Your reply went way beyond the scope of how to fund open-source/free software projects. Health care?
Would scientists continue working for less money? Probably. Would less people go through 9+ years of school to get a PhD and make $40k/year? Probably. Will people write Free Software regardless of economics? Would more people write free software (rather than closed source) if there were more ways to make a living at it?
I don't believe patents are really doing much to affect open/source free software development. The cases where they come up are rare. They may cause traffic to slow down when theres a wreck, but in the vast majority of cases the highway is clear. Charities/Non-profits for scientific causes (or free software - IE FSF) already exist en mass, and they are not the solution. There is a huge list of successful/popular closed source software which has no free software competition of any merit despite plenty of demand and interest. Obviously (to me) the "joy of coding it and the strength of numbers" gives rise to limited output in many areas.
The software tax idea may have merit despite the enormous can of worms administering it would seem to cause, but I'd be interested in more realistic proposals. ESR has also had some things to say about this, but his buisness models for using open source software are awfully limited in the scope of software/buisnesses that could apply them.
"Patent law is unnecessary - what's necessary is a new funding model."
I'm glad you mentioned this as I grow weary of hearing that the SATISFACTION of coding open source in the evening and weekends is all that's needed.
The only idea I've heard beyond the service/support/merchandising route (IE - Redhat, a model which will not work for a huge category of software that does not have the complexity that an OS does) is the FSF's "software tax" idea. I haven't read about it in quite awhile, but I have a strong feeling levying a tax on hardware or whatever in order to support software creation ala science/NSF (which you seem to allude to)is not going to happen.
It always amazed me as I continued through my academic years how little respect students were often given. Watching my younger siblings and their friends, it seems like its only getting worse (in high school with Columbine histeria and at college in general).
The thing that bothers me most about it is - if you treat people like kids (IE - they aren't smart enough to make choices for themselves), then they tend to act like kids. It was amazing how many people I encountered in classes who were really thrown off by classes without rigid structure/due dates and spoon-fed material. I didn't think these people were stupid - they were just born in an educational system which never exposed them to thinking for themselves - this is just the same thing outside the classroom.
The ol' "If you're old enough to be drafted and die in a war" mantra pops up, of course, but I don't think age is the whole story. People like Rep. Jean McGrath don't want ANYONE looking at porn sites, having sex before marriage (or whatever justification behind coed visitation restrictions), etc. These people want to enforce their belief system and their ideas on everyone. "Kids" are a great target, because society in general generally accepts kids shouldn't be exposed to some things for awhile.
Problem is, college students aren't kids, and no one needs to be making their choices for them. It's particularly insulting for those students who are basically financially independent (via loans/grants/their earned income) - gee, everyones old enough to 1) Vote 2) Get drafted 3) Pay Taxes 4) Stand trial as an adult -- but we need to impose these limits on college campuses. It's always good to try and understand an opposing viewpoint, but reasoning like this will never make sense to me.
Anyway this is just another good reminder for all of us to fight back the apathy and vote for the lesser-evil candidate.
I'm reminded of a psychological experiment where people were put in front of a machine they were told was giving electrical shocks to patients (I forget what purpose was given for doing this unfortunately). One group had the patients sitting in front of them, the other group was "shocking" people in another room. The experiment overseers showed the participants how to work the machine and at what levels the voltage would be dangerous and then possibly lethal. The overseers then began asking the particpants to shock the patients and asked them to increase the voltage gradually. At some point the patients began faking discomfort and then pain. The overseers would reassure the participants everything was under control and to continue raising the voltage. The group with the patients in front of them all refused to continue at some pointbefore they reached the "dangerous" setting. However, many participants in the group where the patients where in another room would continue shocking all the way up until the maximum setting on the machine -- despite the loud screaming a moaning they could hear through the walls.
When people aren't communicating with a face/voice things get dehumanized. People don't feel personally accountable and they often get beligerent. The basic respect most people treat other humans with in person often doesn't apply. It's nothing new - the internet has just opened up more outlets for it.
The comment you responded to answers the question - you don't develop for linux. This calls into question whether you're more of a linux advocate or Free Software heretic...
Actually I know 3 people working there, and all have been quite pleased with it as far as I can tell. Although it seems they miss the smaller-time feel Metroworks had before with looser management, 20%+ raises and healthy Motorolla stock incentives after the turnover certainly didnt bother any of them. Attrition seems to be normal, for a high tech company in a town with a lot of high tech companies.
Right, and get a sweedish bank account as well. Unless the loopholes are really big, they aren't going to stick around. As for foreign purchases - people pay something called "Duty" all the time, a similar solution for int'l internet sales seems plausable. How bad the government sucks and how taxes are stupid is a different ballgame.
Mail order was famous back when there were a LOT rural areas incredibly far from any store. These days a town of 5-10k is probably loaded down with at least one walmart, one competing target, and god knows. There's a reason many of the old bigtime mailorder catalogs, like Sears, no longer exist. And yes, yes there are plenty of people who'll continue to buy retail, but its going to be very significantly less as the years wear on. Unless the internet tax is totally outrageous, there'll be initial moaning but I doubt it will last. I think there'll even been some support if its reasonable - the local news here has aired at least 2-3 stories from small buisness owners (bookstore comes to mind) complaining that they lose sales all over because they can get the same things via the internet without tax. I didn't mention the implementation for a reason - who knows. A national sales tax has been talked about for years. I certainly don't think anyone is figuring the "report it yourself" solution is worth anything (They'll put it right under the box on your 1040 for "Illegal Income") other than to get the ball rolling and force the issue.
It's inevitable. Over-hype about e-commerce aside, the public is going to spend more on the internet and less at the local store. Hell, consider the average slashdot user - I'd imagine a enormous percentage of people that participate here buy (for example) the majority of their books online.
