NPR is fun to listen to sometimes, but you can tell it's geared towards baby-boomer academians... NPR's target audience. this story especially.
in defense of the story, though they have one industry lawyer sounding like an idiot, followed by a civil libertarian, a librarian, and a law professor telling about how bad it is then it goes on to quote the ip lawyer who basically says that it's okay to trample the first ammendment as long as we plan to go back and fix it after everybody gives up. then there's more pro/con on the law, but they keep bringing up the point that it doesn't apply to CD's or analog media.
it feels like they're saying "hey, academian baby-boomers... this new law your linux using kids just out of college working for their startups are ranting about isn't going to apply to your hardcover bound copies of sociology journals or your dave brubeck lp's or your VHS tape of casablanca. here's what you can say to avoid sounding dumb at the next wine and cheese gathering."
i'd be more interested to know how you managed so far. But anyway. First you have to recognize that worst case scenario: dropping the whole thing is an option; it doesn't have to bankrupt you.
Before you get to that point, though you have to answer some questions. "What are my priorities?"
Is your first priority keeping your customer base?
Is it making something viable out of your hobby?
Is it that you keep control of the site somehow?
If you want to learn how some auction sites got to be profitable, any of them who've IPO'd are required to make financial statments available to current and prospective shareholders. So check out eBay's statments, see where their income comes from. Not quite looking at the source code for it... but it may be as useful as a header file. You'll probably see that the business needs to attain some sort of critical mass before it can make money the way eBay does. But look through the publicly available data to see how it works.
You seem to be particularly worried about customers rejecting banner ads. Unless you're billing yourself as "the lynx friendly auction site" or something, you shouldn't really have to worry. It will be something of a pain, and it won't save your site, but it should allow you to recoup some of your money... And i immagine that most banner services already have information on the finer points of joining and billing and stuff.
I don't know. Even if i did, i couldn't tell you, since i'm not an insured professional. But the first step in finding the answer is having a better idea of what you want.
quick synopsis for people who don't want to flame blindly and still sound inteligent:
the article is about how Netscape's people aren't implementing Mozilla's patches.
In a number of cases, Mozilla engineers have fixed
standards-compliance bugs and have had their patches to the source code reviewed
twice by senior engineers. Even when the patches are extraordinarily simple ones, and
the Mozilla engineers are convinced that they pose no risk of introducing other bugs,
their requests to include the fixes into the Netscape 6 release are denied by the
Netscape Product Development Team (PDT) out of fear, apparently, that accepting
these patches would cause the release schedule to slip.
That's the story in a nutshell. Don't hold your breath to apt-get MSIE 6.0... Mozilla is working on these problems, and they're not worried about release dates:-P
Again from the article:
I'm making the following requests of the Netscape PDT:
1.That you rename the upcoming release of Navigator 6.0 as a beta and reopen
the tree and allow your engineers to apply the patches they've already created.
2.That you refocus your attention and efforts on standards compliance.
3.That you postpone a final release of the Navigator 6.0 platform until it more
robustly supports open standards.
There's a link about signing the petition, and some very egregious examples of Netscape (despite railings by Mozilla) not implementing pre-existing fixes.
There's still hope... for those of us who wait for Mozilla. __
The article is very careful to avoid techno-babble but it does so to the extent of marginalizing a lot of the openDVD argument. a lot of the importance to free speech that surrounds this issue is locked up in the technology of it. she was also deceptively cut-and-dried about the disposition of the cases, for example even though preliminary injunction has been granted in CA, the case hasn't been to trial yet. it also doesn't help that they ignored the advent of a legitimate DVD software player. the background with SJG is neat and provides a frame of reference we can relate to.
all the same, you're still better off going to the opendvd homepage. __
the one problem with that is that linux and apache have both been in the public domain without IP support long enough (~2 yrs, i think) to be wholly in the public domain (relative to patent protection). in short it doesn't matter for them... now for the Next Big Thing(tm) sure... __
Whatever it means to iCrave intrinsically, this is really bad for deCSS/Livid and that whole case. While it escapes setting any legal precedent (a plus), a lot of the plaintiffs in this case were the same as in deCSS Source in CA and NY and this says to them, "This is just a war of attrition and you guys can have your way if you can just drag this on long enough."
iCrave is a profit entity, so it makes sense for them to back down... but this sets a dangerous real world precedent. They will work to tie us up and beat us into the ground, because they can. Exactly what form it will take (probably an agreement to comply with the cease and desist after most of the defendants are on the brink of bankrupcy) but either we put, and continue to put money behind EFF's efforts (and i'll confess that i have yet to do so but am seriously reconsidering)... or DVD outside MS/Apple disappears. __
- Arguing that you shouldn't have to use their player is like arguing you shouldn't have to have a DSS receiver to watch DirecTV broadcasts or you shouldn't have to buy your cable company's cable modem to hook up to their net.
