I feel your sentiment exactly. Opensource is both very rewarding, and intimidating at the same time. I am a converted NT admin/user. Got hooked on SGI machines:) My first thought when I looked at Open Source was 'what a fraggin mess!'. How could anybody even size up a few projects, let alone code something for them. Here is my progress so far.
1. Got a Unix machine (indy) and installed Linux on an older PC.
2. Set up the build environment on both machines, and started to compile stuff. Learned a lot on this, and have even helped a few people so far with IRIX binaries of xmame. This experience gave me the general structure and practices of a working project. BTW building xmame was an excellent start for me. There were just enough issues on IRIX that I learned a lot about the build process. The added advantage was that I got to play some nice games when I was done.
3. Having made sure that the development environment was set up properly, I began to code small things. Literally went to the net and typed into google 'c programming language tutorial'. This worked very well. Since I can build most things, debugging my own small pieces of code was pretty painless as I understood the difference between a build problem, and a coding problem.
4. Now I am working on something that I like. It fits many of the criteria mentioned above. (ie. scratches an itch, is small, is fun.) My first project was to build an STL (cad design) file viewer using opengl. This I completed on the SGI as that is where I started learning things. Learning OpenGL worked the same as learning C. Typed in the need for tutorials into google, and followed the links from there.
5. Project is basically done. Now comes more learning. Building it on different platforms. This is where the real value is in this process. You get to see how people write things, and what they link against. Some structures and methods are portable, and some are not. My next build of the project was for win32. I was pleasntly surprised to find that my code only had two issues. Changed the code to work on both platforms, and moved on. I am working through Linux now as I have a machine that can do 3D.
To sum this up I am doing what I like, and learning way more than I would by trudging through books and tutorials without any goals. Just to cite one more example. I like Nedit. It has some nice features on the Linux distribution, and one of those is syntax highlighting. Well the guys at SGI disabled those features when they included it as part of IRIX. Learning to build things got those back. Seems like a small thing, but there is a *lot* of power in that. Worth doing, good luck.
Some people learn by listening, others by reading, others by tinkering. I was the sort of kid that took everything apart, and asked for tools on christmas. Almost everthing that I know that is worth something comes from those times spent taking things apart, or fixing broken ones, or just trying to make them do something new. Between a reasonable set of tools and the library, it became possible to do pretty much anything given the ability to learn HOW THINGS WORK.
This freedom is something as a child that was a given. How else does one learn about things? You could answer "go to school" or maybe "get an apprenticeship". I dreamed of those things, and in fact did do work at a local TV repair shop FOR FREE just to learn more. (I have since fixed lots of televisions for people who needed it.) This sort of thing is ok, but not for all. Some of us want to learn early, or can't afford specialized school, or both.
My current position in life is a product of that early free time. I now get paid to help people, and solve problems. Just what I enjoyed doing as a kid. Lucky me -- or is it? Now I have to wonder as I have kids of my own, and they begin to ask questions. How do I answer? I know what I did, but that now is very quickly becoming criminalized. How can what I did be wrong? Why should the knowing be all mixed up with the doing? I feel just like the little kid long ago. Always being told basically that knowing how to do something is as bad as actually doing it. Worse I now am being told that if I actually do know something, that telling someone else is a crime because the information I possess is a device!?! WTF!
I believe that people have the right not to be dependant on others for things in life. This means fixing what is broken, learning new skills, and understanding the world around them. When someone has lots of money, they really don't have to worry. But when someone does not have a lot of money, well what do they do? They either do without, or learn how to better themselves, or become criminals. If you take away the ability to learn new things, or lock up information in such a way that it is hard to use, then what do you have left? Have-nots and criminals? Where is the sense in that?
My argument is this: The DMCA affects me in everyday life in that it restricts my ability to understand technology upon which I depend. This is not just movies, but understanding of the function of the world in a fundamental way. Does this understanding give me the power to break the law, and make use of material that I did not pay for? Most likely yes. I also know how to pick locks, copy media, and hot-wire cars among other things. Do I do them? NO! Those actions are morally wrong, unless someone needs them done, or I need them done for myself, on things THAT I OWN. We are not childeren. Most people have the common sense to make good use of what they know or suffer the consequences.
There has to be a balance between the control needed to keep the media giants happy, and letting people have some control over parts of their increasingly digital lives. Without this, I see a very harsh place to live where knowing something is as criminal as doing it. America the free becomes, America the ignorant.
This is not a bad thing if you think about it a little. A system such as this allows all of us to do what we want. I remember using cassette tapes. The cost of media was not too high, and I recorded lots of music from my friends. At the same time, I used the same media for computer storage. (I know that was a while back, but hey the analogy is still valid) The net result of this was that I bought the equipment, and it did what I wanted without hassle. If everyone is paying a little, then isn't the peace of mind worth it? Today, I use CDR media the same way. If there is a little tax per disc, then I consider the unfettered equipment worth it. If I get unfairly taxed a little, big deal. The gains I made with copies of media, are worth more than the unfair tax that I get hit with once in a while. The legal hassle required to right this small wrong will open up the wrong can of worms. All this given that the tax is small. Easier to live with that, then all of the paranoid rules that would result from sorting out the other issues. What is this tax anyway on a CD-R? 3-6 percent? Pretty small given the time, and number of copies that the machine is capable of. Not an issue.
Yeah I agree with this. I still have my 800. Most of the media is dying these days, but I keep it to run a couple of games. And just for the fact that it is cool, and I spent way too much time on it. Hell I still know most of the memory map!
I also want one of these machines. A simple computer, that plays games, but is programmable. Nice toy like the 800 was. You are right, neither M$ or Sony can do this. Too damn bad.
I will have to stick with older PC machines and Linux. The hobby factor is still there even though some of the simple convience (ok spelling czars, it's late!) factor is missing.
I was confused about this also. There are several groups of comments. As many of the issues were brought up before the hearing, many thought that additional comment would be redundant. I found mine by looking over the links on this page.
(Check out the lower left corner)
Where I live radio is in a dismal state. There are only a few 'formats' and they are lame. Playing the same tunes over and over. Different mixes, but same stuff. I am almost never surprised. (Go KNRK!) Napster has been a lot of fun because of the shared songs feature. I do just what the other post says above. Look for people that like what I do, then grab some new stuff to see if I like it also. This has opened me up to lots of music that I would not have been listening to otherwise.
Shared mp3 pools also have this same effect. Everybody puts some in, and you listen on shuffle play. Refresh the directory every once in a while, and you get new songs. Kind of like a group radio station. This also is way better than radio.
Maybe the building of formats has value. Just reaching into the bag of free music tends to be a lot of trouble if you are looking for something new. It takes your attention, and you have to sift through the crap to get to the gems. This has always been the reasoning behind the formats in the first place. Radio stations build an identity by the songs they play. The more diverse the list, the less they are able to focus on a particular audience.
Right now promoters have to basically go to the radio stations, and get them to put songs on their play lists. This works in a fashion, but what if you are in a lame market? You don't get to hear new stuff that is relevant to your lifestyle and interests. (could be you that is lame also, and the same problem still applies:) )
People are always going to buy CD's. The quality of mp3 and the effort to play/move/encode them will not be worth it for a lot of people. Popping in a CD and pressing play is the way to go. Most people want easy. I don't think that will change.
This means that the 'free' music on Napster actually comes at a price. This price is the time and attention required to actually get complete quality copies of songs you like. The other price is that you lose album continuity. (There still are artists out there that know what this is!) Even though the number of tunes is high on Napster, the depth still has quite a ways to go. Not everybody puts up an entire album, so that means that most of the hits are going to be on the mainstream singles with the occasional remix. Fine for people on a budget that want to fill out their collection with a few extra tunes that are not worth a whole CD, or for those that really just are backfilling old songs. What about those wanting something new?
