If they made a book like described, nobody that just wanted to read the story would pay that price. Anybody who did pay that price would be paying it because they valued the book at least that much (probably as a piece of artwork, or just to be able to show off how much money they have). Nobody would pay that price simply because if cost that much to make.
The point of the job comparison was that the price of pretty much everything, including the price you get for doing your job, is determined by how much the 'purchaser' is willing to pay, not how much the thing cost to produce.
The purchaser did NOT say that they find the price too high (more than the value he would get from the book), he said the price was too high because it doesn't COST that much to make. My point is that sane people do not decide that value of something by the cost to make it. The value of a book (as a story to read) does not go up just because some ridiculously expensive process was used to produce it. By the same token, the value of a book (as a story to read) does not go down just because an inexpensive process was used to produce it.
So what? How does the cost to the producer affect the value to the consumer? If they produced a book where every letter of your copy was hand-written by a graphic artist, would you pay thousands of dollars for it just because it cost that much to make?
Assuming you have a job, how much did it 'cost' you to work today? Practically nothing - just enough nutrition to keep you alive and functioning for the day. Bet you happily accept more than a few cents for a day of work though.
Sun's dramatic turnaround? You mean the turnaround from being a thriving business to one that no longer exists? Somehow I don't think Microsoft is looking to make such a dramatic turnaround.
IBM is not some open source 'angel' either. Sure, they have made some great contributions to open source projects. However, they wisely view open source as just another tool in their toolbox. They support open source as long as it benefits them. They do not belong to some open source religion. Sure, they support Linux. Why not? It allows them to sell some zSeries boxes they otherwise would not sell. They can use Linux in POS terminals, etc. However, they also support (with far more investment) AIX, z/OS, z/VM, DB2, Tivoli products etc. None of them are (or are ever likely to be) open source.
It seems to me Microsoft has chosen the IBM 'open source when it benefits us' approach over the Sun 'kill the company with open source' approach. Wisely, I think.
Nonsense. You have a right to free speech, that is true. You do not have a right to access your preferred method of making your speech. For instance, you have no 'right' to broadcast on radio or TV.
This is completely false. You have and can use (without paying another dime) exactly what you paid for. You did not negotiate for, have built, pay for, and receive a number of chips and wires. You negotiated for, had build, paid for, and had delivered a certain number of z processors running at a certain speed. If you want something DIFFERENT (different number of processors, different speed) than what you paid for, they will charge you money and deliver what you now want. This is nothing at all like a lease, and there is nothing 'weird' about it.
In days gone by (and still today for other vendors), changing the performance of the machine involved changing actual hardware. This is highly inconvenient for the customer. Not only do you have to wait for the new thing to be physically shipped to you, but you also have the risk of outages that always occurs when hardware is changed. Getting different hardware in no way changes the VALUE of the upgrade to the customer, it just introduces potential problems.
Why does IBM have this pricing structure? Because their customers want it. There are advantages to having different performance characteristics available. Most obviously a slower processor costs less to purchase than a fast one. Just as important (or maybe even more so), mainframe software is priced by the capacity of the machine it is running on. It is advantageous to a customer to be able to have the slowest processor that gets his workload done.
You will notice that nowhere in that article does it actually say that IBM did sue, threaten to sue, or even send a cease and desist letter to anyone. In fact, all IBM said was that they would not license their software to run on TurboHercules. That some paranoid guy interpreted that as IBM 'threatening' him, well, that is really not IBM's problem.
As for the rest of your little rant: so what? If you need full performance of the machine, you pay for it. If you don't, you don't. Where, exactly, is the 'scam'? And if you think a mainframe provides the same value as off-the-shelf PC hardware, well, then there is really no point in trying to have an intelligent discussion with you. And BTW, the processors run at >5GHz.
The biggest effect that would have would be harm to the actual inventors. And yes, it is pretty unthinkable that a company would spend real dollars to purchase something that has no value. If the owner of the patent is unwilling to license the patent for a reasonable fee, what makes you think they would be willing to sell it for a lesser price?
It implies no such thing. IBM is a very large company, with lots of researchers, developers, and engineers in many disciplines. Now, how about an example of IBM squeezing money out of people who dare to make their own things?
It says commercial, not corporate. The only reason the FCC (as part of the federal government) has any authority at all (constitutionally) is because of interstate commerce.
No, they are not getting what they paid for. There are more considerations other than just taste. Are the health properties of the food the same? Are the environmental impacts of the fishing methods the same? Are the food safety aspects the same? Who is getting the money (and jobs) - local people or foreigners?
If you didn't receive the binaries from some company, they are under no obligation to provide you with anything. And if you did receive the binaries, then they must tell you how to get the source code.
