The way to make money selling Free Software is to price it so high that nobody will burn a copy for their friends. "I payed $3000 for that. Buy your own d*** copy!"
Of course, perhaps HP is also fixing it up so it only runs with their stuff. That's another great way to make money on Free Software. Sell it as an option for something else, and make sure it's useless unless it's bundled with the Something Else. The key here is what you bundle with it. Bundling it with support gives you a disencentive to produce quality Free Software, but bundling it with hardware doesn't, at least not directly. If hardware vendors end up dominating the software market, they are likely to produce only a few killer apps, but at least they will put effort into those apps to reduce support calls.
Of course, Free Software tends to repel 3rd party software vendors. Perhaps Bill and Company gave 3rd party software vendors a bad reputation, OTOH, if the Free Software that comes with the system lags in features, then 3rd party vendors who are "pure plays" in the software market will step in, and people will pay money for 3rd party software that does more than the stock install. Then we are back to square one, with some future Microsoft breathing life into the 21st century's equivalent of the stale, boring mainframe world.
Somebody else posted a link earlier, but I'll re-post it. It's the GNU Manifesto, one of the earliest GNU documents:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
Just do a keyword search for "Software Tax".
This is not the only indicator of Stallman's desires to implement such a tax. He has spoken for and worked with groups who favor government involvement. This aspect of his politic is intentionally played down because he knows it would be unpopular in many quarters.
The bit about guns comes from the fact that taxes are, ultimately, collected at the barrel of a gun. I didn't mean to imply that RMS *or* ESR wanted to personally go around holding people up. I think you're smart enough to realize that, but I just thought I should give a gentle reminder to people.
OK so ESR wants the government to enforce IP rights, ultimately, by using guns if need be.
RMS would like the government to collect a software tax to fund his "freedom", ultimately, by using guns if need be.
Same shit. Different toilet. Right?
Well, from my POV the ESR model creates lots of little "micro states" that each carve out a little monopoly under the "umbrella state". Under the RMS model the umbrella state becomes the only state. Then we have all the same problems associated with government monopolies. In other words, the FSF and Uncle Sam become Microsoft, except that competing with them isn't just difficult--it's illegal.
OK, the more I hear about XP, the less I like. I don't see myself buying XP anytime soon, and that's a shame because I was looking forward to continuing to use all my Windows apps on the latest and greatest hardware with the latest and greatest software.
This reminds me a lot of Netscape. Netscape peaked with 3.x of their browser. I seem to remember using it for what seemed like an eternity until IE 4.x, and the only reason I switched to IE was because OE was so much better than Eudora and Netscape Mail.
I think MS may have peaked with Windows98. From this point forward, it could be all down hill. The only question is what will replace Windows? Sorry guys, I just don't see Linux doing it for me. I could however, be easily persuaded to switch to OS-X if it were available for x86. I would even pay $200 for an x86 OS-X if I thought it had the staying power that Windows has had. Maybe Palm will keep going with Desktop Be, but that doesn't have the huge app base that a *NIX based OS does, and quite frankly I'm reluctant to go with any small market "alternative" OS.
I'm seeing a lot of disinformation here about the plugin API. It is currently possible to write a plugin DLL that will work with both Netscape Navigator and IE. There are a few places where the two browsers do things differently, but the intersection of functionality is sufficient to make writing compatable plugins a reasonable thing to do. So, at the very least it will still be possible to use most of your plugins with Netscape, and developers of IE plugins will just have to tweak their code a little bit, unless they were stupid enough to commit to features not supported by Netscape.
So, what will my solution be? Probably not to abandon Windows. I may actually haul out my old Netscape CD and install it. Who knows, the Mozilla project could actually get a big shot in the arm from this. I think MS is seriously shooting themselves in the foot with this... I mean, they've got me re-thinking Mozilla now, and if you had asked me about it yesterday I would have said something like "why would I want to run that? IE is so more stable".
Proprietary software is an exercise of power, and it harms the users by denying their freedom.
