I'm not missing the point at all -- I understand the loss of control. I think what hacker-types have a hard time believing is that most people *don't care* about losing control when it comes to some things. Hence the term "trade off".
- They can't patent the file format, there's plenty of prior art - If they use encryption, that's their choice. 90% of the market is Office anyway. - The DMCA does not outlaw reverse engineering. DeCSS was preliminarily banned because the judge felt it was a tool designed for the sole purpose of cracking encryption, which the DMCA *does* outlaw. - ASF ain't too popular, is it?
If there's an application that does something better than most anyone else, then I will use it regardless of proprietary file format. Vendor lock-in is a relative thing -- you have to deal with it all the time, it's the nature of software being so differentiated... Proprietariness is a trade-off.
There are always people smarter than you, but it takes a lot of brains in and of itself to be 'the first'.
Fraunhoffer's work was almost a decade-long effort producing a revolutionary music format. They were the innovators. It would be expected that a second such stab would take a LOT less time, because the idea is now out in the mainstream...
Actually, lots of office users really do appreciate the helpers. Power users eventually turn them off, but they're quite good for newbies.
And FINDFAST is good as long as you schedule it at the right times.
Welcome to the world you live in: Office rules the world, and even the MS-breakup isn't going to change that fact. If you want Linux to remain a hacker's OS, then no problems... if you want it to be a mainstream OS, it's going to need Office.
Uh, someone with a Solaris workstation for their day job probably would be using Solaris to surf. I had to do this for a while. And it was fine, despite the fact that I had to restart Netscape 2 or 3 times a day.
Everything trust and good will? I wish. No, actually the whole purpose of property-law and contract-law is to _guarantee_ certain rights of property transfer -- namely the right to be remunerated for your services if such a contract is agreed to by both parties.
A strongly upheld set of property & contract laws combined with a stable financial system and currency are the foundations of any modern economy.
The US Consitution supports IP rights so long as it is the will of the public. I maintain that it still is the will of the public to keep IP around because intellectual works are governed by scarce skill and talent -- something regulated best through a free market. As long as you're going to do that, you need to guarantee that money is in the equation somewhere.
Re:The public interest is served.
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Understood. I think reform is probably a good thing. Disney's lobbying to effectively give Mickey another 20 years of life is disturbing.
Re:Napster vs. The GPL
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Copyright term extensions are defintely a point of contention, but that does not mean copyright itself needs to be thrown out. There is a proliferation of intellectual works BECAUSE of copyright.
The public interest is served.
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The fact that we have a proliferation of intellectual works is because we have copyright. You can't change the fact that there is a scarce amount of skill and talent out there to write good music, write good software, or make good movies. That makes intellectual works an economically governed resource.
If the world en masse decides that "movies and books and software" isn't worth paying for anymore, then fine, repeal copyright. Or if they figure out a technology that ensures remuneration WITHOUT IP protection, then fine, repeal copyright.
Otherwise, the world wants more books, movies and software. And you do not speak for the world, thankfully.
Beethoven using a well-known melody or motif is quite different from sampling.
For instance, almost every popular dance music song (i.e. the macarena) usually spawns 10+ remakes that have subtle variations in the song (i.e. slightly different rhythm and key) such that it isn't copyright infringement.
I agree with this. As with all things economic, I think there's a trade-off, though. The question is not whether corporate sponsorships should be used - it is to what extent they should be used.
Coke vs. Pepsi arrangements are rather harmless.
Intel vs. Mac arrangements get more dangerous, especially since computer science programs shouldn't cater to a particular architecture... (though UNIX seems to be an acceptable common ground).
It's hard to balance the need for quality ($$$ for programs) with the need for quality (diversity of thought). I don't think there's an easy answer.
I agree with your statement of the philosophy of education, however I'm not so sure that agreements like this are typically a bad thing. I call this the "this university only has Coke" arrangements -- students aren't going to be learning LESS because they don't have access to Pepsi.
