This isn't about producing at a loss. It has been mentioned already that drug production is not expensive most of the time. It is RD costs what makes drug price expensive, that's a fixed cost.
Selling cheaper drugs to those who can't pay doesn't hurt their business at all. They don't even have to produce the drug, but just let other labs use their patent for this purpose (for example, university labs). Poor people, that couldn't afford the medicine, won't buy it anyway so it really doesn't make a difference to drug companies.
You could ask a million questions and put a million excuses. Or you could try thinking about solutions by yourself. I was just pointing out how little good will some people has when it comes to poor people.
Also, why do you call it organized violence when it is about doing something you disagree with (selling medicine cheaper to the poor) but it is "all mighty law" when it comes to protecting your right to your intellectual property?
I think that the "right to intellectual property", is way less important than the human right to proper health care.
Great, good for them. They are martyrs of the Arts.
However, that doesn't really explain why should people give a damn about it.
If they can make a living with their gambling, good for them! But we shouldn't change laws, and we shouldn't allow to be brainwashed about the evils of copyright infringement just to allow them do their gamble.
If they are such geniuses of business then they can solve the following problem: your stuff can and will be duplicated, how will you earn money given that fact?
I hate it when somebody thinks he can make a rule out of his own experience.
Ok, you didn't like it. Great, you won't pay $20.
But the reason that many people enjoyed the game and actually paid $20 after playing the demo (1/4th of the game), means that the game is worth the $20.
It is not a game for everybody, but for those who the game is aimed to, it is definitely worth $20.
Maybe because nobody cares if a teenager's rich daddy gets screwed.
But when it comes to sick (and poor) people, we tend to be more concerned. And then we start asking ourselves "dangerous" questions like, is person A's right to profit more important than person B's right to live? Or... Is this the best way of developing new drugs?
So no, I don't think its funny... I think it's obvious.
If it is against the free market rules, then it is evil, and we must find an oversimplified reason to dismiss it.
So instead of saying "poor people in rich countries should get simmilar treatment" we say "let those who can't pay die, maybe that will teach them not to be poor"
I used the following analogy: It is as if Mc Donalds offered the Big Mac "spitted" version in order to be able to charge less in third world countries.
If they want to charge less, they will have to think about, I don't know... maybe offering the same product at a lower price? maybe offering a cheaper version that only includes limited support? I don't know... It is their business. But I don't think this will be successful in a third world country, it will only reinforce the notion that they are greedy bastards who are trying to sell you something that doesn't cost anything.
You must either think that people in third world countries is stupid to pay the same for less, or that people in the third world country cares about the business structure and profit of a first world company.
The 2 application limit is an arbitrary limit. It is not like if Ford was doing a cheaper version of a car, using lower quality or older parts, which clearly means lower costs. It is more like if McDonalds employees spitted on your hamburger in order to charge it less in Third World countries.
Being in a developing country myself, nobody will really care about this. Even if you enforce this kind of license as a hidden cost, people will just buy the 5$ or 10$ pirated version and override the original version. Nobody cares (specially here) if Microsoft makes an extra buck.
"$10-$15 to have a legal, rootkit free OS, even one that isn't fully featured, makes it hard to justify Piracy" Actually, it is very easy to justify: "I just bought this full version for $10, a version that lets me use my $300 PC at its full strength.". This is specially true in third world countries. We don't buy one computer for each member of the household, one to be a media center and one to download photos. Most people buy just one pc and use it as much as they can. We don't cripple our computers just to comply with some company's wishes.
That's the same reason I downloaded XP for my notebook even if it came with a Vista Basic edition. See, microsoft managed to convince all vendors (HP being the main notebook vendor in my country) that they should enforce Vista on all computers. That meant I now had a crippled version of window (lacking features) in a crippled notebook (Vista slowed my notebook down). Had I been given the option, I would have chosen XP, since I know all the software I need works with XP. But no... I was forced to pay for something I didn't wanted and that actually worked against me. Do you think I lost one night sleep because I downloaded Windows XP for free?
"And if Microsoft only charges ~$10 for this edition of Windows 7, it may have a positive net effect for third world countries--although it makes you wonder how long other people will put up with shelling out $100 before finding an alternative."
