I did not say it's ok to pirate (which is not stealing). But the
situation I described is simply the reality; a lot of money is spent on
preventing/fighting piracy, some rather innocent and young lives are
destroyed (in prison), all based on the assumption that all software that
is pirated would have generated revenue otherwise. I don't see any damage
done at all by somebody pirating software which this somebody
wouldn't have bought anyway. Sure, it may not be fair, but it doesn't
cause any damage. It only causes some extra free exposure of products
which will most certainly boost revenue. It's all about money here, not about
whether it's right or not. And only those that think pirated software
would have generated revenue otherwise think that there's a loss. And
those people live in a dreamworld. Don't confuse "not fair" with "causes
damage". The people in prison get little pity from me. When I was
young (and doing some illegal things) my dad told me: "Don't do the crime,
if you can't do the time." They should not be too supprised when they go
to jail from their crime. With respect to your 'it is too expensive, no
one would buy it' argument. I think that Corvettes are too expensive and
I would never buy one. But if I go and swipe one from the dealers lot, i
expect to get in trouble. Why? It is not as if I stole the blueprints and
they can't build another. And I didn't steal the only one; there are
dozens of them on the lot. But I did steal something with value. It may
not have value to you, but it does have value to the company that spent
time and money in its develpomnet.
By the way. The reason people pirate software is twofold, software is
too expensive and it's too much hassle to order it or to go to the
shop. So the solution I expect within a decade or so when most people
have really fast uplinks, is software for which you pay only when you use
it (e.g. $0.10 for any image created with PhotoShop). By giving people
dumb terminals and running the applications on some fast computers
centrally, the need to install applications will also be gone and you will
always have the latest and greatest version. This would most certainly
make the lives of avg. computer users a lot more easy, it would also about
stop piracy. True that may work. But, I would guess that people
will try to find a way around paying that $.10
Your argument is kind of weak. If I buy a book from Barnes and Nobles and it sucks, I feel ripped off. Are you saying it is OK for me to walk into the store and steal a book?
Well I guess you don't really get the difference between theft and piracy; with theft you take something from somebody else. This means they don't have it anymore. Piracy (in this case) is about copying. This implicitly means that the legal owner doesn't loose anything. They have lost the money that they would have made on the sale of that product.
And most software that is pirated is done so by people that collect warez; most of this software is never used _AT_ALL_ and if it is being used, this is mostly done by people that wouldn't have bought the software anyway; Joe A. User won't go to the computerstore to buy Photoshop; it's waaaay too expensive. He either uses the install at his work or "borrows" it from somebody else. There's no way he's going to buy Photo Shop. So that's another difference between theft and piracy: the losses for the industry a no where near the sum of pirated software. My guess it's less than 1% of the pirated software generates real loss. So, if something is too expensive or if you just want to have it, it is OK to steal it?
But so long as companies like Microsoft abuse their position, lie to consumers, produce broken software, knowingly release bug-ladden insecure crap, and otherwise mistreat the public it is difficult to defend, on moral grounds, striking back at the evil empire. My dad bought a Christler in '86. It was a piece of junk. Do you think it would be OK if he went to the factory and stole a few cars? Oftentimes when I eat at McDonalds, I get the shits. Is it moraly correct for me to hop over the counter, grab a bunch of food and run out the door? RedHat sold me a CD with an exploitable copy of WU-FTP. Can I steal a bunch of CDs or a development server from them?
Certainly there are those, perhaps even the majority, who pirate for entirely selfish reasons. But there are those who pirate because they see it as striking at a morally bankrupt corporations heart. I would bet that the percent of people who pirate for moral reasons is less than 5%.
The point was that if they want people to participate in this, they should give them some advance notice. I would have gone out and done this, but since I didn't find out about it until 5 hours after it had started, I can't.
You might want to look at what some of the 'trolls' are posting in this journal entry. They do have some insight into how the Slashdot editors (ab(use) their powers.
Does Mr.Ska ever go against the Slashdot party line? No. Does Mr.Ska kiss Slashdot's collective ass? Yes. Is Mr.Ska just another acerebral Slashbot? Yes. Should Mr.Ska shut his cake hole? Yes.
I heard that when they ported IE to Solaris that it required all sorts of crazy Win support stuff. I don't know about you but I'm not going to put an AUTOEXEC.BAT file on my Linux box. Not ture. I have IE running on my Solaris box. Nothing windows related on it. There is no autoexec.bat file, or anyhing else that looks like it belongs in windows.
Sounds like they have a good site set-up for the Cracker Olympics. If they don't secure those well, they might have the Cracker Olympics held there as well.:)
They need 20 words to make the signature. What is some jerk submits a 'spam' signature that contains common words found in normal emails? Or what if these spam words can be used in a non-spam context?
