As technology progresses, so do the demands placed upon it. Certainly people wouldn't be paid much money for creating 1996 applications in 2015, much like how people don't pay much for assembly language programmers from the 1950's, or COBOL programmers from the 1960's and 70's.
I think many multi-million (and even billion) dollar companies would disagree. Applets are still used a lot... on intranets, where they're well suited.
I think it just shows that the culture of Monsanto is so sick that they believe their own shit doesn't stink.
Capitalism isn't about "harm people if it makes a profit". Minimal social responsibilities cannot be ignored.
Corporations don't just care about profit
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Monsanto and PCBs
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...even though some executives and activists may think so. A corporation is a societal invention for the benefit of society, and hence must function within one.. satisfying many stake holders. The problem is that when you screw a group of stakeholders (i.e. the local community in favor of shareholders), the deleterious effects of such actions are often significantly time-delayed.
In the long run, either legal or market consequneces can punishes those that screw a stakeholder. However, as John Maynard Keynes says, "in the long run we're all dead." The iss ue at hand is not that the system is bad -- it's that WE NEED A COMPETENT REFEREE, i.e. an effective government and justice department to whip companies that are blind to their function as an organ of society for the productive use of economic resources through creating & filling needs.
A free market is the best system we know of to fairly meet societal and economic needs. Alternatives place the power in the "few and enlightened" in a socialist state. Anarchy would be a lot like a free market, only completely unchecked. The current system has checks and balances in place to remind less-than-bright corporations of their place in society, we just need to be vigilant to keep it functioning. There needs to be campaign finance reform. Why haven't the EPA et al been able to nail Monsanto to the wall? If there's a direct link between PCB and cancer, you can be sure there will be a major tobacco-company style lawsuit to hit the PCB companies hard for not following their societal responsibilites.
when you look at reality and realize that the vast majority of corporations last less than 20 years, and only a handful are over 50 years old. Read "Built to Last" by Collins and Porras.
"I hardly consider airplane logistics "forging into new territory and kicking the world's ass", by the way. Yes, it's a terribly involved problem, but it's also a boring one, and I seriously doubt that it would be significantly tougher in Java."
I think you've really proven your ignorance in this area. Rule-based expert systems are not for the faint of heart; one needs a dynamic language to even begin to approach the productivity needed to economically design such a system. To give an example, Object oriented programming in Java provides one inherent level of dispatch. LISP allows for multiple-dynamic-dispatch. In C++ or Java you'd have to create multiple-depth Visitors in order to achieve the same level of flexibility, and it would boggle the mind as to the complexity.
So, apparently tackling a complex problem is "boring". And creating a word processor *isn't* boring?
I guess I'm just astounded by your narrow-mindedness at "what is fun". Is it fun solving a routing problem that everyone's solved before 10 times (a word processor)? Or tackling an intellectual challenge that was once viewed as insurmountable - rewriting the airlines' antiquated pricing/logistics engines?
ITA software and Orbitz.com are revolutionizing an industry by creating a pricing & logistics system that saves millions of people hassle & money. Not to mention making millions of dollars for themselves in the process.
The only reason ITA could do what they did was that they recongized the power of expert systems, and their increasing importance. One will have a heck of a time doing that in anything other than a dynamic language like Lisp or Smalltalk.
is to abide by the principle "ensure choice exists". That means it's justifyable for Canada, for instance, to have Canadian-content minimums for media outlets and to subsidize its creative industries. So long as it doesn't prevent competition, which is basically preventing people from choosing for themselves.
"What if there is a monopoly (Microsoft) and huge barriers to entry (backward compatibility)? What if all the choices for a given product (e.g. DVDs) are supporting something I disagree with?"
Then disagree with it, challenge it, and fight it. If enough people agree, things will change.
The market system, as with democracy, is imperfect, and unfair.
I must stop. It simply isn't worth arguing with someone so deluded.
Challenge your assumptions. It's unlikely that I'm deluded, nor are you. We just have different perspectives. Writing me off like this leaves no room for communication or learning.
And I find myself completely disagreeing with your perspective, and I might add it seems to have no correleation with the dozens of Canadian friends I've spoken with on the topic that support America's position on this.
1) A "war", according to Merriam-Webster, can be defined as "a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism b : a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end". I think this clearly allows one to classify this attack as an act of war.
2) It's been said many times this has been a failure of intelligence, and that much is true. But one must recognize the political & legal constraints placed on the intelligence community since the end of the cold war. It's difficult to spy when spy's are politically unpopular.
As for the media's continued concentration on Bin Laden, I definitely think they're over doing it, but to counter-balance this, Colin Powell was very clear on NBC's "Meet the Press" this weekend that their Administration does not believe Bin Laden is -directly- responsible for these attacks, though it does have significant evidence that al Qaeda is behind it. Since he's the "leader" of that group, and has been indited for prior attacks, that does place a significant burden of responsibility on him.
3) The president's address was a clear plan of action. The Taliban deserves to be condemned for many reasons. As for "pissing off 4th world countries", would you propose the alternative of doing nothing, and allowing development of anti-American groups to grow unfettered? I think not. America wants to survive.
4) Many people in the press and the administration have repeatedly suggested that these attacks bare LITTLE resemblance to Pearl Harbor. The situation with the media is not as simple as you state. There are many opinions and views out there; comparasons with Pearl Harbor are one of many viewpoints.
5) 1984? Please point out the suspension of liberties that are taking place. Unless you're completely in the dark about this, there is are a tremendous number of politicians that place liberty above almost all else.
I'll point you to the repeated statements by the top members of Congress, all agreeing in a bipartisan way that we MUST preserve American values and liberties. The president even mentioned it in his speech. You're hearing what you want to hear.