- The plain, simple fact is that there are all sorts of regulated, metered, for pay content out there. DVDs happen to be one form. Complaining that you have "rights" to watch it any way you please is simply unfounded, given the ample precedence for other forms of content with controlled playback mechanisms.
As the first replier pointed out... DVD is a product. Internet Service Provision, Direct Satellite System is a service. In a service you pay for the fact that the administrators of the service are continually adding value by performing the service for you. With a product, the value has been added once, you pay for it once and after that it's in your hands.
- the real issue is simply one of market economics.
if that's the case, then there should be an antitrust case against the MPAA for their monopolistic licensing practices.
- The bottom line is that no one is forcing you to buy DVDs and the DVD playback software is a licensed product. So don't expect unrestricted access to playback technology. You're misinformed if you think it's your "right" to have it.
(software) DVD Players are licensed, yes... but 1) would that make DeCSS any more legal if it had been brute-force reverse engineered... eh, probably. 2) the licensing system in itself is more than likely in violation of the law, that doesn't give us the right to violate licences we've agreed to, but if the license isn't binding on you (i.e. jon in norway) then there's not really much that can be done about it, unless you want to encode exclusivity clauses into click-wrap licenses for windows software players which isn't the case. DeCSS in theory shouldn't be touchable because it was legally produced: the contract preventing one of us from making something like DeCSS by reverse engineering is in all likelihood not binding on him, so it's fair game.
Physical players themselves aren't licensed; they're physical property, not intellectual
Physical DVDs are licensed, but in the same sense as movies... that you can use them for private, non-commercial applications, and you can't redistribute... you've read the FBI WARNING i'm sure.
in short, we do have legs to stand on, even if we're certain to be knocked over and have them cut off by the flaling sword of justice. __
most tort law is common law (i.e. there needs to be no legislative action). there just needs to be a case filed, and after there will be a precedent that network administrators must take resonable security precautions, or they will be held liable for the results. that's what neglegence is all about. __
Just based on the relative simplicities (and i mean relative), i think the darkmatter theory de jour of the "Manyfold Univerise Theory" preprint (posted: Roblimo, 19-Nov) had a much better explanation.
Refresher: that there are other dimensions that don't interact with ours, but whose matter still has mass and generates gravity that we can feel, thus causing the dark matter phenomenon
Even if they figured out that reverse time won't mathematically / quantumly cause the hypothetical annilhation of the universe, there are just too many doors it opens. (now just watch it proved right...) We also can't disregard more conventional theories for dark matter: Black Holes and the possible mass of neutrinos.
With regard to all the discussion of this explaining antimatter: Antimatter, at least at a surface level is matter that has an opposite spin and charge of its corresponding normal particle... there was nothing in the article to make me think that reverse time has anything to do with it.
from the article: Although Schulman has shown that a reverse-time region is not destroyed by interactions with a region of normal time,
Matter and antimatter is anhillated to their relativistic particle energies (E=mc^2 and all) when it hits its a particle of its counter-type (e.g. electron and positron).
All the same, it's an interesting read. Just wish I had the time and the physics bkgd to read the final article when it came out. __
Maybe it's the result of four years being coached in cross country by a government teacher, but the only thing that solves problems is effort, on an individual basis.
Would an.org work? Hard to tell. Probably not. Would an.org geared directly towards geeks be better? Maybe my girlfriend would be a better arbiter of that question. I went to a gifted middle (jr. high) school, and i came into high school mostly insulated from bullies, with a strong network of geeky friends. She didn't. (and i'm not advocating gifted schools by saying this. it does not nescecarily make life easier, especially after leaving them)
We have a strong friendship (and a romantic relationship beside) because she could trust me; I treat her like a person who had some bad stuff happen to her, not a charity case. I know what she means when she says i've been a stabilizing influence on her life, but I don't think of her in those terms.