How exactly is "cheaper access to crippled versions of licensed software" going to have a positive effect on third world countries?
I mean, as opposed to just downloading the full version from internet.
That's funny, I heard the same analogy from a Jehovah witness. He was basically using that analogy to conclude that I should join them, because they were stating that the Apocalypse was coming and joining them was the only way of saving my soul.
It is all about imminence of threat, authority of the source, trade off, etc.
That's why you see that when it comes to ecology, all problems are pictured as "imminent threats". That's also why you see all sort of celebrities calling to action (celebrities have more authority than politicians and scientists, but not to me). That's also why you see that the trade off is pictured as small ("you only need to use a bike more often and change the lightbulbs"). It is propaganda.
Personally, I think this is all political BS. Global warning is not an imminent threat that requires common folk from around the world to "go green" in the next years. First of all, it is an USA problem (and probably China), that requires their industries to make a change. That's where the main energy saving can be done, because that's where the main carbon footprint is. Once you get to do that, you'll start worrying about industry in smaller countries and finally about the kind of lightbulbs common folk use.
Do you mean our civilization is in a myspace emo stage?
Re:The bells and whistles nobody uses...
on
Less Is Moore
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· Score: 1
Strawman.... You can still offer a basic core functionality if your customers are starting to ask for less system requirements, you only need some imagination.
Maybe it is time to start offering core software (for example, a core spreadsheet) and then a plug in architecture for modules that are sold separately (i.e. finance module, graph module, scientific module).
Think about Firefox. Imagine if Firefox was instead a browser with a scrapbook, Web developer tools, blogging tools, a mail checker, an IRC chat program and all those tools you can add to firefox. That would be bloatware, not only in terms of system resources but also in terms of user interface.
Instead, you can deliver just the core with a plugin architecture to expand the basic functionality. So each person has to buy the core and one or two modules they need.
It probably matters to the government since they are bound to international treaties (just guessing).
I'm from Argentina, and even if I've never seen an original copy of Window (unless you count those that are bundled in notebooks) I'm sure there is mostly original software on government machines and public schools.
The reason for that is because Microsoft can really enforce their copyright on those machines while, in practice, they can't do the same with regular folks.
Also, because the decision makers at the government don't use their own money, but taxes money, to buy licenses.
There is absolutely no reason for the government to use windows machines. Why? Because they mostly run in-house software that was programmed for Windows 3.1 in most of the cases. Another thing they use is Office, but use only the simplest features, available even on Abiword.
But again, the reason they buy Windows, office and god know how many other licenses (antivirus, antispyware, etc) is because they don't really have to pay that with their money.
I say that money would be better spent in some tech savvy employees who can install Linux and solve the occasional problems they may find.
But it is still on Google's interest to make a stand about this kind of laws and mindset spreading.
And also, Google may be defending some of its current employees and expressing the point of view of the majority of his employees.
The "if you don't like this then move to another place" argument is very simplistic. Some people rather fight something they don't like instead of running away (and remember that Google is just people).
Many school applications are web applications. Or Java applications.
Also, many of those applications are easy to reproduce, take for example Carnegie Learning's cognitive tutor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Learning ), not only it is easy to replicate, it also has many interesting challenges from the point of view of a computer scientist. Lot of room for improvement. It is a great job for an open source project.
The only problem is marketing. Most of this solutions are actually not that great, I have tried one Cognitive Tutor application and it has many flaws (wrong answers in some cases, enforces only one kind of solution to each program and doesn't consider alternative paths, very repetitive and boring, and so on). But if you have a sales team and good marketing, you have a hit.
No, simply that it's new isn't a problem. A few reasons:
1) It's big, ugly, and distracting, mixing a variety of font sizes, italics, etc. (That's my subjective opinion).
I don't see what you mean with variety of font sizes, italics, etc... It looks good once you get used to it.
2) It is unpredictable, hence less useful. It used to bring up URLs that were previously typed in the field, that began with the letters typed. Now it searches other places and other fields, in a way that is not obvious, and can change unpredictably. My son was complaining about how the webcomic he reads keeps on turning up multiple times in the "awesomebar", because every strip has a different title.
