The stock market is a total gamble the way that betting on a chess match is a total gamble. As soon as one loses a rook, there will be moaning and gnashing of teeth and many will bail, leaving more profit opportunities for those who have a planned strategy.
If two people bet equal amounts on the same game, it is a zero-sum game. It's merely a transfer of money from one party to another. The expected value is 100% of whatever both parties put in, no more, no less. If you're talking about gambling at a casino, it's worse than zero-sum. Almost by definition, the casino is going to win just a little more on the aggregate. In other words, if you play for long enough, you'll only get back about 90% (or whatever the number is) of your money. Contrast this with the stock market as a whole, where, the expected return over time, depending on your range, is about 10% per year. Although, you can argue the stock market is also a zero-sum game in the short run (as in when you make a trade), it is completely untrue in the long run. Similarly, it is not entirely dog eat dog. Just because buyer makes more (or less) money on the trade, does not mean the seller (or buyer) is somehow worse off. The buyer is providing liquidity and/or options and/or risk reduction to the seller, which is valuable in itself.
In other words, if you think you're going to win, on the average, gambling, you really are stupid. But if you think you're going to win playing the stock market, you're not necessarily stupid, because you really are more likely to win than lose. It depends on what you invest in, how you invest, etc, but there is a major difference between investing and gambling.
I wouldn't be so confident about the value of land as a long term investment. The value of land is tied to an increasing population. Check the population trends for the top 5 industrialized nations. All but the US are in UN stage 4 and declining in population. The US would be in the same situation, but for immigration.
While I agree with you entirely that investing in real estate is also risky, it does not depend entirely on "growth" of the population. If you're talking about investing in upper-middle class neighborhoods, and the upper-middle class is growing (both in numbers and in real dollars), then that land can still definitely appreciate, no matter what the rest of the population is doing. Conversely, growth by means of a large/poor immigration is going to do very little to prop up property values. In other words, even though I would not invest in the real estate market myself, I suspect it will still grow on the aggregate, excluding certain hyper-inflated markets in California and such.
I fail to see what you are driving at. It lacks any particular focus. What little you do say really has no bearing on my statements. Anyways, the market can be stupid [I never said it wasn't, although if you look at it over time, you'll find it is amazingly well balanced], but that doesn't mean that options are a bad bet. Quite the contrary, they perform very well on the average.
The same thing is true that has been for all of time: the only safe long term investment is land.
EEEEEEEEEEEEERRRR. Wrong. Land is just as arbitrarily priced, its value depends on what the market is willing to bear. You can lose lots of money on all sorts of real estate investments. You really can't invest without taking some kind of risk. It's just that simple. While it is possible to take more risk than is necessary for a given (expected) return [e.g., if you're stupid], you generally cannot expect to earn a greater return without taking more risk, past a certain point (e.g., the SML). The bottom line is that just because there is relatively high risk in taking stock options in companies in lieu of salary, be the company private or public, does not mean the person is stupid. If the employee can afford the risk and the expected return is greater (it generally is), it can actually be a very wise investment.
First, not every stock is a DotCom. There have been many sucessful privately held companies (yes, even technology companies) where employees have made a tremendous amount of money with options over the years (yes, even today). And no, i'm not talking about the widely speculative bets like Yahoo, where you hope WallStreet will view you favorably, and that the herds will keep the market boyant before you sell. I'm talking about companies with proven leaders, substantial income, fundamentally good technology, rapidly growing sales, etc. I happen to have been involved in a few of them. Just because some people are too stupid to tell the difference does not mean that everyone is.
Secondly, when you say "scam" realize that the original investors, the shareholders, are in the same boat (excepting VCs and such with preferred shares) as you are. If your stock is worthless, their stock is worthless too.
Furthermore, your odds DO not suck. Comparing it to gambling is complete foolishness. With almost every form of gambling, your expected value over time is going to be less than what you put in. Not so with privately (and publically) held companies. On the aggregate, you will make more money in significant privately held (as in, excluding mom and pop shops) companies than you will on the NASDAQ, NYSE, or any other diversified index. Granted, you will also take more risk, but that's the nature of capitalism. You want a chance to make more money? Well you have to take more risk, it's as simple as that. More risk != losing, it simply means that your returns are much less predictable and/or volatile.
Hey, I'm about to order an Inspiron 8000 for myself (my company is picking up the bill). I've been trying to decide between the 32mb ATI card and the GeForce2. How well does the GeForce2 really perform on them? All our 8000s are running ATIs, but hey, for an extra 100 dollars.....
How so? I mean, Gates has been very successful in business, but that doesn't imply persuasion particularly. I suppose Gates "persuaded" people to use Windows. Just like RMS persuaded people to write Free Software. But in both cases most people couldn't attribute their decision directly to that person.
Well I derive this from my experience with successful business people. By and large, they are successful communicators, because this is largely what their job is. As a CEO, it is very important to be able to persuade employees, perspective shareholders, the financial community, business partners, bankers, even customers. The vast majority of the business leaders power derives not from absolute authority, but from the unofficial forces, like persuasion, the ability to read people, etc. Not being able to communicate effectively as a CEO is equivalent to not being able to type as a programmer. In other words, you may know where you want to go, but if you can't employ it, it's not worth a damn. Are there some exceptions? Sure, but they're very unusual.
That said, I happen to agree that his books were lousy and uninspiring. However, I see them as being the result of writing with ulterior motives. (e.g., persuading the financial community and others that he is some kind of visionary with a plan.) It's very hard to write well when what you're saying is bullshit. I have happened to read Gates' writing in the Economist and a few other places. From what little I have read, it strikes me as being much more lucid, coherant, and persuasive than RMS' typical inflamatory language. Also, remember there is a difference between arguing MS' business practices and intellectual property's strengths in general.