There are three ways companies can 'use' GPL code.
First is internal use of the code as-is. Most companies do not have a problem with this.
Second is use of GPL code in a product. Lawyers are going to be involved in the release of products anyway, so licenses will be scrutinized and blessed. Companies using GPL code in a product are aware of the obligation to release the source, and can decide whether or not to build on GPL code based on that requirement. Again, not a big deal, because the requirement is clear.
Last is in-house custom code based off GPL code. In my experience this is the one has companies most leery. The concern is that what is in-house today may need to be external tomorrow (ie used by suppliers, etc). Once they 'distribute' their stuff to their supplier they have lost control of it, and can't even control it with contracts, etc. This is intolerable to many companies. If you base code off proprietary libraries, etc, the worst that happens is you need to buy or upgrade some licenses. That is something companies can deal with. With GPL code, your choices are: release your code to the world, get agreement from everyone who contributed to the GPL code, if you can even identify them, or don't do the deal. Companies do not like having their business relationships and actions determined by a software license.
None of the things you listed are 'causes' of data breaches. They are things that can be tightened up to help prevent breaches, but they are in no way causes. The cause, in nearly every case, is someone trying to get at something they have no right to.
COGS is probably not 'mostly printing costs'. Their annual report breaks that $957M into:
Raw Materials: $162M Wages and benefits: $496M Other: $300M
The $162M is certainly all printing costs. I would think the bulk of the wages and benefits are for the staff (reporters, columnists, editors, etc). I have no idea what is in 'other', but it probably does contain at least some printing and distribution costs as they use outside printers.
They use outside printers (and probably outside delivery), so it is unclear that depreciation and amortization includes any printing or delivery costs. No doubt much of that is computers.
If we assume all 'raw materials' and 'other' are printing costs, that makes less than half of the cost of goods printing costs. Out of approx $2B in costs, a little less than 1/4 is for print.
As for keeping ad revenue with ereaders - I do not know. I would suspect that their advertisers do not view ereaders as equivalent to print and would not be willing to pay the same rates.
You are forgetting the income from ads. According to their annual report, 79% of their ad revenue comes from print. Over half of their total revenue comes from ads. Unless over 40% of their total cost is for printing and distributing, print is still carrying more than it's share of the load. The only solutions for the problem of print going away is to either generate more income from on-line ads (unlikely), have digital subscriptions cost more than print (to offset the loss of ad revenue), or some combination of both.
No, it doesn't. They try to make it seem like the standards are the law, but they are not. The law is the thing that says 'Any bicycle helmets offered for sale in the United States must meet or exceed standard xyz'. Standard xyz lays out all the details for making a safe bicycle helmet, but it is NOT a law. Making a bicycle helmet that does not meet standard xyz is not breaking a law. Offering it for sale in the US is.
And frankly, I am having a hard time figuring out why such a standard should be free. Who needs the standard other than bicycle helmet manufacturers? Why should the rest of us pay (with our taxes) so the manufacturers can have a free copy of the standard? Who benefits?
And what of the stuff IN the standard? If the standard mandates use of a material with certain characteristics is it the governmnents job to provide a supplier of that material? Is it the governments job to provide a manufacturing facility? Trained engineers?
Just in case you happen to have a lab with all the necessary equipment (properly calibrated, of course), and the properly trained personnel to use the equipment and analyse the results, and ready access to the things you are willing to destroy by testing, but are too cheap to purchase a copy of the spec.
This makes no sense. Market cap has absolutely nothing to do with assets or liquidity of the company. It is simply the share price times the total number of shares. The only thing it is useful for measuring is how much it would cost to buy the entire company.
The reason for stock buybacks is to 'return value to the investors'. You can do one of two things to return value - increase the share price, or pay dividends. Since Apple has a history of not paying dividends (the current exception seems to be a one-time thing), it is assumed that this action will raise the share price.
Whether or not the market cap changes as a result of this is purely up to the stockholders.
First, they are charged with whatever the primary crime is. Second, it has nothing at all to do with someone being in group A and the other in group B. It has to do with publicly indicating you have committed the crime simply BECAUSE the victim is a member of a group you don't like. This guy didn't just invade his roommates privacy, he did that and sent out a public message basically saying the roommate deserved the invasion of privacy because he was gay,
Slashdot Mirror
If they made a book like described, nobody that just wanted to read the story would pay that price. Anybody who did pay that price would be paying it because they valued the book at least that much (probably as a piece of artwork, or just to be able to show off how much money they have). Nobody would pay that price simply because if cost that much to make.
The point of the job comparison was that the price of pretty much everything, including the price you get for doing your job, is determined by how much the 'purchaser' is willing to pay, not how much the thing cost to produce.
