Why the hell should I subsidise the export and tourism industry?
Because you want to improve the nation you live in. Because the cost to the license fee payer for the extra bandwidth is going to be nothing in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't even cost the individual license fee payer a penny.
[...] but will that offset the THREE BILLION POUNDS a year we are taxed for the BBC?
Why should it? That's the total of license fee contributions to the BBC, it doesn't change if access to people outside the UK is blocked. If allowing access brings in more money than the bandwidth costs then Britain is a winner, more business means more jobs, means more taxes collected, means better public services. Just putting some big figure in capital letters doesn't mean you've got a valid point.
Basically you're being extremely selfish, the cost to you would be negligable to nill so stop quibbling.
so the website itself would contribute very minimally to the secondary effects that you have stated.
This is partly true, although aving been a resident of the UK I know there is still quite a bit we don't get this side of the pond (BBC Canada up here). The Web service should fill in the gaps nicely, and it'll hopefully be full-on BBC too: no adverts, and no cutting the programs to fit adverts in either (I hope).
Anyway, my main point still stands. The OP was complaining that the rest of the world is getting programs the British license fee payer has paid to produce, when really they're not looking at the bigger picture: the advantages that come from exporting British culture (well the good bits anyway:) ).
Radio 4 (available over the internet for free - give it a go! - especially the comedy)
Not only is this an interesting post, but the parent is bang-on about Radio 4, it's a fantastic station. Am particularly looking forward to: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, it's starring Harry Enfield too.
Good thing is the DRM hasn't infected radio at all yet, so listen all you like!
The problem is why should UK taxpayers pay for people in other countries to have free media that they didn't pay for?
I've always thought this to be a narrow-minded viewpoint, people from around the world watching British TV will help the export industries. Perhaps more Americans will learn about how to make a proper cup of tea (honestly, I heard you chaps don't even use boiling water!), buy-in some UK brands: I recommend Yorkshire Tea--am not affilliated with them, it's just bloomin' good tea. Next will come the Digestive biscuits, you've got to have a biscuit to dunk in your tea, the local grocery store in Canada imports these from the UK so there's obviously a market, real ales, DVDs of British shows, and a boost to the tourism industry. At the local farmers market here, across the pond, you can even buy 'Real Men Watch Coronation St.' t-shirts (no I don't own one, and yes I know C. St. is produced by ITV, that's beside the point).
So you might complain about foreigners watching shows paid for by your tax £'s, but consider the tax money the export and tourism industry will make back from a greater awareness of British culture. When put up against the cost of distribution: a slightly higher bandwidth bill for the Beeb, the benefits far outweigh the costs. The net result will be more tax collected from UK companies.
What the hell are they going to do now, without this case to report on!?
Oh come on! There's the Microsoft-shilling-ISO problem to report on yet, Groklaw is in the thick of that! Don't forget who funded the SCO attack, Microsoft are not yet defeated, that was just one maneuvre. Meaning there's the end-game of Microsoft's patent FUD attack on GNU+Linux to report, might even be a court case in it too.
I think the site is well established, too many people like PJ's pithy analysis for Groklaw to disappear. Although I doubt your post was serious, it's still worth pointing out all the things the site could do in the weeks, months and years to come.:)
Take a look at yahoo maps. It's..... done. Those whole world is there.
It's done, in unbearably slow Flash. I can't use Yahoo maps at all, it's a PITArse! Agreed that Google should spend more time on finishing/maintaining products than creating new ones, but Yahoo's binary-cruft-o-maps are not a shining example the rest of the world should follow!
It's difficult to believe the article's weird supposition that Google's ultra-clean home page is somehow hurting them, that was one of the main reasons I--and many people I know--switched away from Yahoo! (that and Yahoo!'s paid search results), and I thought people hated change?!
Actually I thought the GPL would only take effect if someone was trying to distribute VMWare along with some GNU+Linux varaint (Ubuntu for example). Like proprietary graphics drivers cannot be distributed with GPL code, but can be downloaded by the user later. Am I wrong? What distributions include VMWare?