This format thing could easily be a service that people would pay for. You get the songs for 'free' but you also get some ads, and some new stuff that you don't ask for, but that might fit. Maybe you will buy some more CD's because you are hearing stuff you like, not stuff they want you to buy.
I have always liked the surprise factor radio can have. You are listening to one of the better stations that will throw in random stuff, and all of the sudden there is a great tune! Subscription mp3 format services that are personalized have the potential to fill this void.
With this sort of system, new content would have value a few times over. Just as it does now, only more so. You sell it to the subscribers, then based on their response, move it to the radio, and promote the CD. Let the subscribers get the CD a little sooner so word of mouth works in favor of new sales. Then finally as things wind down it cycles in there with everything else and things work the way they do now. Some people buy 'em some don't. Eventually the case gets notched, and they sell at $3.99 or something.
They can still market the cd. It has ease of use, cover art, album continuity (spelling czars back off!), and sonic quality in its favor.
I like this thing. It is a great toy, and I can think of lots of ways to use it. I am sure that I am not in the minority here either.
Just because there is a driver that will produce the barcodes in plain text does not mean that everybody is going to ignore their software. It also does not mean that they are losing on the scanner they gave me either.
The people that post here on/. are not members of Joe Public. The majority of people are going to do one of three things:
1. Use it with the software.
2. Give it to a friend.
3. Put it in the basket with all the other trinkets that they don't have time for.
They are trying to establish a new standard for locating information on the web. Kind of like a search engine that you pay for with your demographics. I don't think that it is a bad idea, but I also won't use it because I don't enjoy being profiled in that way. No matter what their business model is, I will probably be a loss.
Other members of my family seem to think differently however. So the toy they gave this household may yet fall into their plan. Some of the people that get these are going to play with it regardless of their intent. They have to have allowed for this, so it is something else they are protecting.
They must want to charge for the use of the cues. And the mining of the generated data. Can't they still do this even if the scanner is used for other things? They have some IP on that at least. The cue is distinctive enough that they would be able to license the use of the format.
The little bit of encryption that they placed on the machine really is more of an annoyance than any sort of protection scheme. Any money they planned on making on developer kits is money they should not have planned on. The smart thing to do here is encourage other software for the thing. It is the brand that will give them value. If the devices become widely used, everyone will know what a Cue Cat is. That is everything on the net.
If this happens, they can start selling Cats cheap to make up for the "lost" development revenue. Heck make some different packaging. Clear cases, colors, even glow in the dark ones! You know what I mean. Lots of people go for this stuff. These sort of things are very easy to do at this stage. All of the hard engineering is done.
Instead of charging for a developers kit, (what can it possibly contain anyway lamecrypt.h? and ourserver.h? ) they should be encouraging development to build the brand. Some of the developers will be very interested in using their servers others will not. Either way Cue Cat gets known, and that will have value. Probably in ways that they did not plan for. Funny how the net works huh?
They can provide many things on their servers freely in exchange for the capture of data. The marketing people will pay for this data without question. The better the brand, the more valuable the services that go along with it will be.
It is wrong of them to expect every scan to go through their servers anyway. Does not make any sense. What if the net is down, and I am working with my CD / DVD catalog software? Do I have to be online to make use of this toy? Lots of dialup users are going to think that this is foolish. Why tie up a phone line to scan something. Use of this will be kind of spontanious anyway. Having to be online will seriously limit how people will use these things.
They could sell these newly packaged cue cats to those that are developing at a profit, and include incentives to use their servers. Those that are interested will make a go of it, those that aren't will still be building the Cue Cat brand. One way they make lots of money, the other way they make a little. Either way they build value and nobody gets hurt.
Open development platforms always will get more attention than closed ones because of people like us who think of something, and just do it. Good ideas happen this way.
To the makers of the Cue Cat: Consider the advice above payment for the entertainment you provided me for the evening. Lot cheaper than the cost of one of those marketing brainstorm meetings. Try opening a dialog with people like me and you will get more ideas cheaper than you ever will using the high priced consultants that told you to keep the device closed.
If you back off I just might code something useful for the thing, and recommend that my friends get one.
You are probaly a troll, but I am hoping that you read slashdot because you are soul searching, or at the least curious, so ok-- i'll bite:)
Win2k would not ever be my choice. Much of what was discussed above does not apply. If you are interested in actually using the machine you are sitting at right now, then W2K will eventually fail miserably. Just think. What happens when a user wants something that has not been anticipated by all of the MS GUI designers? How about scripting? Real scripting, not just batch files. How about development. Granted the tools are nice in Gates land, but at what price? Visual Studio is a great place to work--provided that you are not interested in your code running anywhere else. Or even on the next version of the OS.
As for the BIG IRON days being numbered, you are way wrong. I do believe that cheap clusters will erode and change that market, but not eliminate it. Take a look at the new SGI server line. Modular cluster computing. You get to build what you want how you want, even take it a part and make smaller clusters. These machines in their largest configurations will handle 500 processors (probably more) all running under ONE OS IMAGE. There are many classes of computing problems that require this. Nobody is even close to this level of NUMA development. Also look around. SUN has been selling lots of their E10000 series machines. They sell these because they work, and they will keep working for a really long time. Big problems sometimes require big machines. This will not change. As all the machines mature, the problems will change, and become doable on smaller hardware, but that does not mean that the big stuff will become out of date, it means that it will just get used for something else.
I have older SGI machines pushing 10 years old doing things that are important to me. Because they run a UNIX variant, I am able to build software for them that was not even on the drawing board when the machine was made! Try that on Win 3.1.
Now where were we with Windows? Oh yeah accomplishing the same result. Rendering probably would work on W2K. It proabaly would even have similar performance. But I am certian in 5 years time that cluster will have cost more in license fees, administrative work, and scheduled downtime (read: upgrades) than any UNIX cluster will. Pick your vendor, does not matter.
As for long life windows does not stand a chance. Every try to do anything useful on a 10 year old pc with windows? Can you even find the software? Take that same machine running linux, and it can be a productive member of a network with zero trouble. Log on to it from a faster machine for display, and you may not even notice its age when doing day to day admin. Makes for great file servers, ftp, routing, mp3 players, lots of good stuff. You know since I began learning UNIX skills, I have not thrown away a machine since. I can ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING USEFUL TO DO WITH THEM.
The OS really means everything these days. I know because I run and administer a few of them. Windows machines of any variant give me more trouble than any other. Running windows means that I have to work the way I am supposed to. UNIX of any kind means that I work the way I want, from where ever I want.
Consider this last point. I really like working on an IRIX desktop. You know running UNIX machines means that I can sensibly do that for just about as long as I choose to. Not one penny of investment on any of the IRIX machines I deal with will ever be wasted until I decide that they are no longer worth it. Basically this means until they break.:) One of my favorite ways to run linux is from my IRIX machines. I lose nothing. This goes for any UNIX variant. You have choice. And your investment will last. This is what the PC vendors don't wan't you to really know about UNIX hardware in general. Even standard PC hardware these days is pretty nice. They would much rather have you buy a new one every couple of years when windows gets too fat to run on the one you have.
Everything that I have learned about UNIX (and I started late) applies no matter what. Some machines will do more than others, and some will require a little different tweak here and there, but it all works the same. My experience on windows machines becomes useless as they change from year to year. I really hate that. Don't you?
Many of the firms that I work with are in CAD, or ID related fields. Some of the smaller ones have switched to NT/intel machines for cost reasons. They now have more problems and require more attention in general than they did as IRIX users. I really have not seen them get anything more done or spend less money, they just spend it differently. Instead of paying up front, they pay over time tinkering and fiddling with machines instead of getting work done.
