yeah i had a similar problem. it was with a new car. they wanted 35k for that suv. i said to myself "self, they are trying to screw you... it's ok to just steal it". since they were going to try to charge me too much, self and i decided to steal the car.
If you take a car, you have a car and the owner doesn't.
If you take an idea, the owner still has full possession and use of it. Music isn't a car, it's an idea.
If we need space travel for legitimate goals, and I too agree that we do, it should be done realistically:
Figure out what we need. Specify it. Accept bids.
Pay the lowest acceptable bidder exactly what was agreed. If they don't make a profit because of cost overruns, tough shit; should have done a better job of estimating.
Specify in the contract that we get to audit their books. If it looks like they're ripping us off, put the offenders in jail.
Note that I'm not talking about specifying this per project; I mean the WHOLE THING. NASA should be a dozen people in an office in Washington, most of 'em accountants, a couple engineers and scientists.
You're right; it was 1958 when the information needed for anybody with the money to build a laser was published to the entire world, not 1963. Thanks for the correction.
Which, I'd be willing to bet, means he would have his mechanic remove the engine and let you tow the car away. He keeps the engine for parts at considerable profit, charges you full price for the cars, and bills you for the labor.
Which makes my analogy perfect. Would we expect the government to step in and require him to sell you the car without the engine, at a discount?
Companies should be required to test their chips rigorously and explicitly label them correctly as to their performance capabilities. That's the least the law can require.
Why in the world would you jump straight for big brother to do this for you?
Do you call the police when somebody cuts in front of you in line?
And until then, we should organize boycotts against mendacious chip manufacturers. That's our right as consumers and it'll help give our legal challenges more oomph and grassroots support.
That is your right, and I encourage you to exercise it. However, you should do so IN LIEU of the legal challenges, not in support of them.
We have enough laws in this country, let's fix our disputes like adults, not call big brother in to justify a few more million dollars in taxes to support added staff at some government agency enforcing the removal of a minor annoyance.
You don't use LT's gas. He open sourced a good formula for gas. Those people who wish to build the mini gas proccessing plant in their back yard can use this formula and get superior quality gas and miliage.
However, 90% of the people don't want to, or can't build their own plant.
They can still use his gas. RedHat will sell it to them, or they can get it at their local book store, or they can mail-order it from CheapBytes for $2 for a lifetime supply.
I'm betting that underground instructions for making your own with two savlaged microwaves and $1000 in other parts will soon swoop down on the net and we'll have some really strange reports of unruly parties with load music being broken up by neighbors driving by and kapping the pad.
This and the other nasty civilian scenarios you mentioned are all already possible.
The laser genie was let out of the bottle in 1963. It's certainly been too late to put him back in since then, and probably since the invention of the neon light.
Being burned with a maser probably beats the hell out of being burned with napalm, even if you are blinded.
We're talking about a military application here, not a police application, so there really isn't a question of "abuse" since the alternative is probably blowing people up with artillery fire or shooting them.
How can you claim they have a monopoly on a web site that is run on PC hardware using a non-Microsoft OS? One of many non-Microsoft OSes that will run on the hardware in question? A non-Microsoft OS that is sold preloaded on that company's PCs?
You have at least a dozen choices, and that's just on the particular hardware platform in question.
Microsoft doesn't even compete on most hardware platforms, and only competes effectively on one.
Monopoly? That would be like if Standard Oil had only operated in California and New York, but still got declared a monopoly.
Microsoft's "monopoly" is a joke that one judge agrees with, and a whole bunch of others don't.
If I don't pay for their crap, why do you think you are forced to?
As for IBM, they always have offered, and continue to offer, their own OS; AIX. It's superior to Windows in many ways. However, most consumers don't want it. This demands better programming and marketting from IBM, not government intervention.
The retailers let Microsoft put them in that position, and they aren't all in it; there are several retailers who don't sell Windows with their PCs, and there are lots who sell both it and other OSes.
The fact is that you can choose to buy a computer and not put Windows on it, and that's the bottom line.
