not big fan Google myself, but something tells me this research has something (more likely: everything) to do with Google's "Google Health" service http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-health-login-large.png . I don't trust either monstrosity with my health, but usually results of MS studies that undermine competition are somewhat biased;)
P.S. People who look for ways to prove they're sick will find those ways regardless of medium (nobody closed libraries... yet ).
1. release your product under GPL (note GPL doesn't imply no money exchange)
2. Watch closely OSS competition "improving" your product, integrate changes while releasing your product with your own "patches" to clients. now you get both of both worlds - your level of innovation, edge over competition and income.
3. Sell integration services: every customer runs some unique combination of software selling services to help them integrate your solution with those products is the key. (you can safely release result as GPL product later)
4. Sell your expertise (consulting)/support and help your customers with configuration and maintenance.
Sales are not lost. Sales in many cases are gained. Many people that wouldn't otherwise think of listening to the artist/watching a movie - discover new things, pass this onto their friends, and in the end there *is* a sale happening if product is worth it. Otherwise - well, you produce crap - you get nothing for it;)
Consider this the cheapest and most effective form of marketing. Most people trust their friends more than the guy on TV advertising the product. Did anybody calculate how much they saved on marketing by gaining customers "out of nowhere"?
Microsoft got their dominant position thanks to piracy to some degree. In Eastern European countries, China and other places Windows got it's position simply due to the fact that everybody and their dog had a pirated copy of it. If it wasn't for that - they'd be using something entirely different. Didn't Microsoft recently admitted it in China?
I think you are either ignorant or misinformed. Your argument is the same that *AA uses all the time and it has been proven over and over again that it is not so.
Myth #1: piracy robs the artists. Pfft, puleeaze... The only ones who are "hurt" are publishers with enormous margins. Artists get only scrapes from that. Is *that* fair?
Myth #2: "civil disobedience is a self-excuse. Audio/Video "piracy" is there because media companies want to stick to old business models and keep old margins on sales. Read http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html or download BitTorent of the talk if you don't feel like reading. It's just one of the voices raised recently that confirm that piracy phenomenon is in fact "civil disobedience". What people in fact saying is "business models you have are broken. I want my content on-demand and I want it now. I don't want to pay markup you force me to pay on those."
Some examples from real life confirm that if person is presented with the choice to pay for the download and they know money goes directly to artists - they will be quite willing to support the artist. Fans don't just "download" stuff - they accessorize themselves with all that stuff that relates to artist and want to give back to their "idol" in most cases.
Times of "middleman" that is publisher are pretty much gone. People demand (in indirect ways) fair deals for themselves and the artists. Publishers need to readjust and not self-justify their losses by "piracy". Piracy wouldn't exist if publishing practices kept up with times.
P.S.
Personally I have stopped purchasing/pirating most of "labeled" production long time ago opting out for "direct" purchases or no purchases at all. At worst I rent "labeled" products.
I did give you the answer - you're doing the same thing here on slashdot, except there's no 3D. Instead of doing house chores/going out for a beer/taking care of your kids/planning career/etc. - you (like me) sit here and type away questions/answers to obvious things.
no, it was a general statement directed at community which you and me seem to be part of.
> I'm actually complaining about the bitchiness of Raymond and Cox.
exactly. Why does it bother you? Those two will argue in public, stir up some commotion among developers get developers to do something and everybody will be happy in the end.
Difference in opinion doesn't constitute hate. Difference in opinion promotes further discussion in civilized circles. Sometimes discussion might be heated, but people seem to blame ESR, Linus and AC for standing up and pointing at sore spots.
The way I see it more exposure "sore spots" have - more likely the chance that they are going to be removed/resolved.
Hiding behind facade of politeness is not going to resolve problem. Ignoring "little" problem leads to more severe problem. So why again is it bad that AC and ESR argue in public? As long as things get done as a result - I don't mind it at all. Healthy family is the one that can tolerate all members regardless. OSS seem to be like family, why shouldn't it be healthy?
Pretending to like each other and openly discuss isues are different things. Throwing pointless flamewars is yet another thing. So when talking BG & SJ - I don't think their behavior is "proper" since they're trowing sh#t at each other behind the scenes and all social-friendly F2F. ESR and Cox are different bunch - they've gotten used to live in open. What is amusing is community reaction: ESR and Cox no doubt have background that allows them to say what's been said. What's amaising is how bitchy community is! looks like OSS community (or at least it's visible part) is all about gossip and scandals. On two recent ocasions when criticism was raised by Linus and ESR people started to freak out instead of taking note of things that piss people off.
From what I read Fedora folks admitted that from last time of ESR complaints issues were fixed. Hopefully this time issues raised will be addressed.
