Yet another attempt at a classic type of malware designed to harvest web passwords has been detected...
There, fixed it for ya.
I don't think it is really fair to call it 'new' just because you havn't reported on this particular incident yet today. It is a little misleading. Glad I could help.
I appreciate your time in responding. Certainly sounds like something that you keep up on. I know that my assumptions are not the result of keeping up on what is going on in great detail, certainly not as much as other things.
Your outlook is very positive, and I hope things are going as well as it sounds. I am in California, so most everything I hear is very negative, but I do have friends in Iraq that say things are going well and that we are making a positive difference there.
As far as the Paul rhetoric, I have been planning on rereading "The Revolution", as I only read it once in an afternoon. You've given me a good reason to go through it, doing a little fact checking along the way with some of the statements he makes about how much military we have and where around the world. Thanks again.
I also think that by that model FOSS is very capitalistic because it allows the free market to best encourage useful labor. Vaporware is not useful labor and can only be sold in a proprietary way because the actual value of the product is zero, no matter how much money changes hands. It hasn't done anything to improve society or contribute towards the wealth of the nation.
If you believe in Austrian Economics and the idea that the wealth of nations is built on useful labor, the wealth of a nation could better be measured by the size and utility of its commons much better than its GDP.
My apologies, I was in a bit of a hurry and did not check what I wrote as thoroughly as I likely should have.
I know plenty of people disagree with me, but it has not been my impression that we are a safer nation because of our occupation of the middle east. As far as our occupation of Iraq, you say that if "they" asked us to leave, we would. Which group of people would have that type of influence? The major opinion of Americans hasn't seemed to matter, so I am skeptical to believe that the people of Iraq would do better. Further, I thought Bush and McCain had said that we will leave when they are ready, and it was more of an afterthought or interpretation of everything that the Iraq people are grateful to have us there. I know there are groups of people with a lot to gain by us being there, but as some kind of gallop poll that says "We love Bush even if Americans don't" I find unlikely. I would still prefer a little more be done for Americans rather than helping other people because a better world (policed by us) will some how have the side effect of making a better America.
Since this is really a very depressing subject, it might just make more sense to stereotype myself as one of those Ron Paul loving and quoting die hard Libertarians. I don't think we are safer. I think more of the world is rightfully upset at us, and we have enough problems here at home with our own government and people, we don't need to be going around telling other people to have a government.
Just opinion without supporting facts. I know that doesn't do anything to encourage an intelligent dialogue, just all I can say is that that what Ron Paul says makes a lot more sense to me than what anyone else has said trying to explain what this whole "War on Terror" thing has been about, in a way that justifies our military occupation around the world.
This is actually a problem in a way for people that want FOSS to meet all their needs. The product needs to have intrinsic value to the person producing it. If 10 big companies need fancy expensive accounting software and are tired of poorly performing, slowly adapting, or whatever be wrong with some company that provides proprietary accounting software, there is motivation for those companies to work together to produce a FOSS solution. Also, if one company starts an FOSS project alone, there is hope that other people will join in to help improve the product, but it still never becomes the principle of the business. The threat is if the lost efficiency in producing the product in house (in theory big software companies could hire better programmers and are more in the business of hiring programmers) is greater than the total ownership cost of the proprietary solution + business lost from use of a product that does not meet your needs over time.
So this is the problem with Linux Gaming. There is little intrinsic value in producing a game. If, what you want is a great game to play with other people, again, where commercial games are not meeting your needs, then an FOSS product makes sense. Making accounting software to do good accounting makes sense. Making a video game to be able to play a video game doesn't have the same return on investment.
The most common example of an FOSS game as a business looking to make money is game engine and 3d video accelerator cards. Neither company is a "gaming" company, but they are trying to make a product profiting off of the gaming industry. Highly specialized cards having features that are not implemented in games. Look at the recent development in hardware accelerated physics. If you think you have a hardware feature or API that could make games a lot better, you need to demonstrate that to software developers and to customers to get them to produce for your card, and make the product of value to the consumer. So make an FOSS game. This is where proprietary would be VERY BAD. YOU know your product and what it can do, so YOU should be the one making sure that the real value of your card is demonstrated in the game. Are you really going to let some other company do that for you? I hope not! Further, you may only have time to demonstrate how great games made on your system COULD be without really making the game some all time best seller. But remember, that is not your business, your business is the card. Making the game open source gives other people the opportunity, if they like it, to build upon it and make it great. Any improvement, hack, fork, or just sharing of the product IS your objective and can only improve sales... assuming the card is actually worth buying and not vaporware. Your hardware is going to need to perform to be viable long term, but if you can build a community around your products, you will be golden.
Another example, World of Warcraft. They don't sell a piece of software, they sell an entire lifestyle and gaming solution:) Bit torrent drives their updates. Blizzard is invested in making bit torrent better. LUA is probably the best example, it drives the way people interact with the game. It lets you play the game you want to play it so long as it doesn't interfere with Blizzard's ends. Some work was necessary to ensure that the system could not be exploited, but it is perfectly reasonable to believe that one could have an entirely open source client (Like SecondLife, something with an open source client)... but Blizzard wants to protect certain parts of the experience. The server software is not given to the customer, so it is proprietary as much as any changes IBM makes to their own version of Red Hat, but I can assure you Blizzard doesn't host their games on Windows Servers:) However, if the source was leaked, or even given away or sold, Blizzard is successful because it provides an entire gaming experience. New content frequently comes out, the servers are very fast when you consider the number of
I do not like the proliferation of this idea as a main argument for supporting FOSS. It was like the idea that the whole Internet would be free and ad supported. That isn't completely true. While it is difficult in some respects, the main argument MUST be that the product / service is profitable all by itself. Otherwise it is a poor substitute for boxware when that is what it is competing against. I think radio and newspapers are the way that FOSS is incorrectly compared to proprietary software. I do not think that FOSS, and the advantages it provides compared to proprietary software is similar to the relationship between radio / newspapers vs. magazines / satellite radio / iTunes. Otherwise, FOSS will only be seen as the poor mans option, not a vastly superior method of making your business run better and cheaper.