The mail-order catalog analogy really doesn't cut it. I won't pretend to know numbers here, but if online purchasing hasn't already surpassed the peak years of mail-ordering (highly, highly unlikely) it will soon enough. Thing about mail order catalogs - most buisnesses didn't have one, you might not the "kind" of mailorder catalog you wanted for whatever purchase at buying time, it may have been woefully outdated, etc. The internet is obviously quite a bit different - every buisness in the universe can have (and most do) a webpage for minimal cost, updating doesn't mean reprinting and re-mailing, and anyone can find it whenever they please. The amount of tax dollars "lost" from interstate purchases will be far larger. It just comes down to the overall impact - people buying interstate via the internet will make a really big impact on tax revenue, mail-order catalogs never did. These things are not the same bag simply because they involve interstate transactions. I imagine if it comes to it, you'll find the supreme court will hear the case ratheer than defer it because they feel the topics been dealt with.
We can all bemoan internet taxes, but they're going to get it from you one way or another. If tax on internet sales is somehow "stopped" while retail sales continue to dive, other taxes will increase and new ones will pop up. They'll probably much less visible/unassuming that will not be making slashdot headlines and pissing off the growing populace of heaving using internet folk. Probably a better political route to go, right McCain ?
Your point of view seems awfully misguided (I'll skip pathetic and stupid for now) and downright scary for anyone, like me, who considers themselves a large proponent of civil liberty.
Where exactly do you put the blame, and who do you propose decides? A judge, just off the cuff? "Let's see, you 85%, Credit Card 10%, Casino 5%". Got me, but I don't find that thought very appealing. Writing "blame cutoff" laws is just too insane to even consider.
In this scenario, how did you arrive at the credit card company being at fault? Where's the ISP in this scenario, who provided the link for these actions to occur? Surely they're in for 5% of the blame as well - they should be monitoring where their clients are going, and if they're hitting casino sites too much, they should do something to block their access. Or perhaps this mans close relatives - perhaps 1% each for mom and Dad, and.5% for siblings and grandparents - certainly they were aware of this guy's gambling problem and should share responsibility for not preventing the situation before it was too late. We could go on and on here - if you want to point to anything but THAT guy's personal choices, you're up for some seriously arbitrary decisions.
In this case, I suppose you feel the credit card company should monitor all customers transactions and PREVENT them from spending their money in a way they determine might be harmful. I daresay this is way, way over the top in invading MY privacy to do whatever I wish. If that's going deep into debt one day gambling online, that's my choice, and I'm sure not going to appreciate it if big brother halts a transaction in the interest of "protecting" me. It's ridiculous to even think about, but that's exactly what you suggest. It's just as ridiculous as me gambling away thousands of dollars then looking at the credit card company and saying "Hey! Why'd you let me do that?! I'm suing you!". Is it such a crazy idea that when you're an adult in this country you might be given free reign on your spending habits? Do you consider the government or buisnesses accountable in whatever part for actions you take that harm yourself? Hopefully not.
So I suppose we'll start seeing alcoholics suing bars and breweries for letting them drink, murderers suing war-malt and smith&wesson for selling and making guns, McDonalds for selling burgers that contributed to heart problems, etc. It's going to be a little complicated as we sort all the middle men in the transaction as well as people tangentally involved attempting to assess their share of blame for the individuals choices...
If you're an adult, the only person who really makes choices for you is *you*. You are responsible for what you do regardless of who may have been a stepping stone along the way. Credit Card companies should not be accountable for making sure you use your credit line responsibly, nor should Jack Daniels be responsible if you drive drunk, kill people and turn yourself into a quadrapalegic. If you need someone to control your actions and prevent you from climbing too high on the jungle gym, go back to kindergarden.
You make choices, you are responsible. THAT atttitude (Personal Responsibility)doesn't seem so prevalent in America (or with humanity in general) and that's "pathetic and stupid".
"For instance, I take music off my my cd's, arrange them, burn them to a cd, and take it to work to listen to? Why? Because I end up paying $17 for one song, I better be able to put the other 14 songs that I ended up paying $17 apiece for on there too."
I don't think most people attribute piracy to making mix CDs/pure copies out of commercial CDs you already own for *personal use*, I certainly don't. And as greedy as the RIAA is, they aren't expecting or hoping copy-protection/encryption is going to force people into buying 3 copies of the same CD so they can have it in their car, at work, and at home.
The only "piracy" the RIAA really cares about is when you copy your CD and give it to a friend, who then gives it to two of his friends, one of which then encodes the CD to mp3 and puts it up on an FTP site. Then someone else downloads it, decodes and burns it, and on, and on. That IS a very large problem. Most people don't attempt to deny this is a big problem, many though (as with you) just avoid it altogether and focus on the personal use aspects of copying.
Making mixes = the same argument as making "archives" = personal use. If that was all that the vast majority of people with CD-Rs did right now, no one in the Recording Industry would be spending the money to lobby for encryption/give a flying flip about it. As it is, I can honestly say I don't know one person that owns a CD-R that hasn't burned multiple CDs off friends and/or via decoding mp3s found off FTP sites. I would probably explode into a coughing fit if you reported the opposite experience.
Anyway, it's a legitimate problem, and I suppose you might say "Well, too bad - I need to make mixes. The recording industry just has to eat it." That really doesn't fly with me, and it's never going to fly with them. You can shout all you want that you'll never buy DVD-Audio unless it's recordable, but the sales to people like you seem to pale in comparison to the sales lost from people who copy CDs/mp3s instead of buying them.