Comments of "high rank" people like ESR and Linus should be viewed as a magnified glass: they exaggerate real picture but draw other's attention and things get done in the end. We're OSS community for $diety sake. We are supposed to take cristcism in public and discuss things in public and disagree in public.
So, why so much bitchin?
P.S. I run RHEL at work and Gentoo/MacOSX/Edubuntu/FreeBSD at home and I know of all the ups and downs of each all I wish all the "ups" can be merged in some "magic" distro:) Each distro/OS has it's strenghts you just have to know how to utilize them best to compensate for weakneses.
There is another way to look at Linus' attitude. Look, if he didn't care - he would've said nothing. Becoming a parent helped me realize that you won't say anything if you don't care and if you say something (even if you criticise it) means you care.
Not to say that I would've done the same if I was in Linus' shoes, but I'm not so it's his call. And what I am sure about -is that his comments will stirr up something and lead to something good. You *CANNOT* live in environment where everybody agerees with you and evolve. That is what happened to M$ - everybody agreed to accept their sloppy technology/performance/ideology/etc.
When people of Linus' caliber shake things up it usually leads to some changes (mostly good changes) and not exactly in line with original criticism, but people look back on their code/system and think "is it really *that* bad?" and reevaluate. I know I would've done that. Yes in the meantime you bitch about the fact that outsiders have nothing to say in here, but in the back of your mind you're already thinking: "what have I done wrong, and how do I fix it?".
As a developer I appreciate any criticism as long as there is something constructive about it. If somebody says: "I don't like your system 'cause I cant configure X" I'll say "mind your own business" and go back to drawing board and reevaluate if it's really all that bad to have X configurable, and if I find it to be useful or can imagine scenarios when it's useful - I'll do it.
All-in-all we, as OSS comunity need harsh criticism to help us evolve and develop. We *have to* not agree on issues. We *have to* look for compromises or make things flexible to accomodate majority.
ok, say you're using PHP application for your forums (let's assume it's phpBB). Now let's assume you're using content management system for your site (let's say it's Plone). Now your task is to make every published item in Plone to appear as a new topic in phpBB and vice-versa - every topic in phpBB to appear in Plone (things get better when you remove stuff from either one;) ). Obviously two different application stacks, nothing in common but DB. If you slipped on Plone end and missed some entries in DB needed by phpBB - you're done (if your DB didn't check for data integrity etc.). With postgres things get even better since you can write stored procedures in many languages (including python) so you can write trigger for phpBB DB so that it creates item in Plone on topic creation. Variations are endless but everything is tied to idea that whenever something happens to DB I can: control event, generate event, etc.
This was rather hypothetical example (however pretty close to what we're doing from time to time), there are way more complex examples but it'll take me much longer to describe those.
So as you see - it's insane to try to write your own phpBB from scratch and same goes for Plone. Now your customer for each specific task chose each of those apps separately but realized - they want integration. Without "smart DB" in the background I'd be in trouble trying to explain that from time to time they have to go and clean up stuff on both ends.
Agreed if your environment is homogenous and you can afford to either write apps using same framework or deploy apps written using the same framework.
But if you're employing "best of breed" apps you might end up with PHP+Java+Python+Perl (like our current situation). What is going to guarantee in this case that data is going to be consistant? Add to the complexity layer fact that not all of those apps running on the same platform. From what I gather our situation is far from unique and this *is* the new reality - things need to be integrated and the lowest common denominator is DB. Why not use what *real db* has to offer: stored procedures, triggers, foreign keys, views etc? All the logic in the apps all of sudden becomes simple. On top of that - if most of your queries translated into stored procedure calls portability of your app goes "up" instanteniosly - if you can provide both Oracle and Postgres support at lowest possible effort why wouldn't you do it?
Consider calling procedure "add_record(a,b,c)" instead of using 3 inserts into different tables. Better yet consider "find(x,y,z)" instead of "select a.x, b.y, c.z from a, b, c outter join d on..." which would change from DB to DB especially depending on JOIN implementation.
you can mintain cross-compatibility code on DB layer but your app is always the same (considering you've used something like PEAR::DB or DBI or JDBC to simplify/unify DB calls).
As soon as you cross boundary of one programming language you just have to consider "smarter" DB. Even staying within same programing language you can access MySQL using PHP standard functions and PEAR - which makes verification code not-so-easily portable. Why bother reinventing the wheel when it was done long time ago - DB-side logic?
At current rate most apps (even simple ones) need to be integrated with other apps. Which together brings it up one level into "several apps accessing same DB" category. No way in hell you can do that without DB being smart enough to cut off "stupid" queries. Seen it many times and learned it the hard way. But it is the reality.