Also, the giving something away in hopes of selling something else is dangerous when what you are giving away is the principle product. This may sound weird, but it is the best way I can describe it: Movie company giving away movies to sell movie company tissues == bad idea because movie company =! tissue industry. On the other hand, a tissue company spending money to produce a movie to give away in hope people will buy their tissues for when they cry later is GREAT advertising. Tissue company makes tissues and sells tissues. They are not in the movie business, so give the movie away. It is a chance to focus on your core product.
You may say they are the same thing: Free movie, pay for tissues. The reality is that they are drastically different business models. For many companies their failure is an inability to identify their core product or service that provides the competitive advantage. This ruins every kind of business every day.
I couldn't agree with you more, and I hope your comment was not meant as a counter argument. You do emphasize an important point though, that beyond the intrinsic value of the software, the team of developers is what people hoping to make money off of FOSS need to be capitalizing on, not necessarily what they produce. That is where real scarcity lies, experts that understand the product and have the ability to 1) quickly and efficiently make further developments to the project, and 2) teach others to become potential experts. It would sadden me to see just the "I pay for support" thing become dominant expect for small businesses that don't want full time experts, but where companies like Red Hat are more in the business of being teachers, enables of the spread of knowledge and wisdom. The possibilities in that respect are endless, just all new in some respects.
Seperately,
let's not just share the cost; let's make it together so we get it just right and know what we're getting.
I think conflicts / contradicts
Unless open-source providers find new ways to add value for their customers, especially in this economic environment, the growth of their companies is at serious risk.
because you are talking about two totally different groups of people. The first totally makes sense. By its nature it drives out middle men and those that only want to profit from making the software, people that are not principle invested in the product being any good. This is a VERY GOOD THING for businesses as investors in open source software. The second is in a way exactly the type of scum FOSS enables people to easily eliminate when such entities conflict with the value that was already identified in the first quote.
The author makes some really great examples, but I am very confused with how he seems, to me, clearly express just how FOSS works, but then tries to say that this inability to merge the good with the bad is somehow a flaw. HUH?
This is where his description of the FOSS business model as fundamentally flawed is insulting, and makes me feel like he doesn't get it, but on the other hand he does differentiate in an important way the differences between users and developers. All I hear in this is that people that can't make a quality contribution are burned in the FOSS world for doing business in that way. How about "DUH! That's what we been trying to do!". This is also where I find the statement "don't use FOSS because it isn't profitable" is laughable.
A commonality I see between FOSS and Free Culture is an elimination of that line we put between producer and consumer. Each see an idealism in them being the same group.
"a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties" != "a work for hire"
If you get work of the federal government from the government, there's no copyright and you can republish [at] will
The argument completely stands on the word of, which I don't think really puts copyrights held by the federal government into perspective. If of only meant "by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties", then sure, but I don't think that it is a stretch to interpret what was said as something broader than is actually legally precise.
I can only assume this is what you were questioning in your anonymously posted quip, but if there is some other aspect of this that I "don't understand", I would love to hear about it. But as far as I know, as as much as your post reveals, I thought I was understanding it quite well, imho. Again, any correction (you know, citing examples, references, application of law in context) would be warmly appreciated as this is something I enjoy. I hope none of this is coming off as sarcasm, as it is not my intent.
And just in case this was the issue you didn't clarify, yes, I do understand that Obama is "an officer... of the U.S. government". This was just about the broader scope of things.
perhaps Professor Lessig doesn't realize that a YouTube video must be downloaded to be viewed, at least in a manner that would have the RIAA sue you if it was one of their copyrighted works.
Not only does Lessig understand this, he wrote a book addressing the issue, aside from it being a note in most everything he does; Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. He mentions in a number of speeches and such that copyright is a law that comes into effect when a 'copy' is made. "Reading a book, sharing a book, selling a book, and sleeping on a book don't make copies, so there no 'trigger' for copyright law". What has thrown the whole system into chaos is that in the digital world "every act creates a copy, thus every use is regulated". When you view a web site, it makes a copy in menory on your computer. every time a packet runs through a router, the information is copied and recopied for it to reach its destination. In this respect it makes as much sense to call this copying as it is tp say that reading puts a copy of the book in your head. It is true, but I don't think that was the intent of the law.
To stress the point, what you say he "doesn't realize" is really what he has built an entire career upon trying to explain to people.
If we are talking practicality, what is the practicality in posting a weekly YouTube address? People want to know what he is doing and thinking, and I'd even go as far to say that he likely loves listening to the sound of his own voice, but I don't think that is the objective here. I think he sees a bigger picture.