And yes, you've always been able to buy one with another OS preloaded. Sun, HP, and IBM have been selling workstations forever. Indelible Blue predates the web. VA Linux has a great reputation, despite being fairly new.
So it costs more. Is the lower price a RIGHT, or a consequence of economies of scale? I think the latter.
It's like trying to call Rolls Royce up and ask to buy one of their cars without an engine, so you can put your own engine in.
If Rolls says "sorry, no, we don't sell them that way", should the government step in and tell them they have to do it?
No, in the real world you have three choices; give up and buy nothing, buy the Rolls and remove the engine, or buy a Lexus. (Probably can't get them to sell it without the engine, either.)
Should the government then declare them a monopoly?
Microsoft doesn't make PCs. They don't make the only operating system available to consumers. They make a LUXURY, that is tied to another luxury.
If we were talking about General Mills securing an agreement with the majority of grocery stores that they would not carry any other brands of food, and would not sell any food to anyone without them buying a particular kind of food, you might have something, but we're not talking about food, we're talking about computers. We're not talking about removing all your choices, we're talking about reducing your cheap choices.
You aren't born endowed by your creator with the inalienable right to a cheap computer with a free OS on it.
But don't you think that computer manufacturers should be free to install Linux instead of Windows without repercussions from Microsoft? Don't you think they should be able to install an alternate web browser if they wish? Don't you think they should have control over what gets displayed first on their machines?
Yes; and I also think they should be free to sign contracts giving up those rights, if they think it's worth losing them in return for gaining access to somebody else's property, I.E. Microsoft's operating systems. I wouldn't want to choose that, but that doesn't mean I should have the right to force other people to agree with me.
Don't you think software makers should have the ability to make compatible software and use the same functions of Windows that Microsoft currently prohibits?
Why? Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to say "if you want to use my property, you will sign this contract saying how you will use it. If you don't like those terms, don't use our software."?
Is Windows a right?
If the license terms are onerous, don't use it. If that means people don't buy your computers, well, they have that right, too.
Before you accuse me of not being a Libertarian because I don't agree with you on this, you should perhaps check out the party's official position on the matter.
For those too lazy to follow the link, I'll tease it with the title from the press release: "Microsoft antitrust ruling: More costly than all the bank robbers in history."
The government should stay the hell out of this. The market as a whole, and consumers as individuals, should decide.
If you don't like the choices given you, make your own. If you don't have the skill to make your own, whose fault is that?
Not even your computer is a right, much less the operating system on it. But even if it were, you still have choices; run Linux. Run BSD. Or if you're just all fired-up set to pay somebody, run BeOS or Solaris.
Before going spouting off it's oftentimes enlighening to do a bit of research first and discover the reasoning behind a set of laws rather then spouting off an ignorant opinion.
I agree. When you've done that, come back and we'll talk again.
You're a piss-poor Libertarian then, who has chosen "temporary safety over liberty" and thus "deserves neither", if I may be excused the Ben Franklin mangling.
Microsoft never prevented me from choosing, even on the x86 platform.
OS/2, DR-DOS, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, SCO, BeOS; that's just the choices I've used, there are others I haven't. Most of them (all but one, in fact) are still available, and OS/2 can still be used although of course it's a little difficult to find.
What Microsoft did was arrogant, immoral, and in the long run will be futile, but it was very rarely illegal. They pay a ton of top lawyers to help them NOT be illegal.
I don't think anybody should buy Microsoft's crappy products, and I won't buy them myself. However, I don't go running to Big Brother to force them to run their corporation the way I want it run. I'll start my own if I want that.
Why would a company open source a project like that?
Because as a Unix company that has announced that Linux is a strategic platform for them, anything that provides an answer to the question "but what about groupware?" helps them sell widgets.
They make a lot more money on widgets than they would on licensing OpenMail.
Of course, the reason you should personally be concerned about "hate crimes" is that you're open to becoming a completely arbitrary victim.
And am I less so, because of hate crime laws?
