone, including my competitors. Why on earth would anyone go along with this?
Obviously your firm will be the first one people call when enhancements to the software are desired since your programmers will be intimately familiar with it, so there will be future business to exploit.
This is not at all obvious. If I have developers in-house it might make more sense to use them, or to use any reasonable resource that costs less than you do.
We should change copyright law so that attribution and privacy are protected, but reproduction is not prohibited.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that is ridiculous. Copyright law is quite complex, and making a statement like "Well, just do X and fix the whole system" indicates you don't grasp the magnitude of current copyright law.
Like I said,a serious deficit of imagination.
I don't believe you are equipped to assess the economic or copyright aspects of product development, and we should probably agree to disagree.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
This is a very good idea. It should make it not profitable to hold patents/copyright just in case you can sue someone someday.
... but the idea seems great.
The details might get very complicated to the point that iti is unenforcable
Please mod parent up. My points vanished
"In all fairness, I think this has failed. It is true that copyrights have led to more 'public goods' - but the public goods have become anything that gets the most attention - and has nothing to do with any real value - and thus - Ally Mc Biel."
Define "real value", in the context of supply and demand. Now try to do so outside of it.
mhack
Building a better ribosome since 1997
Not to agree or disagree with your point, just to clear the facts on this particular event: it was Jorge Ben, not Gilberto Gil; the song (do you think I'm sexy) was written by, IIRC, Stewart's drummer, and they proved that indeed this guy attended a Jorge Ben concert before composing his song. I believe the case ended with some kind of agreement, not a conviction, and the money from the song was (is?) donated to the Unicef.
So the first person in line at the next Star Wars movie pays what, $200,000,000 for the privilege of being the first in line? I agree with the grandparent, the folks here against intellectual property are living in a dream world where everything (they want) is free (except, I imagine, the service they perform which of course should not be free at all since that's hard work after all).
Marginal cost is the cost of producing one more item, and has nothing to do with R&D and initial costs. Please mod parent up, and the grandparent down.
Thank you
--Cedric
NEIN SEI
"That's the whole idea of PROPERTY in general."
How can a passing thought become property.
How can "If I click here I buy something" become property.
How can a tune whistled become property.
Do you realize how ludicrous this is?
"Or read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand"
You do realize that this is a fictional work.
In otherwords, this book expresses the opinion of Ayn, not an absolute truth, right?
Seriously, this is the same as quoting "Star Wars" to make a philosophical point. Not only is it logically dumb, it makes you look jejeune to boot.
"The seperation of doctor's offices from pharmacies is designed to make any sort of direct kick-back impossible."
So its indirect.
They send the doctors off to expensive conferences *all the time*.
The reps come to the doctor's office and give the Doctor about a zillion free samples of the latest drug.
ANd here's how it goes:
Doctor: Mrs. Smith, your blood pressure is high. Here. Take a 2 month supply of Oxyposivoidtron and here's a 6 month prescription
[note here, the doctor feels he is doing the patient a favor]
Mrs Smith: Oh, well, okay, and thanks for your kind generosity!
[note here, the patient feels the doctor is doing her a favor]
2 months later
Mrs Smith: Please fill this prescription
Mr. Pharmacist: Yes Ma'am. That will be $200!
So what did this accomplish? How is this any different than a local pusher giving out free dime bags of pot to kids?
It gets the doctor out of having to explain to Mrs. Smith that the reason she has high blood pressure is because she's 50 pounds overweight. It excuses Mrs. Smith from making life changes that would benefit her by making her body well. And the drug companies like it because now they get a million people paying $1000 a year for this magic wonderdrug, which is only marginally different than another drug that the patent ran out on.
Meanwhile, the reason the drug costs $1000/year is because $50 went to "research", $300 went to marketing to doctors and patients, and $200 goes straight to the bottom line of the execs at the company. The rest is margins on the drug and packaging.