6) Are you so dense to not see the reason behind this war on terrorism? This is about -survival-. A group of human beings, numbering in the tens of thousands, at the far fringes of the Islamic world wants to see ALL AMERICANS DEAD. This group also wants to see women's rights taken away and severe punishment to be dolled out to those who don't subscribe to their belief system. And they're willing to die for all of these beliefs. Not to mention their inconsistencies, in that they killed people from over 80 countries in the WTC attacks, not to mention other non-Americans in prior embassy bombings.
This is a group that stands against all of western philosophy: of liberty, freedom, and tolerance. It threatens our way of life by striking against our public. This movement must be stopped.
This is not about revenge. This is about keeping our freedoms and values alive in this world, without it disintegrating into terror. Terror and loss of hope brings rise to totalitarian and fascist approaches to governing, something we know all too well from the transition between WW1 and WW2.
What about the UN and NATO? NATO has opened the door to allowing members to give military assistance in this effort. "An attack on one is an attack on all."
As for your aside about Bush fixing the election, I'd suggest you stuff that comment back in your grimy pocket, it lends little credence to your point and further underlines how silly you're being. People don't care anymore. Grow up and move on, most of America alrady has. Bush has a 90% approval rating according to Gallup, that's the highest... ever.
I just finished writing a book explaining how it's nearly impossible to do anything useful with EJB 1.1 CMP.. EJB 2 CMP is much better but since implementations are still so new, I'd really look at Webgain Toplink. not a perfect product or support organization, but probably the most mature out there.
This is Microsoft's way of saying "if you're going to insult us, don't use our product". That's well within their rights. It's not evil. A bit petty, perhaps.
You're rationalizing the way you think things ought to be, not the way they are in reality. In reality, EULA's are part of contract law, and I have serious doubts if "half" wouldn't be MS customers.
No, it's not necessarily different. Many software applications for instance forbid -any- military use of their software product, primarily due to the author's political beliefs.
"A real long-term solution to the problem of terrorism will be to revise and rethink your foreign policy. If your foreign policy were not so baldly corporatist, so baldly and arrogantly benefiting the few at the expense of the many, international terrorism would begin to decrease.
"
The problem is that a corporatist agenda is very often the same as the "agenda of the people", since people (by and large) make up corporations. It's an interesting phenomena when these interests are in conflict. My model places the "people" at the center of power over the long term, since corporate legitimacy lies in the realm of serving customers in an economically performant manner. No customers & no performance = no company.
While many in the third world and the "new new left" view the U.S' pro-corporate policies as "benefitting the few", the reality is that these policies -would- benefit the "many" if the third world adopted a) democratic structures, b) a (mostly) just legal system, and c) a solid financial system. Of course, this approach is long term and not easy. The success of this approach, however, is clear given the experience Asian tigers (though the latter requirement, "solid financial system", is what's causing their latest turmoil, especially in Japan and Thailand).
While unchecked greed & exploitation does definitely occur, it is not the primary explanation for the failure of the third world to reach first world standards. The answer is extremely complex, but generally based on the observation that the intellectual elite usually exists in the first world, and really has no idea how to eliminate poverty without "doing what they did": using democratic policies and semi-regulated market structures.
Simply asking the U.S. to pony up its riches, as some do, is not a sustainable solution. It's a solution akin to "we're poor, so you must be too." I think, on the contrary, that countries in a rich position will be in a much better position to find a way to bring the third world up in progress, for the simple logic that the first world is not struggling to survive, and hence can focus on nobler ends. (Again, this is not to say that greed, exploitation, and evil does not occur; it suggests that there is also sufficient "good" in the first world to justify its continued opulence.)
anyway, just some random thoughts while i eat my toast
Given the recent direction of JSP in the direction of tag libraries and Struts, I'd say that JSP is quite well suited for the front end if you have a big one.
Define overkill? I have a frontend I'm creating that's well over 300 screens and 18 subsystems. I need maintainable screen flow and automatic form databinding. Will PHP really be more managable? Does PHP integrate with an object/relational mapping toolkit? Eventually I'll have to hook into Java for latter kinds of things, which implies I probably should be doing the whole project with J2EE to begin with.
Keegan is one of the most renowned historians on the topics of warfare, and World War 2 in particular. He is most definitely NOT an idiot, but you have to recgonize his perspective not about the practicality of eliminating encryption, merely posing the problem for thought.
Corporations aren't legally bound to serve anyone except their stockholders.
But the scope of corporations can't be confined to a legal definition. A corporation has operational scope: it's a construct of society, so is bound to serve varied economic interests -- usually implying the serving of a mix of employees, customers, shareholders, and the surrounding geographical / special interest community.
If it fails to maintain a relative balance among these in the long term, it will fail. Most companies have very short life spans these days due to this b.s. about "maximizing shareholder value".
Re:General Blustering and Posturing
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"Not all of them are. Some of them might think the DMCA's a great idea. But damn few."
I think you're wrong. It's inspiring to think this, but most programmers don't know what Slashdot is and don't really know what GNU is (though they probably know vaguely what open source is).
Remember that most programmers write on Windows or Macintosh, they're not used to the UNIX tradition, and don't have any grounding in RMS' philosophies.
"The PHB said, "Make me a copy protection scheme for the e-Book to guard our value drivers!" and they said "sir, yes sir!" and proceeded to implement it with the flimsiest piece of crap possible. "
This is a very caricatured scenario. I think the more objective appraisal is that those working for a commercial software company agree that they're in business primarily because piracy of their works is illegal; hence they're in favor of copy protections in general.
Now having said that, the treatment of Dimitri in this case probably would have more people questioning the grounds upon which he has been charged.
The DMCA needs cleaning up, but I really don't think the majority of people hate this law, and that's mainly because there's been a very poor educational effort coming out of the free software community beyond "abolishing copyright", something that sends those with moderate views running to the hills.
I don't believe we're at actual disagreement here. I believe the global IP system should be reformed in certain ways; not abolished. Though I think I have a qualm with some of your premises, which are detailed below.