I am somewhat sadly inclined to agree with your very practical insight. Public Domain means "do what you like, if you can get it". Obama has been trying to do more, and is a big supporter of open / transparent government, and wants to show people how that can help make government better. If he was looking for cheap and simple, he would just get Fox, CNBC or whoever to come in and tape him and just let someone else put it on YouTube. Remember, he kept Lessig on staff as a chief technology advisor; I doubt that was ano kind of coincidence cause "he is into technology".
In line with trying to further extend what Obama is trying to do differently in this methodology, I think it would be inline with the overall philosophy to get neutral hosting and bring a little more dignity to public domain / the commons than simply letting people do whatever if they can get their hands on it. A step in that process is to make an open format easily available. This is worth investing in, and I look forward to seeing what steps he takes to empower people with this "transition".
Creating a copy in a new media type is usually protected by fair use exemptions
Fair Use is an affirmative defense, not a right, making this a difficult and sadly weak "protection". However, I believe that it was actually the DMCA that explicitly granted rights to backups and copies for te purpose of interoperability. The tricky part is the conflict with the necessity for DRM circumvention to meet those ends and particularly the legality of publishing the methods or software for doing so.
I think that technically putting that kind of restriction on the work is not legal, but at the same time I don't think anyone is going to complain, not to mention that, going out on a IANAL limb here, violations of statute must be proven to violate the spirit of the law. Best example I heard of this, pedestrians are required to walk facing traffic if there is no sidewalk; however, if that would be more dangerous than walking with traffic, then there is no violation of statute because the law was intended to protect pedestrians, not just make them walk against traffic. Obama is trying to get his work to the people in a way encouraged by CC. Also mind you that public domain means you can do whatever you want with the work IF you can get your hands on it. There is (sadly) no obligation for the work to be maintained or redistributed in any way, just that you are allowed to do so if you please.
FOIA and similar laws were enacted to get information from the federal government to the people. Obama is working to this end by using a CC license. I see a legal issue arising from CC being to restrictive dubious at best.
Agreed. I think it would be ok for Google to host, but the "Obama! Brought to you by Google" is exactly what is going on with YouTube hosting. I also think that YouTube is long overdue for artists to mark their work with a license that enables users to be granted the rights given by the author. In effect, CC work can not be posted on YouTube (in a way that respects the license). YouTube forces you to use their license for your work which is a part of their terms and conditions. I do not see why YouTube can not use a dual license model; let the work on the site be used under the YouTube license per the ToS / EULA, but let users as enabled by the uploader download the video under the license of the artists choice with a default of as it is now to ensure a smooth transition and, for the sake of argument, not push people in needing to understand of decipher what is going on if they choose a CC license (just to be as cynical as possible for the rogue anti-cc people out there. Do those people read Slashdot?).
As noted above in greater detail, this is not true. From our beloved Wikipedia
A work of the United States government, as defined by United States copyright law, is "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties."[1] The term only applies to the work of the federal government, not state or local governments. In general, under section 105 of the Copyright Act,[2] such works are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law, sometimes referred to as "noncopyright." As an exception to section 105, 15 U.S.C. Â 290e authorizes U.S. Secretary of Commerce to secure copyright for works produced by the Department of Commerce under the Standard Reference Data Act.[3]
In addition, many publications of the U.S. government contain protectable works authored by others (e.g., patent applications, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, public comments on regulations, etc.), and this rule does not necessarily apply to the creative content of those works.
Also, certain works, particularly logos of government agencies, while not copyrightable, are still protected by other laws similar in effect to trademark laws. Such laws are intended to protect indicators of source or quality. The Central Intelligence Agency logo, for example, cannot be used without permission. This is intended to prevent the appearance of endorsement, under the CIA Act of 1949.[4]
The federal government can hold copyrights that are transferred to it. For example, in 1837, the federal government purchased former U.S. President James Madison's manuscripts from his widow, Dolley Madison, for $30,000;[5] if this is construed as covering copyright as well as the physical papers, it would be an example of such a transfer.[6] More common examples are works of independent contractors, where the contract specifies that the copyright is to be transferred to the government.
This would also apply to works for hire. Government owns the copyright to the contracted work, but it does not become public domain. Further, as noted, the rule only applies to the federal government and not the government as a whole.
I mentioned this in part above, but without references. Seems like it was about time to do so:) The wiki page cites good sources.
IANAL, but it is worth noting that works for hire for the federal government, even though the copyright is held by the government, the work does not become public domain. Otherwise the government would be at a terrible disadvantage getting people to produce work for them, keeping in mind the government contracts out a LOT of work.
Because the president is not a contractor, but in the employment of the government, he is granted no such protection. The most relevant statute on this was the argument over whether supreme court justices retained copyright over their decisions. Court said no, at least not opinions that were written on company time. If a judge has a blog they maintain outside of work regarding the decisions, they can retain copyright for the portions that are not derivative / uniquely creative... which is arguably a difficult thing to do.
I can not recall the relevant statute, but persons in elected positions have very limited rights in producing creative works while in their elected position. Remember that whole thing about Schwarzenegger having to stop making movies while he was Governator? To the best of my understanding, Obama would not be allowed to maintain a personal blog in the same way that a justice is given protection, but admittedly I am vague on the details.