There is a *lot* of pressure in these markets to move to NT for cost and connectivity reasons. Large corporate IT dpartments really don't understand IRIX, and would much rather stick and engineer or designer with a nice ugly COMPUKE machine, and NT. The fight over this occurs every 6 months. The reason is Office. They want to have only one machine on the desktop, and it better be able to run Office, or it is *unsupported*, or too expensive, or they can't administer it or some other lame thing. The basic opinion today that I hear over and over is that 'everything' is going to NT, and that it will all be nicely intergrated. I personally think that this is a nice smelly load of BS.
One of the attractions that Linux will have (once there are more high end applications running) is that users can run things like VMware, and take care of the communication problem without having to give up the flexible, stable UNIX environment.
I hope that SGI will bring some of that to Linux, and I also hope that software like GNOME will mature to the point that it along with a good window manager becomes as responsive as the IRIX desktop is. Maybe they can even begin to make hardware the right way using and Intel CPU instead of a MIPS one.
SGI MIPS hardware is nice. It is expensive, but it has lots of power and very long life. Intel PC machines are still not there yet. I still have SGI machines made in 91 performing useful tasks! In my view the price premium is well worth it, but the NTCOMPUKEGATEWAYMARKETDROIDS don't see that. Sometimes the world sucks!
In your market, are there the same sort of pressures? Or is it that your work is specialized enough that they basically let you run what you want, and they give it to you because of what you do?
If you do have those same sort of pressures, give em hell. It is worth it each day to come in and work the way you want!
I really like IRIX (sigh). Nice environment, but limited by MIPS processors. Hope SGI plans to port over some of their nicer IRIX tools. I now run both, but still enjoy the very well tuned IRIX desktop. Go faster GNOME!
CDE sucks. It has no soul, is very generic and offers little in the way of custom features. Gnome for all of its faults is a very mallable piece of code. Seems to me that Sun & HP just want a place to build better looking and more feature rich desktops. They get the added bonus of application level compatibility. At least I hope this is what they are doing. Gnome is also very cheap with no QT dependancy.
The only thing that will make the difference is if the desktop has some effort put into it. Features that are intuitive and flexible are what matter. I have not seen a lot of this out of any of the unix vendors. (except for SGI who has a great desktop!)
If Sun and HP are interested in really making their desktops a nice place to be then it will benefit *nix users as a whole as people will see that UNIX systems can be interesting and visually appealing and all of those other things that don't really matter from a functional point of view, but do matter from a marketing and useability point of view.
CDE does the job, but after using it for a while, I get the feeling that it was an effort to build the most boring GUI imaginable. Lots of simple features are missing. Little things that I guess are not really needed to run a desktop, but neverthless are things that one gets attached to.
Unless the big UNIX vendors change their attitude regarding their desktops, this effort will not mean a whole lot other than things will be easier to port.
People want little things to get attached to on their desktop. All of the people that I know that make the mistake of running Win2000 all talk about how much better the desktop is. Shadow cursor, alpha fades in the menus and such.
None of this really matters though for systems that are designed as enterprise systems, so I can't see any of the big boys (except SGI who goes for that sort of thing) doing anything but taking the default environment, adding a couple of system specific tools, and replacing CDE.
I will wait and see.
(Glad they are using Gnome though. KDE is very functional, but a little too Redmond for me. )
Graphics are a great place to start. It is really easy to demonstrate all the basics of programming in a graphical way. Debugging is easier in many cases as they have a very visual way to see what the program is doing / has done.
Besides, everyone likes graphics, and even modest hardware these days can render enough that they can have a lot of fun. You will get some games each class group also.
Maybe make a template game. Something fun like surround, lunar lander, or maybe a simple level that they can add to.
The Record Companies dont understand their "value"
on
Napster Ruling Stayed
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· Score: 1
It used to be that recording was a pretty serious undertaking. Even a moderate studio was out of the reach of most. If an artist was able to make their own recordings, they still had a very hard time distributing them. Producing vinyl is/was pretty expensive. Making tapes was/is doable, but still there are risks in that the average joe cannot afford to purchase enough free media to promote themselves in such a way that they have a shot at making it. This is where the recording industry got its start. They could enable these things, and because of their size and resources, profit from them even with the risks. They just had to be smart about who they backed, and who they didn't. Pretty simple stuff.
Now lets fast forward to the present day. Consumer grade equipment is capable of producing very good quality recordings. Modern computers equipped with decent sound systems make all of the pre-production stuff easy, and of good quality. Distribution is now within reach. Cheap CD burners, and the internet complete the picture. This is what the RIAA is resisting. The "everyone has a press" thing.
I did a simple test in my family, and the goal of it was to establish if the recording industry has any value other than the actual recording. I also was doing a little soul searching with regard to napster. I personally have used it to obtain reasonable encodes of my vinyl, saved me a lot of work. I also have heard a couple of things off of the radio, that not-so-long ago I would have just recorded, and listened to for a while.
For the test , here is what I did:
1. Give the children access to free music, just using the computer for playback.
2. Enable them to make CD's. Let them play with this for a while. Throw into the mix the fact that they can get music from friends CD's, the internet, or their own CD collection.
3. Try both #1 and #2 with me doing the computer part, and with them doing their own work. The childeren are reasonably computer literate.
3. Let this cook for a while and watch.
I found out a number of things that everyone here might find interesting. I did this with the kids because it is this next generation that the battle is over. Not us. We have already made up our minds, and to be blunt, have the skills to get what we want. Besides if it is content dilution they are worried about, its over already. Anything created in the last 50 years that is worth encoding has been done, and will be distrubuted. Kind of hard to undo that without a major civil rights issue. It is the values that the next generation hold that are of primary interest to the recording industry and its current business model. If they can get these sort of things to be labeled as "bad" then they will win over the next round of consumers. If not, then they will need to change how they do business. Period.
Here are some of the things I found to be true in my household. (8-12 yr olds + 1 16yr old for about a week.)
1. Kids seem to really like to put what they want on "their own" CD. They like this more when they get to put add-ons in/around their CD. Special cases, labels, pictures & such on their CD's.
2. Music from the internet was perceived to be of lesser value than music from a CD. I believe this to be that it is more trouble (ie. you have to know more ) to get it from the computer than to get it from another source. Also the quality is not always good. Sometimes they would spend a long session, and get parts of songs that they really wanted. Sometimes the computer required enough effort that they lost interest.
3. Music obtained from an original CD was most valued. Even when copies of copies of original CD's sound pretty much identical. (see number 6 below)
4. Lower quality recordings are ok because "it's just my CD. For me to listen to." This one surprised me because with digital music you get the quality you work for. Seems that the group of kids I was working with did not want to do much. This response was almost always associated with efforts that they had to do. Basically if they have to do their own encode, track down tunes, wait for them, check them, then burn a CD, lower quality is ok if it gets the whole thing done faster.
5. They like it much better when I do their work for them, and they get the CD. (What did you expect? They are kids!)
6. Original CD's are still attractive to them, even when they have copies. (good ones.) Lyric sheets, pictures, the cover art. (why do CD's have to be in such a small package? I miss the large cover art!) All play a part in the value of the CD.
There were other things, but the points above were the most significant ones.
This is what I think of them:
The recording industry still has lots of value. Music is not the primary part of it. Packaging, promotion & the quality of the recording seem to be the areas where the recording industry has lots of value. The fact that these kids will buy a CD that they have a copy of shows this. The recording industry also has easy access in their favor. It is pretty easy to go in and buy a CD, (unless it is one of the ones that I like...) and they do have a very large catalog. Most of which sells in specific markets. If more people had access to more types of music, they would buy more music.
The mp3 format is pretty good. It is not CD quality however. If you listen through headphones, it is obvious that there are things missing. Nothing beats a good CD. If it does, the bitrate will have to be near that of the CD. This may change, but not for a while.
Not everybody enjoys scouring the net looking for things. I know that if a piece of music could be downloaded for a small fee, and it was of good quality, kids would go for it. I would go for it. Its a known quantity -vs- the unknown of things like napster. Most consumers will just go for the easy kill because they are lazy. Or they don't care.
