The analogy is flawed, because slaves are people, and people inherently have rights as human beings. During the U. S. slave trade, these human rights were trampled under the law.
Intellectual property, on the other hand, does not have inherent rights. There is no similar moral problem with considering intellectual property as property.
The concept of intellectual property itself is certainly debatable. But it would be hard to argue that it is inherently wrong for the law to recognize intellectual property, certainly not based on a comparison to the slave trade.
The fundamental question is, do authors and artists "own" their works? Do they have a right to control what they have created?
Sure, the "system" is stilted and unfair. But try buying a car. Do you think the dealer is going to give you a fair deal? NO WAY! They are going to use every trick and lie in the book to relieve you of as much money as they can, while making you think you're the winner. But just because the dealer is crooked, doesn't give you the right to steal one of their cars.
Publishers are equally crooked. They try to keep as much money as they can for themselves, depriving authors of what is rightfully theirs. But that does not give people a right to steal the copyrighted works.
So, if there is indeed a such thing as intellectual property (as every civilized nation recognizes), the "case" for piracy is just an excuse for theft.
That's why I have a folder called "Archived." As soon as I'm done with an e-mail, I move it to "Archived." (Got that idea from GMail.) That way, my Inbox doesn't become unwieldy, and I can still search for e-mails when I want them. I also get the benefit of being able to use the Inbox as a to-do list...if it's still in my Inbox, it still needs attention.
Your business has one employee, you. You are in business to offer programming (or other technical) services, in exchange for compensation.
In each potential change of employment, you face a decision about costs and benefits. Loyalty is a good thing, and is one of the factors. But it's not everything. Compensation, quality of life, travel requirements, friendships with co-workers, commute time...all of these are factors that go into a decision whether to stay or go.
When you think of yourself as a business, it allows you to look at your employment decisions more objectively, leading to better outcomes for you and for your employer. I've found that it is possible to go to your employer to ask for a raise, based on logical business-related principles, and do it without offending anyone or threatening to leave. If you are indeed as valuable as you think you are, the company will likely make a better offer, and no one has to be resentful about that.
The usefulness of the data depends on its accuracy.
Part of my job is to write software that assists medical coders in selecting ICD-9 codes. Even with ICD-9, medical coders constantly use incorrect codes because nobody can absorb or know all of the possible distinctions. ICD-10 may be more precise, but that doesn't mean coders will KNOW about the new, more precise codes. They already often turn to a more generic code, rather than a more precise one, because they know the generic version already. So increased precision does not necessarily lead to better--or more useful--data.
As a software developer in the medical insurance industry, I see a couple of problems with your argument.
First, if insurance companies can find a reason to deny a claim, they will. Try going to one of the new free-standing ER clinics, many of which do not have contracts with insurance companies, and see how many hoops you have to jump through to get insurance to pay.
Second, insurance companies do not make money by taking a percentage of transactions. Their income comes from premiums, withheld from your paycheck each month. Their profit is the amount left over when you subtract claim payments and administrative overhead from the total income from policy premiums.
When television became popular, many people proclaimed the end of radio broadcasting. But today, radio is more popular than ever. Why? Because TV doesn't replace radio. Sure, it's more capable, but you can't easily watch TV while driving down the freeway at 70 mph, or while jogging or biking.
Likewise, e-mail doesn't replace fax. Sure, it's more capable in some ways. But fax delivery is automatically confirmed, e-mail delivery is just best-effort, no guarantees. E-mail isn't secure by any standards; fax is secure enough to be HIPAA-compliant. Fax is drop-dead simple, e-mailing scanned documents is still too difficult for many computer novices.
Until there is a better way to fax, the old fax machine is going to stick around.
Windows does NOT have anything that comes close to Google Desktop's "Browse Timeline" feature. I don't know how many times I've used this to look for something I saw a week or two ago, but couldn't remember details. THAT is a Google Desktop feature I will really miss.
Open bug counts are related to the quality of a product. The more a product is actually used, the higher the bug counts will be. Only a small fraction of those reported bugs, confirmed or not, will be critical to security or to the operation of the software.
Your house has bugs too! Get a good professional inspector, and see just how long that report will be. Get a second inspector, and the list will get longer. Keep hiring inspectors, and there will be no end to your defect list. But the house may still be a great place to live if the problems are minor.
The question is, What is the experience of most Firefox users most of the time? Does it meet their needs and perform well? Is it generally secure? These are harder questions to answer than bug counts, but they are more relevant.
Deleting folders with large numbers of files and sub-folders in Windows 7 takes inordinately long, far longer than rd/s. This is partly because it first scans the entire structure to count the files that will be deleted, so it can then try to estimate how long it will take for the delete to complete. The scan takes nearly as long as the delete itself! I hope they fix this in Windows 8.