As for DAT/DCC and all that, they never really took off as far as audio goes. DAT recorders/tapes were very high priced back when, and your average consumer had no interest. The only people I've ever known that owned DATs were either musicians doing home recording (before CDRs became cheap/availible) and recording studios.
"From my vantage point, I think that the huge majority of CD-Rs which contain CD-Audio are pirated CD's, not mix CDs or archival CD's... Some of those probably would have been paid for had CD-R's not been so easily accessible."
That's probably true. I do get annoyed when people champion anti-encryption standards on the "archival/backup" excuse when it's damn obvious that the majority, if not the vast majority, of audio CD-Rs burned are pirated copies. I'm not for encryption schemes of any sort, but let's not pretend industry is overblowing the piracy problem - it's enormous. Lets stick to arguments we might actually be able to defend.
"DVD Audio has the potential to add value to audio, with better sound quality, possibly more music per disk, and other gimmicks. For that, the industry should be allowed to protect their investment. That being all the money they've shoveled out and fronted to artists, studio's, etc, without knowing how well a particular act is going to sell."
Well, here's where we get into the problem - the Recording Industry does not compensate artists anywhere near what they should be. Yeah, sometimes they lose a bit of money fronting for an unknown band - but no major label is dumping THAT much money into a basically unproven bands first record. I know all about it - I've been playing in bands, signed with indy labels (not the same bag, and not the same piracy problem or money issue here), watched many many bands sign with majors and get relatively screwed no matter what level of success they achieved. A first time signee, or a not-a-platinum seller resignee is not going to make much more than around $1 per *retail priced* CD (meaning $16.99, or whatever it is right now) sold in the US (Overseas royalties are horrible). Whoever says the studio costs, marketing efforts, and whatever else justifies this is either 1) Someone who doesn't know what's going on and really needs to do some research or 2) A major-label goon.
Anyway, this is all a long way of saying if I felt like the DVD-audio industry pushing encryption was actually going to help artists make the money they deserve off DVD-audio sales, then I'd feel a lot better about it. As it is, I really hate to see the machine attempting to suck in as much cashflow as they can.
"He should already have counsel. He shouldn't be guessing what to do in a case like this. He should already know. If he doesn't, he's not competent to be in the hosting business"
As he said in the Wired story - he can't afford counsel. If the FBI actually wanted to do something and fight it in court, then he'd probably be scrambling to the ACLU hoping someone would take his case pro-bono. Regardless, I have a strong feeling he never considered the possibility the FBI would find a site run by one of his 50 clients and threaten him over it. "Calls from the FBI are not routine, but they aren't rare, either, nor are similar calls from others".
I really, really don't think so. "Hi yes, this is the FBI again. After surveying x bazillion pages on the web, we've determined you need to take this, and this site down". This story was a fluke, and that's why it was a story in the first place.
"These things are even less rare if you're hosting something obviously provocative, like that movie"
Porn sites and such, yeah you may expect it. This? I'd never have guessed a really poorly made, very obscure, video about rioting on New Years would have gained the FBIs interest considering there's all sorts of this sort of thing in bigtime media. I would also guess hosters don't know the details of everything their hosting.
"The reason this bugs me is that I'm getting really tired of the general level of incompetence that's tolerated on the Web"
I think you're confused at where you're placing the blame. I think I'd be a little bit more worried about the FBI's actions, eh? You seem to have lost sight of what the actual problem.
From your response to another poster: "... and, for likely cases like this, yes, you can even get your lawyer to explain enough of the law to you, in advance, that you at least feel comfortable telling, say, the FBI to wait while you call that lawyer."
And in the meantime, take the site down while you're finding out what's going on. Once you've got the facts, put it back up. That's what the guy did. If the guy had refused to put it back up ever, as I imagine many larger ISPs would've, that's a different story.
"We're talking about the feds, not a bunch of film critics. From their point of view, it's provocative"
And god knows what that means. As I said before, if I were hosting this site and the FBI called me about it, I'd be scratching my head as to what exactly caught their attention about it relative to what else is out there.
"... and BECamation, which obviously can't support its customers because of its total lack of a clue, should be one of them."
I'm a little lost on how this incident points to "not supporting the customer". "What? The FBI called, and you took my site down temporarily in order to make sure things were kosher? HOW DARE YOU, incompetent idiot! And by the way, if the FBI actually does do something about it that's illegal, could you uh, front the money to fight them in court for me? That's what I expect out of my ISP you know".
"The reason this bugs me is that I'm getting really tired of the general level of incompetence that's tolerated on the Web"
I have no idea how you relate this to incompetence on anyones part other than the FBI. Which, strangely, you haven't taken issue with.
Good grief - the guy got a call from the FBI saying he needed to take the video down, or they would get his upstream provider to do it. He takes it down temporarily to figure out what's going on. When he finds out the FBI is just bluffing him, he puts it back up. I can't see you are so outraged by it, or find this guy to be incompetent. I've never worked for an ISP, but I would imagine that most ISPs don't get calls from the FBI threatening to shut them down as a matter of rountine. When a law enforcement agency is threating to shut you off, you probably want to be damn sure you know what's going on before you begin attempting to spout legal dogma and take a stand. Just pure intuition about American law is fine, and if I got such a call I'd probably think they had no basis for it... but until things were a little clearer, common sense dictates taking the site down. There's plenty of reason to distrust the FBI, but you'd figure if they went to the trouble of calling you over a site and making really bold threats, they weren't doing it with no basis. This guy may have been able to call a lawyer, but I imagine the conversation "Hi, I run a small ISP, and the FBI just called threatening to off my buisness unless I take a certain video down" would be a free consultation from Lawyer X in the phonebook. Anyway, the site is back up and all is well. This guy was just using what most people call "common sense" when dealing with the situation. The reaction described in the Wired Story, is a lot more disturbing. As alluded to, the problem was with the FBI, not this guy.