As a person who has used Nmap for many legitimate, totally legal debugging I'd like to say thanks for a really handy tool. When using Nmap I always think something like: 'this would be illegal in Germany, how f*cking stupid.'
Being unable to use Nmap (and tools like it) means application developers and network administrators are unable to do their jobs without breaking the law. Admins should refuse to look into networking problems and software engineers should refuse to fix bugs, working on the premise that they'd have to break the law to use debugging tools. That'll get it overturned pretty quickly.
Isn't Windows distributed with the 'net' program? I'm sure that's been used for cracking, doesn't that make practically everyone in Germany a criminal?!
This is monopolistic behaviour. From the Reg (talking to Lord Currie, chairman of OFCOM):
Speaking to El Reg after the debate, he added that the crucial point was whether providers were attempting to force content providers to pay. A content provider going to a service provider and asking for a guaranteed level of service was OK, he said. Access providers strong arming content providers into paying, was not.
They'd better stop trying to strong-arm the BBC into paying for service, anyone who disagrees with these attacks on the free market should give OFCOM a ring. I've contacted them before, aside from being very informative/helpful, the number of complaints has an effect on whether they think they should intervene (assuming the complaint is valid of course).
On Linux, it uses X11 for graphics and OSS for sound.
Only indirectly. It sits on top of OpenGL. They are comparable in that--as the descriptions of both show--they do almost exactly the same thing, but SDL is cross-platform. Seems to me that you're being exceptionally pedantic, if they do the same thing then they are comparable, how they do it is irrelevant.
How's about a car analogy? An electric car and a petrol car are comparable, they are both cars even though the way they work is completely different. SDL and DirectX are comparable because they both provide an abstraction layer to low-level 3D/2D graphics, input devices and sound.
Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, 3D hardware via OpenGL, and 2D video framebuffer.
DirectX® APIs gives multimedia applications access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware such as three-dimensional (3-D) graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. They control low- level functions, including two- dimensional (2-D) graphics acceleration; support for input devices such as joysticks, keyboards, and mice; and control of sound mixing and sound output.
This seems like a window of opportunity for a new OpenGL standard.
Or--even better--a window of opportunity for a new SDL version. SDL is comparable to DirectX as it offers control over sound, graphics, mouse/keyboard/joystick. OpenGL is just for graphics so comparing it with DirectX isn't really fair.:)
It's because your points are so daft they're not even worth countering. The 'nothing to hide' mentality is dangerous as proven by the professor who wrote this paper.
The problem with ubiquitous police surveillance is the creation of a Kafka-esque bureaucracy. One that can gather more information on your personal business than you know yourself, that bureaucracy will then judge you using that data--probably without you even realising--and without giving you an opportunity to defend yourself. Particularly with laws that allow the British police to detain suspects without charge; this ability was abused in South Africa during the Apartheid era by releasing people then re-arresting them the next day (and holding them for another ~28 days, rinse and repeat). I can see no reason why the same thing couldn't happen in the UK: all the government has to do is cite 'terrorism' and show a picture of some brown person and no-one will complain.
I don't think a talking CCTV camera breaking up a fight is worth the infringement on society's privacy. What a brave politician would do is tackle the causes of that behaviour, why is it so many of the denizens of the UK act like arseholes? Fix that and you don't need the CCTV.
It seems like the same problem and attempted resolution in New York, I doubt it will work there either (although I don't know much about the city).
I had the same problem on Ubuntu until Opera brought out 9.22.
I've seen videos of Hakon Lie using Opera on the OLPC to read/. so if there's a problem which stops/. working properly on Opera I doubt it will be a problem for long.:)
Perhaps the/. devs should give more credibility to Opera, since they obviously have some fans high-up in the company!
Other browsers might work, but we haven't really tested them.
I use the Firehose quite often with Opera and it seems to work as expected. I'll be letting you know if it stops working.;)
Having seen the evolution of the Firehose over the last few months I can say that it's definitely going in the right direction. Looks good, am particularly happy that a reason has to be given for modding stuff up/down. It makes me stop and think, rather than just modding things based upon my predisposed opinions.