Now I see no particular reason to believe that RMS is a good communicator. RMS' works certainly do not demonstrate it to me. His job does not require it. His technical training does not necessarily imply it either. (though I have known many technically trained people that are excellent writers and communicators). What's more, I think his extreme positions are much harder to justify logically [frankly, i think they're down right foolish]. Regardless of the logic, they're certainly not going to go down well with people that are neither academics, leftists, or free software advocates.
In any event, my particular take on this issue is secondary to my primary point, that the undergraduate diploma is practically irrelevant at this point in their lives. If you, or he, wants to make a case that RMS would be better, then ground it in something more than a mere sheet of paper. It may still be subjective, but at least it won't be so clearly wrong.
The original question was an attempt to ascertain who would be the better debater. The original poster implies that we need only look at whether or not they recieved a diploma to arrive at a conclusion. I simply assert that focusing on attaining a diploma from the same school is almost certainly a poor measure of those kinds of capabilities, especially when you consider that both have left their undergraduate careers decades ago. Thus I point out alternatives, as a supplement to my argument, to things outside of their undergrad experiences. You may not agree with the elements that I point out, but they at least have a reasonable chance of being relevant, whereas actually recieving that diploma is relatively meaningless. Would you really assert that your average Harvard grad is more likely to succeed in a debate than Gates, a voluntary drop out from the same school, with many years of experience under his belt? No, most reasonable people that are familiar with these schools would not. The original poster wanted to imply that it was the degree the matters, when in fact, his real reason is his agreement with RMS' philosophy, his academic training, or what have you. [If he had simply said what he really felt, I probably would not have bothered wasting my time, no matter how wrong I feel he is.]
I never said nor implied that there is a standard of "success". "Success" is only an incidental consideration here. Because of Gates' "success", we can reasonably presume that he has certain skills and abilities (e.g., writing ability, the ability to get to the point quickly, the ability to make public speeches to non-nerdy audiences,etc.), no matter how crappy his products tend to be. Conversely, I cannot say the same for RMS. He is an academic, now whether you consider this success or not is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that persuasion is not instrumental or necessary to success in RMS' academic career. The same can be said for many other talents...
No where did I say that I was blown away with Bill Gates, I simply stated that whether they graduated or not with an undergrad degree from Harvard is a very poor measure of capabilities. As a matter of act, I do think Microsoft's products are well below the quality that would be seen in a reasonably competetive market place (e.g., if their OS and Applications were split). However, that does not automatically mean that the man is stupid or less capable than RMS. The bottom line is that, yes, it is going to come down to a subjective measures, but those measures would be far better than focusing exclusively on the fact that one has a diploma from Harvard and the other does not.
For instance, despite the fact that the man's company makes crappy software, he must still persuade business leaders, journalists, and others in the course of his work. RMS on the other hand is 100% idealist. Now you may disagree with my POV, but then name a better one. Don't just point to the degree.
We need a face-to-face debate between Bill Gates, a Harvard dropout, and Richard Stallman, a Harvard graduate, and let their views be frankly shown to the world, side-by-side. And then people will know who is right.
Yawn. I'm no fan of Bill Gates, but to measure the men, so many years out of school, by where and how far they were educated is simple foolishness. In the grand scheme of things it is a poor measure of man. First, empirically speaking, I've known many unimpressive Harvard graduates, as well as MIT, Princeton, etc. Acceptance or graduation from a "good" school is not a guarantee of intelligence, integrity, motivation, intellect, etc. Second, both were presumably admitted, given the extremely low rates of attrition at Ivy league schools and others (especially today), graduation speaks very little of relative intelligence. Third, you should compare what both have actually done since leaving school, it is a far better measure.
Frankly, I'm not the least bit impressed with RMS. I would not at all be suprised if Gates would dominate in a debate like that. RMS has spent his entire life in academia, he's written a little software (yes, I know this is flame bait) of debatable quality. He may have a loyal following, but it is a relatively small following. His persuasiveness should be judged not on how he gets his sycophants in a frenzy, but on how he persuades people outside his core. He simply has not done this at all. Gates on the other hand, as much as I dislike the man, has persuaded many people from different backgrounds in the course of his business.
"Most of you steal your software... What hobbyist can put years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"----An Open Letter to Hobbyists, Bill Gates, Micro-soft, 1976
"GNU... is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free... Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air."----The GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation, 1985
This presumably means Gates was proven wrong, right? Ok maybe he stated his case a little too strongly, implying that NO software of reasonable quality would be produced for free. But the fact of the matter is, that for all of RMS's flatulence, most either lack ability to switch to free software OR consistently prefer non-free software most of the time. Now you can say this is going to change in the future, but is not demonstrably true, and I (and many others) disagree strongly.
I'm a Palm fan, but I've used/tried the smaller RIM pager, and I _love_ the keyboard and the wireless email. If I could get the PalmOS interface with a thumb keyboard and wireless email as good as RIM with a decent/battery friendly, that'd be truely awesome. [Color screens and such might be nice, but from a usage POV it would have little effect on me.] The only real barrier that I see is the form factor and battery. Part of RIM's strength is its heft and shape, but I don't see how you would squeeze a 160x160+ screen on a RIM without making it huge....also the battery issue is significant. RIM is a ALOT more battery intensive.
That said, I can actually type 30+ words a minute on my Palm via the fitaly (keyboard) stamp, it's just a little more ackward than a RIM keyboard.
Do you have any info to back it up
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Palm In Trouble?
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I would love nothing more than to get a 1ghz+ machine that I will actually allow me to sleep when I leave it on, never mind that annoying incessant buzz. Does anyone have any links to some known high quality OEMs or whatever that assemble this stuff for you at reasonable cost? Like I would be willing to pay a significant premium, but despite my technical abilities, I simply don't have the time to spend hours running around looking for parts and/or assembling a zillion different things.