My point is this: If your neighbors could not use your service, they would have to buy their own. So, instead of just getting $20 a month (or what ever you pay a month) they get $40 or $60.
They care because they are not getting paid for it. For every neighbor that gets to use your connection, that is one less person paying them. They don't care as much about the bandwidth as they do the money.
These are different people from a different culture. If there way of life curtails free speech then so be it. The Nazi's way of life included killing millions of Jews. The Cambodian way of lfe includes killing hundreds of thousands of their own countrymen If their way of life kills millions then so be it.
Ask yourself this though, how many violent crimes were there in China vs. the states last year? Since there is no freedom of Press in China, how would you know either way?
And don't forget, whether Red Hat Linux is your preferred distribution or not, it is Linux. Surely getting more people to learn and use Linux isn't a bad thing, is it? It depends on what the scholls want to use the computers for. If they want to teach CS type stuff, then I think RH (of any *nix) would be wonderful. But, I don't think there is that much 'educational' software for Linux. (Please, correct me if I am incorrect) From what i have read of MS's version of the settlement, schools could pick what hardware/software they wanted. Why not propose that you all (MS, and Linux distro, *BSD, Be, and Apple) make presentations to these schools and let them choose what is best? Maybe a split between the groups? Despite what people here on Slashdot think of MS, knowing MS is just as valuable as knowing Linux in the world.
Oh, come on... we all *know* what the M$ money would purchase software-wise; either Macs (with the absurdly expensive OfficeXP for Mac) or PCs (with the almost-equally expensive WindowsXP in addition to the absurdly expensive office software). Well, if that is what the schools want to buy, who are we to tell them otherwise? OSS advocates need to show these schools that RedHat (or whatever distro)is a better product for education. If the schools are shown that it is in fact better they will opt for those. If they are forced to use RedHat, lots of those computer may never be used. I feel that some sort of split between MS, Linux, and Mac would be best for the children, IMHO.
Well, according to a NYTimes quote in this post. The MS money could be used for any computer/OS. I don't see that in the RedHat proposal. I hope RedHat is doing this for a good cause, but since they are a company, I doubt that is the case.
Do you think RedHat is going to pass-up the chance to write all that off on their taxes? They would also have tens of thousands of kids that would be forced to use RedHat's OS. RedHat is a company, they are doing this for themselves, and no one else. Plus, what if the schools don't want Linux? Those boxes will be worthless.
Slashdot Mirror
situation I described is simply the reality; a lot of money is spent on
preventing/fighting piracy, some rather innocent and young lives are
destroyed (in prison), all based on the assumption that all software that
is pirated would have generated revenue otherwise. I don't see any damage
done at all by somebody pirating software which this somebody
wouldn't have bought anyway. Sure, it may not be fair, but it doesn't
cause any damage. It only causes some extra free exposure of products
which will most certainly boost revenue. It's all about money here, not about
whether it's right or not. And only those that think pirated software
would have generated revenue otherwise think that there's a loss. And
those people live in a dreamworld. Don't confuse "not fair" with "causes
damage".
The people in prison get little pity from me. When I was
young (and doing some illegal things) my dad told me: "Don't do the crime,
if you can't do the time." They should not be too supprised when they go
to jail from their crime. With respect to your 'it is too expensive, no
one would buy it' argument. I think that Corvettes are too expensive and
I would never buy one. But if I go and swipe one from the dealers lot, i
expect to get in trouble. Why? It is not as if I stole the blueprints and
they can't build another. And I didn't steal the only one; there are
dozens of them on the lot. But I did steal something with value. It may
not have value to you, but it does have value to the company that spent
time and money in its develpomnet.
By the way. The reason people pirate software is twofold, software is
too expensive and it's too much hassle to order it or to go to the
shop. So the solution I expect within a decade or so when most people
have really fast uplinks, is software for which you pay only when you use
it (e.g. $0.10 for any image created with PhotoShop). By giving people
dumb terminals and running the applications on some fast computers
centrally, the need to install applications will also be gone and you will
always have the latest and greatest version. This would most certainly
make the lives of avg. computer users a lot more easy, it would also about
stop piracy.
True that may work. But, I would guess that people
will try to find a way around paying that $.10
Your argument is kind of weak. If I buy a book from Barnes and Nobles and it sucks, I feel ripped off. Are you saying it is OK for me to walk into the store and steal a book?
They have lost the money that they would have made on the sale of that product.
And most software that is pirated is done so by people that collect warez; most of this software is never used _AT_ALL_ and if it is being used, this is mostly done by people that wouldn't have bought the software anyway; Joe A. User won't go to the computerstore to buy Photoshop; it's waaaay too expensive. He either uses the install at his work or "borrows" it from somebody else. There's no way he's going to buy Photo Shop. So that's another difference between theft and piracy: the losses for the industry a no where near the sum of pirated software. My guess it's less than 1% of the pirated software generates real loss.