I have said this so many places, but I think it needs to be said again given your post. I don't think you GET free software. I know this is separate from the article, but you fail to see the primary goal of free software and why it works. Sharing code makes better software. THAT'S IT! It was never about making profit directly off the software. Profit is made from productive USE of the software. What people want to try to do is take this great, powerful, and successful thing Linux and make profit off of it directly, like business people have tried to do with everything forever! Free software is just really hard because its nature. And as many commented, and my interpretation of what you said, people are not going to turn free software into proprietary software. Hmm... I take that back, noone is going to turn GPL software into proprietary software. DAMNIT, technically, you are right, it is called Mac OSX. Personally, and let people flame me for saying this, exactly the fears you are expressing that will be the death of FOSS are exactly what has happened to BSD. This is why I think the BSD Free model is going out because people are recognizing that for free to stay free comes at the price of making sure it stays that way. That is what GPL is all about. Torvalds disdain for GPLv3 I think reveals some reveals a lot about how the classical belief in free software is dead as people are forced to take harder and harder lines on free v. proprietary, where before it was just about free, and not necessarily what happened to it.
Ooh, one thing to remember about those numbers is that the mission statement / purpose of Red Hat as stated by the founding CEO (I actually don't know it has changed, pardon my ignorance) was to take a $500 billion dollar industry and reduce it to a $5 billion industry for himself. Sounds like in some of the best ways he was successful. They got that 1%:)
Cause sometimes software is made to be used. One way you could measure FOSS profitability (albeit unfairly) would be to add up the profits of all companies invested in FOSS, like IBM, Sun, Pixar, HP to name a few. These companies don't ONLY use FOSS, and they don't give away all their software secrets, but they ARE big investors in FOSS, and FOSS is a big part of what they use to be profitable while contributing to it.
So maybe FOSS profitability is a lot like the restaurant business; Never trust a skinny chef:)
Evidently not. There are many objectives and purposes of FOSS, while boxware has only the purpose of selling units. That is tough to compete with because boxware, from an investor perspective (person investing in the company selling it, not the ones buying it) it is successful when they sell so many units, and fail if they sell too few. Very straight forward.
FOSS in every way is more complicated. Investors of Red Hat want to see subscriptions sold, but that also depends on who you would call an investor. Many people profit from Red Hat's work, and any FOSS progress is perpetual. Red Hat will always live on in a way because of its nature. People can always expand and support Linux no matter what happens, By contrast, whatever way it could happen, if Microsoft one day went belly up, EVERY investor, stock holders and users are totally burned.
So another contrast. The purpose of Windows is for the software to be sold. The purpose of Linux / FOSS is to be productive. FOSS doesn't need to be profitable by the box as much as it needs to be useful, and proprietary software doesn't need to be as useful or productive AS MUCH as it needs to sell box units.
When we are talking about a movie company, there are two routes to go. Movies are not FOSS, remembering that the last 'S' means software. Movies make more sense under a CC license if you want it to be that type of free, but that is something else entirely. FOSS v. proprietary for a movie studio is the argument of whether or not the company is going to use make all their own software (very impractical, they are not a software company), or pay someone to give them the software they need. On a larger scale, individual companies can make their own software (again, makes no sense cause not a software company) or movie studios as a whole can pay one big company to provide for all their needs. In a way this can make a lot of sense, but has certain limitations when it is proprietary. The FOSS solution says use this open model, build upon it as you need, BUT if you share that code or want to sell it, you need to "share-alike". This means that movie studios can meet their own individual specialized needs, and have the benefits of a community that is 'invested' in having quality software. There is also the motivation and hope that if you choose to share parts / tools that are good for you, others will build upon it and improve upon it making it the best software possible. So if 100 movie studios work together sharing their best in-house tools for making quality movies, then many things happens. You have great software everyone can use. The software is superior than what any one company could develop. The tools are more flexible than could have been possible by one company, and profitability will come down to the ability for companies to utilize that software to make a good movie. Software engineers got paid for their work, the software is very valuable, but 'worthless' as a stand alone package. So now the questionable investment is whether or not it is going to be worth your money to invest in someone looking to make money contributing to such a project that is not directly involved in the movie production itself. Red Hat is such a company (for another industry, of course), but when such business models 'fail', the ability to quantify the failure financially for that company is 'simple' (sort of) but not for the software as a whole, something MUCH more complicated.
But again, the only thing special here is that when proprietary boxware fails, it fails for EVERYBODY and entirely. FOSS just can't be judged the same way, even if it is something very difficult for people design a business model around.
And I'll just say it now before anyone needs to point it out, I do casually program and use Linux but I am not a software engineer, and certainly not involved in the industry beyond consumer and fan. This is just my observation and opinion as an outsider with a strong belief (even if a naive one) in FOSS.
Well, gun owners really are not news worthy. Gun nuts are much more interesting. I also think all responsible gun owners know it is best not to advertise that you are a gun owner considering the black market value on weapons. You would need to be a nut to advertise that you keep expensive equipment worth stealing in your house.
I am really confused by your perspective. Not to sound totally crazy, I am going to say this is my understanding of Ron Paul's take on the war. We are the invaders. The middle east has been at war for a very long time. We are trying to police them and bullying them to be more like America. There are a LOT of people that really don't like this. A particular extremists has made it clear that they want American soldiers out of their homes, government and land by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE. 9/11 was a message to America that their voices will not be silenced.
You could call 9/11 a violent attack, but it was piss poor if you want to call it an invasion. They just want to leave. If "The Terrorists Win", which I would call nothing more than propaganda / rhetoric, the reality is that each side could get back to fighting amongst themselves.