Read what I wrote again; I'm not saying hate crimes don't exist, I'm saying hate crime LAWS accomplish nothing other than dividing us further.
Nowhere have I said that hate crimes should not be punished. Quite the opposite; simply that the punishment for ANY violent crime should be very severe, and extremely violent crime (murder, attempted murder, assault with intent to kill) should be punished permanently.
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
I am far more likely to be killed for my wallet or automobile than for the amount of melanin in my epidermis, and this would be true even if I were a black female living in Austin.
The fact that I am a straight white male (lower-upper class, atheist, but you were close enough) doesn't make it any less tragic if I'm killed. My wife and child wouldn't love me any more if I were a minority.
Hell, the fact that I'm not called a minority is further proof of the arbitrary and illogical nature of these divisions. I'm Irish, my "people" are still being oppressed.
Except that that's bullshit; I'm an American, and so is the American who was born in India in the next cubicle, and the American born in China in the one after him, and the American of African descent walking by, and the American of Greek descent in the next room who happens to be gay.
It's just as wrong to kill one of us as the next one, for any premeditated reason.
A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors.
No, a person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to anyone with whom he interacts, because they might cut in line in front of him or double park. Such a person has demonstrated that he cannot live by the rules of a civilized society, and that he will not resolve minor disputes by taking them to small claims court, but instead by killing someone.
Such a person should not be in society, and it is reckless and irresponsible to allow him to continue interacting with others. Whether that means life in prison without paroll or the death penalty is a seperate topic, for which I have an opinion that isn't really relevant to what's being discussed at present.
A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead.
Nonsense. Most bigots who kill don't kill even a dozen people, much less millions. As for being a bigger threat, do you honestly think your hypothetical unstable neighbor is going to encounter less rude people than your bigot is going to encounter Jews?
The bigot is going to self-select himself AWAY from potential victims. He's probably less of a threat than the unstable fool, who is going to be interacting with other people every day.
Both the bigot and the unstable neighbor have one thing in common; they have demonstrated that they cannot live by the rules of society, and that they present a threat to the lives and well-being of others as a result of this deficiency. Both should be removed from society permanently.
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
How does my taking the position that all murderers should be taken out of society permanently, regardless of whether they murdered because they hated their victim or because they hated a broader class of people, equate into protecting the murderer's rights?
Are you even reading these things before you reply to them?
And we're not just talking about ordinary crime. We're talking about hate crimes.
I fail to see how you're any more dead if the man who kills you hates all people of your skin tone, not just you.
I further fail to see why such crimes should have greater penalties than "ordinary" crimes. If murder demands a certain penalty, it should demand that penalty regardless of the race, color, creed, or religion of either victim or assailant.
Hate crime laws merely divide us further, by perpetuating the wrong-headed notion that there is a non-trivial difference between us that is based on our non-immediate ancestry.
Maybe someone should just tell them about OpenBSD, save some time and money.
I've seen OpenBSD folks make a lot of claims, but I've never before seen one claim that all research into secure OSes should come to a halt now that it exists.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah i had a similar problem. it was with a new car. they wanted 35k for that suv. i said to myself "self, they are trying to screw you... it's ok to just steal it". since they were going to try to charge me too much, self and i decided to steal the car.
If you take a car, you have a car and the owner doesn't.
If you take an idea, the owner still has full possession and use of it. Music isn't a car, it's an idea.
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Fair use can go along way, but when there is so much of it going on and there is money being lost... who is going to win?
Ok, but the evidence suggests that the music industry is MAKING money, not losing it.
There is no evidence that they'd be making more money if Napster wasn't there, and some evidence that the opposite is true.
The songs I have downloaded from Napster fall into three categories:
1) Songs I already own on another medium that isn't convenient to transfer into my computer, or that is tucked away in a box somewhere.
2) Songs I have wanted to listen to, listened to, and then deleted as a waste of my hard drive space.
3) Songs that I wouldn't buy if they weren't available via Napster; I'd just do without them.