So, if something is too expensive or if you just want to have it, it is OK to steal it?
My dad bought a Christler in '86. It was a piece of junk. Do you think it would be OK if he went to the factory and stole a few cars? Oftentimes when I eat at McDonalds, I get the shits. Is it moraly correct for me to hop over the counter, grab a bunch of food and run out the door? RedHat sold me a CD with an exploitable copy of WU-FTP. Can I steal a bunch of CDs or a development server from them?
Certainly there are those, perhaps even the majority, who pirate for entirely selfish reasons. But there are those who pirate because they see it as striking at a morally bankrupt corporations heart.
I would bet that the percent of people who pirate for moral reasons is less than 5%.
By educating you mean show them where to download the latest P2P program and show them where the warez/crackz sites are. Right? :)
The point was that if they want people to participate in this, they should give them some advance notice. I would have gone out and done this, but since I didn't find out about it until 5 hours after it had started, I can't.
It might have been helpful to have this put out before the day it happens.
When are they going to list a large ISP? So far they have listed some ma & pa ISPs, but when are they going to list something big?
That spam is from Bruce Connelly and/or Ron Scelson out of Slideall, LA.
You might want to look at what some of the 'trolls' are posting in this journal entry. They do have some insight into how the Slashdot editors (ab(use) their powers.
Does Mr.Ska ever go against the Slashdot party line? No. Does Mr.Ska kiss Slashdot's collective ass? Yes. Is Mr.Ska just another acerebral Slashbot? Yes. Should Mr.Ska shut his cake hole? Yes.
You might want to check that law. IANAL, but the spammer has to call you for that law to apply.
I heard that when they ported IE to Solaris that it required all sorts of crazy Win support stuff. I don't know about you but I'm not going to put an AUTOEXEC.BAT file on my Linux box.
Not ture. I have IE running on my Solaris box. Nothing windows related on it. There is no autoexec.bat file, or anyhing else that looks like it belongs in windows.
What's the time scale on that mission? :)
It is in Real Time.
Sounds like they have a good site set-up for the Cracker Olympics. If they don't secure those well, they might have the Cracker Olympics held there as well. :)
They need 20 words to make the signature. What is some jerk submits a 'spam' signature that contains common words found in normal emails? Or what if these spam words can be used in a non-spam context?
This is true with most tier1 providers. Is this just an .au thing?
My point is this: If your neighbors could not use your service, they would have to buy their own. So, instead of just getting $20 a month (or what ever you pay a month) they get $40 or $60.
...and costs $650+
They care because they are not getting paid for it. For every neighbor that gets to use your connection, that is one less person paying them. They don't care as much about the bandwidth as they do the money.
The Nazi's way of life included killing millions of Jews. The Cambodian way of lfe includes killing hundreds of thousands of their own countrymen If their way of life kills millions then so be it.
Ask yourself this though, how many violent crimes were there in China vs. the states last year?
Since there is no freedom of Press in China, how would you know either way?
And don't forget, whether Red Hat Linux is your preferred distribution or not, it is Linux. Surely getting more people to learn and use Linux isn't a bad thing, is it?
It depends on what the scholls want to use the computers for. If they want to teach CS type stuff, then I think RH (of any *nix) would be wonderful. But, I don't think there is that much 'educational' software for Linux. (Please, correct me if I am incorrect) From what i have read of MS's version of the settlement, schools could pick what hardware/software they wanted. Why not propose that you all (MS, and Linux distro, *BSD, Be, and Apple) make presentations to these schools and let them choose what is best? Maybe a split between the groups? Despite what people here on Slashdot think of MS, knowing MS is just as valuable as knowing Linux in the world.
Oh, come on... we all *know* what the M$ money would purchase software-wise; either Macs (with the absurdly expensive OfficeXP for Mac) or PCs (with the almost-equally expensive WindowsXP in addition to the absurdly expensive office software).
Well, if that is what the schools want to buy, who are we to tell them otherwise? OSS advocates need to show these schools that RedHat (or whatever distro)is a better product for education. If the schools are shown that it is in fact better they will opt for those. If they are forced to use RedHat, lots of those computer may never be used. I feel that some sort of split between MS, Linux, and Mac would be best for the children, IMHO.
Well, according to a NYTimes quote in this post. The MS money could be used for any computer/OS. I don't see that in the RedHat proposal. I hope RedHat is doing this for a good cause, but since they are a company, I doubt that is the case.
Do you think RedHat is going to pass-up the chance to write all that off on their taxes? They would also have tens of thousands of kids that would be forced to use RedHat's OS. RedHat is a company, they are doing this for themselves, and no one else. Plus, what if the schools don't want Linux? Those boxes will be worthless.