I mean, you have noticed that the fighting isn't going oe here, but in their country, so a lot of your arguments don't make much sense, to me, in reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet another attempt at a classic type of malware designed to harvest web passwords has been detected...
There, fixed it for ya.
I don't think it is really fair to call it 'new' just because you havn't reported on this particular incident yet today. It is a little misleading. Glad I could help.
Virus and Malware are registered trademarks of the Microsoft corporation, so yeah, business as usual.
I appreciate your time in responding. Certainly sounds like something that you keep up on. I know that my assumptions are not the result of keeping up on what is going on in great detail, certainly not as much as other things.
Your outlook is very positive, and I hope things are going as well as it sounds. I am in California, so most everything I hear is very negative, but I do have friends in Iraq that say things are going well and that we are making a positive difference there.
As far as the Paul rhetoric, I have been planning on rereading "The Revolution", as I only read it once in an afternoon. You've given me a good reason to go through it, doing a little fact checking along the way with some of the statements he makes about how much military we have and where around the world. Thanks again.
I also think that by that model FOSS is very capitalistic because it allows the free market to best encourage useful labor. Vaporware is not useful labor and can only be sold in a proprietary way because the actual value of the product is zero, no matter how much money changes hands. It hasn't done anything to improve society or contribute towards the wealth of the nation.
If you believe in Austrian Economics and the idea that the wealth of nations is built on useful labor, the wealth of a nation could better be measured by the size and utility of its commons much better than its GDP.
My apologies, I was in a bit of a hurry and did not check what I wrote as thoroughly as I likely should have.
I know plenty of people disagree with me, but it has not been my impression that we are a safer nation because of our occupation of the middle east. As far as our occupation of Iraq, you say that if "they" asked us to leave, we would. Which group of people would have that type of influence? The major opinion of Americans hasn't seemed to matter, so I am skeptical to believe that the people of Iraq would do better. Further, I thought Bush and McCain had said that we will leave when they are ready, and it was more of an afterthought or interpretation of everything that the Iraq people are grateful to have us there. I know there are groups of people with a lot to gain by us being there, but as some kind of gallop poll that says "We love Bush even if Americans don't" I find unlikely. I would still prefer a little more be done for Americans rather than helping other people because a better world (policed by us) will some how have the side effect of making a better America.
Since this is really a very depressing subject, it might just make more sense to stereotype myself as one of those Ron Paul loving and quoting die hard Libertarians. I don't think we are safer. I think more of the world is rightfully upset at us, and we have enough problems here at home with our own government and people, we don't need to be going around telling other people to have a government.
Just opinion without supporting facts. I know that doesn't do anything to encourage an intelligent dialogue, just all I can say is that that what Ron Paul says makes a lot more sense to me than what anyone else has said trying to explain what this whole "War on Terror" thing has been about, in a way that justifies our military occupation around the world.
This is actually a problem in a way for people that want FOSS to meet all their needs. The product needs to have intrinsic value to the person producing it. If 10 big companies need fancy expensive accounting software and are tired of poorly performing, slowly adapting, or whatever be wrong with some company that provides proprietary accounting software, there is motivation for those companies to work together to produce a FOSS solution. Also, if one company starts an FOSS project alone, there is hope that other people will join in to help improve the product, but it still never becomes the principle of the business. The threat is if the lost efficiency in producing the product in house (in theory big software companies could hire better programmers and are more in the business of hiring programmers) is greater than the total ownership cost of the proprietary solution + business lost from use of a product that does not meet your needs over time.
:) Bit torrent drives their updates. Blizzard is invested in making bit torrent better. LUA is probably the best example, it drives the way people interact with the game. It lets you play the game you want to play it so long as it doesn't interfere with Blizzard's ends. Some work was necessary to ensure that the system could not be exploited, but it is perfectly reasonable to believe that one could have an entirely open source client (Like SecondLife, something with an open source client)... but Blizzard wants to protect certain parts of the experience. The server software is not given to the customer, so it is proprietary as much as any changes IBM makes to their own version of Red Hat, but I can assure you Blizzard doesn't host their games on Windows Servers :) However, if the source was leaked, or even given away or sold, Blizzard is successful because it provides an entire gaming experience. New content frequently comes out, the servers are very fast when you consider the number of
So this is the problem with Linux Gaming. There is little intrinsic value in producing a game. If, what you want is a great game to play with other people, again, where commercial games are not meeting your needs, then an FOSS product makes sense. Making accounting software to do good accounting makes sense. Making a video game to be able to play a video game doesn't have the same return on investment.
The most common example of an FOSS game as a business looking to make money is game engine and 3d video accelerator cards. Neither company is a "gaming" company, but they are trying to make a product profiting off of the gaming industry. Highly specialized cards having features that are not implemented in games. Look at the recent development in hardware accelerated physics. If you think you have a hardware feature or API that could make games a lot better, you need to demonstrate that to software developers and to customers to get them to produce for your card, and make the product of value to the consumer. So make an FOSS game. This is where proprietary would be VERY BAD. YOU know your product and what it can do, so YOU should be the one making sure that the real value of your card is demonstrated in the game. Are you really going to let some other company do that for you? I hope not! Further, you may only have time to demonstrate how great games made on your system COULD be without really making the game some all time best seller. But remember, that is not your business, your business is the card. Making the game open source gives other people the opportunity, if they like it, to build upon it and make it great. Any improvement, hack, fork, or just sharing of the product IS your objective and can only improve sales... assuming the card is actually worth buying and not vaporware. Your hardware is going to need to perform to be viable long term, but if you can build a community around your products, you will be golden.