THere's nobody "winning" with this kind of system. Its an absolute joke. And its more than a little discouraging that people can't understand that they're being treated like a sucker.
People who say otherwise have obviously never created anything worth selling. If I spend 100 hours to invent a new widget, I will probably make blueprints or some other form of diagram. I can make copies of those documents in a local copy shop for ~2 cents apiece. Does that mean my time spent creating the new widget is worth what I spend for the copies?
If someone smarter than you could develop that same widget in 8 hours, what do you say then, that your widget is suddenly less valuable to everyone?
In purely economic terms, widgets and software are worth the money they would save by being used instead of another method. They are only worth anything to people who use them, and only worth that advantage. No more, no less. In aggregate, that means that a single widget or piece of software could be worth some small value times a large number of people who use it, or worth some large value times a small number of people, or any combination. But that doesn't mean the inventor is due the entire aggregate sum in payment, because it is much more efficient to develop the widget once and then share it with everyone. Overall, that is the optimum distribution of value for everyone in a free market. Lower the design costs, and then reap the value. That's pure, simple economics, even if it means that you as an inventor can't pillage everyone for cash, cash, cash.
Look at it this way: You do the work of invention ONCE. You could have worked in a factory or done something else and made money. The value of your widget or software to YOU is only equal to the maximum value you could have gotten by doing something else with your time. You can try to convince other people that your widget is worth more, but they'll see through the sham soon enough. What this means is that if there is a process that produces a functionally equivalent (or better!) widget or software for less of a cost (including free), it will win out in the free market. The free market is what drives FOSS, not spin doctoring or being spoiled.
If you want to make money with widgets or software, leverage your ability to work with and develop them with the skill you have. The one thing that can't be had by all for the same cost is skill in a particular field. Sell your skill, not a static result of that skill. People will want to learn how to use the widget or software, and people will want modifications that only you (or other economically feasible person) can make. Those are the things that are actually marketable in a free economy.
This makes it hard to earn an easy living by selling the same thing over and over again, doesn't it? Too bad. Free markets don't tolerate inefficiency, because that's bad for everyone. Want some ideas on how to make a living? Start a consulting company and help real people solve their computer problems with existing FOSS software, and write the glue for them to use it in their businesses or homes. Charge nominal hourly rates, and release your (generic) code. You've already got your money, and the customer has their value and the possibility of support from other people if you decide to quit or die or whatever. Vendor lockin is bad, and unnessecary with FOSS. If you're working on a particularly big project that no one company will pay you for, just start a pool of money in escrow that will pay for the project when it's done. Easy stuff, but not quite as easy as sitting around while you copy CDs and the paychecks roll in.
Yes, we have a real problem down here, but I think the canadian option is important because it spells out clearly that we're being ripped off here in the US.
It gets people understanding in a real way that the drug companies are *lying* to us about their research costs.
People in the US are largely fat, dumb, and relatively happy. But if enough people *get* that we're being ripped off, maybe it will change for the better.
Thanks for your help.
You speak like "intellectual property" is just like physicaly property, and it belongs to someone and can be stolen. These are just assumptions, talking like they're some absolute truth doesn't make your argument any stronger.
You can't 'seize' ideas from unwilling persons, they still have it when you 'take' it. Information is not even remotely like physical property, get over it.
Democracy is not about giving intellectual property rights of an (insert here: idea, song, book, etc.) to everyone.
Democracy is about giving everyone the chance to VOTE on how they will be RULED.
I vote FSF and GNU.
Ayn Rand is for greedy adolescents.
There is no marginal cost/ to the sharing of digital or intellectual content, beyond the cost of transmission and storage.
The cost of reproducing a digital asset is completely unrelated to the cost of creating the asset.
The cost of reproducing a digital asset is by definition the MARGINAL COST, so you actually agree with that assertion.
The larger question is how to pay the R and D costs. Generally, that is done by selling the product for slightly more than the marginal cost. In the case of software music, they're selling for MUCH more than the marginal cost.