- People developed notions of intellectual property in the 18th century because this was the first instance of when intellectual works could be wide spread due to the invention of the Gutenberg press. Before this time, only the elite few posessed (let alone read) written works.
But with this mass duplication comes a societal responsibility to encourage the creation of works valuable to society. "ideas" are not property in the traditional sense, but certain manifestations of them are due a level of protection to economically promote those with talent to create such works.
- Hence, the need for -some forms- of protection of creative works is historically difficult to dispute (the French Revolution's aftermath being an example, the constituation mentioning it being another example).
- The "3 part test of property" is one definition of property, but such a test is not universal. A synonmous definition of property (according to Merriam-Webster) is that of a legal "title". Another definition is that of a contract for a performer who's work is valuable.
- So, you're quite right that IP law is not based out of traditional law. Since IP is so diferent than regular property it has a whole different set of contraints, motivations, and purposes behind it. Most arguments against IP law set up the strawman that it "ought" to be based out of property law, and then set out to point out why it possibly can't be (which is obvious).
- "Entitlement" is the basis upon which intellectual property rests. The major problem seen with IP law is one of terminological confusion.
Intellectual property is a system of law that promotes a set of temporary economic protections for creative works. My argument (to my knowledge) never argued that intellectual property was a state of natural rights, so I fail to see why it's bogus.
I stated that applied knowledge is the new world scarcity and all developed societies are willing and justified in promoting a system of protections to promote creative works.
- "Information wants to be free" really implies "information wants to be duplicated", which does not defeat the notion of IP as I've outlined it above as a system of economic protection. Rather, it shows how copyright is inappropriate to the digital age with a negligable marginal cost for duplication. When duplication now primarily impedes consumers instead of competitors, there needs to be an alternative protection mechanism with similar intent.
Fundamentally, the purpose of copyright is twofold, from my understanding: a) the ensurance of remuneration for the originator (author or primary investor) in the creative work, b) the granting of temporary monopoly so as to ensure that economic resources flow to the creator instead of speculative opportunists that add little value to the creative process (which is the real economic value).
So the reformation of copyright will have to recognize that the creation of information is a service. Services are regulated under the realm of contract law. One has the right to render certain restructions under contract for the use of various services rendered -- which ties into the definition of property as "license" or "title".
Now having stated that service providers have a right to "license" their works, I think it would be difficult to argue in favor of restriction on access and duplication such as what the current DMCA supports (though, unfortunately, the legal tide seems to be solidly on the side of the DMCA for now). It can be argued that all access and duplication is effectively "fair use" once someone has been "entitled" or "licensed" to use the intellectual work. But this is a concept that needs further expansion, as we would require a universal "license" system in this case to ensure remuneration -- and this in itself poses tremendous logistical problems, but it may be the only workable system , as it's much more realistic than attempting to enforce the unenforcable (and undesirable for society at large, once it recongizes it)
So, to summarize, IP does exist -- it's not traditional property, such an argument is a strawman. It's a system of entitlement to ensure that economic value flows to those the market likes, thus promoting innovative creative works, and thus intellectual progress in specific areas of demand.
The lack of standards is a very good point; in fact it's the reason why I have POP/IMAP based account elsewhere. As for some of the rather stupid decisions between versions, that is a definitely amusing point as well.
So, I do recognize AOL has faults, but the main reason I use it is if I'm in a place like Northern Japan I can easily find a phone number through their software without having to call up technical support..
AOL used to allow users to grow in the old days as well.. I was an AOL user back in the C64 days when it was QuantumLink -- back then it was unique and fun...
AOL is easy to use, and it's everywhere. That's why I have a backup AOL account if I'm stuck in the boonies and want to get online with my laptop. I don't always use their services, but I sometimes find the news / entertainment areas to be worthwhile (not often though).
My father enjoys AOL chat rooms and message boards about specific subjects (woodworking, the X-Files, etc.) AOL IM is also very useful for him. It's very catered to that audience (not overly technical, but interested in the online world).
It's very easy to paint with broad strokes, but in reality there are intelligent people that use AOL by choice.
This is my real issue with the Libertarians of the world. There is no place in their world-view for the public project, done for the benefit of mankind. Everything must have a profit motive, and protecting profits has priority over all else.
This is just not so! If you want to create or support a non-profit organization for AIDS research, Libertarians would applaud (well, I would)!
But let's recognize the difference between a for-profit entity and not-for-profit. The former's mandate is to use economic resources productively to fill consumer needs.
The latter's mandate is to use donations to pursue a social agenda, with economic efficiency being (somewhat) irrelevant.
So, the task is to not complain about Roche wanting money, it's to A) vote for a government that will fund research, and B) create or donate to non-profit institutes.
Thanks for reminding me, I do need to make a trip to the loo.
The company publicized the information on how to make the drug -- that's called a patent. The company has NO authority over the government of Brazil. Brazil's government is sovereign over itself, and answerable only to the people of Brazil. The only interests of that govenment are the people of Brazil.
You're not confronting my argument.
I'm talking about the argument that profits are evil, which appears to be a view taken by many members of this forum.
But, to discuss the patent - naturally the company has no right over Brazil, but international organizations do have means of influencing Brazil's actions. (i.e. the WTO or WIPO). So, you see, the world is changing. Governments are losing their sovreignity because they have needs that aren't being met in by those governments - but those needs ARE being met by international corporations, (hence the trend towards globalization and free trade).
Now, its absurd to say that any company is going to go out of business b/c a few government's refuse to pay them and make their drugs w/o paying.
I never said that. I said that if this becomes a trend, it will be an unsustainable trend.
Drug companies make 10 - 100X the initial R&D cost. In fact, the R&D investment is earned back within a year -- usually 6 months.
Complete corporate costs & profit are the only figure that really matters when arguing about profit. Profit in terms of just the excess of R&D costs is very misleading. There are failed R&D projects to account for, overhead, risk, etc. that only can be analyzed by looking at the company as a whole.