Sure, there can be incidents like this Intel case where there is a religious conflict of interest. Diversity of thought IS important, and should be protected, but I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water - corporate sponsorships CAN be win/win. The fight should be to find a solution to making them workable... not throwing them out, as some members of academia would have it.
Your handful of stock shares DO make you part of the investment class. Almost 70% of the stock market is owned through pension funds and mutual funds.. that is, the "worker class". oops.
While the orginal post was extreme, it's not a far stretch to project a sharp decline in intellectual works if IP goes the way of the dodo.
Actors, writers, etc. are in the profession for two reasons: a) love of the art, b) the "opportunity" to make a great living at it.
As soon as you remove (B), you'll be in a situation where less people will have time to pursue (A) because they're too busy working at a desk job.
The explosion in intellectual works over the past century has been because of strong IP law. If we let it erode, we're sending (through the market) a very plain message: "we don't want books or movies enough to pay for them".
But to say that the maximum tax rate in BC is 43% is just nuts
No, actually this is the actual maximum marginal rate. Do the math. Don't forget the standard deduction and full deductions for CPP and UI.
You also made several errors: - Provinces don't normally count federal surtax. B.C. might, but Ontario does not, afaik. - Using the u.s. exchange rate is a red herring because standard of living differences even out the difference except for u.s. gadgets like computer hardware. - With the recent budget, the upper tax bracket is being raised to $90,000 over the next 3 years. This is combined with a 3% middle tax bracket cut.
Obviously, if WA has no income tax, then Canada doesn't even compare.... but compared to NJ, NY, CA, etc. Canada is very similar - maybe 3-5% more in income tax.
Unfortunately the 7% GST on all purchases is another big hit.
But it is sad how in today's era of mass commercialism and consumerism, that any advances, especially technological ones, are eventually and pitifully reduced to a tacky marketable product all for the sake of a quick profit.
Oh come now. It's not all for the sake of a quick profit, it's about making something USEFUL for people.
Inventing packet switching is a big technological deal but it doesn't mean anything for an average joe until the international infrastructure is in place to actually use this technology.
Ditto for the light bulb, or the steam engine.
This is the difference between invention, innovation, and marketing. Invention is about creating new things. Innovation is about making new things useful. Marketing is telling people about it. You can't have any without the other.
Technical people, especially engineers, have a hard time understanding this.
Fact: Rights do not conflict. Anything that conflicts is not a right.
Counter-argument: Firstly, rights are invented by humans and are subject to human error. Up until several centuries ago there was widespread belief that people had a "right" to own slaves. This was proven to be unjustifiable, but not without a significant shift in understanding of what it meant to be a person (i.e. "all men are created equal").
Secondly, we already have an institution in place to determine if our existing notion of rights rationally conflict with one another. It's called the Supreme Court. So far, the supreme court feels that it is in society's best interest to grant copyright in order to ensure the proliferation of creative or intellectual works.
Assuming that society still wants lots of creative or intellectual works, copyright should stay. Why? My second argument:
Fact : There is no principle of scarcity at work in intellectual works, because data is just data - it is intangible and may be freely duplicated.
Counter-argument: Firstly, arguing from a perspective of raw data is useless because raw data *IS* useless unless placed in a particular context.
Secondly, placing raw data into a particular context is a prerequisite to gaining any utility out of that data. The purpose of transmitting, storing or using data has a purpose, i.e. some sort of utility is being derived from the data. A context can be a digital audio encoding scheme, a software binary format that runs on a particular operating system, etc.
Thirdly, once data is in a particular context, there is a particular configuration that will merit more or less utility. A configuration is the specific organization of that data: what does the music sound like? What does the software do?
Adding context to data is likened to transforming data into information.
Putting data in a specific configuration is likened to applying knowledge, skill and talent in the organization of information: organizing statements in a program, turning notes into a melody, etc..