Napster hasn't prevented me from buying a single CD. The lawsuit against them, OTOH, has. I suspect I am not unique.
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If we need space travel for legitimate goals, and I too agree that we do, it should be done realistically:
Figure out what we need. Specify it. Accept bids.
Pay the lowest acceptable bidder exactly what was agreed. If they don't make a profit because of cost overruns, tough shit; should have done a better job of estimating.
Specify in the contract that we get to audit their books. If it looks like they're ripping us off, put the offenders in jail.
Note that I'm not talking about specifying this per project; I mean the WHOLE THING. NASA should be a dozen people in an office in Washington, most of 'em accountants, a couple engineers and scientists.
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I should add, since we're talking about masers, that they patented that (thus publishing quite a bit of information about it) in 1953.
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You're right; it was 1958 when the information needed for anybody with the money to build a laser was published to the entire world, not 1963. Thanks for the correction.
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Which, I'd be willing to bet, means he would have his mechanic remove the engine and let you tow the car away. He keeps the engine for parts at considerable profit, charges you full price for the cars, and bills you for the labor.
Which makes my analogy perfect. Would we expect the government to step in and require him to sell you the car without the engine, at a discount?
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Companies should be required to test their chips rigorously and explicitly label them correctly as to their performance capabilities. That's the least the law can require.
Why in the world would you jump straight for big brother to do this for you?
Do you call the police when somebody cuts in front of you in line?
And until then, we should organize boycotts against mendacious chip manufacturers. That's our right as consumers and it'll help give our legal challenges more oomph and grassroots support.
That is your right, and I encourage you to exercise it. However, you should do so IN LIEU of the legal challenges, not in support of them.
We have enough laws in this country, let's fix our disputes like adults, not call big brother in to justify a few more million dollars in taxes to support added staff at some government agency enforcing the removal of a minor annoyance.
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You don't use LT's gas. He open sourced a good formula for gas. Those people who wish to build the mini gas proccessing plant in their back yard can use this formula and get superior quality gas and miliage.
However, 90% of the people don't want to, or can't build their own plant.
They can still use his gas. RedHat will sell it to them, or they can get it at their local book store, or they can mail-order it from CheapBytes for $2 for a lifetime supply.
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I'm betting that underground instructions for making your own with two savlaged microwaves and $1000 in other parts will soon swoop down on the net and we'll have some really strange reports of unruly parties with load music being broken up by neighbors driving by and kapping the pad.
This and the other nasty civilian scenarios you mentioned are all already possible.
The laser genie was let out of the bottle in 1963. It's certainly been too late to put him back in since then, and probably since the invention of the neon light.
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Being burned with a maser probably beats the hell out of being burned with napalm, even if you are blinded.
We're talking about a military application here, not a police application, so there really isn't a question of "abuse" since the alternative is probably blowing people up with artillery fire or shooting them.
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And yet, I'm not using RR gas, I'm using Linus Torvalds gas, and have been since before Judge Jackson's ruling. Explain that.
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How can you claim they have a monopoly on a web site that is run on PC hardware using a non-Microsoft OS? One of many non-Microsoft OSes that will run on the hardware in question? A non-Microsoft OS that is sold preloaded on that company's PCs?
You have at least a dozen choices, and that's just on the particular hardware platform in question.
Microsoft doesn't even compete on most hardware platforms, and only competes effectively on one.
Monopoly? That would be like if Standard Oil had only operated in California and New York, but still got declared a monopoly.
Microsoft's "monopoly" is a joke that one judge agrees with, and a whole bunch of others don't.
If I don't pay for their crap, why do you think you are forced to?
As for IBM, they always have offered, and continue to offer, their own OS; AIX. It's superior to Windows in many ways. However, most consumers don't want it. This demands better programming and marketting from IBM, not government intervention.
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Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.
The retailers let Microsoft put them in that position, and they aren't all in it; there are several retailers who don't sell Windows with their PCs, and there are lots who sell both it and other OSes.
The fact is that you can choose to buy a computer and not put Windows on it, and that's the bottom line.