Having said that, I generally agree that excessive profit is undesirable, however I'm not sure anyone can really claim to "know" what "adequate profitability" is beyond those actually running the business.
Also, companies WILL continue to operate even if they are LOSING money, and are in the hole. Take basic economics, fool.
I am an economist (academically, not professionally). I wouldn't claim to be an expert, but I am well aware of the "basics",thank you.
Companies may continue doing business even when they are losing money/in debt because going OUT of business would be even MORE costly.
The key word is "may", and it depends very highly on A) whether they can restore profitibility in due course, B) whether investors feel the level of profitability is sufficient to long term sustainability.
Considering you just told me to learn basic economics, please also note that refering to being "in dept" as similar to losing money makes you look like the fool.
That is, if they continue doing business for 5 years, they will lose say 10 million dollars, but if they declare bankrupcy they will lose 20 million dollars. So they continue doing business, until they lose less money by declaring bankrupty -- quite a while.
This is, uh, fuzzy math. You're picking numbers to suit your argument that has nothing to do with the situation I'm describing.
I'm discussing the general role of profit vs. loss. Companies respond to market needs, but since those needs are driven by economic demand, it will stop responding to those needs when profitabliity disappears. If they don't move on to other things, they will eventually lose money to the point that they're not appropriately using their resources. Sustaining such actions leads to bankruptcy, which is undesirable to not just the company, but all of society.
So, if you want companies to research things, you pay them. Or they'll stop.
For this situation in particular:
A company whose business is solely based on intellectual property a) must make a profit, objectively b) makes a profit by having better IP than other people, c) must prevent other organizations from "borrowing" it's IP, mainly because IP isn't just a bunch of "bright ideas", it's usually a body of work that takes tremendous economic resources to create in the first place.
IP law is a set of general principles that the developed world has worked out over the past century to promote progress because commercial organizations MUST make a profit in order to function and hence require a system of IP protection to enable a sufficient amount of profit to be accumulated to cover the costs of the future.
If you don't like the constraints inherent to for-profit institutions, then you have two choices:
a) donate to non-profit research institutes
b) vote in a government that spends your taxes on research.
Did Brazil do the right thing? I guess it depends on what "right" means. They certainly did the moral thing (in the short term).
But such actions may have seriously disasterous consequences in the long run if it turns into a trend where most developing countries flip the bird to the international economic and property system.
This is about a government that doesn't want to pay money that a corporation rightfully deserves.
There's a number of arguments floating around that have a tremendous amount of ignorance about the global economic and political system. I'll pick three:
1) "I can't believe people are justifying profits over people"
2) "Evil corporations make money at the expense of lives"
3) "AIDS research should be government funded"
So here's my counter argument:
- Profit is an objective necessity. It's not evil.
- Companies that aren't profitable go away. If they filled needs in the past, those needs will potentially no longer be met once bankrupt.
- Companies that research AIDS are doing so because there's a need in the marketplace.
- There's a need for AIDS research because governments aren't putting enough resources into it
- Governments aren't putting enough resources into it because their constitutents (i.e. those who democratically elected them) don't want them to. ("Cut taxes" , "cut spending" implies that something isn't getting done by the government anymore.)
Since everyone in this forum seems to be focused on "profits over people", I'm going to explain my position on that one mainly, for the sake of (ahem) brevity:
What do companies do with profit? Typically profit is placed in four areas: 1) "retained earnings", or re-investment in a company - 2) Dividends, or rewards to the owners of the company, - 3) Profit sharing, or rewards to the executives of the company, 4) Charitable donations.
The reality is that profit is mainly used as a tool for re-investment. It is secondarily used as a means of growing wealth for investors. In past times (centuries ago), profit was primarily used for growing investor wealth, but this has changed a lot as capital markets have evolved rely much heavier on "value growth" in stock prices.
Hence, profit, while an indicator of how investors will fare, is not necessarily the primary instrument by which investors gain wealth.
Well, if profit is used mainly for re-investment -- not for lining shareholder pockets, what happened to the profit motive? You know, the main reason that people are apparently in business?
Does profit tell us anything about *WHY* someone is in business in the first place? No.
Profit is an objective necessity for corporations to stay alive. A company that loses money for too long is "bankrupt", and won't be around for much longer, and doesn't do anyone any good. It squandered resources that could have been put to better use. Profit is not primarily about greed, it is however about performance -- using resources (i.e. money) effectively. It says nothing about what a corporation does day to day, or what a manager must do day-to-day (things like marketing, human resource management, planning, innovating, communicating, and researching)
The whole point to businesses in today's world is the nature of the relationship between organizations & society to meet our economic and social needs.
Some organizations (businesses) fulfill each other's needs by sensing those needs (marketing), and responding to them (innovation & entrepreneurship), receiving money as an exchange for the value they provide to a customer.
Other organizations fill society's needs by determining an agenda (organizing), finding people that agree with their needs (marketing) and asking for money to support them (donations). These are NGO's and non-profit organizations. (we need more of these)
The former organization type is concerned with the productive use of economic resources in filling a need. The latter organization type is concerned with fulfilling a social agenda, using donations to sustain themselves.
The whole reason we need profit is to ensure that these "for profit" organizations are run effectively and have a means to cover the inherent risks involved with any new venture.
Since they don't solicit for donations, profit satisfies the market need for capitalists - i.e. people who will give money out to a risky proposition if they can make more money out of it (it could be called "gambling" by the cynical, but large scale investment gambling is a major reason the world has progressed so quickly..)
So, it's not so easy that "people are dying for your stinking profit".. there's a reason for profit, and while Brazil's action is an isolated case, we can't view this as the beginning of a universal trend -- such a trend is not sustainable given our economic system (which will continue to remain so as no viable alternatives appear ready for the forseeable future).
Slashdot Mirror
As technology progresses, so do the demands placed upon it. Certainly people wouldn't be paid much money for creating 1996 applications in 2015, much like how people don't pay much for assembly language programmers from the 1950's, or COBOL programmers from the 1960's and 70's.