Where do I stand on napster? I know that there is now a new market. People have found out en-masse that they can do this sort of thing. Now they want it. As long as there is no official service to download from, then the free ones will see heavy use. Word will spread about the clones, possibly with the service under fire at the time. This is market pressure at its finest. Consumers will do what they will. In my mind this is not really a legal battle as it is a PR battle. In six months, the recording industry could make and promote a service that would enable people to get reliable mp3 tunes, unfettered, and without hassle. They can start with easy, safe services that parents like me would pay to use, market them as being better than "copies off of the net" and be doing something new in a very short time.
Using napster just for greedy collections of music is wrong, but with out a reasonable "right" or better way, napster-type services are the only way.
What I find interesting about this whole thing is that if M$ had found their 'trade secrets' in Slashdot in a different context, they would most likely go out of their way to promote it, and let others know that it is ok to be there. Consider this:
/case1
Wow! look at this new Kerberos thing! it rocks!
(the specs get posted) (everyone talks it up and plans for a bright future...)
(M$ issues press releases indicating broad and helpful support from the hacker crowd)
No harm done right?
case1/
/case2
Oh my god. They have done it again. Look at how they have mangled Kerberos! Those bastards!
(The specs get posted) (everyone rips them to pieces...)
(M$ issues foul sounding letter citing any good law they can because they don't like hearing what people really think)
Some harm done on both sides. M$ steps on foot, and bitches when others laugh about it. Slashdot & Co. get to spend money and time dealing with demi-god wannabe corporation.
case 2/
In either case the law is the same. Given this their response is pretty childish. If they win this one then doesn't this whole thing put them above the law somewhat? If they were truly interested in respecting the law, then they should be unahppy about the first case as well. Seems to me that if case1 were to happen, they would not be citing the DMCA. They would be busy writing news copy, and marketing to leverage their new found friends to form 'new and innovative partnerships'.
Along these same lines, I also believe that this whole thing really is just another shot at mass knowledge management. If the general population is not allowed to discuss these sort of things, then enforcement of the laws becomes trivial. That is a very large part of what the DMCA is about. I truly don't think the DMCA is about the few smart ones who know what they are doing. It is about making others aware of how technology works in general. Even if they are not distributing code, they are distributing know-how. If you think about it a while, code is just know-how that is machine executable. This is why they cited the postings that detailed how to get around the license. For me that is the scary part. They actually think that they can stop the flow of information that could be used to circumvent a method of access control. It is this proposition that will make fair use a moot issue, and the U.S. a very bad place to live. Just think where the technology centers will be if this happens. Somewhere else where you don't have to pay for the tools to think!
Good job on the letter. This thing has some very deep legal implications regarding our very freedoms to learn and share what we know. We should fight tooth and nail for this right. As things stand now having knowledge is not a crime. I know how to do lots of illegal things. I think that my own values given to me by peers I respect, along with the law help me to do the right thing. In the few cases where it is grey, it is the information that empowers me to do the right thing. Knowing something should not be a crime. Telling others should not be either. It is what one does with that knowledge that matters. It seems our nice for the people nation and its business partners would now like to make sure there are no violations by taking away the means to commit them. If you substitute 'arms' for 'knowledge' does this not sound a lot like our early American history? Our founders left a more restrictive state so that they could preserve basic human rights. We did this in such a way as to make sure that we would be able to keep them. Consider the right to bear arms. Lots of people consider this one important. How about right to learn and share information? Seems to me that the goverments need to control is nicely checked by the right to bear arms. Now the battle is information access. Goverment control will be similarly checked by a well-informed population. Kind of a pain in the ass for them though. Pretty hard to throw a smoke screen when there are hundreds of thousands of collective minds all thinking: "Hey wait a minute....
There will probably be lots of stupid things like this popping up because it is a big win for those who want to control to get a precedent set. Kind of hard to argue about something that will affect your life, but you are not allowed to learn about. Or worse because you pose an argument, it is made invalid because the basis for it was not yours to access, or worse the terms of access do not permit the argument in the first place! Slash is probably the last place to set one of these.
You know the early motorola designs were pretty powerful. The 68k's older cousin was the 6809 and its more powerful version 6809e were probably the best of the 8bit chips around. I learned assembly on these things, and they were great. OS/9 was ported to the ColorComputer. We had multiuser-multitasking on a machine with just 128Mbytes of ram. Very stable, very capable. If you look at the early Intel designs from the same period from that perspective it makes for a good joke.
Nope. You are at least.05% of napster users because I do the same thing. I have lots ov vinyl dying, and getting tracks off of napster beats long recording and editing sessions to create CD's. That makes me the other.05% !:)
Thanks. You know why I do that? It is because I was just left to my own devices as a kid. I got lucky though along with being a geek, I also read/learned some of the right things young. As a minimum, I was aware of what the dangers were. Did a lot of things that I was told I shouldn't anyway figuring that they told me not to do them because 'sombody' decided that I probably would not understand really how to do them safely. Right. All you have to do is read and understand, and ask questions. It is not hard. I could have just as easily been a damn good criminal. All comes down to a few delicate moments in life. I know a lot of people who did not make the same choices I did, and they were the worse for it. Many of them having more attentive parents than I did! Still can't figure that one out...
The implications of this law are hitting home. My career and family depend on the sort of free-learning that is only possible without these sort of stupid laws. It chills me to consider what things would be like without that freedom. Things like this get real personal real fast. Whom did these guys hurt? Nobody. If Mattel was a little smarter they could easily put a positive spin on this and profit anyway. Nothing generates name impressions like contraversy. (it's late! and spelling is for weenies) Now they have a bunch of bad ones. Their loss. The people doing the hacking probably have the same motive that most of us do. They just want to know Why and HOW! What is wrong with that?
I just read this, and am enraged at the very thought of this litigation. I am a parent, and thought for a while about using some of this software because my time to surf with my kids is limited. I never did it though because it goes against everything that I believe about parenting. Those that hide things from their kids only ensure that their kids will hear it from somebody else, and that their values are not the same. Why even go there? Any smart parent will deal with the issue and give their kids the support that they need to make smart decisions. The software is nothing more than a cop out.
Given that I would not use this sort of software, I still have to say that parents that do choose this (lazy!) path have a clear right to understand what it is they are getting for their money. How else are they going to know? Type in a bunch of URLs and see if they are blocked? Maybe if they typed in a lot of them they would understand what was being done. Heck if they thought about it for a while, they probably could just deduce the rule sets based on the content of the blocked sites! Would this then be reverse engineering? I hardly see that as being illegal. I think the DMCA only serves to empower the corporations with the ability to keep their customers stupid. The chances of any group of parents doing this is almost none. Who's interest is best represented here? Not mine!
This decryption is a service to me and reinforces my decision not to use this type of software. There are many ways around this sort of thing anyway. Some of the easier ones that I can think of are easily within the abilities of smart children that I know. Information like this flies through the kid network faster than you think. If one of them really wants to know, I don't think that this sort of software will stop them for long. Just one kid wanting to be popular or cool with a printer could print the content, and the methods of getting it and show it off at school. Give that a few weeks and pretty soon almost all of them who want to see will. Simple. The only ones that can have an effect on this are the parents.
We deserve the right of full-disclosure on any technology that can have this much impact on our lives. How will this happen if it can't be verified. Trust our goverment to handle it? Not bloody likely.
Who can we write to? I am beginning to realize that this is going to be a long battle. Fight it or become just another dumb computer USER.
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I feel your sentiment exactly. Opensource is both very rewarding, and intimidating at the same time. I am a converted NT admin/user. Got hooked on SGI machines :) My first thought when I looked at Open Source was 'what a fraggin mess!'. How could anybody even size up a few projects, let alone code something for them. Here is my progress so far.