If I use program X, I have the freedom to do what program X allows me to do. "Free" software that lags in features actually conveys *less* freedom, not more. Furthermore, Joe cannot oppress me simply by offering a product for sale. Suggesting otherwise is inherently elitist, tantamount to suggesting that we simpletons are capable of being held up by sending a letter that says "i have a gun".
When users lack the freedoms that define Free Software, they can't tell what the software is doing, can't check for back doors, can't monitor possible viruses and worms, can't find out what personal information is being reported (or stop the reports, even if they do find out).
In order to exercise these freedoms, you need only have access to the source, not the right to distribute it without compensating the developer. MFC meets these requirements, as do products under the SCSL and other licenses that reveal the source without stripping developers of their copyright priveleges.
If it breaks, they can't fix it; they have to wait for the developer to exercise its power to do so.
With Open Source/Free Software, you still have to wait for a developer to fix it, unless you yourself are a developer. While it's true that turnaround times for critical security fixes are often faster in OSS than closed source; new features often lag by months, even years. Why? As you said yourself, few people are software developers. People still have to wait for developers to add features, but because those developers aren't directly compensated for their work, the wait is often longer. The best example is Linux drivers.
If the software simply isn't quite what they need, they are stuck with it. They can't help each other improve it.
They can buy some other product. If they are developers, they can compete and win. It's called the Free Enterprise system. It's my system. It's America's system, and God willing it will continue to be our system.
That's my little bit to help "the people". I know, I could have done more, but you have a responsability too. You have to think for yourself. Don't let yourself be swayed by rhetoric; not leftist rhetoric, not my rhetoric, not anybody's.
Wake up and smell the coffee! The FSF is just another "special interest" that falls under the umbrella of the Democratic Party. When the time is right, they will push for government intervention, regulation, and the expansion of beurocracy to serve their cause. They will make things *worse* in the long run, not better.
What? Well, last time I checked, Free Speech meant that authors could say and publish whatever they want with a few narrow exceptions (shouting Fire! in a crowded theatre, libel, fraud, etc.).
Throughout the industrial age, there was little disagreement about this. If there was, then the New York Times would have been criticized by the likes of RMS for not being Free Speech. After all, they copyright all their articles and you can't just reprint them in some other newspaper. There are few if any compelling arguments for things to be any different in the digital age.
This business of "Free Speech" and "Free Beer" is just a subterfuge. Millions of people have picked it up and ran with it because it allows them to equate their desires with their rights.
...was too big for Notepad to open when I viewed source on it. One of my little rules of thumb is that a web page should never get that big. I lost interest about half way through it. You can call me an LD'd short-attention span impatient kind of guy if you like, but there is something to be said for being concise and to the point. In other words, cut to the chase! Everybody remembered Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Nobody remembered the guy who spoke for two hours before Lincoln.
If you read that, you'd realize he wore a pressure suit. However, one of his gloves malfunctioned, causing his hand to expand to twice its normal size. (!). I would have aborted at that point, but that's not the way these guys play things.
No, never do that to anybody. Just send them money. It will keep aluminized plastic and cardboard out of the landfill. It will be almost pure profit for the company.
More OSS developers need to be proactive when it comes to getting $. People shouldn't have to ask this question. I think developers would be surprised if they used a little line that said something like "you don't need to, but it'd be appreciated if you sent a check to... ".
It's amazing what you can get sometimes just by asking. Anybody who's read Feynman should get the humorous reference in the title of this post.
You start to notice things at 10,000. I know that from personal experience. 14,000 made me sick, but if I had been in Denver longer than a week, it would have been no problem. Yep, I drove my car up Mt. Evans and regretted it later. Of course, I'm from an area where the average alt. is less than 1000. If you live in a high area, your tolerance will be greater.
People pushing the limits of human endurance have ascended Everest without oxygen. That's 29,000+. I wouldn't be surprised if some AF pilots have survived short periods much higher. Those guys are in top shape. There are documented cases of people stowing away in unpressurized wheel wells of jumbo jets and living to tell the tale. They may have exceeded 30,000.
I think it goes without saying that exposure to 100,000 is instant death.