The purchaser did NOT say that they find the price too high (more than the value he would get from the book), he said the price was too high because it doesn't COST that much to make. My point is that sane people do not decide that value of something by the cost to make it. The value of a book (as a story to read) does not go up just because some ridiculously expensive process was used to produce it. By the same token, the value of a book (as a story to read) does not go down just because an inexpensive process was used to produce it.
Better yet, learn the real formula: Price != Cost: Price=what people are willing to pay (ie. how much value they assign to the thing)
So what? How does the cost to the producer affect the value to the consumer? If they produced a book where every letter of your copy was hand-written by a graphic artist, would you pay thousands of dollars for it just because it cost that much to make?
Assuming you have a job, how much did it 'cost' you to work today? Practically nothing - just enough nutrition to keep you alive and functioning for the day. Bet you happily accept more than a few cents for a day of work though.
Sun's dramatic turnaround? You mean the turnaround from being a thriving business to one that no longer exists? Somehow I don't think Microsoft is looking to make such a dramatic turnaround.
IBM is not some open source 'angel' either. Sure, they have made some great contributions to open source projects. However, they wisely view open source as just another tool in their toolbox. They support open source as long as it benefits them. They do not belong to some open source religion. Sure, they support Linux. Why not? It allows them to sell some zSeries boxes they otherwise would not sell. They can use Linux in POS terminals, etc. However, they also support (with far more investment) AIX, z/OS, z/VM, DB2, Tivoli products etc. None of them are (or are ever likely to be) open source.
It seems to me Microsoft has chosen the IBM 'open source when it benefits us' approach over the Sun 'kill the company with open source' approach. Wisely, I think.
They were eager to buy them at $28M, not at $40M. What is so unusual about that?
Nonsense. You have a right to free speech, that is true. You do not have a right to access your preferred method of making your speech. For instance, you have no 'right' to broadcast on radio or TV.
This is completely false. You have and can use (without paying another dime) exactly what you paid for. You did not negotiate for, have built, pay for, and receive a number of chips and wires. You negotiated for, had build, paid for, and had delivered a certain number of z processors running at a certain speed. If you want something DIFFERENT (different number of processors, different speed) than what you paid for, they will charge you money and deliver what you now want. This is nothing at all like a lease, and there is nothing 'weird' about it.
In days gone by (and still today for other vendors), changing the performance of the machine involved changing actual hardware. This is highly inconvenient for the customer. Not only do you have to wait for the new thing to be physically shipped to you, but you also have the risk of outages that always occurs when hardware is changed. Getting different hardware in no way changes the VALUE of the upgrade to the customer, it just introduces potential problems.
Why does IBM have this pricing structure? Because their customers want it. There are advantages to having different performance characteristics available. Most obviously a slower processor costs less to purchase than a fast one. Just as important (or maybe even more so), mainframe software is priced by the capacity of the machine it is running on. It is advantageous to a customer to be able to have the slowest processor that gets his workload done.
You will notice that nowhere in that article does it actually say that IBM did sue, threaten to sue, or even send a cease and desist letter to anyone. In fact, all IBM said was that they would not license their software to run on TurboHercules. That some paranoid guy interpreted that as IBM 'threatening' him, well, that is really not IBM's problem.
As for the rest of your little rant: so what? If you need full performance of the machine, you pay for it. If you don't, you don't. Where, exactly, is the 'scam'? And if you think a mainframe provides the same value as off-the-shelf PC hardware, well, then there is really no point in trying to have an intelligent discussion with you. And BTW, the processors run at >5GHz.
The biggest effect that would have would be harm to the actual inventors. And yes, it is pretty unthinkable that a company would spend real dollars to purchase something that has no value. If the owner of the patent is unwilling to license the patent for a reasonable fee, what makes you think they would be willing to sell it for a lesser price?
It implies no such thing. IBM is a very large company, with lots of researchers, developers, and engineers in many disciplines. Now, how about an example of IBM squeezing money out of people who dare to make their own things?
It says commercial, not corporate. The only reason the FCC (as part of the federal government) has any authority at all (constitutionally) is because of interstate commerce.
No, they are not getting what they paid for. There are more considerations other than just taste. Are the health properties of the food the same? Are the environmental impacts of the fishing methods the same? Are the food safety aspects the same? Who is getting the money (and jobs) - local people or foreigners?
If you didn't receive the binaries from some company, they are under no obligation to provide you with anything. And if you did receive the binaries, then they must tell you how to get the source code.
There are three ways companies can 'use' GPL code.
First is internal use of the code as-is. Most companies do not have a problem with this.