Another example, World of Warcraft. They don't sell a piece of software, they sell an entire lifestyle and gaming solution
I do not like the proliferation of this idea as a main argument for supporting FOSS. It was like the idea that the whole Internet would be free and ad supported. That isn't completely true. While it is difficult in some respects, the main argument MUST be that the product / service is profitable all by itself. Otherwise it is a poor substitute for boxware when that is what it is competing against. I think radio and newspapers are the way that FOSS is incorrectly compared to proprietary software. I do not think that FOSS, and the advantages it provides compared to proprietary software is similar to the relationship between radio / newspapers vs. magazines / satellite radio / iTunes. Otherwise, FOSS will only be seen as the poor mans option, not a vastly superior method of making your business run better and cheaper.
Also, the giving something away in hopes of selling something else is dangerous when what you are giving away is the principle product. This may sound weird, but it is the best way I can describe it: Movie company giving away movies to sell movie company tissues == bad idea because movie company =! tissue industry. On the other hand, a tissue company spending money to produce a movie to give away in hope people will buy their tissues for when they cry later is GREAT advertising. Tissue company makes tissues and sells tissues. They are not in the movie business, so give the movie away. It is a chance to focus on your core product.
You may say they are the same thing: Free movie, pay for tissues. The reality is that they are drastically different business models. For many companies their failure is an inability to identify their core product or service that provides the competitive advantage. This ruins every kind of business every day.
Seperately,
let's not just share the cost; let's make it together so we get it just right and know what we're getting.
I think conflicts / contradicts
Unless open-source providers find new ways to add value for their customers, especially in this economic environment, the growth of their companies is at serious risk.
because you are talking about two totally different groups of people. The first totally makes sense. By its nature it drives out middle men and those that only want to profit from making the software, people that are not principle invested in the product being any good. This is a VERY GOOD THING for businesses as investors in open source software. The second is in a way exactly the type of scum FOSS enables people to easily eliminate when such entities conflict with the value that was already identified in the first quote.
The author makes some really great examples, but I am very confused with how he seems, to me, clearly express just how FOSS works, but then tries to say that this inability to merge the good with the bad is somehow a flaw. HUH?
This is where his description of the FOSS business model as fundamentally flawed is insulting, and makes me feel like he doesn't get it, but on the other hand he does differentiate in an important way the differences between users and developers. All I hear in this is that people that can't make a quality contribution are burned in the FOSS world for doing business in that way. How about "DUH! That's what we been trying to do!". This is also where I find the statement "don't use FOSS because it isn't profitable" is laughable.
A commonality I see between FOSS and Free Culture is an elimination of that line we put between producer and consumer. Each see an idealism in them being the same group.
"a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties" != "a work for hire"
If you get work of the federal government from the government, there's no copyright and you can republish [at] will
The argument completely stands on the word of, which I don't think really puts copyrights held by the federal government into perspective. If of only meant "by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties", then sure, but I don't think that it is a stretch to interpret what was said as something broader than is actually legally precise.
... of the U.S. government". This was just about the broader scope of things.
I can only assume this is what you were questioning in your anonymously posted quip, but if there is some other aspect of this that I "don't understand", I would love to hear about it. But as far as I know, as as much as your post reveals, I thought I was understanding it quite well, imho. Again, any correction (you know, citing examples, references, application of law in context) would be warmly appreciated as this is something I enjoy. I hope none of this is coming off as sarcasm, as it is not my intent.
And just in case this was the issue you didn't clarify, yes, I do understand that Obama is "an officer
As a big fan of Lessig, I completely agree :)
Hmm... angry letters to Santa from RMS. I think I see a book deal (All of you are now under non-disclosure!!! j/k)
perhaps Professor Lessig doesn't realize that a YouTube video must be downloaded to be viewed, at least in a manner that would have the RIAA sue you if it was one of their copyrighted works.
Not only does Lessig understand this, he wrote a book addressing the issue, aside from it being a note in most everything he does; Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. He mentions in a number of speeches and such that copyright is a law that comes into effect when a 'copy' is made. "Reading a book, sharing a book, selling a book, and sleeping on a book don't make copies, so there no 'trigger' for copyright law". What has thrown the whole system into chaos is that in the digital world "every act creates a copy, thus every use is regulated". When you view a web site, it makes a copy in menory on your computer. every time a packet runs through a router, the information is copied and recopied for it to reach its destination. In this respect it makes as much sense to call this copying as it is tp say that reading puts a copy of the book in your head. It is true, but I don't think that was the intent of the law.
To stress the point, what you say he "doesn't realize" is really what he has built an entire career upon trying to explain to people.
If we are talking practicality, what is the practicality in posting a weekly YouTube address? People want to know what he is doing and thinking, and I'd even go as far to say that he likely loves listening to the sound of his own voice, but I don't think that is the objective here. I think he sees a bigger picture.
I am somewhat sadly inclined to agree with your very practical insight. Public Domain means "do what you like, if you can get it". Obama has been trying to do more, and is a big supporter of open / transparent government, and wants to show people how that can help make government better. If he was looking for cheap and simple, he would just get Fox, CNBC or whoever to come in and tape him and just let someone else put it on YouTube. Remember, he kept Lessig on staff as a chief technology advisor; I doubt that was ano kind of coincidence cause "he is into technology".