Fourthly, there is a scarsity of skill, talent, and knowledge in being able to organizing data for maximum utility.
(In English, not everyone can sing quite like Frank Sinatra, or play the drums like Neal Peart, or play the guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughn, or program software like Bill Joy)
Fifth, If there is a principle of scarcity at work in configuring data to maximize utility AND maximizing utility out of said data is the ONLY SUCH PURPOSE for that data, then we must conclude that there IS a principle of scarsity at work in CREATING NEW configurations of data.
This assumes that creating duplicates of old data is a negligible utility relative to the utility gained from receiving a new work.
Drawing from that last argument:
- Since there is a principle of scarcity at work, a means of distributing economic resources is required to ensure that those with the most talent/skill/etc can spend most of their time fulfilling their skill or talent (i.e. they can make a living at it)
- Currently the most effective form of doing this is through the free market.
- In the past, copyright has been used to protect the interests of society by granting the authors or governors of works-for-hire a monopoly on their specific configuration of data (i.e. books, musical recordings, etc.).
Assuming society continues to feel that it benefits from proliferation of digital works such as digital music, software, digital movies, etc. in exchange for giving up some freedom with regards to using those works, it makes rational sense to extend this granting of rights into the realm of digital works.
Copyright always has been a trade-off: give up freedom to have more access to intellectual works.
The fight should not be against copyright itself. It should be against corporate inertia so we can legally trade and use songs in digital formats while ensuring artists & other interests get their due remuneration. It should also be a fight against attempts at over-extending corporate control such as the DMCA.
Though it may seem to be a political battle, this is false. The centre reason behind copyright is the economic principle of scarcity - the scarcity of skill, talent, and knowledge in the world. You can't win this fight on political grounds because you can't get around society's continued desire for these intellectual works.
The best way to win this fight is on economic soil: that is, through innovation and entrepreneurship.
... And one could argue that everything in the universe is arbitrary. What's the point?
Copyright has a long lineage of fairly easy to understand history & logic on why it was created and what it implies. I suggest you read up some of it. The DMCA tries to change it a bit and the question now is whether these changes are for the better or not.
Trade does not validate the policies of a particular country. It rather tries to encourage change through interdependency. So far, this has worked far beyond anything we could have imagined when the GATT (now the WTO) was formed post-WW2. The world is more prosperous because of it.
The leaders of the world in 1945 decided "never again" would there be a world war. After 30 years of armed conflict and isolationism, it became clear that the way to foster change is not through SHUNNING people but bringing them into the fold, even if you disagree with them. The global economy is a way of ensuring this doesn't happen again (as we become closer knit economically). You don't kill your customers.
This is not to say that restricting trade is not a powerful tool; in the case of South Africa, it was extremely effective. China, on the other hand, is way too big for this to be effective. We must try to change it gradually. Interdependence through trade is the first step in that process....
As for Cuba, that's a cold-war relic that really should be reconsidered. Soon.
Outright stupidity and thoughtlessness? You talking about you or me?
How the hell do you know whether I come from a middle class background or not? Oops, a stereotype. Anyone who disagrees with you must be ignorant middle class white trash, right?
Please think out of YOUR narrow mindset that the poor cannot empower themselves. They can, and they do. It just so happens that quite a few don't, and won't.
Are there people that can't empower themselves? Sure. Do we need to do more to help them? Yes. Not denying that. But that doesn't mean we should blow up the overall system. We need to evolve it.
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Significant portions of the Darwin codebase were lifted from FreeBSD. I don't believe it is just user-space programs.
I don't agree the dock is a mis-design, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here.
And I didn't say MS Office would be "big", I said it won't go away. Excel is way, way entrenched.
NeXT wasn't FreeBSD, but OS X is largely based on a Mach/FreeBSD hybrid.
And how exactly are they "handling the dock?" At the WWDC, Apple employees were scribbling like mad jotting down developer complaints about OS X.
And MS Office may not be interesting to you, but it's naive to think it's going away.