Tracfone is great as long as you don't need 3G (which I don't). I text and talk all I want to, and my total monthly bill is around $15. They even have QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen phones, and they have coverage EVERYWHERE.
Tracfone is not for everybody, but it at least illustrates the absurdity of 20-cent texts!
If medical malpractice insurance is the author's example of Armageddon, then things could certainly be worse.
According to mymedicalmalpracticeinsurance.com, malpractice liability insurance for a general surgeon in Texas is in the neighborhood of $50-60K per year. That is a very small percentage of the total income from all of the surgeries done by that surgeon. Other types of physicians have different rates, but they all amount to a similar small percentage compared to the total fees for services rendered. The cost of malpractice insurance cannot by itself be blamed for the high cost of medicine.
The patent wars ARE a problem, and the patent system DOES need an overhaul (as does the medical malpractice system). But it's nowhere near approaching catastrophe or forcing mass layoffs of programmers.
For most of us, the framework is more important than the language.
Once upon a time, Borland C++ was the best Windows development language out there. OWL made dealing with the complexities of Windows messages and common dialog boxes much easier than standard C++ (not that Microsoft even had a C++ compiler at the time). Microsoft came back with MFC, and then WTL. Both were big improvements over OWL.
But then came.NET. Finally, a complete framework that handled everything, or nearly everything.
Frankly, I don't really care which language I use most of the time. I just want a good framework to provide the gears and wheels, so I can spend my time doing what I really want to accomplish, instead of being forced to create my own widgets.
All of your examples are either server software or developer tools. In these areas, open source software has been immensely successful. But the original article asked why Linux hadn't made a dent in the desktop / consumer market.
Android was the first (and only) Linux-based OS to be widely used by consumers...and this boom was definitely fueled by for-profit enterprises.
True, most LInux users use Gnome and KDE. But these Linux users are not typical consumers. You can't go to Best Buy (or even Fry's) and come home with a computer running Gnome or KDE, you have to install it yourself.
You are correct about the Linux kernel, but nobody installs a "Linux kernel." It could be argued that the Linux kernel has been highly successful, since Android is based on it. The Linux desktop...KDE, Gnome, etc., are the parts of Linux that people see, and these have not made real inroads into the consumer market.
It's not about being old, it's about thinking you're old. At 45, I'm the youngest programmer on our team of 4. We do C#, ASP.NET Ajax, jquery, and others all day long, and run circles around young programmers.
Our oldest member, age 55, was starting to think he was too old. But when we had a new, more enthusiastic programmer join the team, he began to realize that he still had a lot to offer. His perception of his own age has decreased considerably.
Of all job markets these days, programming is one of the hottest (or should I say, warmest). BUT you might have to move to Texas or some other state that's in reasonable shape. Some parts of the country are rusting away, and no amount of experience or enthusiasm is going to help you there.
Linux has always been made by hobbyists, for hobbyists.
In the commercial software world, the distance between "functionally complete" and "release candidate" is very large and labor-intensive, i.e., expensive. Hobbyists can use the "functionally complete" version, but grandma has to have the polished product. Because of that extra expense, it generally requires a large financial interest to make that last mile of development feasible.
Most of the open source projects that have been successful with the masses are those that were backed by commercial, profit-making entities: OpenOffice (Sun), Android (Google), Red Hat...even Firefox is made possible by the for-profit Mozilla Corporation.
Linux may have a better chance of success in the future, as more of the functionality users want becomes available inside the Web browser, and the underlying OS becomes less relevant.
Most comment sections on news Web sites are junk, usually not worth reading. But on Slashdot, the comments are generally more entertaining and useful than the articles themselves.
Why is this? I think it's because of the clever moderating system. Ordinary users get to vote comments up or down, and the result is that the trash sinks to the bottom, and the good stuff gets highlighted.
So Wikipedea should try the Slashdot approach...let people vote on the edits that should be reverted, and which ones should be kept.
A while back, I hired a former HFT programmer. He was bright, but not six-figure talent.
If you're the best and brightest in any field, you can make a very nice salary. HFT requires some special skills, but in my experience hiring programmers, intelligence, hard work, and ability to learn quickly are more important than specific resume points.
They are going to have to decrease their caps a LOT MORE to put a crimp in video streaming. Our family streams about 5-10 hours of Netflix movies per week...our usage went from 7 GB to 18!
Slashdot Mirror
The analogy is flawed, because slaves are people, and people inherently have rights as human beings. During the U. S. slave trade, these human rights were trampled under the law.
Intellectual property, on the other hand, does not have inherent rights. There is no similar moral problem with considering intellectual property as property.
The concept of intellectual property itself is certainly debatable. But it would be hard to argue that it is inherently wrong for the law to recognize intellectual property, certainly not based on a comparison to the slave trade.
The fundamental question is, do authors and artists "own" their works? Do they have a right to control what they have created?