Slashdot Mirror
not big fan Google myself, but something tells me this research has something (more likely: everything) to do with Google's "Google Health" service http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-health-login-large.png . I don't trust either monstrosity with my health, but usually results of MS studies that undermine competition are somewhat biased ;)
P.S. People who look for ways to prove they're sick will find those ways regardless of medium (nobody closed libraries... yet ).
As far as I can tell your best option would be:
1. release your product under GPL (note GPL doesn't imply no money exchange)
2. Watch closely OSS competition "improving" your product, integrate changes while releasing your product with your own "patches" to clients. now you get both of both worlds - your level of innovation, edge over competition and income.
3. Sell integration services: every customer runs some unique combination of software selling services to help them integrate your solution with those products is the key. (you can safely release result as GPL product later)
4. Sell your expertise (consulting)/support and help your customers with configuration and maintenance.
Sales are not lost. Sales in many cases are gained. Many people that wouldn't otherwise think of listening to the artist/watching a movie - discover new things, pass this onto their friends, and in the end there *is* a sale happening if product is worth it. Otherwise - well, you produce crap - you get nothing for it ;)
Consider this the cheapest and most effective form of marketing. Most people trust their friends more than the guy on TV advertising the product. Did anybody calculate how much they saved on marketing by gaining customers "out of nowhere"?
Microsoft got their dominant position thanks to piracy to some degree. In Eastern European countries, China and other places Windows got it's position simply due to the fact that everybody and their dog had a pirated copy of it. If it wasn't for that - they'd be using something entirely different. Didn't Microsoft recently admitted it in China?
I think you are either ignorant or misinformed. Your argument is the same that *AA uses all the time and it has been proven over and over again that it is not so.
Myth #1: piracy robs the artists. Pfft, puleeaze... The only ones who are "hurt" are publishers with enormous margins. Artists get only scrapes from that. Is *that* fair?
Myth #2: "civil disobedience is a self-excuse. Audio/Video "piracy" is there because media companies want to stick to old business models and keep old margins on sales. Read http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html or download BitTorent of the talk if you don't feel like reading. It's just one of the voices raised recently that confirm that piracy phenomenon is in fact "civil disobedience". What people in fact saying is "business models you have are broken. I want my content on-demand and I want it now. I don't want to pay markup you force me to pay on those."
Some examples from real life confirm that if person is presented with the choice to pay for the download and they know money goes directly to artists - they will be quite willing to support the artist. Fans don't just "download" stuff - they accessorize themselves with all that stuff that relates to artist and want to give back to their "idol" in most cases.
Times of "middleman" that is publisher are pretty much gone. People demand (in indirect ways) fair deals for themselves and the artists. Publishers need to readjust and not self-justify their losses by "piracy". Piracy wouldn't exist if publishing practices kept up with times.
P.S. Personally I have stopped purchasing/pirating most of "labeled" production long time ago opting out for "direct" purchases or no purchases at all. At worst I rent "labeled" products.
That is the most sarcastic remark I've seen - well done :)
I did give you the answer - you're doing the same thing here on slashdot, except there's no 3D. Instead of doing house chores/going out for a beer/taking care of your kids/planning career/etc. - you (like me) sit here and type away questions/answers to obvious things.
why are you sitting in front of your computer typing original message and reading this message is a question I'd like to hear answer to. :)
> question directed at me?
no, it was a general statement directed at community which you and me seem to be part of.
> I'm actually complaining about the bitchiness of Raymond and Cox.
exactly. Why does it bother you? Those two will argue in public, stir up some commotion among developers get developers to do something and everybody will be happy in the end.
Difference in opinion doesn't constitute hate. Difference in opinion promotes further discussion in civilized circles. Sometimes discussion might be heated, but people seem to blame ESR, Linus and AC for standing up and pointing at sore spots.
The way I see it more exposure "sore spots" have - more likely the chance that they are going to be removed/resolved.
Hiding behind facade of politeness is not going to resolve problem. Ignoring "little" problem leads to more severe problem. So why again is it bad that AC and ESR argue in public? As long as things get done as a result - I don't mind it at all. Healthy family is the one that can tolerate all members regardless. OSS seem to be like family, why shouldn't it be healthy?
Pretending to like each other and openly discuss isues are different things. Throwing pointless flamewars is yet another thing. So when talking BG & SJ - I don't think their behavior is "proper" since they're trowing sh#t at each other behind the scenes and all social-friendly F2F. ESR and Cox are different bunch - they've gotten used to live in open. What is amusing is community reaction: ESR and Cox no doubt have background that allows them to say what's been said. What's amaising is how bitchy community is! looks like OSS community (or at least it's visible part) is all about gossip and scandals. On two recent ocasions when criticism was raised by Linus and ESR people started to freak out instead of taking note of things that piss people off.
:) Each distro/OS has it's strenghts you just have to know how to utilize them best to compensate for weakneses.