I'm not missing the point at all -- I understand the loss of control. I think what hacker-types have a hard time believing is that most people *don't care* about losing control when it comes to some things. Hence the term "trade off".
- They can't patent the file format, there's plenty of prior art
- If they use encryption, that's their choice. 90% of the market is Office anyway.
- The DMCA does not outlaw reverse engineering. DeCSS was preliminarily banned because the judge felt it was a tool designed for the sole purpose of cracking encryption, which the DMCA *does* outlaw.
- ASF ain't too popular, is it?
If there's an application that does something better than most anyone else, then I will use it regardless of proprietary file format. Vendor lock-in is a relative thing -- you have to deal with it all the time, it's the nature of software being so differentiated... Proprietariness is a trade-off.
There are always people smarter than you, but it takes a lot of brains in and of itself to be 'the first'.
Fraunhoffer's work was almost a decade-long effort producing a revolutionary music format. They were the innovators. It would be expected that a second such stab would take a LOT less time, because the idea is now out in the mainstream...
For a closed, proprietary format, there sure are a lot of word processors out there that support it.
Basically, when you have an application suite that is as pervasive as Office, the "free" vs. "non-free" argument becomes irrelvant for non-developers.
Actually, lots of office users really do appreciate the helpers. Power users eventually turn them off, but they're quite good for newbies.
And FINDFAST is good as long as you schedule it at the right times.
Welcome to the world you live in: Office rules the world, and even the MS-breakup isn't going to change that fact. If you want Linux to remain a hacker's OS, then no problems... if you want it to be a mainstream OS, it's going to need Office.
Uh, someone with a Solaris workstation for their day job probably would be using Solaris to surf. I had to do this for a while. And it was fine, despite the fact that I had to restart Netscape 2 or 3 times a day.
Everything trust and good will? I wish. No, actually the whole purpose of property-law and contract-law is to _guarantee_ certain rights of property transfer -- namely the right to be remunerated for your services if such a contract is agreed to by both parties.
A strongly upheld set of property & contract laws combined with a stable financial system and currency are the foundations of any modern economy.
The US Consitution supports IP rights so long as it is the will of the public. I maintain that it still is the will of the public to keep IP around because intellectual works are governed by scarce skill and talent -- something regulated best through a free market. As long as you're going to do that, you need to guarantee that money is in the equation somewhere.
Understood. I think reform is probably a good thing. Disney's lobbying to effectively give Mickey another 20 years of life is disturbing.
Copyright term extensions are defintely a point of contention, but that does not mean copyright itself needs to be thrown out. There is a proliferation of intellectual works BECAUSE of copyright.
The fact that we have a proliferation of intellectual works is because we have copyright. You can't change the fact that there is a scarce amount of skill and talent out there to write good music, write good software, or make good movies. That makes intellectual works an economically governed resource.
If the world en masse decides that "movies and books and software" isn't worth paying for anymore, then fine, repeal copyright. Or if they figure out a technology that ensures remuneration WITHOUT IP protection, then fine, repeal copyright.
Otherwise, the world wants more books, movies and software. And you do not speak for the world, thankfully.
Beethoven using a well-known melody or motif is quite different from sampling.
For instance, almost every popular dance music song (i.e. the macarena) usually spawns 10+ remakes that have subtle variations in the song (i.e. slightly different rhythm and key) such that it isn't copyright infringement.
Expecting remuneration is not being "in it for the money".
Rich artists can be good artists. (The Beatles. Pink Floyd. Picasso. Andy Warhol.)
I agree with this. As with all things economic, I think there's a trade-off, though. The question is not whether corporate sponsorships should be used - it is to what extent they should be used.
Coke vs. Pepsi arrangements are rather harmless.
Intel vs. Mac arrangements get more dangerous, especially since computer science programs shouldn't cater to a particular architecture... (though UNIX seems to be an acceptable common ground).