Second is use of GPL code in a product. Lawyers are going to be involved in the release of products anyway, so licenses will be scrutinized and blessed. Companies using GPL code in a product are aware of the obligation to release the source, and can decide whether or not to build on GPL code based on that requirement. Again, not a big deal, because the requirement is clear.
Last is in-house custom code based off GPL code. In my experience this is the one has companies most leery. The concern is that what is in-house today may need to be external tomorrow (ie used by suppliers, etc). Once they 'distribute' their stuff to their supplier they have lost control of it, and can't even control it with contracts, etc. This is intolerable to many companies. If you base code off proprietary libraries, etc, the worst that happens is you need to buy or upgrade some licenses. That is something companies can deal with. With GPL code, your choices are: release your code to the world, get agreement from everyone who contributed to the GPL code, if you can even identify them, or don't do the deal. Companies do not like having their business relationships and actions determined by a software license.
None of the things you listed are 'causes' of data breaches. They are things that can be tightened up to help prevent breaches, but they are in no way causes. The cause, in nearly every case, is someone trying to get at something they have no right to.
COGS is probably not 'mostly printing costs'. Their annual report breaks that $957M into:
Raw Materials: $162M
Wages and benefits: $496M
Other: $300M
The $162M is certainly all printing costs. I would think the bulk of the wages and benefits are for the staff (reporters, columnists, editors, etc). I have no idea what is in 'other', but it probably does contain at least some printing and distribution costs as they use outside printers.
They use outside printers (and probably outside delivery), so it is unclear that depreciation and amortization includes any printing or delivery costs. No doubt much of that is computers.
If we assume all 'raw materials' and 'other' are printing costs, that makes less than half of the cost of goods printing costs. Out of approx $2B in costs, a little less than 1/4 is for print.
As for keeping ad revenue with ereaders - I do not know. I would suspect that their advertisers do not view ereaders as equivalent to print and would not be willing to pay the same rates.
You are forgetting the income from ads. According to their annual report, 79% of their ad revenue comes from print. Over half of their total revenue comes from ads. Unless over 40% of their total cost is for printing and distributing, print is still carrying more than it's share of the load. The only solutions for the problem of print going away is to either generate more income from on-line ads (unlikely), have digital subscriptions cost more than print (to offset the loss of ad revenue), or some combination of both.
Here is one that just appeared this week (LA Times, I think):
Clue: Hail Answer: DANTESINFERNO
Clue: Poe Answer: FLATBROKE
Clue: What you need to get the above two answers: SOUTHERNDRAWL
Not sure how you make a routine to come up with those answers.
No, it doesn't. They try to make it seem like the standards are the law, but they are not. The law is the thing that says 'Any bicycle helmets offered for sale in the United States must meet or exceed standard xyz'. Standard xyz lays out all the details for making a safe bicycle helmet, but it is NOT a law. Making a bicycle helmet that does not meet standard xyz is not breaking a law. Offering it for sale in the US is.
And frankly, I am having a hard time figuring out why such a standard should be free. Who needs the standard other than bicycle helmet manufacturers? Why should the rest of us pay (with our taxes) so the manufacturers can have a free copy of the standard? Who benefits?
And what of the stuff IN the standard? If the standard mandates use of a material with certain characteristics is it the governmnents job to provide a supplier of that material? Is it the governments job to provide a manufacturing facility? Trained engineers?
What makes you think these things have been paid for (in full) with taxes?
Just in case you happen to have a lab with all the necessary equipment (properly calibrated, of course), and the properly trained personnel to use the equipment and analyse the results, and ready access to the things you are willing to destroy by testing, but are too cheap to purchase a copy of the spec.
This makes no sense. Market cap has absolutely nothing to do with assets or liquidity of the company. It is simply the share price times the total number of shares. The only thing it is useful for measuring is how much it would cost to buy the entire company.
The reason for stock buybacks is to 'return value to the investors'. You can do one of two things to return value - increase the share price, or pay dividends. Since Apple has a history of not paying dividends (the current exception seems to be a one-time thing), it is assumed that this action will raise the share price.
Whether or not the market cap changes as a result of this is purely up to the stockholders.
Hate CRIMES. You must commit a CRIME with the intent of intimidation.
What part of bias crimes laws are unequal? Do you not have a gender, race, color, or sexual orientation?
First, they are charged with whatever the primary crime is. Second, it has nothing at all to do with someone being in group A and the other in group B. It has to do with publicly indicating you have committed the crime simply BECAUSE the victim is a member of a group you don't like. This guy didn't just invade his roommates privacy, he did that and sent out a public message basically saying the roommate deserved the invasion of privacy because he was gay,