My gut tells me that an.org wouldn't work as well as a natural relationship, because a solid friendship with someone who's been through it, or is somehow past it has to start out on equal footing (i.e. not with the understanding that the other person is somehow troubled). Of course that brings us back to the question of how does this take off.
In that respect, even if it can't do the most possible good, a network better than nothing, unless there are real mental health problems. Most of the school shooters this profile is aimed at likely have them, and would be better found with the MMPI (a psych. test geared towards finding personality disorders) and not this contrived garbage. They need professional help most importantly, but also having a geek-peer wouldn't hurt.
In a situation like this, better than nothing is still better. Guess that means it's worth a try. __
Slashdot Mirror
NPR is fun to listen to sometimes, but you can tell it's geared towards baby-boomer academians... NPR's target audience. this story especially.
in defense of the story, though they have one industry lawyer sounding like an idiot, followed by a civil libertarian, a librarian, and a law professor telling about how bad it is then it goes on to quote the ip lawyer who basically says that it's okay to trample the first ammendment as long as we plan to go back and fix it after everybody gives up. then there's more pro/con on the law, but they keep bringing up the point that it doesn't apply to CD's or analog media.
it feels like they're saying "hey, academian baby-boomers... this new law your linux using kids just out of college working for their startups are ranting about isn't going to apply to your hardcover bound copies of sociology journals or your dave brubeck lp's or your VHS tape of casablanca. here's what you can say to avoid sounding dumb at the next wine and cheese gathering."
__
alt.geek
i'd be more interested to know how you managed so far. But anyway. First you have to recognize that worst case scenario: dropping the whole thing is an option; it doesn't have to bankrupt you.
Before you get to that point, though you have to answer some questions. "What are my priorities?"
Is your first priority keeping your customer base?
Is it making something viable out of your hobby?
Is it that you keep control of the site somehow?
If you want to learn how some auction sites got to be profitable, any of them who've IPO'd are required to make financial statments available to current and prospective shareholders. So check out eBay's statments, see where their income comes from. Not quite looking at the source code for it... but it may be as useful as a header file. You'll probably see that the business needs to attain some sort of critical mass before it can make money the way eBay does. But look through the publicly available data to see how it works.
You seem to be particularly worried about customers rejecting banner ads. Unless you're billing yourself as "the lynx friendly auction site" or something, you shouldn't really have to worry. It will be something of a pain, and it won't save your site, but it should allow you to recoup some of your money... And i immagine that most banner services already have information on the finer points of joining and billing and stuff.
I don't know. Even if i did, i couldn't tell you, since i'm not an insured professional. But the first step in finding the answer is having a better idea of what you want.
__
alt.geek
the article is about how Netscape's people aren't implementing Mozilla's patches.
That's the story in a nutshell. Don't hold your breath to apt-get MSIE 6.0... Mozilla is working on these problems, and they're not worried about release dates
Again from the article: There's a link about signing the petition, and some very egregious examples of Netscape (despite railings by Mozilla) not implementing pre-existing fixes.
There's still hope... for those of us who wait for Mozilla.
__
alt.geek
The article is very careful to avoid techno-babble but it does so to the extent of marginalizing a lot of the openDVD argument. a lot of the importance to free speech that surrounds this issue is locked up in the technology of it. she was also deceptively cut-and-dried about the disposition of the cases, for example even though preliminary injunction has been granted in CA, the case hasn't been to trial yet. it also doesn't help that they ignored the advent of a legitimate DVD software player. the background with SJG is neat and provides a frame of reference we can relate to.
all the same, you're still better off going to the opendvd homepage.
__
alt.geek
the one problem with that is that linux and apache have both been in the public domain without IP support long enough (~2 yrs, i think) to be wholly in the public domain (relative to patent protection). in short it doesn't matter for them... now for the Next Big Thing(tm) sure...
__
alt.geek
Whatever it means to iCrave intrinsically, this is really bad for deCSS/Livid and that whole case. While it escapes setting any legal precedent (a plus), a lot of the plaintiffs in this case were the same as in deCSS Source in CA and NY and this says to them, "This is just a war of attrition and you guys can have your way if you can just drag this on long enough."
iCrave is a profit entity, so it makes sense for them to back down... but this sets a dangerous real world precedent. They will work to tie us up and beat us into the ground, because they can. Exactly what form it will take (probably an agreement to comply with the cease and desist after most of the defendants are on the brink of bankrupcy) but either we put, and continue to put money behind EFF's efforts (and i'll confess that i have yet to do so but am seriously reconsidering)... or DVD outside MS/Apple disappears.