You're correct that consumer burners are still short, although after following a recent discussion on this, it appears an "industrial" grade copier runs you 5 grand currently. So for the very brief momemt it's not really a home-user problem. I don't know how much a blank movie-sized DVD disc costs, so I don't know if it's cost effective yet to try and burn movies for sale. If it is however, I imagine there are plenty of folks out there already on the bandwagon (or planning to be), like all those folks in the Hong Kong night market I used to haunt.
Of course there's no way to stop this thing from being widely distributed, just like there is no way to prevent mp3 distribution or commercial software distribution. Sheesh.
However, I do have a brlliant solution (borrowed from the epitome of corporate brillance, Microsoft). How about someone sets up a table somewhere, and asks for people to bring in pirated DVD's to be replaced by non-pirated DVDs, NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
Actually, all three had problems - 1) X would not run 2) No sound and 3) Ethernet card was not getting recognized properly. All were fixed, eventually, but it literally took days to figure out what the problem was in each case with liberal help from other friends in the local Linux users group. Win9x certainly isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get up and running than Linux is. And yes, part of that has to do with the fact that companies spend a lot of time making sure their products work under windows. It doesn't matter though - the end effect is the same. Anyway, yes, Linux types do often try and sell Linux as "easy to use" and "ready for the desktop". Much like the writer of this article and mom, and you generally implying in your response that Linux isn't difficult to install (or maintain), Win9x is just as bad, etc, etc. This is where the lines of being a Linux "advocate" and "fanatic" start to get drawn.
Admittedly, I haven't read through all 223 comments here and perhaps someone has an answer but -- one thing that really confuses me on professors claiming it's "Their IP" is that in the vast majority of their lectures, my professors are presenting material from a text that they haven't written. Diagrams, charts, the whole bit, ripped straight from the book - ideas pulled right from the text. So when a professor is presenting someone elses material, it's lost on me on how that becomes their IP. On the same note are classes that tend toward discussion between students as well as the professor. If the students have written some thoughts down before lecture to bring up during class, are they entitled to IP rights on everything they say in class? It all seems a bit ridiculous. The reality of the two state schools I've attended is that having a video/audio tape or well-done notes is just as good as being at the lecture itself. I think in these large lecture classes colleges and professors like to pretend we're still in some sort of academic setting where ideas flow both ways, when really we're all just sitting around and watching someone talk for an hour. I've found professors who teach classes like this often disturbed, even angered, by people doing well by copying/buying the notes and never attending the class -- not a dilemma about their IP rights and the ethics of having notes sold commercially. Anyway, my answer to professors upset about commercial noting is: why not structure your class so that commercial notetaking is useless? Give out YOUR notes or lecture outlines (useful in many ways beyond this topic). Or even consider turning your class into a "real" class rather than a a talking puppet show. In a "real" class (and I've unfortunately only been to a few) the idea of commercial notetaking is laughable.
But I'll bet $5 she didn't install it, or Linux for that matter. I've extolled the virtues of Linux and have helped/watched a few friends attempt the installation process. These folks like computers, know their way around Win9x, and so they're probably a few levels above mom, but only one out of three went through with the entire thing and kept Linux on his system -- and I can understand. One continually had X lock up on him. It turned out, after many, many hours of trying everything else, that his "Logitech" Mouse was actually recognized as a Microsoft mouse. Even better, the Microsoft mouse choice he needed was only availible in xfree86config - none of the mouse options in RedHat's xconfigurator worked. Another was attempting to get sound working on his TB Pinnacle card. He finally suceeded, but the story behind it is as tedious and long as the previous one I described. Let's not even talk about package the extreme nightmare of unresolved dependencies (and conflicts between old and new versions of the same package). To be fair, I haven't seen RedHat 6.x's installation, which I've heard is much improved (and I would pick RedHat's installation as the easiest of the three I've had any real experience with - Slackware and Debian being the other two) Needless to say, none of my friends were duly impressed with installing it, and once running, it simply does the same exact things they do in windows... only with a far smaller software base to choose from. Anyway, I like Linux and I really hope it manages to break into the desktop market further, but it's not ready yet. It seems like it may be on the horizon, and maybe the day mom could actually go through the Linux install on her own is on the horizon, but not yet.
2 years of experience making 40k? One again, got me there. The QA folks I know make 40-43k (one also gets ~10k in stock for three years) who had no appreciable coding experience, C++, perl, or otherwise. I simply mentioned the CS degree (from UT simply because of the area) because of the ol' newsletter I read did point to it, and I'd assume you'd do generally do better than 40k/year with one, or with some decent work experience, provided you're not an idiot. If a guy can go out with a Cellular Biology degree, very minor coding experience, and no CS/IT work experience and pull down 43k/year, surely someone with a CS degree and a decent knowledge of C++/Perl under their belt (2 years?) can top that. As for the land of the insane salaries in New York or SF, this is not the report I get from friends living in either city. The perl/QA guy I mentioned started in SF for 45k. He began to get serious enough with a girlfriend he wanted to move to New York. His job hunt was underwhelming until his SF-based company decided they really liked him and said "We'll bump your salary 10k, pay for DSL, and have you work from home in New York". Friends of his there working at Motorolla and other smaller types aren't making anything insane. Factor in the cost of living in NYC or SF, which IS insane ($950 for a 1 BR apartment in a real mediocre part of brooklyn... and people complain about rent here. SF is even worse), and they're easily coming out behind of the people I know around here.