Sure, the "system" is stilted and unfair. But try buying a car. Do you think the dealer is going to give you a fair deal? NO WAY! They are going to use every trick and lie in the book to relieve you of as much money as they can, while making you think you're the winner. But just because the dealer is crooked, doesn't give you the right to steal one of their cars.
Publishers are equally crooked. They try to keep as much money as they can for themselves, depriving authors of what is rightfully theirs. But that does not give people a right to steal the copyrighted works.
So, if there is indeed a such thing as intellectual property (as every civilized nation recognizes), the "case" for piracy is just an excuse for theft.
That's why I have a folder called "Archived." As soon as I'm done with an e-mail, I move it to "Archived." (Got that idea from GMail.) That way, my Inbox doesn't become unwieldy, and I can still search for e-mails when I want them. I also get the benefit of being able to use the Inbox as a to-do list...if it's still in my Inbox, it still needs attention.
Your business has one employee, you. You are in business to offer programming (or other technical) services, in exchange for compensation.
In each potential change of employment, you face a decision about costs and benefits. Loyalty is a good thing, and is one of the factors. But it's not everything. Compensation, quality of life, travel requirements, friendships with co-workers, commute time...all of these are factors that go into a decision whether to stay or go.
When you think of yourself as a business, it allows you to look at your employment decisions more objectively, leading to better outcomes for you and for your employer. I've found that it is possible to go to your employer to ask for a raise, based on logical business-related principles, and do it without offending anyone or threatening to leave. If you are indeed as valuable as you think you are, the company will likely make a better offer, and no one has to be resentful about that.
So...this is Citigroup, the security experts, right? So now they are wireless frequency allocation experts too???
Maybe the same hackers that stole all that account information, made off with some frequencies while they were at it!
The usefulness of the data depends on its accuracy.
Part of my job is to write software that assists medical coders in selecting ICD-9 codes. Even with ICD-9, medical coders constantly use incorrect codes because nobody can absorb or know all of the possible distinctions. ICD-10 may be more precise, but that doesn't mean coders will KNOW about the new, more precise codes. They already often turn to a more generic code, rather than a more precise one, because they know the generic version already. So increased precision does not necessarily lead to better--or more useful--data.
As a software developer in the medical insurance industry, I see a couple of problems with your argument.
First, if insurance companies can find a reason to deny a claim, they will. Try going to one of the new free-standing ER clinics, many of which do not have contracts with insurance companies, and see how many hoops you have to jump through to get insurance to pay.
Second, insurance companies do not make money by taking a percentage of transactions. Their income comes from premiums, withheld from your paycheck each month. Their profit is the amount left over when you subtract claim payments and administrative overhead from the total income from policy premiums.
When television became popular, many people proclaimed the end of radio broadcasting. But today, radio is more popular than ever. Why? Because TV doesn't replace radio. Sure, it's more capable, but you can't easily watch TV while driving down the freeway at 70 mph, or while jogging or biking.
Likewise, e-mail doesn't replace fax. Sure, it's more capable in some ways. But fax delivery is automatically confirmed, e-mail delivery is just best-effort, no guarantees. E-mail isn't secure by any standards; fax is secure enough to be HIPAA-compliant. Fax is drop-dead simple, e-mailing scanned documents is still too difficult for many computer novices.
Until there is a better way to fax, the old fax machine is going to stick around.
Windows does NOT have anything that comes close to Google Desktop's "Browse Timeline" feature. I don't know how many times I've used this to look for something I saw a week or two ago, but couldn't remember details. THAT is a Google Desktop feature I will really miss.
Open bug counts are related to the quality of a product. The more a product is actually used, the higher the bug counts will be. Only a small fraction of those reported bugs, confirmed or not, will be critical to security or to the operation of the software.
Your house has bugs too! Get a good professional inspector, and see just how long that report will be. Get a second inspector, and the list will get longer. Keep hiring inspectors, and there will be no end to your defect list. But the house may still be a great place to live if the problems are minor.
The question is, What is the experience of most Firefox users most of the time? Does it meet their needs and perform well? Is it generally secure? These are harder questions to answer than bug counts, but they are more relevant.
Deleting folders with large numbers of files and sub-folders in Windows 7 takes inordinately long, far longer than rd /s. This is partly because it first scans the entire structure to count the files that will be deleted, so it can then try to estimate how long it will take for the delete to complete. The scan takes nearly as long as the delete itself! I hope they fix this in Windows 8.
As for the geologists themselves, well studies show the more education you have the less likely you are to believe this nonsense.
Creationists would argue that this is because educators and educational institutions are biased against creationism.
Tracfone is great as long as you don't need 3G (which I don't). I text and talk all I want to, and my total monthly bill is around $15. They even have QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen phones, and they have coverage EVERYWHERE.