__
alt.geek
- Arguing that you shouldn't have to use their player is like arguing you shouldn't have to have a DSS receiver to watch DirecTV broadcasts or you shouldn't have to buy your cable company's cable modem to hook up to their net.
- The plain, simple fact is that there are all sorts of regulated, metered, for pay content out there. DVDs happen to be one form. Complaining that you have "rights" to watch it any way you please is simply unfounded, given the ample precedence for other forms of content with controlled playback mechanisms.
As the first replier pointed out... DVD is a product. Internet Service Provision, Direct Satellite System is a service. In a service you pay for the fact that the administrators of the service are continually adding value by performing the service for you. With a product, the value has been added once, you pay for it once and after that it's in your hands.
- the real issue is simply one of market economics.
if that's the case, then there should be an antitrust case against the MPAA for their monopolistic licensing practices.
- The bottom line is that no one is forcing you to buy DVDs and the DVD playback software is a licensed product. So don't expect unrestricted access to playback technology. You're misinformed if you think it's your "right" to have it.
(software) DVD Players are licensed, yes... but 1) would that make DeCSS any more legal if it had been brute-force reverse engineered... eh, probably. 2) the licensing system in itself is more than likely in violation of the law, that doesn't give us the right to violate licences we've agreed to, but if the license isn't binding on you (i.e. jon in norway) then there's not really much that can be done about it, unless you want to encode exclusivity clauses into click-wrap licenses for windows software players which isn't the case. DeCSS in theory shouldn't be touchable because it was legally produced: the contract preventing one of us from making something like DeCSS by reverse engineering is in all likelihood not binding on him, so it's fair game.
Physical players themselves aren't licensed; they're physical property, not intellectual
Physical DVDs are licensed, but in the same sense as movies... that you can use them for private, non-commercial applications, and you can't redistribute... you've read the FBI WARNING i'm sure.
in short, we do have legs to stand on, even if we're certain to be knocked over and have them cut off by the flaling sword of justice.
__
alt.geek
most tort law is common law (i.e. there needs to be no legislative action). there just needs to be a case filed, and after there will be a precedent that network administrators must take resonable security precautions, or they will be held liable for the results. that's what neglegence is all about.
__
alt.geek
Even if they figured out that reverse time won't mathematically / quantumly cause the hypothetical annilhation of the universe, there are just too many doors it opens. (now just watch it proved right...) We also can't disregard more conventional theories for dark matter: Black Holes and the possible mass of neutrinos.
With regard to all the discussion of this explaining antimatter:
Antimatter, at least at a surface level is matter that has an opposite spin and charge of its corresponding normal particle... there was nothing in the article to make me think that reverse time has anything to do with it.
Matter and antimatter is anhillated to their relativistic particle energies (E=mc^2 and all) when it hits its a particle of its counter-type (e.g. electron and positron).
All the same, it's an interesting read. Just wish I had the time and the physics bkgd to read the final article when it came out.
__
alt.geek
Maybe it's the result of four years being coached in cross country by a government teacher, but the only thing that solves problems is effort, on an individual basis.
.org work? Hard to tell. Probably not. Would an .org geared directly towards geeks be better? Maybe my girlfriend would be a better arbiter of that question. I went to a gifted middle (jr. high) school, and i came into high school mostly insulated from bullies, with a strong network of geeky friends. She didn't. (and i'm not advocating gifted schools by saying this. it does not nescecarily make life easier, especially after leaving them)
.org wouldn't work as well as a natural relationship, because a solid friendship with someone who's been through it, or is somehow past it has to start out on equal footing (i.e. not with the understanding that the other person is somehow troubled). Of course that brings us back to the question of how does this take off.
Would an
We have a strong friendship (and a romantic relationship beside) because she could trust me; I treat her like a person who had some bad stuff happen to her, not a charity case. I know what she means when she says i've been a stabilizing influence on her life, but I don't think of her in those terms.
My gut tells me that an
In that respect, even if it can't do the most possible good, a network better than nothing, unless there are real mental health problems. Most of the school shooters this profile is aimed at likely have them, and would be better found with the MMPI (a psych. test geared towards finding personality disorders) and not this contrived garbage. They need professional help most importantly, but also having a geek-peer wouldn't hurt.
In a situation like this, better than nothing is still better. Guess that means it's worth a try.
__
alt.geek