From what I read Fedora folks admitted that from last time of ESR complaints issues were fixed. Hopefully this time issues raised will be addressed.
Comments of "high rank" people like ESR and Linus should be viewed as a magnified glass: they exaggerate real picture but draw other's attention and things get done in the end. We're OSS community for $diety sake. We are supposed to take cristcism in public and discuss things in public and disagree in public.
So, why so much bitchin?
P.S.
I run RHEL at work and Gentoo/MacOSX/Edubuntu/FreeBSD at home and I know of all the ups and downs of each all I wish all the "ups" can be merged in some "magic" distro
There is another way to look at Linus' attitude. Look, if he didn't care - he would've said nothing. Becoming a parent helped me realize that you won't say anything if you don't care and if you say something (even if you criticise it) means you care.
Not to say that I would've done the same if I was in Linus' shoes, but I'm not so it's his call. And what I am sure about -is that his comments will stirr up something and lead to something good. You *CANNOT* live in environment where everybody agerees with you and evolve. That is what happened to M$ - everybody agreed to accept their sloppy technology/performance/ideology/etc.
When people of Linus' caliber shake things up it usually leads to some changes (mostly good changes) and not exactly in line with original criticism, but people look back on their code/system and think "is it really *that* bad?" and reevaluate. I know I would've done that. Yes in the meantime you bitch about the fact that outsiders have nothing to say in here, but in the back of your mind you're already thinking: "what have I done wrong, and how do I fix it?".
As a developer I appreciate any criticism as long as there is something constructive about it. If somebody says: "I don't like your system 'cause I cant configure X" I'll say "mind your own business" and go back to drawing board and reevaluate if it's really all that bad to have X configurable, and if I find it to be useful or can imagine scenarios when it's useful - I'll do it.
All-in-all we, as OSS comunity need harsh criticism to help us evolve and develop. We *have to* not agree on issues. We *have to* look for compromises or make things flexible to accomodate majority.
ok, say you're using PHP application for your forums (let's assume it's phpBB). Now let's assume you're using content management system for your site (let's say it's Plone). Now your task is to make every published item in Plone to appear as a new topic in phpBB and vice-versa - every topic in phpBB to appear in Plone (things get better when you remove stuff from either one ;) ). Obviously two different application stacks, nothing in common but DB. If you slipped on Plone end and missed some entries in DB needed by phpBB - you're done (if your DB didn't check for data integrity etc.). With postgres things get even better since you can write stored procedures in many languages (including python) so you can write trigger for phpBB DB so that it creates item in Plone on topic creation. Variations are endless but everything is tied to idea that whenever something happens to DB I can: control event, generate event, etc.
This was rather hypothetical example (however pretty close to what we're doing from time to time), there are way more complex examples but it'll take me much longer to describe those.
So as you see - it's insane to try to write your own phpBB from scratch and same goes for Plone. Now your customer for each specific task chose each of those apps separately but realized - they want integration. Without "smart DB" in the background I'd be in trouble trying to explain that from time to time they have to go and clean up stuff on both ends.
Agreed if your environment is homogenous and you can afford to either write apps using same framework or deploy apps written using the same framework.
But if you're employing "best of breed" apps you might end up with PHP+Java+Python+Perl (like our current situation). What is going to guarantee in this case that data is going to be consistant? Add to the complexity layer fact that not all of those apps running on the same platform. From what I gather our situation is far from unique and this *is* the new reality - things need to be integrated and the lowest common denominator is DB. Why not use what *real db* has to offer: stored procedures, triggers, foreign keys, views etc? All the logic in the apps all of sudden becomes simple. On top of that - if most of your queries translated into stored procedure calls portability of your app goes "up" instanteniosly - if you can provide both Oracle and Postgres support at lowest possible effort why wouldn't you do it?
Consider calling procedure "add_record(a,b,c)" instead of using 3 inserts into different tables. Better yet consider "find(x,y,z)" instead of "select a.x, b.y, c.z from a, b, c outter join d on..." which would change from DB to DB especially depending on JOIN implementation.
you can mintain cross-compatibility code on DB layer but your app is always the same (considering you've used something like PEAR::DB or DBI or JDBC to simplify/unify DB calls).
As soon as you cross boundary of one programming language you just have to consider "smarter" DB. Even staying within same programing language you can access MySQL using PHP standard functions and PEAR - which makes verification code not-so-easily portable. Why bother reinventing the wheel when it was done long time ago - DB-side logic?
At current rate most apps (even simple ones) need to be integrated with other apps. Which together brings it up one level into "several apps accessing same DB" category. No way in hell you can do that without DB being smart enough to cut off "stupid" queries. Seen it many times and learned it the hard way. But it is the reality.