On a slightly seperate note, I think someone needs to make high-end PCs, sorta like how Mercedes or BMW is to cars, combination between a case and/or a full PC (as in assembly). Not necessarily always the fastest or most advanced technologically, but rather a framework which those things can be adapted to in a pleasant manner. i.e., nice looking, really easy to open/access, as quiet as possible, flexible, etc.
Once again we see another troubled dot-com blaming its problems on the economy and lack of investment, rather than the obvious: they're not making money and they have never had any realistic (or even coherent) ideas on how to start making money. That investors are no longer willing to throw dollars at you merely because you're in the software business is sign that rational thought has returned to the capital markets, not that those markets have dried up.
Yes, I agree that the vast majority of the financial problems of various tech companies are almost entirely due to internal issues, namely fundamentally flawed products and/or business plans, stupidity, hubris, etc..
That said, I happen to know a lot of well established entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and investment bankers, and everyone is saying the same thing: the private equity markets are some of the toughest that they've seen in 20 years. Qualitatively, it is a matter of fact that the private equity markets have dropped below levels not seen in many years.
Combine this with the fact that there are many more companies competing for the same pie, and you will find many good privately held companies that will have a very rough time finding enough cash.Even for good companies, this can make the difference between survival and death, or, even more often, lost opportunities.
In addition, there is a certain herd mentality seen in the venture capital business where things are viewed from a bi-polar perspective, it's either hot or it's sell, sell, sell. You can be a very good company, with very experienced managment, an excellent product, etc, with one or two setbacks [often nothing to do with the company itself, but with failing competitors in the same industry], and the VCs will not touch you, especially today. [Despite the fact that they're investing in much poorer companies at the same time].
In short, it's not so black and white. Yes, lots of good bad companies are finally getting their just reward (failure). But some good companies are suffering, and will suffer, as a result of recent events.
Show me where specifically he has stated that he CREATED the GPL to actually INFLICT damage on the IP system. [As opposed to merely using IP laws to bolster the GPL, quite different.] Anyways, that's besides the point, I find it very hard to believe that even Stallman thinks his little theory is going to turn the IP world on its head. I don't buy it.
He IS saying one thing and DOING another, even if he thinks the ENDS justifies the MEANS. It's like saying murder is absolutely unethical, then murdering a murder. Some people choose to take the higher road.
What's more, if he truely believes his "free" philosophy creates better software, he should put his money where his mouth is. If pure GPL software consistently produces better software (from any and all perspectives), who is going to spend time and money buying propreitary software? Even if closed source companies "steal" open source, surely they have nothing to add, right? It'd just be a cheap immitation of the real thing, right? If one truely believes this, then BSD-ish license would be the way to go. In other words, he could still turn the world on his head (if he believes in the absolute superiority) without ANY IP protection.
would you say the same thing about the contractor (or whomever)? They should have known to use unbreakable glass because it is clear that a kid would break it with a brick and commit suicide after he was suspended for it. Perhaps the SCHOOL (not to be confused with system) administrators are to blame for not being reasonable, though there aren't enough details to come to that conclusion. But even if that were the case, it's totally unreasonable to expect them to know what would happen.
This is what puts you and bill gates between a rock and a hard place. You want to steal his code and use it for your own ends but you can't without releasing your changes to it.
Since when is it that anyone that critizes something must have a direct personal interest? I have no reason or desire to use GPL code. Quite frankly, most of it, especially that which I would employ in the course of my work, sucks. Furthermore, I believe in intellectual property, so I respect his right to control his own IP, even it is an idealistic, unreasonable, and hyprocritical scheme that I disagree with.
He is hoping the world will say to him "you have no right to dictate how your code is used by others once you have written it it's not yours anymore". Nothing would make him happier. The way to take away the power or the GPL is to destroy the IP laws as they exist today. Quite brilliant I think.
Oh bullshit. Where is that written? Even if it is, who says every word the man writes is his honest intention? Maybe he really does want to have his cake and eat it too. He wants intellectual property to protect his right to make things just so, in his own view, but not for others. Even if you accept this silly theory, Stallman is saying one thing and doing another. You can't honestly say man has no right to own an idea, yet assume ownership of your own (and others) ideas by commanding others to do a little dance for him. While you may assert this is just a means to an end, it still hypocritical, not to mention unsubstantiated.
While your points may be sound for the general competitive marketplace, you overlook the clear anecdotal evidence to the contrary. There is case upon case where there are incredibly effective treatments (meaning a cure or one that gives a dramatic improvement to the patient's quality of life) that have *already* been developed and tested...and the product was PULLED.
"Clear anecdotal evidence" to the contrary? What is that supposed to mean precisely? There are at least two possibilities here that I can think of. A) You're pulling it out of thin air. B) You fail to understand the real issues behind them, since you don't actually work directly with the product. The odds are, in fact, that your statements strongly imply that the extent of your experience with them is academic and well removed. If there are so many examples, name a couple please! That should not be much of a problem, right? Or is this Nth hand knowledge?
Furthermore, to shorten a potentially infinite thread, you're mostly barking up the wrong tree. I never said these companies do not exist to make profits. I won't even apologize for that. What I will say, however, is that the mere fact that these companies exist, by and large, to increase shareholder wealth does not preclude the efforts to find cures. Quite the contrary, as I've laid out in my previous post, "cures" are a dream for most of the companies' shareholders most of the time. They generally WILL pursue them.
To briefly address some of your other comments, "breaking even" is not really breaking even in financial terms. If by "breaking even", you mean investing 500m dollars, and geting a return on that investment of 500m (hopefully) some 15 years later, then that's actually LOSING money in financial terms. Besides inflation, you must also take into account opportunity cost. That money could have been invested in other places in the stock market and returned millions more. If you figure a very reasonable number like 10% a year, that's about 1.2 billion dollars. Then you must also factor in risk. If the market can only be 500m dollars, but may be less, then you're asking even more of the company. No matter what you think of these companies, it is simply not up to them, shareholders simply will take their money elsewhere. It's equivelent to asking the shareholders to give their money away.