1. Got a Unix machine (indy) and installed Linux on an older PC.
2. Set up the build environment on both machines, and started to compile stuff. Learned a lot on this, and have even helped a few people so far with IRIX binaries of xmame. This experience gave me the general structure and practices of a working project. BTW building xmame was an excellent start for me. There were just enough issues on IRIX that I learned a lot about the build process. The added advantage was that I got to play some nice games when I was done.
3. Having made sure that the development environment was set up properly, I began to code small things. Literally went to the net and typed into google 'c programming language tutorial'. This worked very well. Since I can build most things, debugging my own small pieces of code was pretty painless as I understood the difference between a build problem, and a coding problem.
4. Now I am working on something that I like. It fits many of the criteria mentioned above. (ie. scratches an itch, is small, is fun.) My first project was to build an STL (cad design) file viewer using opengl. This I completed on the SGI as that is where I started learning things. Learning OpenGL worked the same as learning C. Typed in the need for tutorials into google, and followed the links from there.
5. Project is basically done. Now comes more learning. Building it on different platforms. This is where the real value is in this process. You get to see how people write things, and what they link against. Some structures and methods are portable, and some are not. My next build of the project was for win32. I was pleasntly surprised to find that my code only had two issues. Changed the code to work on both platforms, and moved on. I am working through Linux now as I have a machine that can do 3D.
To sum this up I am doing what I like, and learning way more than I would by trudging through books and tutorials without any goals. Just to cite one more example. I like Nedit. It has some nice features on the Linux distribution, and one of those is syntax highlighting. Well the guys at SGI disabled those features when they included it as part of IRIX. Learning to build things got those back. Seems like a small thing, but there is a *lot* of power in that. Worth doing, good luck.
Some people learn by listening, others by reading, others by tinkering. I was the sort of kid that took everything apart, and asked for tools on christmas. Almost everthing that I know that is worth something comes from those times spent taking things apart, or fixing broken ones, or just trying to make them do something new. Between a reasonable set of tools and the library, it became possible to do pretty much anything given the ability to learn HOW THINGS WORK.
This freedom is something as a child that was a given. How else does one learn about things? You could answer "go to school" or maybe "get an apprenticeship". I dreamed of those things, and in fact did do work at a local TV repair shop FOR FREE just to learn more. (I have since fixed lots of televisions for people who needed it.) This sort of thing is ok, but not for all. Some of us want to learn early, or can't afford specialized school, or both.
My current position in life is a product of that early free time. I now get paid to help people, and solve problems. Just what I enjoyed doing as a kid. Lucky me -- or is it? Now I have to wonder as I have kids of my own, and they begin to ask questions. How do I answer? I know what I did, but that now is very quickly becoming criminalized. How can what I did be wrong? Why should the knowing be all mixed up with the doing? I feel just like the little kid long ago. Always being told basically that knowing how to do something is as bad as actually doing it. Worse I now am being told that if I actually do know something, that telling someone else is a crime because the information I possess is a device!?! WTF!
I believe that people have the right not to be dependant on others for things in life. This means fixing what is broken, learning new skills, and understanding the world around them. When someone has lots of money, they really don't have to worry. But when someone does not have a lot of money, well what do they do? They either do without, or learn how to better themselves, or become criminals. If you take away the ability to learn new things, or lock up information in such a way that it is hard to use, then what do you have left? Have-nots and criminals? Where is the sense in that?
My argument is this: The DMCA affects me in everyday life in that it restricts my ability to understand technology upon which I depend. This is not just movies, but understanding of the function of the world in a fundamental way. Does this understanding give me the power to break the law, and make use of material that I did not pay for? Most likely yes. I also know how to pick locks, copy media, and hot-wire cars among other things. Do I do them? NO! Those actions are morally wrong, unless someone needs them done, or I need them done for myself, on things THAT I OWN. We are not childeren. Most people have the common sense to make good use of what they know or suffer the consequences.
There has to be a balance between the control needed to keep the media giants happy, and letting people have some control over parts of their increasingly digital lives. Without this, I see a very harsh place to live where knowing something is as criminal as doing it. America the free becomes, America the ignorant.
This is not a bad thing if you think about it a little. A system such as this allows all of us to do what we want. I remember using cassette tapes. The cost of media was not too high, and I recorded lots of music from my friends. At the same time, I used the same media for computer storage. (I know that was a while back, but hey the analogy is still valid) The net result of this was that I bought the equipment, and it did what I wanted without hassle. If everyone is paying a little, then isn't the peace of mind worth it? Today, I use CDR media the same way. If there is a little tax per disc, then I consider the unfettered equipment worth it. If I get unfairly taxed a little, big deal. The gains I made with copies of media, are worth more than the unfair tax that I get hit with once in a while. The legal hassle required to right this small wrong will open up the wrong can of worms. All this given that the tax is small. Easier to live with that, then all of the paranoid rules that would result from sorting out the other issues. What is this tax anyway on a CD-R? 3-6 percent? Pretty small given the time, and number of copies that the machine is capable of. Not an issue.
Maybe a slashbug?
I have already seen one commercial for a movie that will be released "only on DVD"....
Yeah I agree with this. I still have my 800. Most of the media is dying these days, but I keep it to run a couple of games. And just for the fact that it is cool, and I spent way too much time on it. Hell I still know most of the memory map! I also want one of these machines. A simple computer, that plays games, but is programmable. Nice toy like the 800 was. You are right, neither M$ or Sony can do this. Too damn bad. I will have to stick with older PC machines and Linux. The hobby factor is still there even though some of the simple convience (ok spelling czars, it's late!) factor is missing.
All the damn time. I have went as far as to call the DJ and ask. Or scribble some of the lyrics in the hope I can deduce the title later.
Is it me, or have you also noticed that since the whole napster thing, radio stations are not as forthcoming with titles anymore?
I was confused about this also. There are several groups of comments. As many of the issues were brought up before the hearing, many thought that additional comment would be redundant. I found mine by looking over the links on this page. (Check out the lower left corner)
Where I live radio is in a dismal state. There are only a few 'formats' and they are lame. Playing the same tunes over and over. Different mixes, but same stuff. I am almost never surprised. (Go KNRK!) Napster has been a lot of fun because of the shared songs feature. I do just what the other post says above. Look for people that like what I do, then grab some new stuff to see if I like it also. This has opened me up to lots of music that I would not have been listening to otherwise.
:) )
Shared mp3 pools also have this same effect. Everybody puts some in, and you listen on shuffle play. Refresh the directory every once in a while, and you get new songs. Kind of like a group radio station. This also is way better than radio.
Maybe the building of formats has value. Just reaching into the bag of free music tends to be a lot of trouble if you are looking for something new. It takes your attention, and you have to sift through the crap to get to the gems. This has always been the reasoning behind the formats in the first place. Radio stations build an identity by the songs they play. The more diverse the list, the less they are able to focus on a particular audience.
Right now promoters have to basically go to the radio stations, and get them to put songs on their play lists. This works in a fashion, but what if you are in a lame market? You don't get to hear new stuff that is relevant to your lifestyle and interests. (could be you that is lame also, and the same problem still applies
People are always going to buy CD's. The quality of mp3 and the effort to play/move/encode them will not be worth it for a lot of people. Popping in a CD and pressing play is the way to go. Most people want easy. I don't think that will change.
This means that the 'free' music on Napster actually comes at a price. This price is the time and attention required to actually get complete quality copies of songs you like. The other price is that you lose album continuity. (There still are artists out there that know what this is!) Even though the number of tunes is high on Napster, the depth still has quite a ways to go. Not everybody puts up an entire album, so that means that most of the hits are going to be on the mainstream singles with the occasional remix. Fine for people on a budget that want to fill out their collection with a few extra tunes that are not worth a whole CD, or for those that really just are backfilling old songs. What about those wanting something new?