It's hard to balance the need for quality ($$$ for programs) with the need for quality (diversity of thought). I don't think there's an easy answer.
I agree with your statement of the philosophy of education, however I'm not so sure that agreements like this are typically a bad thing. I call this the "this university only has Coke" arrangements -- students aren't going to be learning LESS because they don't have access to Pepsi.
Sure, there can be incidents like this Intel case where there is a religious conflict of interest. Diversity of thought IS important, and should be protected, but I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water - corporate sponsorships CAN be win/win. The fight should be to find a solution to making them workable... not throwing them out, as some members of academia would have it.
Your handful of stock shares DO make you part of the investment class. Almost 70% of the stock market is owned through pension funds and mutual funds.. that is, the "worker class". oops.
While the orginal post was extreme, it's not a far stretch to project a sharp decline in intellectual works if IP goes the way of the dodo.
Actors, writers, etc. are in the profession for two reasons: a) love of the art, b) the "opportunity" to make a great living at it.
As soon as you remove (B), you'll be in a situation where less people will have time to pursue (A) because they're too busy working at a desk job.
The explosion in intellectual works over the past century has been because of strong IP law. If we let it erode, we're sending (through the market) a very plain message: "we don't want books or movies enough to pay for them".
I challange your assertion that it is ethically wrong for (undergraduate/graduate) schools to enter into these arrangements.
I hardly see how corporate sponsorships are tied to declining moral values. Corporations are not evil.
What moral principle are you invoking here?
But to say that the maximum tax rate in BC is 43% is just nuts
No, actually this is the actual maximum marginal rate. Do the math. Don't forget the standard deduction and full deductions for CPP and UI.
You also made several errors:
- Provinces don't normally count federal surtax. B.C. might, but Ontario does not, afaik.
- Using the u.s. exchange rate is a red herring because standard of living differences even out the difference except for u.s. gadgets like computer hardware.
- With the recent budget, the upper tax bracket is being raised to $90,000 over the next 3 years. This is combined with a 3% middle tax bracket cut.
Obviously, if WA has no income tax, then Canada doesn't even compare.... but compared to NJ, NY, CA, etc. Canada is very similar - maybe 3-5% more in income tax.
Unfortunately the 7% GST on all purchases is another big hit.
But it is sad how in today's era of mass commercialism and consumerism, that any advances, especially technological ones, are eventually and pitifully reduced to a tacky marketable product all for the sake of a quick profit.
Oh come now. It's not all for the sake of a quick profit, it's about making something USEFUL for people.
Inventing packet switching is a big technological deal but it doesn't mean anything for an average joe until the international infrastructure is in place to actually use this technology.
Ditto for the light bulb, or the steam engine.
This is the difference between invention, innovation, and marketing. Invention is about creating new things. Innovation is about making new things useful. Marketing is telling people about it. You can't have any without the other.
Technical people, especially engineers, have a hard time understanding this.
Some facts you got wrong:
Fact: Rights do not conflict. Anything that conflicts is not a right.
Counter-argument: Firstly, rights are invented by humans and are subject to human error. Up until several centuries ago there was widespread belief that people had a "right" to own slaves. This was proven to be unjustifiable, but not without a significant shift in understanding of what it meant to be a person (i.e. "all men are created equal").
Secondly, we already have an institution in place to determine if our existing notion of rights rationally conflict with one another. It's called the Supreme Court. So far, the supreme court feels that it is in society's best interest to grant copyright in order to ensure the proliferation of creative or intellectual works.
Assuming that society still wants lots of creative or intellectual works, copyright should stay. Why? My second argument:
Fact : There is no principle of scarcity at work in intellectual works, because data is just data - it is intangible and may be freely duplicated.
Counter-argument: Firstly, arguing from a perspective of raw data is useless because raw data *IS* useless unless placed in a particular context.