Throwing laptops at kids in shithole countries may sound like a great idea, but that's making a LOT of assumptions (that they'll only use them for good, that the officials in their countries will actually distribute them rather than sell them, etc.).
Whereas you are quite happy to assume everyone that lives in a developing nation is corrupt, evil and not worthy of a chance at a better life. Of course all of us middle-class people in the West, our business leaders and politicians are all whiter-than-white. We're incorruptible!
Ever heard of a self fulfilling prophesy? Treat someone like a criminal and you'll generally force them to act like one: but try to help, do some good and a lot of people will respond. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the OLPC--and projects like it--will decrease the amount of crime in developing nations. People will be empowered to work on worthwhile projects, and it will build communication bridges with people in the West.
Wake up and stop dehumanising the rest of the world. There are arseholes everywhere, but there are plenty of good people too. Yes some OLPCs will appear on e-Bay, no doubt a few will be used to run scams (although most scammers already have computers), but the vast majority will be used for education. The benefits far outweigh any potential problems, it's really sad people like you can't see that and insist on branding whole nations of millions of people as scum (probably without having ever even visited the continent).
What do you do? The economics of free software interests me.
Have been doing freelance web design/development and am moving into doing custom Drupal development: if you want to see some of the market for bespoke development Stallman was talking about, check out the Drupal job board. Loads of work! People aren't afraid of pooling their resources to get a job done there either. If I remember correctly Stallman's point to that chap was: most development is bespoke, one-off stuff, having worked for a big company on some relatively obscure systems I know from experience what he's saying is absolutely right. Every day would bring changes to the system; that wasn't Free software but even if it was, the work would still have to be done.
So you see: there's no shortage of work, even if all software were Free, because there are always middle-managers coming up with new requirements.:)
But he's not the first person I'd choose as the emissary of "free software."
Well, that's not unfair. The thing that bothers me about Stallman is that he's so unhealthy! He looks awful, and seems to be heading for some bad health problems (IANAD) in my opinion. Am not saying that out of malice, just don't want the emissary of Free software to die of a heart attack! Also physical health has an effect on mental well being, right?
One guy in the audience asked how he was supposed to pay for his university education by releasing free software. Stallman didn't really give him an answer, he just told the student that he didn't have to go to school, and he had no right to release closed source software in an attempt to earn money. Stallman has compared closed source software to "a crime against humanity", yes?
I was sat directly behind the guy who asked that question and don't remember it like that at all. To me it seemed like a case of: 'ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.' It's stupid because he was mixing up Free (as in Freedom) with free (as in beer). It's a common misconception.
Personally when Stallman was answering I really wanted to shout out: 'I get paid for developing Free software!' Which I do, now seeing this weird post on/. makes me wish I had shouted out. Also it was a lecture about copyright in general, not Free software in particular.
So please stop spreading FUD and mis-conceptions about Free software. If that chap in the audience can't make Free software pay then why the heck are Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell et al. still in business?! Just because Stallman's a dirty hippy, doesn't mean everyone in the business is. Maybe, just maybe money isn't important to him? Why are you judging him to be a failure just because he hasn't made millions from his ideas?
It was a stupid question, that's why Stallman had a problem answering it, I also don't remember him answering in the way you've described, but will check later.
Commercial grade copies made by the public have always been possible to make a few years after the medium came about that the originals were made in. PCs didn't change that trend
Maybe they didn't change the trend, but they certainly made it orders of magnitude easier to 'manufacture' (cp or right-click Copy) works.
That's why governments put printers under control (not the contraptions, the people)
That's the point though: not everyone owned their own printing press. While publishing may have been cheap it was also trivial to find who is making illegal copies of others works. Now it's like everyone has a printing and CD presses in their homes. Before computers and the Internet, very few people had the means to copy and distribute books, music and video, now they do. That is Stallman's point: copyright is standing between people and their desire to share stuff they like. It needs to be changed, not to fit the budgets of media corporations, but to meet the needs of society.