This format thing could easily be a service that people would pay for. You get the songs for 'free' but you also get some ads, and some new stuff that you don't ask for, but that might fit. Maybe you will buy some more CD's because you are hearing stuff you like, not stuff they want you to buy.
I have always liked the surprise factor radio can have. You are listening to one of the better stations that will throw in random stuff, and all of the sudden there is a great tune! Subscription mp3 format services that are personalized have the potential to fill this void.
With this sort of system, new content would have value a few times over. Just as it does now, only more so. You sell it to the subscribers, then based on their response, move it to the radio, and promote the CD. Let the subscribers get the CD a little sooner so word of mouth works in favor of new sales. Then finally as things wind down it cycles in there with everything else and things work the way they do now. Some people buy 'em some don't. Eventually the case gets notched, and they sell at $3.99 or something.
They can still market the cd. It has ease of use, cover art, album continuity (spelling czars back off!), and sonic quality in its favor.
I like this thing. It is a great toy, and I can think of lots of ways to use it. I am sure that I am not in the minority here either.
/. are not members of Joe Public. The majority of people are going to do one of three things:
Just because there is a driver that will produce the barcodes in plain text does not mean that everybody is going to ignore their software. It also does not mean that they are losing on the scanner they gave me either.
The people that post here on
1. Use it with the software.
2. Give it to a friend.
3. Put it in the basket with all the other trinkets that they don't have time for.
They are trying to establish a new standard for locating information on the web. Kind of like a search engine that you pay for with your demographics. I don't think that it is a bad idea, but I also won't use it because I don't enjoy being profiled in that way. No matter what their business model is, I will probably be a loss.
Other members of my family seem to think differently however. So the toy they gave this household may yet fall into their plan. Some of the people that get these are going to play with it regardless of their intent. They have to have allowed for this, so it is something else they are protecting.
They must want to charge for the use of the cues. And the mining of the generated data. Can't they still do this even if the scanner is used for other things? They have some IP on that at least. The cue is distinctive enough that they would be able to license the use of the format.
The little bit of encryption that they placed on the machine really is more of an annoyance than any sort of protection scheme. Any money they planned on making on developer kits is money they should not have planned on. The smart thing to do here is encourage other software for the thing. It is the brand that will give them value. If the devices become widely used, everyone will know what a Cue Cat is. That is everything on the net.
If this happens, they can start selling Cats cheap to make up for the "lost" development revenue. Heck make some different packaging. Clear cases, colors, even glow in the dark ones! You know what I mean. Lots of people go for this stuff. These sort of things are very easy to do at this stage. All of the hard engineering is done.
Instead of charging for a developers kit, (what can it possibly contain anyway lamecrypt.h? and ourserver.h? ) they should be encouraging development to build the brand. Some of the developers will be very interested in using their servers others will not. Either way Cue Cat gets known, and that will have value. Probably in ways that they did not plan for. Funny how the net works huh?
They can provide many things on their servers freely in exchange for the capture of data. The marketing people will pay for this data without question. The better the brand, the more valuable the services that go along with it will be.
It is wrong of them to expect every scan to go through their servers anyway. Does not make any sense. What if the net is down, and I am working with my CD / DVD catalog software? Do I have to be online to make use of this toy? Lots of dialup users are going to think that this is foolish. Why tie up a phone line to scan something. Use of this will be kind of spontanious anyway. Having to be online will seriously limit how people will use these things.
They could sell these newly packaged cue cats to those that are developing at a profit, and include incentives to use their servers. Those that are interested will make a go of it, those that aren't will still be building the Cue Cat brand. One way they make lots of money, the other way they make a little. Either way they build value and nobody gets hurt.
Open development platforms always will get more attention than closed ones because of people like us who think of something, and just do it. Good ideas happen this way.
To the makers of the Cue Cat: Consider the advice above payment for the entertainment you provided me for the evening. Lot cheaper than the cost of one of those marketing brainstorm meetings. Try opening a dialog with people like me and you will get more ideas cheaper than you ever will using the high priced consultants that told you to keep the device closed.
If you back off I just might code something useful for the thing, and recommend that my friends get one.
That way your old phone will not run the latest cellular service pack that you have to have a working phone to download!
Oh yeah, They all have the same buttons. You will have to press "send" to stop a call. (What? some of them already do that!)
You are probaly a troll, but I am hoping that you read slashdot because you are soul searching, or at the least curious, so ok-- i'll bite :)
:) One of my favorite ways to run linux is from my IRIX machines. I lose nothing. This goes for any UNIX variant. You have choice. And your investment will last. This is what the PC vendors don't wan't you to really know about UNIX hardware in general. Even standard PC hardware these days is pretty nice. They would much rather have you buy a new one every couple of years when windows gets too fat to run on the one you have.
Win2k would not ever be my choice. Much of what was discussed above does not apply. If you are interested in actually using the machine you are sitting at right now, then W2K will eventually fail miserably. Just think. What happens when a user wants something that has not been anticipated by all of the MS GUI designers? How about scripting? Real scripting, not just batch files. How about development. Granted the tools are nice in Gates land, but at what price? Visual Studio is a great place to work--provided that you are not interested in your code running anywhere else. Or even on the next version of the OS.
As for the BIG IRON days being numbered, you are way wrong. I do believe that cheap clusters will erode and change that market, but not eliminate it. Take a look at the new SGI server line. Modular cluster computing. You get to build what you want how you want, even take it a part and make smaller clusters. These machines in their largest configurations will handle 500 processors (probably more) all running under ONE OS IMAGE. There are many classes of computing problems that require this. Nobody is even close to this level of NUMA development. Also look around. SUN has been selling lots of their E10000 series machines. They sell these because they work, and they will keep working for a really long time. Big problems sometimes require big machines. This will not change. As all the machines mature, the problems will change, and become doable on smaller hardware, but that does not mean that the big stuff will become out of date, it means that it will just get used for something else.
I have older SGI machines pushing 10 years old doing things that are important to me. Because they run a UNIX variant, I am able to build software for them that was not even on the drawing board when the machine was made! Try that on Win 3.1.
Now where were we with Windows? Oh yeah accomplishing the same result. Rendering probably would work on W2K. It proabaly would even have similar performance. But I am certian in 5 years time that cluster will have cost more in license fees, administrative work, and scheduled downtime (read: upgrades) than any UNIX cluster will. Pick your vendor, does not matter.
As for long life windows does not stand a chance. Every try to do anything useful on a 10 year old pc with windows? Can you even find the software? Take that same machine running linux, and it can be a productive member of a network with zero trouble. Log on to it from a faster machine for display, and you may not even notice its age when doing day to day admin. Makes for great file servers, ftp, routing, mp3 players, lots of good stuff. You know since I began learning UNIX skills, I have not thrown away a machine since. I can ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING USEFUL TO DO WITH THEM.
The OS really means everything these days. I know because I run and administer a few of them. Windows machines of any variant give me more trouble than any other. Running windows means that I have to work the way I am supposed to. UNIX of any kind means that I work the way I want, from where ever I want.
Consider this last point. I really like working on an IRIX desktop. You know running UNIX machines means that I can sensibly do that for just about as long as I choose to. Not one penny of investment on any of the IRIX machines I deal with will ever be wasted until I decide that they are no longer worth it. Basically this means until they break.
Everything that I have learned about UNIX (and I started late) applies no matter what. Some machines will do more than others, and some will require a little different tweak here and there, but it all works the same. My experience on windows machines becomes useless as they change from year to year. I really hate that. Don't you?
Agreed.
Many of the firms that I work with are in CAD, or ID related fields. Some of the smaller ones have switched to NT/intel machines for cost reasons. They now have more problems and require more attention in general than they did as IRIX users. I really have not seen them get anything more done or spend less money, they just spend it differently. Instead of paying up front, they pay over time tinkering and fiddling with machines instead of getting work done.