Tracfone is not for everybody, but it at least illustrates the absurdity of 20-cent texts!
If medical malpractice insurance is the author's example of Armageddon, then things could certainly be worse.
According to mymedicalmalpracticeinsurance.com, malpractice liability insurance for a general surgeon in Texas is in the neighborhood of $50-60K per year. That is a very small percentage of the total income from all of the surgeries done by that surgeon. Other types of physicians have different rates, but they all amount to a similar small percentage compared to the total fees for services rendered. The cost of malpractice insurance cannot by itself be blamed for the high cost of medicine.
The patent wars ARE a problem, and the patent system DOES need an overhaul (as does the medical malpractice system). But it's nowhere near approaching catastrophe or forcing mass layoffs of programmers.
For most of us, the framework is more important than the language.
.NET. Finally, a complete framework that handled everything, or nearly everything.
Once upon a time, Borland C++ was the best Windows development language out there. OWL made dealing with the complexities of Windows messages and common dialog boxes much easier than standard C++ (not that Microsoft even had a C++ compiler at the time). Microsoft came back with MFC, and then WTL. Both were big improvements over OWL.
But then came
Frankly, I don't really care which language I use most of the time. I just want a good framework to provide the gears and wheels, so I can spend my time doing what I really want to accomplish, instead of being forced to create my own widgets.
All of your examples are either server software or developer tools. In these areas, open source software has been immensely successful. But the original article asked why Linux hadn't made a dent in the desktop / consumer market.
Android was the first (and only) Linux-based OS to be widely used by consumers...and this boom was definitely fueled by for-profit enterprises.
True, most LInux users use Gnome and KDE. But these Linux users are not typical consumers. You can't go to Best Buy (or even Fry's) and come home with a computer running Gnome or KDE, you have to install it yourself.
Overall spam volume is down, based on M86 Security and others. http://www.m86security.com/labs/spam_statistics.asp
My own spam rates via GMail, and my own domain, show spam rates down by 50% since last year.
It might depend on who you read. Try googling "spam statistics" and you'll get quite a mix of "spam is up," "spam is down."
Check the facts, the Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit entity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
You are correct about the Linux kernel, but nobody installs a "Linux kernel." It could be argued that the Linux kernel has been highly successful, since Android is based on it. The Linux desktop...KDE, Gnome, etc., are the parts of Linux that people see, and these have not made real inroads into the consumer market.
It's not about being old, it's about thinking you're old. At 45, I'm the youngest programmer on our team of 4. We do C#, ASP.NET Ajax, jquery, and others all day long, and run circles around young programmers.
Our oldest member, age 55, was starting to think he was too old. But when we had a new, more enthusiastic programmer join the team, he began to realize that he still had a lot to offer. His perception of his own age has decreased considerably.
Of all job markets these days, programming is one of the hottest (or should I say, warmest). BUT you might have to move to Texas or some other state that's in reasonable shape. Some parts of the country are rusting away, and no amount of experience or enthusiasm is going to help you there.
Linux has always been made by hobbyists, for hobbyists.
In the commercial software world, the distance between "functionally complete" and "release candidate" is very large and labor-intensive, i.e., expensive. Hobbyists can use the "functionally complete" version, but grandma has to have the polished product. Because of that extra expense, it generally requires a large financial interest to make that last mile of development feasible.
Most of the open source projects that have been successful with the masses are those that were backed by commercial, profit-making entities: OpenOffice (Sun), Android (Google), Red Hat...even Firefox is made possible by the for-profit Mozilla Corporation.
Linux may have a better chance of success in the future, as more of the functionality users want becomes available inside the Web browser, and the underlying OS becomes less relevant.
Slashdot has figured out how to fix this problem.
Most comment sections on news Web sites are junk, usually not worth reading. But on Slashdot, the comments are generally more entertaining and useful than the articles themselves.
Why is this? I think it's because of the clever moderating system. Ordinary users get to vote comments up or down, and the result is that the trash sinks to the bottom, and the good stuff gets highlighted.
So Wikipedea should try the Slashdot approach...let people vote on the edits that should be reverted, and which ones should be kept.
That's DEFINITELY not allowed!
Oh, and while they are at it, they should outlaw having children co-habit with their parents...ESPECIALLY if those parents have religious convictions!
No, but you might have to BE a god to make sense of today's Web sites using only Lynx!
A while back, I hired a former HFT programmer. He was bright, but not six-figure talent.
If you're the best and brightest in any field, you can make a very nice salary. HFT requires some special skills, but in my experience hiring programmers, intelligence, hard work, and ability to learn quickly are more important than specific resume points.
They are going to have to decrease their caps a LOT MORE to put a crimp in video streaming. Our family streams about 5-10 hours of Netflix movies per week...our usage went from 7 GB to 18!