It was a good lecture, Stallman has some interesting ideas on what should be done. In particular he talks about how society and copyright never clashed before as the public never had the ability to create commercial grade copies of content (before the advent of the PC). He then goes on to explain a way that copyright can be reformed, including some possible categories for works (based upon their usefulness and application within society). Bit of a spoiler: the works that are instructional (cook books, car manuals, GNU+Linux howtos etc.) should be totally Free, but art for arts sake should have a 5-10 year copyright. There are many more details that you should watch the video to find out about (plus my memory of the event is a little vague and the video hasn't downloaded yet).
The talk drifted at the start and in the middle, with blather about GNU+Linux and the evils of Vista; although some of the Vista evils are on-topic, Stallman did lose his way a bit on the subject. Otherwise it was damn good, well worth going to and/or watching on your OGG player!
Rupert Murdoch has absolutely everything to do with the BBC.
There fixed. Read my post above, this has everything to do with Rupert Murdoch and other companies putting pressure upon the British government to stop the BBC providing a good on line service. The Shadow Culture Secretary confirmed this.
For those not aware of how British politics works: Blair (and now Brown's) government both follow what is known as the 'tabloid agenda', the most read tabloid in the world is 'The Sun' this is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Heads of the Labour government regularly meet with Rupert Murdoch, in fact Murdoch was known as the hidden member of Tony Blair's government. Don't think Brown is any better though: an interview (sadly I think that's been taken off-air so you'll have to trust me) with the editor of The Sun revealed that Rupert Murdoch often used to joke about having to visit both Number 10 and Number 11 whenever he was in the UK.
As the BBC is competition to Murdoch he would like to see it shutdown. This is natural. Unfortunately for him the BBC is not controlled by the government, but the BBC Trust is. So when the government comes out with weird statements like:
there is evidence that certain aspects of the proposals may have a negative effect on investment in similar commercial services which would not be in the long-term public interest.
It's pretty obvious to me who's behind the complaints. The people--whom the government are supposed to serve--just want the BBC to be the best it can be, and if private media can't keep up? Then it shouldn't be in business! Particularly when considering how these words are touting 'public interest' then enforcing the use of DRM? Public interest my arse. In the words of Hugo Swire (shadow culture secetary):
We're going to have to see if this trust has teeth and the iPlayer is the test... There are companies who feel threatened by the BBC.
So as usual, it's all big company interests. I somehow doubt that the BBC Trust will listen to the Open Source Consortium. Not that I think they shouldn't try, however it's unlikely they'll be able to remove their heads from Rupert Murdoch's arsehole long enough to listen.:)
Maybe I'm missing something about this article, but it's very short, makes no real points and doesn't back up its claims. How can we ever know which distro is the most used? Distrowatch? Their methods are hardly reliable!
Sadly it seems this article has been written to get people arguing on social networking sites instead of bringing anything new to the table. Yes, I know: I must be new here.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Because you want to improve the nation you live in. Because the cost to the license fee payer for the extra bandwidth is going to be nothing in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't even cost the individual license fee payer a penny.
Why should it? That's the total of license fee contributions to the BBC, it doesn't change if access to people outside the UK is blocked. If allowing access brings in more money than the bandwidth costs then Britain is a winner, more business means more jobs, means more taxes collected, means better public services. Just putting some big figure in capital letters doesn't mean you've got a valid point.
Basically you're being extremely selfish, the cost to you would be negligable to nill so stop quibbling.
This is partly true, although aving been a resident of the UK I know there is still quite a bit we don't get this side of the pond (BBC Canada up here). The Web service should fill in the gaps nicely, and it'll hopefully be full-on BBC too: no adverts, and no cutting the programs to fit adverts in either (I hope).
Anyway, my main point still stands. The OP was complaining that the rest of the world is getting programs the British license fee payer has paid to produce, when really they're not looking at the bigger picture: the advantages that come from exporting British culture (well the good bits anyway :) ).