And yes, you've always been able to buy one with another OS preloaded. Sun, HP, and IBM have been selling workstations forever. Indelible Blue predates the web. VA Linux has a great reputation, despite being fairly new.
So it costs more. Is the lower price a RIGHT, or a consequence of economies of scale? I think the latter.
It's like trying to call Rolls Royce up and ask to buy one of their cars without an engine, so you can put your own engine in.
If Rolls says "sorry, no, we don't sell them that way", should the government step in and tell them they have to do it?
No, in the real world you have three choices; give up and buy nothing, buy the Rolls and remove the engine, or buy a Lexus. (Probably can't get them to sell it without the engine, either.)
Should the government then declare them a monopoly?
Microsoft doesn't make PCs. They don't make the only operating system available to consumers. They make a LUXURY, that is tied to another luxury.
If we were talking about General Mills securing an agreement with the majority of grocery stores that they would not carry any other brands of food, and would not sell any food to anyone without them buying a particular kind of food, you might have something, but we're not talking about food, we're talking about computers. We're not talking about removing all your choices, we're talking about reducing your cheap choices.
You aren't born endowed by your creator with the inalienable right to a cheap computer with a free OS on it.
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Well, actually, IBM was prevented from selling OS/2 by M$ when M$ said you can only get a reasonable price for W95 if IBM would drop OS/2.
You don't get it; that's only PREVENTING you from selling OS/2 if you CHOOSE to buy Win95.
IBM could have chosen to concentrate on OS/2 and blow off Win95.
They were free to choose. The market will make it's own choices.
Sometimes doing the right thing hurts. That's life.
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But don't you think that computer manufacturers should be free to install Linux instead of Windows without repercussions from Microsoft? Don't you think they should be able to install an alternate web browser if they wish? Don't you think they should have control over what gets displayed first on their machines?
Yes; and I also think they should be free to sign contracts giving up those rights, if they think it's worth losing them in return for gaining access to somebody else's property, I.E. Microsoft's operating systems. I wouldn't want to choose that, but that doesn't mean I should have the right to force other people to agree with me.
Don't you think software makers should have the ability to make compatible software and use the same functions of Windows that Microsoft currently prohibits?
Why? Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to say "if you want to use my property, you will sign this contract saying how you will use it. If you don't like those terms, don't use our software."?
Is Windows a right?
If the license terms are onerous, don't use it. If that means people don't buy your computers, well, they have that right, too.
Before you accuse me of not being a Libertarian because I don't agree with you on this, you should perhaps check out the party's official position on the matter.
For those too lazy to follow the link, I'll tease it with the title from the press release: "Microsoft antitrust ruling: More costly than all the bank robbers in history."
This isn't a secret; we even made the front page of the Wall Street Journal with it.
The government should stay the hell out of this. The market as a whole, and consumers as individuals, should decide.
If you don't like the choices given you, make your own. If you don't have the skill to make your own, whose fault is that?
Not even your computer is a right, much less the operating system on it. But even if it were, you still have choices; run Linux. Run BSD. Or if you're just all fired-up set to pay somebody, run BeOS or Solaris.
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Before going spouting off it's oftentimes enlighening to do a bit of research first and discover the reasoning behind a set of laws rather then spouting off an ignorant opinion.
I agree. When you've done that, come back and we'll talk again.
And it's "rather than" not "rather then".
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You're a piss-poor Libertarian then, who has chosen "temporary safety over liberty" and thus "deserves neither", if I may be excused the Ben Franklin mangling.
Microsoft never prevented me from choosing, even on the x86 platform.
OS/2, DR-DOS, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, SCO, BeOS; that's just the choices I've used, there are others I haven't. Most of them (all but one, in fact) are still available, and OS/2 can still be used although of course it's a little difficult to find.
What Microsoft did was arrogant, immoral, and in the long run will be futile, but it was very rarely illegal. They pay a ton of top lawyers to help them NOT be illegal.