There is a *lot* of pressure in these markets to move to NT for cost and connectivity reasons. Large corporate IT dpartments really don't understand IRIX, and would much rather stick and engineer or designer with a nice ugly COMPUKE machine, and NT. The fight over this occurs every 6 months. The reason is Office. They want to have only one machine on the desktop, and it better be able to run Office, or it is *unsupported*, or too expensive, or they can't administer it or some other lame thing. The basic opinion today that I hear over and over is that 'everything' is going to NT, and that it will all be nicely intergrated. I personally think that this is a nice smelly load of BS.
One of the attractions that Linux will have (once there are more high end applications running) is that users can run things like VMware, and take care of the communication problem without having to give up the flexible, stable UNIX environment.
I hope that SGI will bring some of that to Linux, and I also hope that software like GNOME will mature to the point that it along with a good window manager becomes as responsive as the IRIX desktop is. Maybe they can even begin to make hardware the right way using and Intel CPU instead of a MIPS one.
SGI MIPS hardware is nice. It is expensive, but it has lots of power and very long life. Intel PC machines are still not there yet. I still have SGI machines made in 91 performing useful tasks! In my view the price premium is well worth it, but the NTCOMPUKEGATEWAYMARKETDROIDS don't see that. Sometimes the world sucks!
In your market, are there the same sort of pressures? Or is it that your work is specialized enough that they basically let you run what you want, and they give it to you because of what you do?
If you do have those same sort of pressures, give em hell. It is worth it each day to come in and work the way you want!
I really like IRIX (sigh). Nice environment, but limited by MIPS processors. Hope SGI plans to port over some of their nicer IRIX tools. I now run both, but still enjoy the very well tuned IRIX desktop. Go faster GNOME!
CDE sucks. It has no soul, is very generic and offers little in the way of custom features. Gnome for all of its faults is a very mallable piece of code. Seems to me that Sun & HP just want a place to build better looking and more feature rich desktops. They get the added bonus of application level compatibility. At least I hope this is what they are doing. Gnome is also very cheap with no QT dependancy.
The only thing that will make the difference is if the desktop has some effort put into it. Features that are intuitive and flexible are what matter. I have not seen a lot of this out of any of the unix vendors. (except for SGI who has a great desktop!)
If Sun and HP are interested in really making their desktops a nice place to be then it will benefit *nix users as a whole as people will see that UNIX systems can be interesting and visually appealing and all of those other things that don't really matter from a functional point of view, but do matter from a marketing and useability point of view.
CDE does the job, but after using it for a while, I get the feeling that it was an effort to build the most boring GUI imaginable. Lots of simple features are missing. Little things that I guess are not really needed to run a desktop, but neverthless are things that one gets attached to.
Unless the big UNIX vendors change their attitude regarding their desktops, this effort will not mean a whole lot other than things will be easier to port.
People want little things to get attached to on their desktop. All of the people that I know that make the mistake of running Win2000 all talk about how much better the desktop is. Shadow cursor, alpha fades in the menus and such.
None of this really matters though for systems that are designed as enterprise systems, so I can't see any of the big boys (except SGI who goes for that sort of thing) doing anything but taking the default environment, adding a couple of system specific tools, and replacing CDE.
I will wait and see.
(Glad they are using Gnome though. KDE is very functional, but a little too Redmond for me. )
you are probably right. Though maybe some of them read slash. Maybe they know now. :) Maybe not.
Cheers
They are calling it the "NUMA Link" now. Maybe those engineers will be just a little bit happier..
Graphics are a great place to start. It is really easy to demonstrate all the basics of programming in a graphical way. Debugging is easier in many cases as they have a very visual way to see what the program is doing / has done.
Besides, everyone likes graphics, and even modest hardware these days can render enough that they can have a lot of fun. You will get some games each class group also.
Maybe make a template game. Something fun like surround, lunar lander, or maybe a simple level that they can add to.
It used to be that recording was a pretty serious undertaking. Even a moderate studio was out of the reach of most. If an artist was able to make their own recordings, they still had a very hard time distributing them. Producing vinyl is/was pretty expensive. Making tapes was/is doable, but still there are risks in that the average joe cannot afford to purchase enough free media to promote themselves in such a way that they have a shot at making it. This is where the recording industry got its start. They could enable these things, and because of their size and resources, profit from them even with the risks. They just had to be smart about who they backed, and who they didn't. Pretty simple stuff.
Now lets fast forward to the present day. Consumer grade equipment is capable of producing very good quality recordings. Modern computers equipped with decent sound systems make all of the pre-production stuff easy, and of good quality. Distribution is now within reach. Cheap CD burners, and the internet complete the picture. This is what the RIAA is resisting. The "everyone has a press" thing.
I did a simple test in my family, and the goal of it was to establish if the recording industry has any value other than the actual recording. I also was doing a little soul searching with regard to napster. I personally have used it to obtain reasonable encodes of my vinyl, saved me a lot of work. I also have heard a couple of things off of the radio, that not-so-long ago I would have just recorded, and listened to for a while.
For the test , here is what I did:
1. Give the children access to free music, just using the computer for playback.
2. Enable them to make CD's. Let them play with this for a while. Throw into the mix the fact that they can get music from friends CD's, the internet, or their own CD collection.
3. Try both #1 and #2 with me doing the computer part, and with them doing their own work. The childeren are reasonably computer literate.
3. Let this cook for a while and watch.
I found out a number of things that everyone here might find interesting. I did this with the kids because it is this next generation that the battle is over. Not us. We have already made up our minds, and to be blunt, have the skills to get what we want. Besides if it is content dilution they are worried about, its over already. Anything created in the last 50 years that is worth encoding has been done, and will be distrubuted. Kind of hard to undo that without a major civil rights issue. It is the values that the next generation hold that are of primary interest to the recording industry and its current business model. If they can get these sort of things to be labeled as "bad" then they will win over the next round of consumers. If not, then they will need to change how they do business. Period.
Here are some of the things I found to be true in my household. (8-12 yr olds + 1 16yr old for about a week.)
1. Kids seem to really like to put what they want on "their own" CD. They like this more when they get to put add-ons in/around their CD. Special cases, labels, pictures & such on their CD's.
2. Music from the internet was perceived to be of lesser value than music from a CD. I believe this to be that it is more trouble (ie. you have to know more ) to get it from the computer than to get it from another source. Also the quality is not always good. Sometimes they would spend a long session, and get parts of songs that they really wanted. Sometimes the computer required enough effort that they lost interest.
3. Music obtained from an original CD was most valued. Even when copies of copies of original CD's sound pretty much identical. (see number 6 below)
4. Lower quality recordings are ok because "it's just my CD. For me to listen to." This one surprised me because with digital music you get the quality you work for. Seems that the group of kids I was working with did not want to do much. This response was almost always associated with efforts that they had to do. Basically if they have to do their own encode, track down tunes, wait for them, check them, then burn a CD, lower quality is ok if it gets the whole thing done faster.
5. They like it much better when I do their work for them, and they get the CD. (What did you expect? They are kids!)
6. Original CD's are still attractive to them, even when they have copies. (good ones.) Lyric sheets, pictures, the cover art. (why do CD's have to be in such a small package? I miss the large cover art!) All play a part in the value of the CD.
There were other things, but the points above were the most significant ones.
This is what I think of them:
The recording industry still has lots of value. Music is not the primary part of it. Packaging, promotion & the quality of the recording seem to be the areas where the recording industry has lots of value. The fact that these kids will buy a CD that they have a copy of shows this. The recording industry also has easy access in their favor. It is pretty easy to go in and buy a CD, (unless it is one of the ones that I like...) and they do have a very large catalog. Most of which sells in specific markets. If more people had access to more types of music, they would buy more music.
The mp3 format is pretty good. It is not CD quality however. If you listen through headphones, it is obvious that there are things missing. Nothing beats a good CD. If it does, the bitrate will have to be near that of the CD. This may change, but not for a while.