The bar is supposed to guess what you want, not the other way around. I also think it adapts to what you choose when searching.
I don't have to type more than 3 letters to get exactly where I want.
Maybe you shouldn't try to predict what the bar will do and instead let the bar predict what you want.
4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
Ridiculous name? Unlike many other open source products?
Doesn't it remind you of how the search feature in every MS OS has been getting worse and worse every version, despite the added features?
No, it reminds me of how google toolbar does a great job at searching for everything in my desktop.
The only thing you didn't mention, and I could have agreed with that, is the issue of performance. The awesomebar can get really slow (unlike google toolbar, which searches my whole computer much faster) and that's something I dislike. But it is a common problem in firefox as a whole (it can take long to startup, long to shutdown, slow to run web applications, etc)
As for the functionality, I'm really glad they added it. Versatile search and tagging functionality are two great features in my experience.
I don't use history anymore, and bookmarks were replaced by tags.
That said, what features of firefox 3 do you need? I mean, why can't you just roll back to firefox 2 if you don't like ff3?
Why don't you just look at the ceiling or go outside to count ants if you only need to waste time?
People play games to have fun. And having to play 10 times through the same level just to get killed at some stupid trap at the end is not considered fun by some people. And in fact I used to consider that fun when I have lots of hours per day to play, but not anymore.
Now, is it that bad that some people have a different measure of what fun is than you do? I don't think so. I think it is great to have games to appeal to different kind of people.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't about producing at a loss. It has been mentioned already that drug production is not expensive most of the time. It is RD costs what makes drug price expensive, that's a fixed cost.
Selling cheaper drugs to those who can't pay doesn't hurt their business at all. They don't even have to produce the drug, but just let other labs use their patent for this purpose (for example, university labs). Poor people, that couldn't afford the medicine, won't buy it anyway so it really doesn't make a difference to drug companies.
You could ask a million questions and put a million excuses. Or you could try thinking about solutions by yourself. I was just pointing out how little good will some people has when it comes to poor people.
Also, why do you call it organized violence when it is about doing something you disagree with (selling medicine cheaper to the poor) but it is "all mighty law" when it comes to protecting your right to your intellectual property?
I think that the "right to intellectual property", is way less important than the human right to proper health care.
> If you can't compete on price, compete on quality.
Nah... I think they'll just criminalize you instead, hoping they can milk the cow a little more.
Actually, no it isn't. That's why Madonna is upset about copyright infringement. She is doing it for the money.
That's actually one solution.
And that's the solution they should implement if they can't make a living out of "stuff".
Great, good for them. They are martyrs of the Arts.
However, that doesn't really explain why should people give a damn about it.
If they can make a living with their gambling, good for them! But we shouldn't change laws, and we shouldn't allow to be brainwashed about the evils of copyright infringement just to allow them do their gamble.
If they are such geniuses of business then they can solve the following problem: your stuff can and will be duplicated, how will you earn money given that fact?
I hate it when somebody thinks he can make a rule out of his own experience.
Ok, you didn't like it. Great, you won't pay $20.
But the reason that many people enjoyed the game and actually paid $20 after playing the demo (1/4th of the game), means that the game is worth the $20.
It is not a game for everybody, but for those who the game is aimed to, it is definitely worth $20.
This was a game I felt morally compelled to buy, and also think $15 (wiiware version) for it wasn't too much.
Thank you Nintendo for making the Wii store unavailable in my country! You saved me $15.
Maybe because nobody cares if a teenager's rich daddy gets screwed.
But when it comes to sick (and poor) people, we tend to be more concerned. And then we start asking ourselves "dangerous" questions like, is person A's right to profit more important than person B's right to live? Or... Is this the best way of developing new drugs?
So no, I don't think its funny... I think it's obvious.
But... you don't understand...
If it is against the free market rules, then it is evil, and we must find an oversimplified reason to dismiss it.
So instead of saying "poor people in rich countries should get simmilar treatment" we say "let those who can't pay die, maybe that will teach them not to be poor"
But it means the difference between a $10 and a $100 version of windows is an extra if...