According to a pamphlet/newsletter I read, the average starting salary of a CS major out of the University of Texas was 48k/year last year. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with a CS degree out UT personally (or who really "knew their stuff") but... It sounds reasonable, or even a bit low, as I've had two friends in the last year get QA/light programming jobs at around 40-43k year, not counting some hefty bonuses if they stick around the company for awhile. Amazing part about that is, one of these people had no real work experience and a degree in Cellular Biology, the other had no degree had worked at IBM for a decent stint. Another friend of mine (with a Psych degree) who knew his perl and unix now makes 55k year in New York doing QA "teleworking" to his company in San Fransisco after a year. Another, who's had quite a bit of experience with all sorts of web development, and had done quite a bit of work with C++/Java, just moved on from a job making just over 60k/year (no idea what he makes now). That's what I know. From briefly perusing the other comments, it seems like all the above is fairly high in comparison. Got me.
I've kept a hotmail account for awhile now as it's nice to have web-mail when on the move or when I don't want to give out my real e-mail for whatever reason. I only access it every week or two, and good god, the spam is amazing. After two weeks I'd easily have over 100 spammed e-mails to sift through - it was barely usable. Hopefully this will help out...
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Would scientists continue working for less money? Probably. Would less people go through 9+ years of school to get a PhD and make $40k/year? Probably. Will people write Free Software regardless of economics? Would more people write free software (rather than closed source) if there were more ways to make a living at it?
I don't believe patents are really doing much to affect open/source free software development. The cases where they come up are rare. They may cause traffic to slow down when theres a wreck, but in the vast majority of cases the highway is clear. Charities/Non-profits for scientific causes (or free software - IE FSF) already exist en mass, and they are not the solution. There is a huge list of successful/popular closed source software which has no free software competition of any merit despite plenty of demand and interest. Obviously (to me) the "joy of coding it and the strength of numbers" gives rise to limited output in many areas.
The software tax idea may have merit despite the enormous can of worms administering it would seem to cause, but I'd be interested in more realistic proposals. ESR has also had some things to say about this, but his buisness models for using open source software are awfully limited in the scope of software/buisnesses that could apply them.
I'm glad you mentioned this as I grow weary of hearing that the SATISFACTION of coding open source in the evening and weekends is all that's needed.
The only idea I've heard beyond the service/support/merchandising route (IE - Redhat, a model which will not work for a huge category of software that does not have the complexity that an OS does) is the FSF's "software tax" idea. I haven't read about it in quite awhile, but I have a strong feeling levying a tax on hardware or whatever in order to support software creation ala science/NSF (which you seem to allude to)is not going to happen.
So what's your idea for a new funding model?
The thing that bothers me most about it is - if you treat people like kids (IE - they aren't smart enough to make choices for themselves), then they tend to act like kids. It was amazing how many people I encountered in classes who were really thrown off by classes without rigid structure/due dates and spoon-fed material. I didn't think these people were stupid - they were just born in an educational system which never exposed them to thinking for themselves - this is just the same thing outside the classroom.
The ol' "If you're old enough to be drafted and die in a war" mantra pops up, of course, but I don't think age is the whole story. People like Rep. Jean McGrath don't want ANYONE looking at porn sites, having sex before marriage (or whatever justification behind coed visitation restrictions), etc. These people want to enforce their belief system and their ideas on everyone. "Kids" are a great target, because society in general generally accepts kids shouldn't be exposed to some things for awhile.
Problem is, college students aren't kids, and no one needs to be making their choices for them. It's particularly insulting for those students who are basically financially independent (via loans/grants/their earned income) - gee, everyones old enough to 1) Vote 2) Get drafted 3) Pay Taxes 4) Stand trial as an adult -- but we need to impose these limits on college campuses. It's always good to try and understand an opposing viewpoint, but reasoning like this will never make sense to me.
Anyway this is just another good reminder for all of us to fight back the apathy and vote for the lesser-evil candidate.
When people aren't communicating with a face/voice things get dehumanized. People don't feel personally accountable and they often get beligerent. The basic respect most people treat other humans with in person often doesn't apply. It's nothing new - the internet has just opened up more outlets for it.
The comment you responded to answers the question - you don't develop for linux. This calls into question whether you're more of a linux advocate or Free Software heretic...
Actually I know 3 people working there, and all have been quite pleased with it as far as I can tell. Although it seems they miss the smaller-time feel Metroworks had before with looser management, 20%+ raises and healthy Motorolla stock incentives after the turnover certainly didnt bother any of them. Attrition seems to be normal, for a high tech company in a town with a lot of high tech companies.
Right, and get a sweedish bank account as well. Unless the loopholes are really big, they aren't going to stick around. As for foreign purchases - people pay something called "Duty" all the time, a similar solution for int'l internet sales seems plausable. How bad the government sucks and how taxes are stupid is a different ballgame.
Mail order was famous back when there were a LOT rural areas incredibly far from any store. These days a town of 5-10k is probably loaded down with at least one walmart, one competing target, and god knows. There's a reason many of the old bigtime mailorder catalogs, like Sears, no longer exist. And yes, yes there are plenty of people who'll continue to buy retail, but its going to be very significantly less as the years wear on. Unless the internet tax is totally outrageous, there'll be initial moaning but I doubt it will last. I think there'll even been some support if its reasonable - the local news here has aired at least 2-3 stories from small buisness owners (bookstore comes to mind) complaining that they lose sales all over because they can get the same things via the internet without tax. I didn't mention the implementation for a reason - who knows. A national sales tax has been talked about for years. I certainly don't think anyone is figuring the "report it yourself" solution is worth anything (They'll put it right under the box on your 1040 for "Illegal Income") other than to get the ball rolling and force the issue.