In addition, where these situations tend to arise, the benefits to society also tend to be relatively small. Not to mention the most important fact, that RESOURCES are scarce. It may sound horrible that the 10k people in the country with a rare genetic disorder do not recieve their treatment, but remember that a decision MUST be made as to where to put it, because there simply is not enough to go around to every cause. The more lucractive markets also tend to be areas that society values more highly, areas where more lives can be saved/improved per dollar spent.
Lastly, just because some companies are unwilling to pursue certain ventures does not mean other companies and/or the public sector are magically held back. If the other means do not work, that does not mean it is their fault. Do not penalize the only thing that really works. If you want to try to start a "break even" drug company, be my guest, the other drug companies aren't going to stop you from pursuing worthless markets. Or if you want to use the public sector as an alternative, again, be my guest. You won't get very far though, they have a lousy track record when it comes to actually making the end product. Just don't penalize the only system that works, you're only going to be harming those that you think you're trying to help.
So it's more lucrative to charge a person once rather than weekly for the rest of their lives? I can't see how that's possible.
Why not? Who says that a series of pills must be sold for more than a single one (not that a cure is necessarily a single pill, in fact that's very unlikely)? Who says that the profits on those sales must be more? If you think it's impossible, you have little to no understanding of business, never mind the drug business.
Ok put it this way, imagine you're Eli Lilly, you're in a drug market and sell 2b dollars a year with 30% of a given market. However, that 2b dollars a year product took 15 years to bring to market. (Hint: This depreciates the value of that return hugely). You've only been on the market 2 or 3 years and your patent will soon expire, meaning that your prices will get cut by 3x at least by the generics. Plus you've got other competitors banging at your door with alternatives today, chipping away at your sales. Furthermore, you should understand that the mere invention of that one drug was by no means assured, it was risky (investors demand a lot more return for taking on that kind of risk). You could very easily find yourself 3 or 4 years down the road without a single hit drug. In fact, to even have a hope of staying on top, you need to spend very substantial sums on R&D and marketing. In fact, only 3 out of 10 drugs on the market meet or exceed their R&D costs. Of those, only a small fraction will really generate your profits. Realistically, you're looking at a profit margin of about 15-9% (9 when you figure in depreciation), when all is said and done (remember only a very small fraction actually make it to market, let alone suceed), on a 2b dollar a year product. The picture I am painting is fairly close to reality.
Now, imagine you're that same company, and you have a cure at hand (since you imply that they can do either just as easily). You can either continue down that same path (to the extent that you can control it) or you can bring the cure to market. The cure, if it's a given, is a no brainier. That's about ~7b dollars in revenues in the first year alone if you could sell the "cure" for the cost of one years worth of drugs, a very reasonable and low number. In fact, the HMOs and insurance companies would be willing to pay much more than this, considering how much they save from other medical bills, the complications alone far far outweigh the costs. What's more, that money comes relatively risk free. As a percentage of sales you would spend far less on R&D, meaning higher return for the shareholders, marketing would also be significantly reduced, given that it is a "cure", which would quickly become common knowledge in the medical community. So quick and dirty, ~6b in profit (minimum) for the cure versus 180m a year (figure 9% of 2b) for however many years. It really is a no brainer.
The US and Canada combined account for about 50% of world wide pharmaceutical sales. Africa and Asia (excluding Japan) less than 5%. Others somewhere in between. What's more, this doesn't fully convey the important fact that US (and other high paying) consumers do more than that to carry the market. If the United States (and to a less extent other parts of the world) had drug prices as regulated and controlled as they are throughout Europe and Canada even, many drugs would NEVER come to market because the profits aren't enough. The drug companies sell to these countries because it's just above their variable costs, meaning they make money, but not much.
I happen to be involved in the biotechnology industry and I live in Philadephia, so I know a thing or two about the subject. You, on the other hand, do not. I also went to business schoool, as in finance, economics, and all that jazz, so you're way off base there as well.
You ignore many fundamental issues in this business:
There is strong competition. This means that it is very rare for any one company to totally dominate a market, especially for a prolonged period of time. From an offensive point of view, this means that a company with its hands on a cure would be choosing not from owning a market outright, but from owning a sliver of it, and even then with risk involved in not coming out with better alternatives as time progresses. With a "cure", a company would:
1) be free to charge a lot for it. HMOs and insurers would prefer to pay for a cure like this, especially when you consider that so many of the costs that they pay go not to any one drug company, but (mostly) to the thousands of other ailments ASSOCIATED with that disease. (e.g., hiring doctors, nurses, medical equipment, etc).
2) have relatively low risk. This, in financial terms, is equivalent to money.
3) have quick turn over, when you compare that to the average 10+ year time to market for the drug companies, that's like a dream come true. put simply, 7b dollars today is worth a hell of a lot more to any one of these companies than 10b dollars over 5 years. This again, translates to money. Hint: Those dollars could have been invested in less risky ventures and returned more.
4) would allow the company to take the entire market, rather than just a sliver. Meaning more money...
5) saves on-going R&D dollars
6) establishes a solid reputation...
In addition, sitting on a cure also can easily become a defensive problem, when and if competitors find it for themselves. All those minority players in a given market would have plenty of motivation to release a cure if they had it. Meanwhile, the company that sits on it risks losing all their previous sales.