That's exactly what I stated on another post.
I used the following analogy: It is as if Mc Donalds offered the Big Mac "spitted" version in order to be able to charge less in third world countries.
If they want to charge less, they will have to think about, I don't know... maybe offering the same product at a lower price? maybe offering a cheaper version that only includes limited support? I don't know... It is their business. But I don't think this will be successful in a third world country, it will only reinforce the notion that they are greedy bastards who are trying to sell you something that doesn't cost anything.
You must either think that people in third world countries is stupid to pay the same for less, or that people in the third world country cares about the business structure and profit of a first world company.
The 2 application limit is an arbitrary limit. It is not like if Ford was doing a cheaper version of a car, using lower quality or older parts, which clearly means lower costs. It is more like if McDonalds employees spitted on your hamburger in order to charge it less in Third World countries.
Being in a developing country myself, nobody will really care about this. Even if you enforce this kind of license as a hidden cost, people will just buy the 5$ or 10$ pirated version and override the original version. Nobody cares (specially here) if Microsoft makes an extra buck.
"$10-$15 to have a legal, rootkit free OS, even one that isn't fully featured, makes it hard to justify Piracy"
Actually, it is very easy to justify: "I just bought this full version for $10, a version that lets me use my $300 PC at its full strength.". This is specially true in third world countries. We don't buy one computer for each member of the household, one to be a media center and one to download photos. Most people buy just one pc and use it as much as they can. We don't cripple our computers just to comply with some company's wishes.
That's the same reason I downloaded XP for my notebook even if it came with a Vista Basic edition. See, microsoft managed to convince all vendors (HP being the main notebook vendor in my country) that they should enforce Vista on all computers. That meant I now had a crippled version of window (lacking features) in a crippled notebook (Vista slowed my notebook down). Had I been given the option, I would have chosen XP, since I know all the software I need works with XP. But no... I was forced to pay for something I didn't wanted and that actually worked against me. Do you think I lost one night sleep because I downloaded Windows XP for free?
"And if Microsoft only charges ~$10 for this edition of Windows 7, it may have a positive net effect for third world countries--although it makes you wonder how long other people will put up with shelling out $100 before finding an alternative."
How exactly is "cheaper access to crippled versions of licensed software" going to have a positive effect on third world countries?
I mean, as opposed to just downloading the full version from internet.
That's funny, I heard the same analogy from a Jehovah witness. He was basically using that analogy to conclude that I should join them, because they were stating that the Apocalypse was coming and joining them was the only way of saving my soul.
It is all about imminence of threat, authority of the source, trade off, etc.
That's why you see that when it comes to ecology, all problems are pictured as "imminent threats". That's also why you see all sort of celebrities calling to action (celebrities have more authority than politicians and scientists, but not to me). That's also why you see that the trade off is pictured as small ("you only need to use a bike more often and change the lightbulbs"). It is propaganda.
Personally, I think this is all political BS. Global warning is not an imminent threat that requires common folk from around the world to "go green" in the next years. First of all, it is an USA problem (and probably China), that requires their industries to make a change. That's where the main energy saving can be done, because that's where the main carbon footprint is. Once you get to do that, you'll start worrying about industry in smaller countries and finally about the kind of lightbulbs common folk use.
Do you mean our civilization is in a myspace emo stage?
Strawman.... You can still offer a basic core functionality if your customers are starting to ask for less system requirements, you only need some imagination.
Maybe it is time to start offering core software (for example, a core spreadsheet) and then a plug in architecture for modules that are sold separately (i.e. finance module, graph module, scientific module).
Think about Firefox. Imagine if Firefox was instead a browser with a scrapbook, Web developer tools, blogging tools, a mail checker, an IRC chat program and all those tools you can add to firefox. That would be bloatware, not only in terms of system resources but also in terms of user interface.
Instead, you can deliver just the core with a plugin architecture to expand the basic functionality. So each person has to buy the core and one or two modules they need.
There's the same as an alt text. Just hover the mouse over the image.
It probably matters to the government since they are bound to international treaties (just guessing).