Not everybody enjoys scouring the net looking for things. I know that if a piece of music could be downloaded for a small fee, and it was of good quality, kids would go for it. I would go for it. Its a known quantity -vs- the unknown of things like napster. Most consumers will just go for the easy kill because they are lazy. Or they don't care.
Where do I stand on napster? I know that there is now a new market. People have found out en-masse that they can do this sort of thing. Now they want it. As long as there is no official service to download from, then the free ones will see heavy use. Word will spread about the clones, possibly with the service under fire at the time. This is market pressure at its finest. Consumers will do what they will. In my mind this is not really a legal battle as it is a PR battle. In six months, the recording industry could make and promote a service that would enable people to get reliable mp3 tunes, unfettered, and without hassle. They can start with easy, safe services that parents like me would pay to use, market them as being better than "copies off of the net" and be doing something new in a very short time.
Using napster just for greedy collections of music is wrong, but with out a reasonable "right" or better way, napster-type services are the only way.
What I find interesting about this whole thing is that if M$ had found their 'trade secrets' in Slashdot in a different context, they would most likely go out of their way to promote it, and let others know that it is ok to be there. Consider this:
/case1
Wow! look at this new Kerberos thing! it rocks!
(the specs get posted)
(everyone talks it up and plans for a bright future...)
(M$ issues press releases indicating broad and helpful support from the hacker crowd)
No harm done right?
case1/
/case2
Oh my god. They have done it again. Look at how they have mangled Kerberos! Those bastards!
(The specs get posted)
(everyone rips them to pieces...)
(M$ issues foul sounding letter citing any good law they can because they don't like hearing what people really think)
Some harm done on both sides. M$ steps on foot, and bitches when others laugh about it. Slashdot & Co. get to spend money and time dealing with demi-god wannabe corporation.
case 2/
In either case the law is the same. Given this their response is pretty childish. If they win this one then doesn't this whole thing put them above the law somewhat? If they were truly interested in respecting the law, then they should be unahppy about the first case as well. Seems to me that if case1 were to happen, they would not be citing the DMCA. They would be busy writing news copy, and marketing to leverage their new found friends to form 'new and innovative partnerships'.
Along these same lines, I also believe that this whole thing really is just another shot at mass knowledge management. If the general population is not allowed to discuss these sort of things, then enforcement of the laws becomes trivial. That is a very large part of what the DMCA is about. I truly don't think the DMCA is about the few smart ones who know what they are doing. It is about making others aware of how technology works in general. Even if they are not distributing code, they are distributing know-how. If you think about it a while, code is just know-how that is machine executable. This is why they cited the postings that detailed how to get around the license. For me that is the scary part. They actually think that they can stop the flow of information that could be used to circumvent a method of access control. It is this proposition that will make fair use a moot issue, and the U.S. a very bad place to live. Just think where the technology centers will be if this happens. Somewhere else where you don't have to pay for the tools to think!
Good job on the letter. This thing has some very deep legal implications regarding our very freedoms to learn and share what we know. We should fight tooth and nail for this right. As things stand now having knowledge is not a crime. I know how to do lots of illegal things. I think that my own values given to me by peers I respect, along with the law help me to do the right thing. In the few cases where it is grey, it is the information that empowers me to do the right thing. Knowing something should not be a crime. Telling others should not be either. It is what one does with that knowledge that matters. It seems our nice for the people nation and its business partners would now like to make sure there are no violations by taking away the means to commit them. If you substitute 'arms' for 'knowledge' does this not sound a lot like our early American history? Our founders left a more restrictive state so that they could preserve basic human rights. We did this in such a way as to make sure that we would be able to keep them. Consider the right to bear arms. Lots of people consider this one important. How about right to learn and share information? Seems to me that the goverments need to control is nicely checked by the right to bear arms. Now the battle is information access. Goverment control will be similarly checked by a well-informed population. Kind of a pain in the ass for them though. Pretty hard to throw a smoke screen when there are hundreds of thousands of collective minds all thinking: "Hey wait a minute....
There will probably be lots of stupid things like this popping up because it is a big win for those who want to control to get a precedent set. Kind of hard to argue about something that will affect your life, but you are not allowed to learn about. Or worse because you pose an argument, it is made invalid because the basis for it was not yours to access, or worse the terms of access do not permit the argument in the first place! Slash is probably the last place to set one of these.
Yup! Guess it is pretty easy these days to make that mistake... Been a while since 128K was and address space huh?
You know the early motorola designs were pretty powerful. The 68k's older cousin was the 6809 and its more powerful version 6809e were probably the best of the 8bit chips around. I learned assembly on these things, and they were great. OS/9 was ported to the ColorComputer. We had multiuser-multitasking on a machine with just 128Mbytes of ram. Very stable, very capable. If you look at the early Intel designs from the same period from that perspective it makes for a good joke.
Nope. You are at least .05% of napster users because I do the same thing. I have lots ov vinyl dying, and getting tracks off of napster beats long recording and editing sessions to create CD's. That makes me the other .05% ! :)
Thanks. You know why I do that? It is because I was just left to my own devices as a kid. I got lucky though along with being a geek, I also read/learned some of the right things young. As a minimum, I was aware of what the dangers were. Did a lot of things that I was told I shouldn't anyway figuring that they told me not to do them because 'sombody' decided that I probably would not understand really how to do them safely. Right. All you have to do is read and understand, and ask questions. It is not hard. I could have just as easily been a damn good criminal. All comes down to a few delicate moments in life. I know a lot of people who did not make the same choices I did, and they were the worse for it. Many of them having more attentive parents than I did! Still can't figure that one out...
The implications of this law are hitting home. My career and family depend on the sort of free-learning that is only possible without these sort of stupid laws. It chills me to consider what things would be like without that freedom. Things like this get real personal real fast. Whom did these guys hurt? Nobody. If Mattel was a little smarter they could easily put a positive spin on this and profit anyway. Nothing generates name impressions like contraversy. (it's late! and spelling is for weenies) Now they have a bunch of bad ones. Their loss. The people doing the hacking probably have the same motive that most of us do. They just want to know Why and HOW! What is wrong with that?
I just read this, and am enraged at the very thought of this litigation. I am a parent, and thought for a while about using some of this software because my time to surf with my kids is limited. I never did it though because it goes against everything that I believe about parenting. Those that hide things from their kids only ensure that their kids will hear it from somebody else, and that their values are not the same. Why even go there? Any smart parent will deal with the issue and give their kids the support that they need to make smart decisions. The software is nothing more than a cop out.
Given that I would not use this sort of software, I still have to say that parents that do choose this (lazy!) path have a clear right to understand what it is they are getting for their money. How else are they going to know? Type in a bunch of URLs and see if they are blocked? Maybe if they typed in a lot of them they would understand what was being done. Heck if they thought about it for a while, they probably could just deduce the rule sets based on the content of the blocked sites! Would this then be reverse engineering? I hardly see that as being illegal. I think the DMCA only serves to empower the corporations with the ability to keep their customers stupid. The chances of any group of parents doing this is almost none. Who's interest is best represented here? Not mine!
This decryption is a service to me and reinforces my decision not to use this type of software. There are many ways around this sort of thing anyway. Some of the easier ones that I can think of are easily within the abilities of smart children that I know. Information like this flies through the kid network faster than you think. If one of them really wants to know, I don't think that this sort of software will stop them for long. Just one kid wanting to be popular or cool with a printer could print the content, and the methods of getting it and show it off at school. Give that a few weeks and pretty soon almost all of them who want to see will. Simple. The only ones that can have an effect on this are the parents.
We deserve the right of full-disclosure on any technology that can have this much impact on our lives. How will this happen if it can't be verified. Trust our goverment to handle it? Not bloody likely.
Who can we write to? I am beginning to realize that this is going to be a long battle. Fight it or become just another dumb computer USER.