The mail-order catalog analogy really doesn't cut it. I won't pretend to know numbers here, but if online purchasing hasn't already surpassed the peak years of mail-ordering (highly, highly unlikely) it will soon enough. Thing about mail order catalogs - most buisnesses didn't have one, you might not the "kind" of mailorder catalog you wanted for whatever purchase at buying time, it may have been woefully outdated, etc. The internet is obviously quite a bit different - every buisness in the universe can have (and most do) a webpage for minimal cost, updating doesn't mean reprinting and re-mailing, and anyone can find it whenever they please. The amount of tax dollars "lost" from interstate purchases will be far larger. It just comes down to the overall impact - people buying interstate via the internet will make a really big impact on tax revenue, mail-order catalogs never did. These things are not the same bag simply because they involve interstate transactions. I imagine if it comes to it, you'll find the supreme court will hear the case ratheer than defer it because they feel the topics been dealt with.
We can all bemoan internet taxes, but they're going to get it from you one way or another. If tax on internet sales is somehow "stopped" while retail sales continue to dive, other taxes will increase and new ones will pop up. They'll probably much less visible/unassuming that will not be making slashdot headlines and pissing off the growing populace of heaving using internet folk. Probably a better political route to go, right McCain ?
Where exactly do you put the blame, and who do you propose decides? A judge, just off the cuff? "Let's see, you 85%, Credit Card 10%, Casino 5%". Got me, but I don't find that thought very appealing. Writing "blame cutoff" laws is just too insane to even consider.
In this scenario, how did you arrive at the credit card company being at fault? Where's the ISP in this scenario, who provided the link for these actions to occur? Surely they're in for 5% of the blame as well - they should be monitoring where their clients are going, and if they're hitting casino sites too much, they should do something to block their access. Or perhaps this mans close relatives - perhaps 1% each for mom and Dad, and .5% for siblings and grandparents - certainly they were aware of this guy's gambling problem and should share responsibility for not preventing the situation before it was too late. We could go on and on here - if you want to point to anything but THAT guy's personal choices, you're up for some seriously arbitrary decisions.
In this case, I suppose you feel the credit card company should monitor all customers transactions and PREVENT them from spending their money in a way they determine might be harmful. I daresay this is way, way over the top in invading MY privacy to do whatever I wish. If that's going deep into debt one day gambling online, that's my choice, and I'm sure not going to appreciate it if big brother halts a transaction in the interest of "protecting" me. It's ridiculous to even think about, but that's exactly what you suggest. It's just as ridiculous as me gambling away thousands of dollars then looking at the credit card company and saying "Hey! Why'd you let me do that?! I'm suing you!". Is it such a crazy idea that when you're an adult in this country you might be given free reign on your spending habits? Do you consider the government or buisnesses accountable in whatever part for actions you take that harm yourself? Hopefully not.
So I suppose we'll start seeing alcoholics suing bars and breweries for letting them drink, murderers suing war-malt and smith&wesson for selling and making guns, McDonalds for selling burgers that contributed to heart problems, etc. It's going to be a little complicated as we sort all the middle men in the transaction as well as people tangentally involved attempting to assess their share of blame for the individuals choices...
If you're an adult, the only person who really makes choices for you is *you*. You are responsible for what you do regardless of who may have been a stepping stone along the way. Credit Card companies should not be accountable for making sure you use your credit line responsibly, nor should Jack Daniels be responsible if you drive drunk, kill people and turn yourself into a quadrapalegic. If you need someone to control your actions and prevent you from climbing too high on the jungle gym, go back to kindergarden.
You make choices, you are responsible. THAT atttitude (Personal Responsibility)doesn't seem so prevalent in America (or with humanity in general) and that's "pathetic and stupid".
I don't think most people attribute piracy to making mix CDs/pure copies out of commercial CDs you already own for *personal use*, I certainly don't. And as greedy as the RIAA is, they aren't expecting or hoping copy-protection/encryption is going to force people into buying 3 copies of the same CD so they can have it in their car, at work, and at home.
The only "piracy" the RIAA really cares about is when you copy your CD and give it to a friend, who then gives it to two of his friends, one of which then encodes the CD to mp3 and puts it up on an FTP site. Then someone else downloads it, decodes and burns it, and on, and on. That IS a very large problem. Most people don't attempt to deny this is a big problem, many though (as with you) just avoid it altogether and focus on the personal use aspects of copying.
Making mixes = the same argument as making "archives" = personal use. If that was all that the vast majority of people with CD-Rs did right now, no one in the Recording Industry would be spending the money to lobby for encryption/give a flying flip about it. As it is, I can honestly say I don't know one person that owns a CD-R that hasn't burned multiple CDs off friends and/or via decoding mp3s found off FTP sites. I would probably explode into a coughing fit if you reported the opposite experience.
Anyway, it's a legitimate problem, and I suppose you might say "Well, too bad - I need to make mixes. The recording industry just has to eat it." That really doesn't fly with me, and it's never going to fly with them. You can shout all you want that you'll never buy DVD-Audio unless it's recordable, but the sales to people like you seem to pale in comparison to the sales lost from people who copy CDs/mp3s instead of buying them.
As for DAT/DCC and all that, they never really took off as far as audio goes. DAT recorders/tapes were very high priced back when, and your average consumer had no interest. The only people I've ever known that owned DATs were either musicians doing home recording (before CDRs became cheap/availible) and recording studios.
That's probably true. I do get annoyed when people champion anti-encryption standards on the "archival/backup" excuse when it's damn obvious that the majority, if not the vast majority, of audio CD-Rs burned are pirated copies. I'm not for encryption schemes of any sort, but let's not pretend industry is overblowing the piracy problem - it's enormous. Lets stick to arguments we might actually be able to defend.
"DVD Audio has the potential to add value to audio, with better sound quality, possibly more music per disk, and other gimmicks. For that, the industry should be allowed to protect their investment. That being all the money they've shoveled out and fronted to artists, studio's, etc, without knowing how well a particular act is going to sell."