Not only is this an interesting post, but the parent is bang-on about Radio 4, it's a fantastic station. Am particularly looking forward to: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, it's starring Harry Enfield too.
Good thing is the DRM hasn't infected radio at all yet, so listen all you like!
I've always thought this to be a narrow-minded viewpoint, people from around the world watching British TV will help the export industries. Perhaps more Americans will learn about how to make a proper cup of tea (honestly, I heard you chaps don't even use boiling water!), buy-in some UK brands: I recommend Yorkshire Tea--am not affilliated with them, it's just bloomin' good tea. Next will come the Digestive biscuits, you've got to have a biscuit to dunk in your tea, the local grocery store in Canada imports these from the UK so there's obviously a market, real ales, DVDs of British shows, and a boost to the tourism industry. At the local farmers market here, across the pond, you can even buy 'Real Men Watch Coronation St.' t-shirts (no I don't own one, and yes I know C. St. is produced by ITV, that's beside the point).
So you might complain about foreigners watching shows paid for by your tax £'s, but consider the tax money the export and tourism industry will make back from a greater awareness of British culture. When put up against the cost of distribution: a slightly higher bandwidth bill for the Beeb, the benefits far outweigh the costs. The net result will be more tax collected from UK companies.
Oh come on! There's the Microsoft-shilling-ISO problem to report on yet, Groklaw is in the thick of that! Don't forget who funded the SCO attack, Microsoft are not yet defeated, that was just one maneuvre. Meaning there's the end-game of Microsoft's patent FUD attack on GNU+Linux to report, might even be a court case in it too.
I think the site is well established, too many people like PJ's pithy analysis for Groklaw to disappear. Although I doubt your post was serious, it's still worth pointing out all the things the site could do in the weeks, months and years to come. :)
It's done, in unbearably slow Flash. I can't use Yahoo maps at all, it's a PITArse! Agreed that Google should spend more time on finishing/maintaining products than creating new ones, but Yahoo's binary-cruft-o-maps are not a shining example the rest of the world should follow!
It's difficult to believe the article's weird supposition that Google's ultra-clean home page is somehow hurting them, that was one of the main reasons I--and many people I know--switched away from Yahoo! (that and Yahoo!'s paid search results), and I thought people hated change?!
Actually I thought the GPL would only take effect if someone was trying to distribute VMWare along with some GNU+Linux varaint (Ubuntu for example). Like proprietary graphics drivers cannot be distributed with GPL code, but can be downloaded by the user later. Am I wrong? What distributions include VMWare?
As a person who has used Nmap for many legitimate, totally legal debugging I'd like to say thanks for a really handy tool. When using Nmap I always think something like: 'this would be illegal in Germany, how f*cking stupid.'
Being unable to use Nmap (and tools like it) means application developers and network administrators are unable to do their jobs without breaking the law. Admins should refuse to look into networking problems and software engineers should refuse to fix bugs, working on the premise that they'd have to break the law to use debugging tools. That'll get it overturned pretty quickly.
Isn't Windows distributed with the 'net' program? I'm sure that's been used for cracking, doesn't that make practically everyone in Germany a criminal?!
Wouldn't the SDL project just switch to OpenGL on Windows in that case then?
This is monopolistic behaviour. From the Reg (talking to Lord Currie, chairman of OFCOM):
They'd better stop trying to strong-arm the BBC into paying for service, anyone who disagrees with these attacks on the free market should give OFCOM a ring. I've contacted them before, aside from being very informative/helpful, the number of complaints has an effect on whether they think they should intervene (assuming the complaint is valid of course).
Only indirectly. It sits on top of OpenGL. They are comparable in that--as the descriptions of both show--they do almost exactly the same thing, but SDL is cross-platform. Seems to me that you're being exceptionally pedantic, if they do the same thing then they are comparable, how they do it is irrelevant.
How's about a car analogy? An electric car and a petrol car are comparable, they are both cars even though the way they work is completely different. SDL and DirectX are comparable because they both provide an abstraction layer to low-level 3D/2D graphics, input devices and sound.