"Nobody writes applets anymore."
I think many multi-million (and even billion) dollar companies would disagree. Applets are still used a lot... on intranets, where they're well suited.
I think it just shows that the culture of Monsanto is so sick that they believe their own shit doesn't stink.
Capitalism isn't about "harm people if it makes a profit". Minimal social responsibilities cannot be ignored.
...even though some executives and activists may think so. A corporation is a societal invention for the benefit of society, and hence must function within one.. satisfying many stake holders. The problem is that when you screw a group of stakeholders (i.e. the local community in favor of shareholders), the deleterious effects of such actions are often significantly time-delayed.
In the long run, either legal or market consequneces can punishes those that screw a stakeholder. However, as John Maynard Keynes says, "in the long run we're all dead." The iss ue at hand is not that the system is bad -- it's that WE NEED A COMPETENT REFEREE, i.e. an effective government and justice department to whip companies that are blind to their function as an organ of society for the productive use of economic resources through creating & filling needs.
A free market is the best system we know of to fairly meet societal and economic needs. Alternatives place the power in the "few and enlightened" in a socialist state. Anarchy would be a lot like a free market, only completely unchecked. The current system has checks and balances in place to remind less-than-bright corporations of their place in society, we just need to be vigilant to keep it functioning. There needs to be campaign finance reform. Why haven't the EPA et al been able to nail Monsanto to the wall? If there's a direct link between PCB and cancer, you can be sure there will be a major tobacco-company style lawsuit to hit the PCB companies hard for not following their societal responsibilites.
when you look at reality and realize that the vast majority of corporations last less than 20 years, and only a handful are over 50 years old. Read "Built to Last" by Collins and Porras.
"I hardly consider airplane logistics "forging into new territory and kicking the world's ass", by the way. Yes, it's a terribly involved problem, but it's also a boring one, and I seriously doubt that it would be significantly tougher in Java."
I think you've really proven your ignorance in this area. Rule-based expert systems are not for the faint of heart; one needs a dynamic language to even begin to approach the productivity needed to economically design such a system. To give an example, Object oriented programming in Java provides one inherent level of dispatch. LISP allows for multiple-dynamic-dispatch. In C++ or Java you'd have to create multiple-depth Visitors in order to achieve the same level of flexibility, and it would boggle the mind as to the complexity.
So, apparently tackling a complex problem is "boring". And creating a word processor *isn't* boring?
I guess I'm just astounded by your narrow-mindedness at "what is fun". Is it fun solving a routing problem that everyone's solved before 10 times (a word processor)? Or tackling an intellectual challenge that was once viewed as insurmountable - rewriting the airlines' antiquated pricing/logistics engines?
ITA software and Orbitz.com are revolutionizing an industry by creating a pricing & logistics system that saves millions of people hassle & money. Not to mention making millions of dollars for themselves in the process.
The only reason ITA could do what they did was that they recongized the power of expert systems, and their increasing importance. One will have a heck of a time doing that in anything other than a dynamic language like Lisp or Smalltalk.
is to abide by the principle "ensure choice exists". That means it's justifyable for Canada, for instance, to have Canadian-content minimums for media outlets and to subsidize its creative industries. So long as it doesn't prevent competition, which is basically preventing people from choosing for themselves.
"What if there is a monopoly (Microsoft) and huge barriers to entry (backward compatibility)? What if all the choices for a given product (e.g. DVDs) are supporting something I disagree with?"
Then disagree with it, challenge it, and fight it. If enough people agree, things will change.
The market system, as with democracy, is imperfect, and unfair.
I must stop. It simply isn't worth arguing with someone so deluded.
Challenge your assumptions. It's unlikely that I'm deluded, nor are you. We just have different perspectives. Writing me off like this leaves no room for communication or learning.
And I find myself completely disagreeing with your perspective, and I might add it seems to have no correleation with the dozens of Canadian friends I've spoken with on the topic that support America's position on this.
1) A "war", according to Merriam-Webster, can be defined as "a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism b : a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end". I think this clearly allows one to classify this attack as an act of war.
2) It's been said many times this has been a failure of intelligence, and that much is true. But one must recognize the political & legal constraints placed on the intelligence community since the end of the cold war. It's difficult to spy when spy's are politically unpopular.
As for the media's continued concentration on Bin Laden, I definitely think they're over doing it, but to counter-balance this, Colin Powell was very clear on NBC's "Meet the Press" this weekend that their Administration does not believe Bin Laden is -directly- responsible for these attacks, though it does have significant evidence that al Qaeda is behind it. Since he's the "leader" of that group, and has been indited for prior attacks, that does place a significant burden of responsibility on him.
3) The president's address was a clear plan of action. The Taliban deserves to be condemned for many reasons. As for "pissing off 4th world countries", would you propose the alternative of doing nothing, and allowing development of anti-American groups to grow unfettered? I think not. America wants to survive.
4) Many people in the press and the administration have repeatedly suggested that these attacks bare LITTLE resemblance to Pearl Harbor. The situation with the media is not as simple as you state. There are many opinions and views out there; comparasons with Pearl Harbor are one of many viewpoints.
5) 1984? Please point out the suspension of liberties that are taking place. Unless you're completely in the dark about this, there is are a tremendous number of politicians that place liberty above almost all else.
I'll point you to the repeated statements by the top members of Congress, all agreeing in a bipartisan way that we MUST preserve American values and liberties. The president even mentioned it in his speech. You're hearing what you want to hear.
6) Are you so dense to not see the reason behind this war on terrorism? This is about -survival-. A group of human beings, numbering in the tens of thousands, at the far fringes of the Islamic world wants to see ALL AMERICANS DEAD. This group also wants to see women's rights taken away and severe punishment to be dolled out to those who don't subscribe to their belief system. And they're willing to die for all of these beliefs. Not to mention their inconsistencies, in that they killed people from over 80 countries in the WTC attacks, not to mention other non-Americans in prior embassy bombings.