Well, here's where we get into the problem - the Recording Industry does not compensate artists anywhere near what they should be. Yeah, sometimes they lose a bit of money fronting for an unknown band - but no major label is dumping THAT much money into a basically unproven bands first record. I know all about it - I've been playing in bands, signed with indy labels (not the same bag, and not the same piracy problem or money issue here), watched many many bands sign with majors and get relatively screwed no matter what level of success they achieved. A first time signee, or a not-a-platinum seller resignee is not going to make much more than around $1 per *retail priced* CD (meaning $16.99, or whatever it is right now) sold in the US (Overseas royalties are horrible). Whoever says the studio costs, marketing efforts, and whatever else justifies this is either 1) Someone who doesn't know what's going on and really needs to do some research or 2) A major-label goon.
Anyway, this is all a long way of saying if I felt like the DVD-audio industry pushing encryption was actually going to help artists make the money they deserve off DVD-audio sales, then I'd feel a lot better about it. As it is, I really hate to see the machine attempting to suck in as much cashflow as they can.
As he said in the Wired story - he can't afford counsel. If the FBI actually wanted to do something and fight it in court, then he'd probably be scrambling to the ACLU hoping someone would take his case pro-bono. Regardless, I have a strong feeling he never considered the possibility the FBI would find a site run by one of his 50 clients and threaten him over it. "Calls from the FBI are not routine, but they aren't rare, either, nor are similar calls from others".
I really, really don't think so. "Hi yes, this is the FBI again. After surveying x bazillion pages on the web, we've determined you need to take this, and this site down". This story was a fluke, and that's why it was a story in the first place.
"These things are even less rare if you're hosting something obviously provocative, like that movie"
Porn sites and such, yeah you may expect it. This? I'd never have guessed a really poorly made, very obscure, video about rioting on New Years would have gained the FBIs interest considering there's all sorts of this sort of thing in bigtime media. I would also guess hosters don't know the details of everything their hosting.
"The reason this bugs me is that I'm getting really tired of the general level of incompetence that's tolerated on the Web"
I think you're confused at where you're placing the blame. I think I'd be a little bit more worried about the FBI's actions, eh? You seem to have lost sight of what the actual problem.
From your response to another poster: "... and, for likely cases like this, yes, you can even get your lawyer to explain enough of the law to you, in advance, that you at least feel comfortable telling, say, the FBI to wait while you call that lawyer."
And in the meantime, take the site down while you're finding out what's going on. Once you've got the facts, put it back up. That's what the guy did. If the guy had refused to put it back up ever, as I imagine many larger ISPs would've, that's a different story.
"We're talking about the feds, not a bunch of film critics. From their point of view, it's provocative"
And god knows what that means. As I said before, if I were hosting this site and the FBI called me about it, I'd be scratching my head as to what exactly caught their attention about it relative to what else is out there.
"... and BECamation, which obviously can't support its customers because of its total lack of a clue, should be one of them."
I'm a little lost on how this incident points to "not supporting the customer". "What? The FBI called, and you took my site down temporarily in order to make sure things were kosher? HOW DARE YOU, incompetent idiot! And by the way, if the FBI actually does do something about it that's illegal, could you uh, front the money to fight them in court for me? That's what I expect out of my ISP you know".
"The reason this bugs me is that I'm getting really tired of the general level of incompetence that's tolerated on the Web"
I have no idea how you relate this to incompetence on anyones part other than the FBI. Which, strangely, you haven't taken issue with.
Good grief - the guy got a call from the FBI saying he needed to take the video down, or they would get his upstream provider to do it. He takes it down temporarily to figure out what's going on. When he finds out the FBI is just bluffing him, he puts it back up. I can't see you are so outraged by it, or find this guy to be incompetent. I've never worked for an ISP, but I would imagine that most ISPs don't get calls from the FBI threatening to shut them down as a matter of rountine. When a law enforcement agency is threating to shut you off, you probably want to be damn sure you know what's going on before you begin attempting to spout legal dogma and take a stand. Just pure intuition about American law is fine, and if I got such a call I'd probably think they had no basis for it... but until things were a little clearer, common sense dictates taking the site down. There's plenty of reason to distrust the FBI, but you'd figure if they went to the trouble of calling you over a site and making really bold threats, they weren't doing it with no basis. This guy may have been able to call a lawyer, but I imagine the conversation "Hi, I run a small ISP, and the FBI just called threatening to off my buisness unless I take a certain video down" would be a free consultation from Lawyer X in the phonebook. Anyway, the site is back up and all is well. This guy was just using what most people call "common sense" when dealing with the situation. The reaction described in the Wired Story, is a lot more disturbing. As alluded to, the problem was with the FBI, not this guy.
You're correct that consumer burners are still short, although after following a recent discussion on this, it appears an "industrial" grade copier runs you 5 grand currently. So for the very brief momemt it's not really a home-user problem. I don't know how much a blank movie-sized DVD disc costs, so I don't know if it's cost effective yet to try and burn movies for sale. If it is however, I imagine there are plenty of folks out there already on the bandwagon (or planning to be), like all those folks in the Hong Kong night market I used to haunt.
Of course there's no way to stop this thing from being widely distributed, just like there is no way to prevent mp3 distribution or commercial software distribution. Sheesh.
However, I do have a brlliant solution (borrowed from the epitome of corporate brillance, Microsoft). How about someone sets up a table somewhere, and asks for people to bring in pirated DVD's to be replaced by non-pirated DVDs, NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
Actually, all three had problems - 1) X would not run 2) No sound and 3) Ethernet card was not getting recognized properly. All were fixed, eventually, but it literally took days to figure out what the problem was in each case with liberal help from other friends in the local Linux users group.