Secondly, placing raw data into a particular context is a prerequisite to gaining any utility out of that data. The purpose of transmitting, storing or using data has a purpose, i.e. some sort of utility is being derived from the data. A context can be a digital audio encoding scheme, a software binary format that runs on a particular operating system, etc.
Thirdly, once data is in a particular context, there is a particular configuration that will merit more or less utility. A configuration is the specific organization of that data: what does the music sound like? What does the software do?
Adding context to data is likened to transforming data into information.
Putting data in a specific configuration is likened to applying knowledge, skill and talent in the organization of information: organizing statements in a program, turning notes into a melody, etc..
Fourthly, there is a scarsity of skill, talent, and knowledge in being able to organizing data for maximum utility.
(In English, not everyone can sing quite like Frank Sinatra, or play the drums like Neal Peart, or play the guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughn, or program software like Bill Joy)
Fifth, If there is a principle of scarcity at work in configuring data to maximize utility AND maximizing utility out of said data is the ONLY SUCH PURPOSE for that data, then we must conclude that there IS a principle of scarsity at work in CREATING NEW configurations of data.
This assumes that creating duplicates of old data is a negligible utility relative to the utility gained from receiving a new work.
Drawing from that last argument:
- Since there is a principle of scarcity at work, a means of distributing economic resources is required to ensure that those with the most talent/skill/etc can spend most of their time fulfilling their skill or talent (i.e. they can make a living at it)
- Currently the most effective form of doing this is through the free market.
- In the past, copyright has been used to protect the interests of society by granting the authors or governors of works-for-hire a monopoly on their specific configuration of data (i.e. books, musical recordings, etc.).
Assuming society continues to feel that it benefits from proliferation of digital works such as digital music, software, digital movies, etc. in exchange for giving up some freedom with regards to using those works, it makes rational sense to extend this granting of rights into the realm of digital works.
Copyright always has been a trade-off: give up freedom to have more access to intellectual works.
The fight should not be against copyright itself. It should be against corporate inertia so we can legally trade and use songs in digital formats while ensuring artists & other interests get their due remuneration. It should also be a fight against attempts at over-extending corporate control such as the DMCA.
Though it may seem to be a political battle, this is false. The centre reason behind copyright is the economic principle of scarcity - the scarcity of skill, talent, and knowledge in the world. You can't win this fight on political grounds because you can't get around society's continued desire for these intellectual works.
The best way to win this fight is on economic soil: that is, through innovation and entrepreneurship.
... And one could argue that everything in the universe is arbitrary. What's the point?
Copyright has a long lineage of fairly easy to understand history & logic on why it was created and what it implies. I suggest you read up some of it. The DMCA tries to change it a bit and the question now is whether these changes are for the better or not.
Trade does not validate the policies of a particular country. It rather tries to encourage change through interdependency. So far, this has worked far beyond anything we could have imagined when the GATT (now the WTO) was formed post-WW2. The world is more prosperous because of it.
The leaders of the world in 1945 decided "never again" would there be a world war. After 30 years of armed conflict and isolationism, it became clear that the way to foster change is not through SHUNNING people but bringing them into the fold, even if you disagree with them. The global economy is a way of ensuring this doesn't happen again (as we become closer knit economically). You don't kill your customers.
This is not to say that restricting trade is not a powerful tool; in the case of South Africa, it was extremely effective. China, on the other hand, is way too big for this to be effective. We must try to change it gradually. Interdependence through trade is the first step in that process....
As for Cuba, that's a cold-war relic that really should be reconsidered. Soon.
Outright stupidity and thoughtlessness? You talking about you or me?
How the hell do you know whether I come from a middle class background or not? Oops, a stereotype. Anyone who disagrees with you must be ignorant middle class white trash, right?
Please think out of YOUR narrow mindset that the poor cannot empower themselves. They can, and they do. It just so happens that quite a few don't, and won't.
Are there people that can't empower themselves? Sure. Do we need to do more to help them? Yes. Not denying that. But that doesn't mean we should blow up the overall system. We need to evolve it.