This is a group that stands against all of western philosophy: of liberty, freedom, and tolerance. It threatens our way of life by striking against our public. This movement must be stopped.
This is not about revenge. This is about keeping our freedoms and values alive in this world, without it disintegrating into terror. Terror and loss of hope brings rise to totalitarian and fascist approaches to governing, something we know all too well from the transition between WW1 and WW2.
What about the UN and NATO? NATO has opened the door to allowing members to give military assistance in this effort. "An attack on one is an attack on all."
As for your aside about Bush fixing the election, I'd suggest you stuff that comment back in your grimy pocket, it lends little credence to your point and further underlines how silly you're being. People don't care anymore. Grow up and move on, most of America alrady has. Bush has a 90% approval rating according to Gallup, that's the highest... ever.
Tons of non-americans died in the WTC, a fact that i haven't heard mentioned on the news at all..
It's been mentioned quite a bit on CNN (when I've watched it) and was in particular a part of the President's speech to Congress.
I just finished writing a book explaining how it's nearly impossible to do anything useful with EJB 1.1 CMP.. EJB 2 CMP is much better but since implementations are still so new, I'd really look at Webgain Toplink. not a perfect product or support organization, but probably the most mature out there.
This is Microsoft's way of saying "if you're going to insult us, don't use our product". That's well within their rights. It's not evil. A bit petty, perhaps.
You're rationalizing the way you think things ought to be, not the way they are in reality. In reality, EULA's are part of contract law, and I have serious doubts if "half" wouldn't be MS customers.
No, it's not necessarily different. Many software applications for instance forbid -any- military use of their software product, primarily due to the author's political beliefs.
"A real long-term solution to the problem of terrorism will be to revise and rethink your foreign policy. If your foreign policy were not so baldly corporatist, so baldly and arrogantly benefiting the few at the expense of the many, international terrorism would begin to decrease.
"
The problem is that a corporatist agenda is very often the same as the "agenda of the people", since people (by and large) make up corporations. It's an interesting phenomena when these interests are in conflict. My model places the "people" at the center of power over the long term, since corporate legitimacy lies in the realm of serving customers in an economically performant manner. No customers & no performance = no company.
While many in the third world and the "new new left" view the U.S' pro-corporate policies as "benefitting the few", the reality is that these policies -would- benefit the "many" if the third world adopted a) democratic structures, b) a (mostly) just legal system, and c) a solid financial system. Of course, this approach is long term and not easy. The success of this approach, however, is clear given the experience Asian tigers (though the latter requirement, "solid financial system", is what's causing their latest turmoil, especially in Japan and Thailand).
While unchecked greed & exploitation does definitely occur, it is not the primary explanation for the failure of the third world to reach first world standards. The answer is extremely complex, but generally based on the observation that the intellectual elite usually exists in the first world, and really has no idea how to eliminate poverty without "doing what they did": using democratic policies and semi-regulated market structures.
Simply asking the U.S. to pony up its riches, as some do, is not a sustainable solution. It's a solution akin to "we're poor, so you must be too." I think, on the contrary, that countries in a rich position will be in a much better position to find a way to bring the third world up in progress, for the simple logic that the first world is not struggling to survive, and hence can focus on nobler ends. (Again, this is not to say that greed, exploitation, and evil does not occur; it suggests that there is also sufficient "good" in the first world to justify its continued opulence.)
anyway, just some random thoughts while i eat my toast
Given the recent direction of JSP in the direction of tag libraries and Struts, I'd say that JSP is quite well suited for the front end if you have a big one.
Define overkill? I have a frontend I'm creating that's well over 300 screens and 18 subsystems. I need maintainable screen flow and automatic form databinding. Will PHP really be more managable? Does PHP integrate with an object/relational mapping toolkit? Eventually I'll have to hook into Java for latter kinds of things, which implies I probably should be doing the whole project with J2EE to begin with.
Keegan is one of the most renowned historians on the topics of warfare, and World War 2 in particular. He is most definitely NOT an idiot, but you have to recgonize his perspective not about the practicality of eliminating encryption, merely posing the problem for thought.
Corporations aren't legally bound to serve anyone except their stockholders.
But the scope of corporations can't be confined to a legal definition. A corporation has operational scope: it's a construct of society, so is bound to serve varied economic interests -- usually implying the serving of a mix of employees, customers, shareholders, and the surrounding geographical / special interest community.
If it fails to maintain a relative balance among these in the long term, it will fail. Most companies have very short life spans these days due to this b.s. about "maximizing shareholder value".
"Not all of them are. Some of them might think the DMCA's a great idea. But damn few."
I think you're wrong. It's inspiring to think this, but most programmers don't know what Slashdot is and don't really know what GNU is (though they probably know vaguely what open source is).
Remember that most programmers write on Windows or Macintosh, they're not used to the UNIX tradition, and don't have any grounding in RMS' philosophies.
"The PHB said, "Make me a copy protection scheme for the e-Book to guard our value drivers!" and they said "sir, yes sir!" and proceeded to implement it with the flimsiest piece of crap possible. "
This is a very caricatured scenario. I think the more objective appraisal is that those working for a commercial software company agree that they're in business primarily because piracy of their works is illegal; hence they're in favor of copy protections in general.
Now having said that, the treatment of Dimitri in this case probably would have more people questioning the grounds upon which he has been charged.
The DMCA needs cleaning up, but I really don't think the majority of people hate this law, and that's mainly because there's been a very poor educational effort coming out of the free software community beyond "abolishing copyright", something that sends those with moderate views running to the hills.
I don't believe we're at actual disagreement here. I believe the global IP system should be reformed in certain ways; not abolished. Though I think I have a qualm with some of your premises, which are detailed below.