I could go on, but you just don't get it. Now this is not to say that it's so cut and dried, that a company would never fail invest in the discovery a cure. There are certain times when the allignment of certain circumstances, say, risk, market size, pecularities of the disease, may prevent a company from investing large sums of money in a cure, but if you think companies sit on their hands on large and lucractive markets where such an opportunity is clearly exploitable you're only kidding yourself.
Pharmaceutical companies are around to make money. That's why they create drugs that treat symptoms and not drugs that are cures. Now they're investing in ways to make more money from us. Great.
"Free Software coders are around to get fame and attention. That's why they create software incrementally and not perfect software from the start. Now they're trying to get more attention from us. Great."
The difference is? Nothing. Both are totally unsubstantiated and ignore well established theory, common sense, and any first hand understanding of the subject matter.
What is your point? No where did I say that programmers don't, or should not, have that right to determine the terms and conditions of their software. Stallman, however, clearly has issues with this with his objections to copyrights (well all intellectual property, but copyright is much narrow and harder to confuse with other issues), despite the fact that he uses it in employing the key part of the GPL (the "viral" elements). This is something of a contradiction, whether or not its advocates admit it or not. In essense, they want to have their cake and eat it too.
The argument that GPL is only necessary because of intellectual property laws is misleading and fallacious. Firstly, if this is true, then BSD-style licenses work just as well. Secondly, there is nothing in a IP-free world that mandates the opening of source code (never mind the production of it) by derivative works.
And tell me how he denies any programmers of their rights? Is he somehow denying them by not letting them redistribute his software under a license not of his choosing? No, he's *granting* them rights to his software. You can argue that BSD or Artistic licenses grant *more* privelidges, but the GPL certainly doesn't *take away* rights, it merely grants more limited rights. Don't confure less positive with a negative.
Clearly he doesn't physically strip anyone of their rights. However, it's reasonably clear from his numerous past statements that he has absolutely no respect for anything other than his tunnel-vision view of "free" software. What's more, I don't think it's terribly unfair to call RMS a zealot that would strip them of their rights to be non-free if it were in his power.
As far as the GPL itself goes, the GPL does, as a matter of fact, put certain burdens on consumers of GPL source code that do not exist in other licenses and schemes. Now you can call that "less positive", or anything you wish, but that doesn't change the fact that it does impinge on my right to take GPL source code, modify it, and do whatever I want with it. However, that is not to say that RMS and others should not be entitled to do so. Quite the contrary, the same exact argument can, and should, be made for proprietary software. The producers/coders/developers of the product make it, they should be free to do whatever they want with their code, even if that means imposing certain legal fictions, because, when you boil the issue it down to its fundamental, it's just an option, not something that is imposed on you. Options are a good thing, so long as they don't fundamentally TAKE from others.
I suppose the fundamental difference between Stallman and some other people, is that Stallman basically takes the approach that the mere existing of anything other than his approach is harmful and evil, whereas others are far more permissive of other approaches. I, for instance, think we are better off having options. If you want software that is "free" you can have it. If you want software that does what you, as the consumer, want, you can have that too, most likely it'll come from propreitary software. By and large, the two co-exist and put little burden on each other. They fill seperate needs. They are largely developed differently. They don't generally compete for the same resources. If anything, their relationship is more symbiotic, the existence of the other bolsters their unique strengths. Let the better option prevail, this is the true spirit of capitalism.
Slashdot Mirror
In other words, if you think you're going to win, on the average, gambling, you really are stupid. But if you think you're going to win playing the stock market, you're not necessarily stupid, because you really are more likely to win than lose. It depends on what you invest in, how you invest, etc, but there is a major difference between investing and gambling.
While I agree with you entirely that investing in real estate is also risky, it does not depend entirely on "growth" of the population. If you're talking about investing in upper-middle class neighborhoods, and the upper-middle class is growing (both in numbers and in real dollars), then that land can still definitely appreciate, no matter what the rest of the population is doing. Conversely, growth by means of a large/poor immigration is going to do very little to prop up property values. In other words, even though I would not invest in the real estate market myself, I suspect it will still grow on the aggregate, excluding certain hyper-inflated markets in California and such.
No, you misread what I said.
EEEEEEEEEEEEERRRR. Wrong. Land is just as arbitrarily priced, its value depends on what the market is willing to bear. You can lose lots of money on all sorts of real estate investments. You really can't invest without taking some kind of risk. It's just that simple. While it is possible to take more risk than is necessary for a given (expected) return [e.g., if you're stupid], you generally cannot expect to earn a greater return without taking more risk, past a certain point (e.g., the SML). The bottom line is that just because there is relatively high risk in taking stock options in companies in lieu of salary, be the company private or public, does not mean the person is stupid. If the employee can afford the risk and the expected return is greater (it generally is), it can actually be a very wise investment.
First, not every stock is a DotCom. There have been many sucessful privately held companies (yes, even technology companies) where employees have made a tremendous amount of money with options over the years (yes, even today). And no, i'm not talking about the widely speculative bets like Yahoo, where you hope WallStreet will view you favorably, and that the herds will keep the market boyant before you sell. I'm talking about companies with proven leaders, substantial income, fundamentally good technology, rapidly growing sales, etc. I happen to have been involved in a few of them. Just because some people are too stupid to tell the difference does not mean that everyone is.
Secondly, when you say "scam" realize that the original investors, the shareholders, are in the same boat (excepting VCs and such with preferred shares) as you are. If your stock is worthless, their stock is worthless too.
Furthermore, your odds DO not suck. Comparing it to gambling is complete foolishness. With almost every form of gambling, your expected value over time is going to be less than what you put in. Not so with privately (and publically) held companies. On the aggregate, you will make more money in significant privately held (as in, excluding mom and pop shops) companies than you will on the NASDAQ, NYSE, or any other diversified index. Granted, you will also take more risk, but that's the nature of capitalism. You want a chance to make more money? Well you have to take more risk, it's as simple as that. More risk != losing, it simply means that your returns are much less predictable and/or volatile.