In line with trying to further extend what Obama is trying to do differently in this methodology, I think it would be inline with the overall philosophy to get neutral hosting and bring a little more dignity to public domain / the commons than simply letting people do whatever if they can get their hands on it. A step in that process is to make an open format easily available. This is worth investing in, and I look forward to seeing what steps he takes to empower people with this "transition".
Creating a copy in a new media type is usually protected by fair use exemptions
Fair Use is an affirmative defense, not a right, making this a difficult and sadly weak "protection". However, I believe that it was actually the DMCA that explicitly granted rights to backups and copies for te purpose of interoperability. The tricky part is the conflict with the necessity for DRM circumvention to meet those ends and particularly the legality of publishing the methods or software for doing so.
I think that technically putting that kind of restriction on the work is not legal, but at the same time I don't think anyone is going to complain, not to mention that, going out on a IANAL limb here, violations of statute must be proven to violate the spirit of the law. Best example I heard of this, pedestrians are required to walk facing traffic if there is no sidewalk; however, if that would be more dangerous than walking with traffic, then there is no violation of statute because the law was intended to protect pedestrians, not just make them walk against traffic. Obama is trying to get his work to the people in a way encouraged by CC. Also mind you that public domain means you can do whatever you want with the work IF you can get your hands on it. There is (sadly) no obligation for the work to be maintained or redistributed in any way, just that you are allowed to do so if you please.
FOIA and similar laws were enacted to get information from the federal government to the people. Obama is working to this end by using a CC license. I see a legal issue arising from CC being to restrictive dubious at best.
Agreed. I think it would be ok for Google to host, but the "Obama! Brought to you by Google" is exactly what is going on with YouTube hosting. I also think that YouTube is long overdue for artists to mark their work with a license that enables users to be granted the rights given by the author. In effect, CC work can not be posted on YouTube (in a way that respects the license). YouTube forces you to use their license for your work which is a part of their terms and conditions. I do not see why YouTube can not use a dual license model; let the work on the site be used under the YouTube license per the ToS / EULA, but let users as enabled by the uploader download the video under the license of the artists choice with a default of as it is now to ensure a smooth transition and, for the sake of argument, not push people in needing to understand of decipher what is going on if they choose a CC license (just to be as cynical as possible for the rogue anti-cc people out there. Do those people read Slashdot?).
A work of the United States government, as defined by United States copyright law, is "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties."[1] The term only applies to the work of the federal government, not state or local governments. In general, under section 105 of the Copyright Act,[2] such works are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law, sometimes referred to as "noncopyright." As an exception to section 105, 15 U.S.C. Â 290e authorizes U.S. Secretary of Commerce to secure copyright for works produced by the Department of Commerce under the Standard Reference Data Act.[3]
In addition, many publications of the U.S. government contain protectable works authored by others (e.g., patent applications, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, public comments on regulations, etc.), and this rule does not necessarily apply to the creative content of those works.
Also, certain works, particularly logos of government agencies, while not copyrightable, are still protected by other laws similar in effect to trademark laws. Such laws are intended to protect indicators of source or quality. The Central Intelligence Agency logo, for example, cannot be used without permission. This is intended to prevent the appearance of endorsement, under the CIA Act of 1949.[4]
The federal government can hold copyrights that are transferred to it. For example, in 1837, the federal government purchased former U.S. President James Madison's manuscripts from his widow, Dolley Madison, for $30,000;[5] if this is construed as covering copyright as well as the physical papers, it would be an example of such a transfer.[6] More common examples are works of independent contractors, where the contract specifies that the copyright is to be transferred to the government.
This would also apply to works for hire. Government owns the copyright to the contracted work, but it does not become public domain. Further, as noted, the rule only applies to the federal government and not the government as a whole.
:) The wiki page cites good sources.
I mentioned this in part above, but without references. Seems like it was about time to do so
IANAL, but it is worth noting that works for hire for the federal government, even though the copyright is held by the government, the work does not become public domain. Otherwise the government would be at a terrible disadvantage getting people to produce work for them, keeping in mind the government contracts out a LOT of work.
Because the president is not a contractor, but in the employment of the government, he is granted no such protection. The most relevant statute on this was the argument over whether supreme court justices retained copyright over their decisions. Court said no, at least not opinions that were written on company time. If a judge has a blog they maintain outside of work regarding the decisions, they can retain copyright for the portions that are not derivative / uniquely creative... which is arguably a difficult thing to do.
I can not recall the relevant statute, but persons in elected positions have very limited rights in producing creative works while in their elected position. Remember that whole thing about Schwarzenegger having to stop making movies while he was Governator? To the best of my understanding, Obama would not be allowed to maintain a personal blog in the same way that a justice is given protection, but admittedly I am vague on the details.