Consider an album. Let's say that production cost was $200,000. Let's say it only manages to sell 50,000 copies worldwide (pathetic by RIAA standards). The cost babove marginal cost in that case must be $4 to cover production. If it sells 500,000 copies (a gold record), it must sell for $0.40 above marginal cost to cover production.
Keep in mind that is that was actually happening, the correction in profit would push back down the chain and make production costs more reasonable as well.
Now, let's look at MS. How many units of XP do you suppose they've sold worldwide? How much do you suppose they speant developing it? I'll bet it's nothing close to $10 per unit sold. What do you suppose the marginal cost is? If it's over $15 they're doing something VERY wrong. Now, most companies consider a 10 points a good profit, putting XP at MOST at around $28 (assuming it actually cost that much to develop it). In July 2003, MS claimed 130 million units of XP sold (mostly pre-installed). I doubt they spent 1.3 billion dollars developing XP! Surely, their R and D costs for XP are thoroughly and completely covered by now.
So, where are the $20-$30 retail windows packages? IIRC, OEM windows is $50, with no packaging (meaning the marginal cost is less than $1.50 for the CD) shouldn't the price be about $5 by now? So where do you suppose all of that money is going?
In conclusion, nobody's claiming creators don't deserve to profit from their hard work. What they're saying is that there's making a profit, then there's making a killing and that a healthy market allows for only the former over the long haul.
...when property law is viewed in anything less than abolute terms.
There is no physical component to ideas, so their propagation outside of the originator's control is not a violation of their person no matter what kind of spin you or other absolutists try to put on the subject. Illegal copying is a violation of IP law alone, which exists to provide a creative incentive.
When those incentives are twisted into an extremism where people share culture and information only to the extent that they can pay for it directly, then you might as well have no community at all. Where property rights are concerned, a sense of entitlement can go too far in EITHER direction: pro-community or pro-corporate.
The US currently has the best health care system in the world, for those in the middle and upper classes who can afford it. That high quality is a direct outgrowth of the facilities available and new research being performed, which both derive directly from the amount of money that is put into health care.
Just a few words for my american friend (no sarcasm of course)
For your information, mighty americam overlord:
The best health care system of the world is not to be found in the United States... It is in France, as the Worldwide Organization for Health states in in reports each yearly. Closely follows Sweden and other northern european countries, then Japan. The US doesn't make it to the top 10, neither does any anglo saxon countries. This is directly traced to the "capitalist" outlook anglo saxon have of even the most bbasic things, such as health.
More info, most of pharmaceutical research is done in Germany, France and Switzerland. Here is the research centers founded by large public funds. The US host "marketing medecine" and to be true, most genetical research in parternship with europe. Most of production of medecine is made in Europe (seems like as soon as an european company discontinue his production, america fall short of flu shots)...
Remember the name of the leaders... Aventis Sanofi-synthelabo, Pfizer (France, France, Switzerland) and so on...
Please before making assomptions, check the facts, and please form WORLDWIDE sized organization, not only Fox News...
Ha, and for finishing with your foolish idea...
Health (exactly well beoing) is a fundamental right of the human being, as stated in the "Declaration des droits de l'homme", not a product. I can't understand why american can't think beyond the concept of "Free Trade". Let's put it this way: Health is not a Coca Cola...
Health care is a right that have to be garanted by societies to their all their citizens (i.e. not excluding the black or the latinos americans), via political power.
Finnally, most of "news drugs" are discovered by public europen research...
Sorry my american friend, fact proves you wrong. But as an american you can always go back to look at Fox News, they will take care of your arrogance in less choking way (Disclaimer: Fox News may handle the truth in a non consistent way, you have been warned, drink Coca Cola !!!).
http://www.petitiononline.com/amadeuus/
The original petition, in brazilian portuguese language, here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi? amadeu&1