Hey, I'm about to order an Inspiron 8000 for myself (my company is picking up the bill). I've been trying to decide between the 32mb ATI card and the GeForce2. How well does the GeForce2 really perform on them? All our 8000s are running ATIs, but hey, for an extra 100 dollars.....
That said, I happen to agree that his books were lousy and uninspiring. However, I see them as being the result of writing with ulterior motives. (e.g., persuading the financial community and others that he is some kind of visionary with a plan.) It's very hard to write well when what you're saying is bullshit. I have happened to read Gates' writing in the Economist and a few other places. From what little I have read, it strikes me as being much more lucid, coherant, and persuasive than RMS' typical inflamatory language. Also, remember there is a difference between arguing MS' business practices and intellectual property's strengths in general.
Now I see no particular reason to believe that RMS is a good communicator. RMS' works certainly do not demonstrate it to me. His job does not require it. His technical training does not necessarily imply it either. (though I have known many technically trained people that are excellent writers and communicators). What's more, I think his extreme positions are much harder to justify logically [frankly, i think they're down right foolish]. Regardless of the logic, they're certainly not going to go down well with people that are neither academics, leftists, or free software advocates.
In any event, my particular take on this issue is secondary to my primary point, that the undergraduate diploma is practically irrelevant at this point in their lives. If you, or he, wants to make a case that RMS would be better, then ground it in something more than a mere sheet of paper. It may still be subjective, but at least it won't be so clearly wrong.
The original question was an attempt to ascertain who would be the better debater. The original poster implies that we need only look at whether or not they recieved a diploma to arrive at a conclusion. I simply assert that focusing on attaining a diploma from the same school is almost certainly a poor measure of those kinds of capabilities, especially when you consider that both have left their undergraduate careers decades ago. Thus I point out alternatives, as a supplement to my argument, to things outside of their undergrad experiences. You may not agree with the elements that I point out, but they at least have a reasonable chance of being relevant, whereas actually recieving that diploma is relatively meaningless. Would you really assert that your average Harvard grad is more likely to succeed in a debate than Gates, a voluntary drop out from the same school, with many years of experience under his belt? No, most reasonable people that are familiar with these schools would not. The original poster wanted to imply that it was the degree the matters, when in fact, his real reason is his agreement with RMS' philosophy, his academic training, or what have you. [If he had simply said what he really felt, I probably would not have bothered wasting my time, no matter how wrong I feel he is.]
I never said nor implied that there is a standard of "success". "Success" is only an incidental consideration here. Because of Gates' "success", we can reasonably presume that he has certain skills and abilities (e.g., writing ability, the ability to get to the point quickly, the ability to make public speeches to non-nerdy audiences,etc.), no matter how crappy his products tend to be. Conversely, I cannot say the same for RMS. He is an academic, now whether you consider this success or not is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that persuasion is not instrumental or necessary to success in RMS' academic career. The same can be said for many other talents...
No where did I say that I was blown away with Bill Gates, I simply stated that whether they graduated or not with an undergrad degree from Harvard is a very poor measure of capabilities. As a matter of act, I do think Microsoft's products are well below the quality that would be seen in a reasonably competetive market place (e.g., if their OS and Applications were split). However, that does not automatically mean that the man is stupid or less capable than RMS. The bottom line is that, yes, it is going to come down to a subjective measures, but those measures would be far better than focusing exclusively on the fact that one has a diploma from Harvard and the other does not.
For instance, despite the fact that the man's company makes crappy software, he must still persuade business leaders, journalists, and others in the course of his work. RMS on the other hand is 100% idealist. Now you may disagree with my POV, but then name a better one. Don't just point to the degree.
Frankly, I'm not the least bit impressed with RMS. I would not at all be suprised if Gates would dominate in a debate like that. RMS has spent his entire life in academia, he's written a little software (yes, I know this is flame bait) of debatable quality. He may have a loyal following, but it is a relatively small following. His persuasiveness should be judged not on how he gets his sycophants in a frenzy, but on how he persuades people outside his core. He simply has not done this at all. Gates on the other hand, as much as I dislike the man, has persuaded many people from different backgrounds in the course of his business.
This presumably means Gates was proven wrong, right? Ok maybe he stated his case a little too strongly, implying that NO software of reasonable quality would be produced for free. But the fact of the matter is, that for all of RMS's flatulence, most either lack ability to switch to free software OR consistently prefer non-free software most of the time. Now you can say this is going to change in the future, but is not demonstrably true, and I (and many others) disagree strongly.
Yeah, I figured as much.
I'm a Palm fan, but I've used/tried the smaller RIM pager, and I _love_ the keyboard and the wireless email. If I could get the PalmOS interface with a thumb keyboard and wireless email as good as RIM with a decent/battery friendly, that'd be truely awesome. [Color screens and such might be nice, but from a usage POV it would have little effect on me.] The only real barrier that I see is the form factor and battery. Part of RIM's strength is its heft and shape, but I don't see how you would squeeze a 160x160+ screen on a RIM without making it huge....also the battery issue is significant. RIM is a ALOT more battery intensive.
That said, I can actually type 30+ words a minute on my Palm via the fitaly (keyboard) stamp, it's just a little more ackward than a RIM keyboard.
How much exactly? Prove it.
Do you know of any manufacturers that make cases and fans to accomodate this? Have any links?
I would love nothing more than to get a 1ghz+ machine that I will actually allow me to sleep when I leave it on, never mind that annoying incessant buzz. Does anyone have any links to some known high quality OEMs or whatever that assemble this stuff for you at reasonable cost? Like I would be willing to pay a significant premium, but despite my technical abilities, I simply don't have the time to spend hours running around looking for parts and/or assembling a zillion different things.