Or maybe they keep a few secrets to themselves and are more clever than we give them credit for :)
I have said this so many places, but I think it needs to be said again given your post. I don't think you GET free software. I know this is separate from the article, but you fail to see the primary goal of free software and why it works. Sharing code makes better software. THAT'S IT! It was never about making profit directly off the software. Profit is made from productive USE of the software. What people want to try to do is take this great, powerful, and successful thing Linux and make profit off of it directly, like business people have tried to do with everything forever! Free software is just really hard because its nature. And as many commented, and my interpretation of what you said, people are not going to turn free software into proprietary software. Hmm... I take that back, noone is going to turn GPL software into proprietary software. DAMNIT, technically, you are right, it is called Mac OSX. Personally, and let people flame me for saying this, exactly the fears you are expressing that will be the death of FOSS are exactly what has happened to BSD. This is why I think the BSD Free model is going out because people are recognizing that for free to stay free comes at the price of making sure it stays that way. That is what GPL is all about. Torvalds disdain for GPLv3 I think reveals some reveals a lot about how the classical belief in free software is dead as people are forced to take harder and harder lines on free v. proprietary, where before it was just about free, and not necessarily what happened to it.
Ooh, one thing to remember about those numbers is that the mission statement / purpose of Red Hat as stated by the founding CEO (I actually don't know it has changed, pardon my ignorance) was to take a $500 billion dollar industry and reduce it to a $5 billion industry for himself. Sounds like in some of the best ways he was successful. They got that 1% :)
Cause sometimes software is made to be used. One way you could measure FOSS profitability (albeit unfairly) would be to add up the profits of all companies invested in FOSS, like IBM, Sun, Pixar, HP to name a few. These companies don't ONLY use FOSS, and they don't give away all their software secrets, but they ARE big investors in FOSS, and FOSS is a big part of what they use to be profitable while contributing to it.
:)
So maybe FOSS profitability is a lot like the restaurant business; Never trust a skinny chef
Evidently not. There are many objectives and purposes of FOSS, while boxware has only the purpose of selling units. That is tough to compete with because boxware, from an investor perspective (person investing in the company selling it, not the ones buying it) it is successful when they sell so many units, and fail if they sell too few. Very straight forward.
FOSS in every way is more complicated. Investors of Red Hat want to see subscriptions sold, but that also depends on who you would call an investor. Many people profit from Red Hat's work, and any FOSS progress is perpetual. Red Hat will always live on in a way because of its nature. People can always expand and support Linux no matter what happens, By contrast, whatever way it could happen, if Microsoft one day went belly up, EVERY investor, stock holders and users are totally burned.
So another contrast. The purpose of Windows is for the software to be sold. The purpose of Linux / FOSS is to be productive. FOSS doesn't need to be profitable by the box as much as it needs to be useful, and proprietary software doesn't need to be as useful or productive AS MUCH as it needs to sell box units.
When we are talking about a movie company, there are two routes to go. Movies are not FOSS, remembering that the last 'S' means software. Movies make more sense under a CC license if you want it to be that type of free, but that is something else entirely. FOSS v. proprietary for a movie studio is the argument of whether or not the company is going to use make all their own software (very impractical, they are not a software company), or pay someone to give them the software they need. On a larger scale, individual companies can make their own software (again, makes no sense cause not a software company) or movie studios as a whole can pay one big company to provide for all their needs. In a way this can make a lot of sense, but has certain limitations when it is proprietary. The FOSS solution says use this open model, build upon it as you need, BUT if you share that code or want to sell it, you need to "share-alike". This means that movie studios can meet their own individual specialized needs, and have the benefits of a community that is 'invested' in having quality software. There is also the motivation and hope that if you choose to share parts / tools that are good for you, others will build upon it and improve upon it making it the best software possible. So if 100 movie studios work together sharing their best in-house tools for making quality movies, then many things happens. You have great software everyone can use. The software is superior than what any one company could develop. The tools are more flexible than could have been possible by one company, and profitability will come down to the ability for companies to utilize that software to make a good movie. Software engineers got paid for their work, the software is very valuable, but 'worthless' as a stand alone package. So now the questionable investment is whether or not it is going to be worth your money to invest in someone looking to make money contributing to such a project that is not directly involved in the movie production itself. Red Hat is such a company (for another industry, of course), but when such business models 'fail', the ability to quantify the failure financially for that company is 'simple' (sort of) but not for the software as a whole, something MUCH more complicated.
But again, the only thing special here is that when proprietary boxware fails, it fails for EVERYBODY and entirely. FOSS just can't be judged the same way, even if it is something very difficult for people design a business model around.
And I'll just say it now before anyone needs to point it out, I do casually program and use Linux but I am not a software engineer, and certainly not involved in the industry beyond consumer and fan. This is just my observation and opinion as an outsider with a strong belief (even if a naive one) in FOSS.
Well, gun owners really are not news worthy. Gun nuts are much more interesting. I also think all responsible gun owners know it is best not to advertise that you are a gun owner considering the black market value on weapons. You would need to be a nut to advertise that you keep expensive equipment worth stealing in your house.
I am really confused by your perspective. Not to sound totally crazy, I am going to say this is my understanding of Ron Paul's take on the war. We are the invaders. The middle east has been at war for a very long time. We are trying to police them and bullying them to be more like America. There are a LOT of people that really don't like this. A particular extremists has made it clear that they want American soldiers out of their homes, government and land by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE. 9/11 was a message to America that their voices will not be silenced.
You could call 9/11 a violent attack, but it was piss poor if you want to call it an invasion. They just want to leave. If "The Terrorists Win", which I would call nothing more than propaganda / rhetoric, the reality is that each side could get back to fighting amongst themselves.
I mean, you have noticed that the fighting isn't going oe here, but in their country, so a lot of your arguments don't make much sense, to me, in reality.