I'm from Argentina, and even if I've never seen an original copy of Window (unless you count those that are bundled in notebooks) I'm sure there is mostly original software on government machines and public schools.
The reason for that is because Microsoft can really enforce their copyright on those machines while, in practice, they can't do the same with regular folks.
Also, because the decision makers at the government don't use their own money, but taxes money, to buy licenses.
There is absolutely no reason for the government to use windows machines. Why? Because they mostly run in-house software that was programmed for Windows 3.1 in most of the cases. Another thing they use is Office, but use only the simplest features, available even on Abiword.
But again, the reason they buy Windows, office and god know how many other licenses (antivirus, antispyware, etc) is because they don't really have to pay that with their money.
I say that money would be better spent in some tech savvy employees who can install Linux and solve the occasional problems they may find.
Maybe they are a shell corporation of the Velvet Mafia.
You are correct in that. I would like to know the percentage of google's employees who are GLBT.
But it is still on Google's interest to make a stand about this kind of laws and mindset spreading.
And also, Google may be defending some of its current employees and expressing the point of view of the majority of his employees.
The "if you don't like this then move to another place" argument is very simplistic. Some people rather fight something they don't like instead of running away (and remember that Google is just people).
Many school applications are web applications. Or Java applications.
Also, many of those applications are easy to reproduce, take for example Carnegie Learning's cognitive tutor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Learning ), not only it is easy to replicate, it also has many interesting challenges from the point of view of a computer scientist. Lot of room for improvement. It is a great job for an open source project.
The only problem is marketing. Most of this solutions are actually not that great, I have tried one Cognitive Tutor application and it has many flaws (wrong answers in some cases, enforces only one kind of solution to each program and doesn't consider alternative paths, very repetitive and boring, and so on). But if you have a sales team and good marketing, you have a hit.
Now, that's harder for an OS project.
If you get 2/3 of spam then you should first learn how to use your email account before you jump to a new technology.
I don't usually see any spam in my account, all spam is automatically placed in a spam folder.
The problem is not the technology, it is people that doesn't know how to use it correctly.
No, simply that it's new isn't a problem. A few reasons:
1) It's big, ugly, and distracting, mixing a variety of font sizes, italics, etc. (That's my subjective opinion).
I don't see what you mean with variety of font sizes, italics, etc... It looks good once you get used to it.
2) It is unpredictable, hence less useful. It used to bring up URLs that were previously typed in the field, that began with the letters typed. Now it searches other places and other fields, in a way that is not obvious, and can change unpredictably. My son was complaining about how the webcomic he reads keeps on turning up multiple times in the "awesomebar", because every strip has a different title.
The bar is supposed to guess what you want, not the other way around. I also think it adapts to what you choose when searching.
I don't have to type more than 3 letters to get exactly where I want.
Maybe you shouldn't try to predict what the bar will do and instead let the bar predict what you want.
4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
Ridiculous name? Unlike many other open source products?
Doesn't it remind you of how the search feature in every MS OS has been getting worse and worse every version, despite the added features?
No, it reminds me of how google toolbar does a great job at searching for everything in my desktop.
The only thing you didn't mention, and I could have agreed with that, is the issue of performance. The awesomebar can get really slow (unlike google toolbar, which searches my whole computer much faster) and that's something I dislike. But it is a common problem in firefox as a whole (it can take long to startup, long to shutdown, slow to run web applications, etc)
As for the functionality, I'm really glad they added it. Versatile search and tagging functionality are two great features in my experience.
I don't use history anymore, and bookmarks were replaced by tags.
That said, what features of firefox 3 do you need? I mean, why can't you just roll back to firefox 2 if you don't like ff3?
Do you play games to waste time?
Why don't you just look at the ceiling or go outside to count ants if you only need to waste time?
People play games to have fun. And having to play 10 times through the same level just to get killed at some stupid trap at the end is not considered fun by some people. And in fact I used to consider that fun when I have lots of hours per day to play, but not anymore.
Now, is it that bad that some people have a different measure of what fun is than you do? I don't think so. I think it is great to have games to appeal to different kind of people.