Win9x certainly isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get up and running than Linux is. And yes, part of that has to do with the fact that companies spend a lot of time making sure their products work under windows. It doesn't matter though - the end effect is the same.
Anyway, yes, Linux types do often try and sell Linux as "easy to use" and "ready for the desktop". Much like the writer of this article and mom, and you generally implying in your response that Linux isn't difficult to install (or maintain), Win9x is just as bad, etc, etc. This is where the lines of being a Linux "advocate" and "fanatic" start to get drawn.
Admittedly, I haven't read through all 223 comments here and perhaps someone has an answer but -- one thing that really confuses me on professors claiming it's "Their IP" is that in the vast majority of their lectures, my professors are presenting material from a text that they haven't written. Diagrams, charts, the whole bit, ripped straight from the book - ideas pulled right from the text. So when a professor is presenting someone elses material, it's lost on me on how that becomes their IP.
On the same note are classes that tend toward discussion between students as well as the professor. If the students have written some thoughts down before lecture to bring up during class, are they entitled to IP rights on everything they say in class?
It all seems a bit ridiculous. The reality of the two state schools I've attended is that having a video/audio tape or well-done notes is just as good as being at the lecture itself. I think in these large lecture classes colleges and professors like to pretend we're still in some sort of academic setting where ideas flow both ways, when really we're all just sitting around and watching someone talk for an hour. I've found professors who teach classes like this often disturbed, even angered, by people doing well by copying/buying the notes and never attending the class -- not a dilemma about their IP rights and the ethics of having notes sold commercially.
Anyway, my answer to professors upset about commercial noting is: why not structure your class so that commercial notetaking is useless? Give out YOUR notes or lecture outlines (useful in many ways beyond this topic). Or even consider turning your class into a "real" class rather than a a talking puppet show. In a "real" class (and I've unfortunately only been to a few) the idea of commercial notetaking is laughable.
But I'll bet $5 she didn't install it, or Linux for that matter. I've extolled the virtues of Linux and have helped/watched a few friends attempt the installation process. These folks like computers, know their way around Win9x, and so they're probably a few levels above mom, but only one out of three went through with the entire thing and kept Linux on his system -- and I can understand. One continually had X lock up on him. It turned out, after many, many hours of trying everything else, that his "Logitech" Mouse was actually recognized as a Microsoft mouse. Even better, the Microsoft mouse choice he needed was only availible in xfree86config - none of the mouse options in RedHat's xconfigurator worked. Another was attempting to get sound working on his TB Pinnacle card. He finally suceeded, but the story behind it is as tedious and long as the previous one I described. Let's not even talk about package the extreme nightmare of unresolved dependencies (and conflicts between old and new versions of the same package). To be fair, I haven't seen RedHat 6.x's installation, which I've heard is much improved (and I would pick RedHat's installation as the easiest of the three I've had any real experience with - Slackware and Debian being the other two) Needless to say, none of my friends were duly impressed with installing it, and once running, it simply does the same exact things they do in windows... only with a far smaller software base to choose from. Anyway, I like Linux and I really hope it manages to break into the desktop market further, but it's not ready yet. It seems like it may be on the horizon, and maybe the day mom could actually go through the Linux install on her own is on the horizon, but not yet.
2 years of experience making 40k? One again, got me there. The QA folks I know make 40-43k (one also gets ~10k in stock for three years) who had no appreciable coding experience, C++, perl, or otherwise. I simply mentioned the CS degree (from UT simply because of the area) because of the ol' newsletter I read did point to it, and I'd assume you'd do generally do better than 40k/year with one, or with some decent work experience, provided you're not an idiot. If a guy can go out with a Cellular Biology degree, very minor coding experience, and no CS/IT work experience and pull down 43k/year, surely someone with a CS degree and a decent knowledge of C++/Perl under their belt (2 years?) can top that. As for the land of the insane salaries in New York or SF, this is not the report I get from friends living in either city. The perl/QA guy I mentioned started in SF for 45k. He began to get serious enough with a girlfriend he wanted to move to New York. His job hunt was underwhelming until his SF-based company decided they really liked him and said "We'll bump your salary 10k, pay for DSL, and have you work from home in New York". Friends of his there working at Motorolla and other smaller types aren't making anything insane. Factor in the cost of living in NYC or SF, which IS insane ($950 for a 1 BR apartment in a real mediocre part of brooklyn... and people complain about rent here. SF is even worse), and they're easily coming out behind of the people I know around here.
According to a pamphlet/newsletter I read, the average starting salary of a CS major out of the University of Texas was 48k/year last year. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with a CS degree out UT personally (or who really "knew their stuff") but... It sounds reasonable, or even a bit low, as I've had two friends in the last year get QA/light programming jobs at around 40-43k year, not counting some hefty bonuses if they stick around the company for awhile. Amazing part about that is, one of these people had no real work experience and a degree in Cellular Biology, the other had no degree had worked at IBM for a decent stint. Another friend of mine (with a Psych degree) who knew his perl and unix now makes 55k year in New York doing QA "teleworking" to his company in San Fransisco after a year. Another, who's had quite a bit of experience with all sorts of web development, and had done quite a bit of work with C++/Java, just moved on from a job making just over 60k/year (no idea what he makes now). That's what I know. From briefly perusing the other comments, it seems like all the above is fairly high in comparison. Got me.
I've kept a hotmail account for awhile now as it's nice to have web-mail when on the move or when I don't want to give out my real e-mail for whatever reason. I only access it every week or two, and good god, the spam is amazing. After two weeks I'd easily have over 100 spammed e-mails to sift through - it was barely usable. Hopefully this will help out...