On a slightly seperate note, I think someone needs to make high-end PCs, sorta like how Mercedes or BMW is to cars, combination between a case and/or a full PC (as in assembly). Not necessarily always the fastest or most advanced technologically, but rather a framework which those things can be adapted to in a pleasant manner. i.e., nice looking, really easy to open/access, as quiet as possible, flexible, etc.
That said, I happen to know a lot of well established entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and investment bankers, and everyone is saying the same thing: the private equity markets are some of the toughest that they've seen in 20 years. Qualitatively, it is a matter of fact that the private equity markets have dropped below levels not seen in many years.
Combine this with the fact that there are many more companies competing for the same pie, and you will find many good privately held companies that will have a very rough time finding enough cash.Even for good companies, this can make the difference between survival and death, or, even more often, lost opportunities.
In addition, there is a certain herd mentality seen in the venture capital business where things are viewed from a bi-polar perspective, it's either hot or it's sell, sell, sell. You can be a very good company, with very experienced managment, an excellent product, etc, with one or two setbacks [often nothing to do with the company itself, but with failing competitors in the same industry], and the VCs will not touch you, especially today. [Despite the fact that they're investing in much poorer companies at the same time].
In short, it's not so black and white. Yes, lots of good bad companies are finally getting their just reward (failure). But some good companies are suffering, and will suffer, as a result of recent events.
Show me where specifically he has stated that he CREATED the GPL to actually INFLICT damage on the IP system. [As opposed to merely using IP laws to bolster the GPL, quite different.] Anyways, that's besides the point, I find it very hard to believe that even Stallman thinks his little theory is going to turn the IP world on its head. I don't buy it.
He IS saying one thing and DOING another, even if he thinks the ENDS justifies the MEANS. It's like saying murder is absolutely unethical, then murdering a murder. Some people choose to take the higher road.
What's more, if he truely believes his "free" philosophy creates better software, he should put his money where his mouth is. If pure GPL software consistently produces better software (from any and all perspectives), who is going to spend time and money buying propreitary software? Even if closed source companies "steal" open source, surely they have nothing to add, right? It'd just be a cheap immitation of the real thing, right? If one truely believes this, then BSD-ish license would be the way to go. In other words, he could still turn the world on his head (if he believes in the absolute superiority) without ANY IP protection.
would you say the same thing about the contractor (or whomever)? They should have known to use unbreakable glass because it is clear that a kid would break it with a brick and commit suicide after he was suspended for it. Perhaps the SCHOOL (not to be confused with system) administrators are to blame for not being reasonable, though there aren't enough details to come to that conclusion. But even if that were the case, it's totally unreasonable to expect them to know what would happen.
Oh bullshit. Where is that written? Even if it is, who says every word the man writes is his honest intention? Maybe he really does want to have his cake and eat it too. He wants intellectual property to protect his right to make things just so, in his own view, but not for others. Even if you accept this silly theory, Stallman is saying one thing and doing another. You can't honestly say man has no right to own an idea, yet assume ownership of your own (and others) ideas by commanding others to do a little dance for him. While you may assert this is just a means to an end, it still hypocritical, not to mention unsubstantiated.
Furthermore, to shorten a potentially infinite thread, you're mostly barking up the wrong tree. I never said these companies do not exist to make profits. I won't even apologize for that. What I will say, however, is that the mere fact that these companies exist, by and large, to increase shareholder wealth does not preclude the efforts to find cures. Quite the contrary, as I've laid out in my previous post, "cures" are a dream for most of the companies' shareholders most of the time. They generally WILL pursue them.
To briefly address some of your other comments, "breaking even" is not really breaking even in financial terms. If by "breaking even", you mean investing 500m dollars, and geting a return on that investment of 500m (hopefully) some 15 years later, then that's actually LOSING money in financial terms. Besides inflation, you must also take into account opportunity cost. That money could have been invested in other places in the stock market and returned millions more. If you figure a very reasonable number like 10% a year, that's about 1.2 billion dollars. Then you must also factor in risk. If the market can only be 500m dollars, but may be less, then you're asking even more of the company. No matter what you think of these companies, it is simply not up to them, shareholders simply will take their money elsewhere. It's equivelent to asking the shareholders to give their money away.
In addition, where these situations tend to arise, the benefits to society also tend to be relatively small. Not to mention the most important fact, that RESOURCES are scarce. It may sound horrible that the 10k people in the country with a rare genetic disorder do not recieve their treatment, but remember that a decision MUST be made as to where to put it, because there simply is not enough to go around to every cause. The more lucractive markets also tend to be areas that society values more highly, areas where more lives can be saved/improved per dollar spent.
Lastly, just because some companies are unwilling to pursue certain ventures does not mean other companies and/or the public sector are magically held back. If the other means do not work, that does not mean it is their fault. Do not penalize the only thing that really works. If you want to try to start a "break even" drug company, be my guest, the other drug companies aren't going to stop you from pursuing worthless markets. Or if you want to use the public sector as an alternative, again, be my guest. You won't get very far though, they have a lousy track record when it comes to actually making the end product. Just don't penalize the only system that works, you're only going to be harming those that you think you're trying to help.
Ok put it this way, imagine you're Eli Lilly, you're in a drug market and sell 2b dollars a year with 30% of a given market. However, that 2b dollars a year product took 15 years to bring to market. (Hint: This depreciates the value of that return hugely). You've only been on the market 2 or 3 years and your patent will soon expire, meaning that your prices will get cut by 3x at least by the generics. Plus you've got other competitors banging at your door with alternatives today, chipping away at your sales. Furthermore, you should understand that the mere invention of that one drug was by no means assured, it was risky (investors demand a lot more return for taking on that kind of risk). You could very easily find yourself 3 or 4 years down the road without a single hit drug. In fact, to even have a hope of staying on top, you need to spend very substantial sums on R&D and marketing. In fact, only 3 out of 10 drugs on the market meet or exceed their R&D costs. Of those, only a small fraction will really generate your profits. Realistically, you're looking at a profit margin of about 15-9% (9 when you figure in depreciation), when all is said and done (remember only a very small fraction actually make it to market, let alone suceed), on a 2b dollar a year product. The picture I am painting is fairly close to reality.