From the SDL website:
From http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/AboutGFW/Page s/DirectX10.aspx :
No, it is not a joke. Yes, they are comparable.
Or--even better--a window of opportunity for a new SDL version. SDL is comparable to DirectX as it offers control over sound, graphics, mouse/keyboard/joystick. OpenGL is just for graphics so comparing it with DirectX isn't really fair. :)
It's because your points are so daft they're not even worth countering. The 'nothing to hide' mentality is dangerous as proven by the professor who wrote this paper.
The problem with ubiquitous police surveillance is the creation of a Kafka-esque bureaucracy. One that can gather more information on your personal business than you know yourself, that bureaucracy will then judge you using that data--probably without you even realising--and without giving you an opportunity to defend yourself. Particularly with laws that allow the British police to detain suspects without charge; this ability was abused in South Africa during the Apartheid era by releasing people then re-arresting them the next day (and holding them for another ~28 days, rinse and repeat). I can see no reason why the same thing couldn't happen in the UK: all the government has to do is cite 'terrorism' and show a picture of some brown person and no-one will complain.
I don't think a talking CCTV camera breaking up a fight is worth the infringement on society's privacy. What a brave politician would do is tackle the causes of that behaviour, why is it so many of the denizens of the UK act like arseholes? Fix that and you don't need the CCTV.
It seems like the same problem and attempted resolution in New York, I doubt it will work there either (although I don't know much about the city).
I had the same problem on Ubuntu until Opera brought out 9.22.
I've seen videos of Hakon Lie using Opera on the OLPC to read /. so if there's a problem which stops /. working properly on Opera I doubt it will be a problem for long. :)
Perhaps the /. devs should give more credibility to Opera, since they obviously have some fans high-up in the company!
I use the Firehose quite often with Opera and it seems to work as expected. I'll be letting you know if it stops working. ;)
Having seen the evolution of the Firehose over the last few months I can say that it's definitely going in the right direction. Looks good, am particularly happy that a reason has to be given for modding stuff up/down. It makes me stop and think, rather than just modding things based upon my predisposed opinions.
Hehehehe, it's posts like these that remind me why I added you to my friend list.
Whereas you are quite happy to assume everyone that lives in a developing nation is corrupt, evil and not worthy of a chance at a better life. Of course all of us middle-class people in the West, our business leaders and politicians are all whiter-than-white. We're incorruptible!
Ever heard of a self fulfilling prophesy? Treat someone like a criminal and you'll generally force them to act like one: but try to help, do some good and a lot of people will respond. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the OLPC--and projects like it--will decrease the amount of crime in developing nations. People will be empowered to work on worthwhile projects, and it will build communication bridges with people in the West.
Wake up and stop dehumanising the rest of the world. There are arseholes everywhere, but there are plenty of good people too. Yes some OLPCs will appear on e-Bay, no doubt a few will be used to run scams (although most scammers already have computers), but the vast majority will be used for education. The benefits far outweigh any potential problems, it's really sad people like you can't see that and insist on branding whole nations of millions of people as scum (probably without having ever even visited the continent).
Have been doing freelance web design/development and am moving into doing custom Drupal development: if you want to see some of the market for bespoke development Stallman was talking about, check out the Drupal job board. Loads of work! People aren't afraid of pooling their resources to get a job done there either. If I remember correctly Stallman's point to that chap was: most development is bespoke, one-off stuff, having worked for a big company on some relatively obscure systems I know from experience what he's saying is absolutely right. Every day would bring changes to the system; that wasn't Free software but even if it was, the work would still have to be done.
So you see: there's no shortage of work, even if all software were Free, because there are always middle-managers coming up with new requirements. :)
Well, that's not unfair. The thing that bothers me about Stallman is that he's so unhealthy! He looks awful, and seems to be heading for some bad health problems (IANAD) in my opinion. Am not saying that out of malice, just don't want the emissary of Free software to die of a heart attack! Also physical health has an effect on mental well being, right?