I don't think anybody should buy Microsoft's crappy products, and I won't buy them myself. However, I don't go running to Big Brother to force them to run their corporation the way I want it run. I'll start my own if I want that.
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Why would a company open source a project like that?
Because as a Unix company that has announced that Linux is a strategic platform for them, anything that provides an answer to the question "but what about groupware?" helps them sell widgets.
They make a lot more money on widgets than they would on licensing OpenMail.
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Of course, the reason you should personally be concerned about "hate crimes" is that you're open to becoming a completely arbitrary victim.
And am I less so, because of hate crime laws?
Read what I wrote again; I'm not saying hate crimes don't exist, I'm saying hate crime LAWS accomplish nothing other than dividing us further.
Nowhere have I said that hate crimes should not be punished. Quite the opposite; simply that the punishment for ANY violent crime should be very severe, and extremely violent crime (murder, attempted murder, assault with intent to kill) should be punished permanently.
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
I am far more likely to be killed for my wallet or automobile than for the amount of melanin in my epidermis, and this would be true even if I were a black female living in Austin.
The fact that I am a straight white male (lower-upper class, atheist, but you were close enough) doesn't make it any less tragic if I'm killed. My wife and child wouldn't love me any more if I were a minority.
Hell, the fact that I'm not called a minority is further proof of the arbitrary and illogical nature of these divisions. I'm Irish, my "people" are still being oppressed.
Except that that's bullshit; I'm an American, and so is the American who was born in India in the next cubicle, and the American born in China in the one after him, and the American of African descent walking by, and the American of Greek descent in the next room who happens to be gay.
It's just as wrong to kill one of us as the next one, for any premeditated reason.
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A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors.
No, a person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to anyone with whom he interacts, because they might cut in line in front of him or double park. Such a person has demonstrated that he cannot live by the rules of a civilized society, and that he will not resolve minor disputes by taking them to small claims court, but instead by killing someone.
Such a person should not be in society, and it is reckless and irresponsible to allow him to continue interacting with others. Whether that means life in prison without paroll or the death penalty is a seperate topic, for which I have an opinion that isn't really relevant to what's being discussed at present.
A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead.
Nonsense. Most bigots who kill don't kill even a dozen people, much less millions. As for being a bigger threat, do you honestly think your hypothetical unstable neighbor is going to encounter less rude people than your bigot is going to encounter Jews?
The bigot is going to self-select himself AWAY from potential victims. He's probably less of a threat than the unstable fool, who is going to be interacting with other people every day.
Both the bigot and the unstable neighbor have one thing in common; they have demonstrated that they cannot live by the rules of society, and that they present a threat to the lives and well-being of others as a result of this deficiency. Both should be removed from society permanently.
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Yeah, yeah, and the majority of people convicted under hate crimes laws have been black.
So what? The very fact that we're compiling this kind of statistic is further evidence that these wrong-headed laws divide us.
Giving a murderer a lesser sentence because the color of his skin is the same as his victim's isn't equal rights.
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You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
How does my taking the position that all murderers should be taken out of society permanently, regardless of whether they murdered because they hated their victim or because they hated a broader class of people, equate into protecting the murderer's rights?
Are you even reading these things before you reply to them?
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And we're not just talking about ordinary crime. We're talking about hate crimes.
I fail to see how you're any more dead if the man who kills you hates all people of your skin tone, not just you.
I further fail to see why such crimes should have greater penalties than "ordinary" crimes. If murder demands a certain penalty, it should demand that penalty regardless of the race, color, creed, or religion of either victim or assailant.
Hate crime laws merely divide us further, by perpetuating the wrong-headed notion that there is a non-trivial difference between us that is based on our non-immediate ancestry.
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Maybe someone should just tell them about OpenBSD, save some time and money.
I've seen OpenBSD folks make a lot of claims, but I've never before seen one claim that all research into secure OSes should come to a halt now that it exists.
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So you're using RedHat 4.2, 5.2, or 6.2 then? Those are the supported versions that use a "standard" compiler.
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