Now, imagine you're that same company, and you have a cure at hand (since you imply that they can do either just as easily). You can either continue down that same path (to the extent that you can control it) or you can bring the cure to market. The cure, if it's a given, is a no brainier. That's about ~7b dollars in revenues in the first year alone if you could sell the "cure" for the cost of one years worth of drugs, a very reasonable and low number. In fact, the HMOs and insurance companies would be willing to pay much more than this, considering how much they save from other medical bills, the complications alone far far outweigh the costs. What's more, that money comes relatively risk free. As a percentage of sales you would spend far less on R&D, meaning higher return for the shareholders, marketing would also be significantly reduced, given that it is a "cure", which would quickly become common knowledge in the medical community. So quick and dirty, ~6b in profit (minimum) for the cure versus 180m a year (figure 9% of 2b) for however many years. It really is a no brainer.
The US and Canada combined account for about 50% of world wide pharmaceutical sales. Africa and Asia (excluding Japan) less than 5%. Others somewhere in between. What's more, this doesn't fully convey the important fact that US (and other high paying) consumers do more than that to carry the market. If the United States (and to a less extent other parts of the world) had drug prices as regulated and controlled as they are throughout Europe and Canada even, many drugs would NEVER come to market because the profits aren't enough. The drug companies sell to these countries because it's just above their variable costs, meaning they make money, but not much.
I happen to be involved in the biotechnology industry and I live in Philadephia, so I know a thing or two about the subject. You, on the other hand, do not. I also went to business schoool, as in finance, economics, and all that jazz, so you're way off base there as well.
You ignore many fundamental issues in this business:
There is strong competition. This means that it is very rare for any one company to totally dominate a market, especially for a prolonged period of time. From an offensive point of view, this means that a company with its hands on a cure would be choosing not from owning a market outright, but from owning a sliver of it, and even then with risk involved in not coming out with better alternatives as time progresses. With a "cure", a company would:
1) be free to charge a lot for it. HMOs and insurers would prefer to pay for a cure like this, especially when you consider that so many of the costs that they pay go not to any one drug company, but (mostly) to the thousands of other ailments ASSOCIATED with that disease. (e.g., hiring doctors, nurses, medical equipment, etc).
2) have relatively low risk. This, in financial terms, is equivalent to money.
3) have quick turn over, when you compare that to the average 10+ year time to market for the drug companies, that's like a dream come true. put simply, 7b dollars today is worth a hell of a lot more to any one of these companies than 10b dollars over 5 years. This again, translates to money. Hint: Those dollars could have been invested in less risky ventures and returned more.
4) would allow the company to take the entire market, rather than just a sliver. Meaning more money...
5) saves on-going R&D dollars
6) establishes a solid reputation...
In addition, sitting on a cure also can easily become a defensive problem, when and if competitors find it for themselves. All those minority players in a given market would have plenty of motivation to release a cure if they had it. Meanwhile, the company that sits on it risks losing all their previous sales.
I could go on, but you just don't get it. Now this is not to say that it's so cut and dried, that a company would never fail invest in the discovery a cure. There are certain times when the allignment of certain circumstances, say, risk, market size, pecularities of the disease, may prevent a company from investing large sums of money in a cure, but if you think companies sit on their hands on large and lucractive markets where such an opportunity is clearly exploitable you're only kidding yourself.
The difference is? Nothing. Both are totally unsubstantiated and ignore well established theory, common sense, and any first hand understanding of the subject matter.
What is your point? No where did I say that programmers don't, or should not, have that right to determine the terms and conditions of their software. Stallman, however, clearly has issues with this with his objections to copyrights (well all intellectual property, but copyright is much narrow and harder to confuse with other issues), despite the fact that he uses it in employing the key part of the GPL (the "viral" elements). This is something of a contradiction, whether or not its advocates admit it or not. In essense, they want to have their cake and eat it too.
The argument that GPL is only necessary because of intellectual property laws is misleading and fallacious. Firstly, if this is true, then BSD-style licenses work just as well. Secondly, there is nothing in a IP-free world that mandates the opening of source code (never mind the production of it) by derivative works.
As far as the GPL itself goes, the GPL does, as a matter of fact, put certain burdens on consumers of GPL source code that do not exist in other licenses and schemes. Now you can call that "less positive", or anything you wish, but that doesn't change the fact that it does impinge on my right to take GPL source code, modify it, and do whatever I want with it. However, that is not to say that RMS and others should not be entitled to do so. Quite the contrary, the same exact argument can, and should, be made for proprietary software. The producers/coders/developers of the product make it, they should be free to do whatever they want with their code, even if that means imposing certain legal fictions, because, when you boil the issue it down to its fundamental, it's just an option, not something that is imposed on you. Options are a good thing, so long as they don't fundamentally TAKE from others.
I suppose the fundamental difference between Stallman and some other people, is that Stallman basically takes the approach that the mere existing of anything other than his approach is harmful and evil, whereas others are far more permissive of other approaches. I, for instance, think we are better off having options. If you want software that is "free" you can have it. If you want software that does what you, as the consumer, want, you can have that too, most likely it'll come from propreitary software. By and large, the two co-exist and put little burden on each other. They fill seperate needs. They are largely developed differently. They don't generally compete for the same resources. If anything, their relationship is more symbiotic, the existence of the other bolsters their unique strengths. Let the better option prevail, this is the true spirit of capitalism.