I was sat directly behind the guy who asked that question and don't remember it like that at all. To me it seemed like a case of: 'ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.' It's stupid because he was mixing up Free (as in Freedom) with free (as in beer). It's a common misconception.
Personally when Stallman was answering I really wanted to shout out: 'I get paid for developing Free software!' Which I do, now seeing this weird post on /. makes me wish I had shouted out. Also it was a lecture about copyright in general, not Free software in particular.
So please stop spreading FUD and mis-conceptions about Free software. If that chap in the audience can't make Free software pay then why the heck are Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell et al. still in business?! Just because Stallman's a dirty hippy, doesn't mean everyone in the business is. Maybe, just maybe money isn't important to him? Why are you judging him to be a failure just because he hasn't made millions from his ideas?
It was a stupid question, that's why Stallman had a problem answering it, I also don't remember him answering in the way you've described, but will check later.
Maybe they didn't change the trend, but they certainly made it orders of magnitude easier to 'manufacture' (cp or right-click Copy) works.
That's the point though: not everyone owned their own printing press. While publishing may have been cheap it was also trivial to find who is making illegal copies of others works. Now it's like everyone has a printing and CD presses in their homes. Before computers and the Internet, very few people had the means to copy and distribute books, music and video, now they do. That is Stallman's point: copyright is standing between people and their desire to share stuff they like. It needs to be changed, not to fit the budgets of media corporations, but to meet the needs of society.
Am happy to say: I was there! :)
It was a good lecture, Stallman has some interesting ideas on what should be done. In particular he talks about how society and copyright never clashed before as the public never had the ability to create commercial grade copies of content (before the advent of the PC). He then goes on to explain a way that copyright can be reformed, including some possible categories for works (based upon their usefulness and application within society). Bit of a spoiler: the works that are instructional (cook books, car manuals, GNU+Linux howtos etc.) should be totally Free, but art for arts sake should have a 5-10 year copyright. There are many more details that you should watch the video to find out about (plus my memory of the event is a little vague and the video hasn't downloaded yet).
The talk drifted at the start and in the middle, with blather about GNU+Linux and the evils of Vista; although some of the Vista evils are on-topic, Stallman did lose his way a bit on the subject. Otherwise it was damn good, well worth going to and/or watching on your OGG player!
There fixed. Read my post above, this has everything to do with Rupert Murdoch and other companies putting pressure upon the British government to stop the BBC providing a good on line service. The Shadow Culture Secretary confirmed this.
For those not aware of how British politics works: Blair (and now Brown's) government both follow what is known as the 'tabloid agenda', the most read tabloid in the world is 'The Sun' this is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Heads of the Labour government regularly meet with Rupert Murdoch, in fact Murdoch was known as the hidden member of Tony Blair's government. Don't think Brown is any better though: an interview (sadly I think that's been taken off-air so you'll have to trust me) with the editor of The Sun revealed that Rupert Murdoch often used to joke about having to visit both Number 10 and Number 11 whenever he was in the UK.
As the BBC is competition to Murdoch he would like to see it shutdown. This is natural. Unfortunately for him the BBC is not controlled by the government, but the BBC Trust is. So when the government comes out with weird statements like:
It's pretty obvious to me who's behind the complaints. The people--whom the government are supposed to serve--just want the BBC to be the best it can be, and if private media can't keep up? Then it shouldn't be in business! Particularly when considering how these words are touting 'public interest' then enforcing the use of DRM? Public interest my arse. In the words of Hugo Swire (shadow culture secetary):
So as usual, it's all big company interests. I somehow doubt that the BBC Trust will listen to the Open Source Consortium. Not that I think they shouldn't try, however it's unlikely they'll be able to remove their heads from Rupert Murdoch's arsehole long enough to listen. :)
Maybe I'm missing something about this article, but it's very short, makes no real points and doesn't back up its claims. How can we ever know which distro is the most used? Distrowatch? Their methods are hardly reliable!
Sadly it seems this article has been written to get people arguing on social networking sites instead of bringing anything new to the table. Yes, I know: I must be new here. :)