:)
- People developed notions of intellectual property in the 18th century because this was the first instance of when intellectual works could be wide spread due to the invention of the Gutenberg press. Before this time, only the elite few posessed (let alone read) written works.
But with this mass duplication comes a societal responsibility to encourage the creation of works valuable to society. "ideas" are not property in the traditional sense, but certain manifestations of them are due a level of protection to economically promote those with talent to create such works.
- Hence, the need for -some forms- of protection of creative works is historically difficult to dispute (the French Revolution's aftermath being an example, the constituation mentioning it being another example).
- The "3 part test of property" is one definition of property, but such a test is not universal. A synonmous definition of property (according to Merriam-Webster) is that of a legal "title". Another definition is that of a contract for a performer who's work is valuable.
- So, you're quite right that IP law is not based out of traditional law. Since IP is so diferent than regular property it has a whole different set of contraints, motivations, and purposes behind it. Most arguments against IP law set up the strawman that it "ought" to be based out of property law, and then set out to point out why it possibly can't be (which is obvious).
- "Entitlement" is the basis upon which intellectual property rests. The major problem seen with IP law is one of terminological confusion.
Intellectual property is a system of law that promotes a set of temporary economic protections for creative works. My argument (to my knowledge) never argued that intellectual property was a state of natural rights, so I fail to see why it's bogus.
I stated that applied knowledge is the new world scarcity and all developed societies are willing and justified in promoting a system of protections to promote creative works.
- "Information wants to be free" really implies "information wants to be duplicated", which does not defeat the notion of IP as I've outlined it above as a system of economic protection. Rather, it shows how copyright is inappropriate to the digital age with a negligable marginal cost for duplication. When duplication now primarily impedes consumers instead of competitors, there needs to be an alternative protection mechanism with similar intent.
Fundamentally, the purpose of copyright is twofold, from my understanding: a) the ensurance of remuneration for the originator (author or primary investor) in the creative work, b) the granting of temporary monopoly so as to ensure that economic resources flow to the creator instead of speculative opportunists that add little value to the creative process (which is the real economic value).
So the reformation of copyright will have to recognize that the creation of information is a service. Services are regulated under the realm of contract law. One has the right to render certain restructions under contract for the use of various services rendered -- which ties into the definition of property as "license" or "title".
Now having stated that service providers have a right to "license" their works, I think it would be difficult to argue in favor of restriction on access and duplication such as what the current DMCA supports (though, unfortunately, the legal tide seems to be solidly on the side of the DMCA for now). It can be argued that all access and duplication is effectively "fair use" once someone has been "entitled" or "licensed" to use the intellectual work. But this is a concept that needs further expansion, as we would require a universal "license" system in this case to ensure remuneration -- and this in itself poses tremendous logistical problems, but it may be the only workable system , as it's much more realistic than attempting to enforce the unenforcable (and undesirable for society at large, once it recongizes it)
So, to summarize, IP does exist -- it's not traditional property, such an argument is a strawman. It's a system of entitlement to ensure that economic value flows to those the market likes, thus promoting innovative creative works, and thus intellectual progress in specific areas of demand.
(Britney Spears... mmmm.. progress...
The lack of standards is a very good point; in fact it's the reason why I have POP/IMAP based account elsewhere. As for some of the rather stupid decisions between versions, that is a definitely amusing point as well.
So, I do recognize AOL has faults, but the main reason I use it is if I'm in a place like Northern Japan I can easily find a phone number through their software without having to call up technical support..
AOL used to allow users to grow in the old days as well.. I was an AOL user back in the C64 days when it was QuantumLink -- back then it was unique and fun...
AOL is easy to use, and it's everywhere. That's why I have a backup AOL account if I'm stuck in the boonies and want to get online with my laptop. I don't always use their services, but I sometimes find the news / entertainment areas to be worthwhile (not often though).
My father enjoys AOL chat rooms and message boards about specific subjects (woodworking, the X-Files, etc.) AOL IM is also very useful for him. It's very catered to that audience (not overly technical, but interested in the online world).
It's very easy to paint with broad strokes, but in reality there are intelligent people that use AOL by choice.
This is my real issue with the Libertarians of the world. There is no place in their world-view for the public project, done for the benefit of mankind. Everything must have a profit motive, and protecting profits has priority over all else.
This is just not so! If you want to create or support a non-profit organization for AIDS research, Libertarians would applaud (well, I would)!
But let's recognize the difference between a for-profit entity and not-for-profit. The former's mandate is to use economic resources productively to fill consumer needs.
The latter's mandate is to use donations to pursue a social agenda, with economic efficiency being (somewhat) irrelevant.
So, the task is to not complain about Roche wanting money, it's to A) vote for a government that will fund research, and B) create or donate to non-profit institutes.
Or, C) pay Roche what they want.
Please, you are full of shit.
,thank you.
Thanks for reminding me, I do need to make a trip to the loo.
The company publicized the information on how to make the drug -- that's called a patent. The company has NO authority over the government of Brazil. Brazil's government is sovereign over itself, and answerable only to the people of Brazil. The only interests of that govenment are the people of Brazil.
You're not confronting my argument.
I'm talking about the argument that profits are evil, which appears to be a view taken by many members of this forum.
But, to discuss the patent - naturally the company has no right over Brazil, but international organizations do have means of influencing Brazil's actions. (i.e. the WTO or WIPO). So, you see, the world is changing. Governments are losing their sovreignity because they have needs that aren't being met in by those governments - but those needs ARE being met by international corporations, (hence the trend towards globalization and free trade).
Now, its absurd to say that any company is going to go out of business b/c a few government's refuse to pay them and make their drugs w/o paying.
I never said that. I said that if this becomes a trend, it will be an unsustainable trend.
Drug companies make 10 - 100X the initial R&D cost. In fact, the R&D investment is earned back within a year -- usually 6 months.
Complete corporate costs & profit are the only figure that really matters when arguing about profit. Profit in terms of just the excess of R&D costs is very misleading. There are failed R&D projects to account for, overhead, risk, etc. that only can be analyzed by looking at the company as a whole.
Having said that, I generally agree that excessive profit is undesirable, however I'm not sure anyone can really claim to "know" what "adequate profitability" is beyond those actually running the business.
Also, companies WILL continue to operate even if they are LOSING money, and are in the hole. Take basic economics, fool.
I am an economist (academically, not professionally). I wouldn't claim to be an expert, but I am well aware of the "basics"
Companies may continue doing business even when they are losing money/in debt because going OUT of business would be even MORE costly.
The key word is "may", and it depends very highly on A) whether they can restore profitibility in due course, B) whether investors feel the level of profitability is sufficient to long term sustainability.
Considering you just told me to learn basic economics, please also note that refering to being "in dept" as similar to losing money makes you look like the fool.
That is, if they continue doing business for 5 years, they will lose say 10 million dollars, but if they declare bankrupcy they will lose 20 million dollars. So they continue doing business, until they lose less money by declaring bankrupty -- quite a while.
This is, uh, fuzzy math. You're picking numbers to suit your argument that has nothing to do with the situation I'm describing.
I'm discussing the general role of profit vs. loss. Companies respond to market needs, but since those needs are driven by economic demand, it will stop responding to those needs when profitabliity disappears. If they don't move on to other things, they will eventually lose money to the point that they're not appropriately using their resources. Sustaining such actions leads to bankruptcy, which is undesirable to not just the company, but all of society.
So, if you want companies to research things, you pay them. Or they'll stop.
For this situation in particular:
A company whose business is solely based on intellectual property a) must make a profit, objectively b) makes a profit by having better IP than other people, c) must prevent other organizations from "borrowing" it's IP, mainly because IP isn't just a bunch of "bright ideas", it's usually a body of work that takes tremendous economic resources to create in the first place.
IP law is a set of general principles that the developed world has worked out over the past century to promote progress because commercial organizations MUST make a profit in order to function and hence require a system of IP protection to enable a sufficient amount of profit to be accumulated to cover the costs of the future.
If you don't like the constraints inherent to for-profit institutions, then you have two choices:
a) donate to non-profit research institutes
b) vote in a government that spends your taxes on research.
Did Brazil do the right thing? I guess it depends on what "right" means. They certainly did the moral thing (in the short term).
But such actions may have seriously disasterous consequences in the long run if it turns into a trend where most developing countries flip the bird to the international economic and property system.
This is about a government that doesn't want to pay money that a corporation rightfully deserves.
There's a number of arguments floating around that have a tremendous amount of ignorance about the global economic and political system. I'll pick three:
1) "I can't believe people are justifying profits over people"
2) "Evil corporations make money at the expense of lives"
3) "AIDS research should be government funded"
So here's my counter argument:
- Profit is an objective necessity. It's not evil.
- Companies that aren't profitable go away. If they filled needs in the past, those needs will potentially no longer be met once bankrupt.
- Companies that research AIDS are doing so because there's a need in the marketplace.
- There's a need for AIDS research because governments aren't putting enough resources into it
- Governments aren't putting enough resources into it because their constitutents (i.e. those who democratically elected them) don't want them to. ("Cut taxes" , "cut spending" implies that something isn't getting done by the government anymore.)
Since everyone in this forum seems to be focused on "profits over people", I'm going to explain my position on that one mainly, for the sake of (ahem) brevity:
What do companies do with profit? Typically profit is placed in four areas: 1) "retained earnings", or re-investment in a company - 2) Dividends, or rewards to the owners of the company, - 3) Profit sharing, or rewards to the executives of the company, 4) Charitable donations.
The reality is that profit is mainly used as a tool for re-investment. It is secondarily used as a means of growing wealth for investors. In past times (centuries ago), profit was primarily used for growing investor wealth, but this has changed a lot as capital markets have evolved rely much heavier on "value growth" in stock prices.
Hence, profit, while an indicator of how investors will fare, is not necessarily the primary instrument by which investors gain wealth.
Well, if profit is used mainly for re-investment -- not for lining shareholder pockets, what happened to the profit motive? You know, the main reason that people are apparently in business?
Does profit tell us anything about *WHY* someone is in business in the first place? No.
Profit is an objective necessity for corporations to stay alive. A company that loses money for too long is "bankrupt", and won't be around for much longer, and doesn't do anyone any good. It squandered resources that could have been put to better use. Profit is not primarily about greed, it is however about performance -- using resources (i.e. money) effectively. It says nothing about what a corporation does day to day, or what a manager must do day-to-day (things like marketing, human resource management, planning, innovating, communicating, and researching)
The whole point to businesses in today's world is the nature of the relationship between organizations & society to meet our economic and social needs.
Some organizations (businesses) fulfill each other's needs by sensing those needs (marketing), and responding to them (innovation & entrepreneurship), receiving money as an exchange for the value they provide to a customer.
Other organizations fill society's needs by determining an agenda (organizing), finding people that agree with their needs (marketing) and asking for money to support them (donations). These are NGO's and non-profit organizations. (we need more of these)
The former organization type is concerned with the productive use of economic resources in filling a need. The latter organization type is concerned with fulfilling a social agenda, using donations to sustain themselves.
The whole reason we need profit is to ensure that these "for profit" organizations are run effectively and have a means to cover the inherent risks involved with any new venture.
Since they don't solicit for donations, profit satisfies the market need for capitalists - i.e. people who will give money out to a risky proposition if they can make more money out of it (it could be called "gambling" by the cynical, but large scale investment gambling is a major reason the world has progressed so quickly..)
So, it's not so easy that "people are dying for your stinking profit".. there's a reason for profit, and while Brazil's action is an isolated case, we can't view this as the beginning of a universal trend -- such a trend is not sustainable given our economic system (which will continue to remain so as no viable alternatives appear ready for the forseeable future).