The point is moot, since this is an unmanned craft. 80,000 is an impressive altitude. You can see a nearly black sky, and the curve of the Earth. I wonder if anybody has considered the tourism potential of something like this, with a pressurized cabin and space suits of course. I would want a space suit in case the cabin pressure failed.
The idealists may not start out wanting to f*** you, but all too often they enter what I like to call the "dictator's delusion".
It works something like this:
Step 1. "The World would be great if everybody (blank)ed". This is the essence of idealism.
Step 2. A few people will (blank) but not everybody. Laws are passed to encourage people to (blank).
Step 3. Encouraging people to (blank) becomes a proxy for making the world a better place.
Step 4. The delusion is complete. The leaders of the revolution totally forget about making the world a better place, and cling stubbornly to the ideal that (blank) will do that. They forget the fundamental laws like "love thy neighbor" and cling to their preconceived notions of what is best, even when it is demonstrably flawed. Two famous examples: The Pharisees in the Bible and the leaders of any "communist" nation refusing to reform while the proletariat starves. Both groups started out with an ideal. In the first case it was religious, and in the second place political. The result is the same though.
I hope you get this. I can't tell you how many times I've frustrated people who try to pigeon-hole me into either a "leftist" or "rightest" category. Both are "ideals" and flawed because There is no algorithm for right living.
I thought I did a fair job expositing the flaws of both capitalists and idealists, the implication being that they will both f*** you, just in different ways and at different times. How is that idealist?
I feel the reason for running this project is wrong. "Let's start a project so we can register loads of patents" should instead be "Let's start a project to benefit humanity"
Omigosh! You mean... the guys who run this experiment are... ALIENS?!
In all seriousness, some of the *worst* disasters have been brought about by people trying to "benefit humanity". Crack-dealer infested housing projects, Eugenics etc...
That's not to say that capitalists don't screw up too, but I maintain a healthy skepticism towards altruists. So these guys want to patent stuff. Big deal. At least we know where we stand with them. When the idealists get a hold of things, you never know how they are going to f*** you.
This reminds me of teachers in school. There were many different kinds of teachers, but I'm thinking of two specific types. The first was the stern old man with the ruler. On the first day of class you thought it was going to be miserable, but then you got to know him, learned a lot, and by the last day you missed him. The second was the hippy teacher with the tie-die and the long hair. On the first day, you thought it would be an easy class, but then he had to lay down the law and it turned out that he wasn't very competent either.
The sorting program sounds interesting, but how does he know it works for any data set? If he can't understand it, he can't prove that.
Most likely, he evolved a program that sorts the data sets he fed it, and not much else. Even if it sorts a few other sets, I still wouldn't want to rely on it sorting my data.
That's the problem with most GA programs--they tend to be *very* sensitive to specific conditions. A while back there was an article about a tone descriminator designed using GA. It only worked within a very narrow temperature range, which was the range in the lab at which it was designed.
Re:Quake 4: Attack of the Clones
on
Quake 4 Announced
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Maybe they should call it Automatics for the People and get REM to do the sounds this time.
Yeah, well, at least Americans don't have their noses in the air. Hey... wait a second... a "spork" user ID? This is an obvious troll. I bet you're from the Bronx. Nice troll though.
Slashdot Mirror
Then: Tag! Your it.
Now: I logged 38 tag attempts today, and successfully evaded becoming "it" 17 times.
Then: When I grow up, I want to be a banker like my father.
Now: Stop pulling my hair, Bobby! You almost screwed up my limit price.
Then: You've got cooties.
Now: I've got cooties? Is it cooties 3.0, or cooties 3.1?
Then: Evel Kneivel jumped the Grand Canyon! Pass it on.
Now: Oh no, not the Evel Kneivel spam again!!!
This ought to be tied in with H-Anim and X3d.
Otherwise, the will be re-inventing the wheel and conflicting with existing standards.
The way to make money selling Free Software is to price it so high that nobody will burn a copy for their friends. "I payed $3000 for that. Buy your own d*** copy!"
Of course, perhaps HP is also fixing it up so it only runs with their stuff. That's another great way to make money on Free Software. Sell it as an option for something else, and make sure it's useless unless it's bundled with the Something Else. The key here is what you bundle with it. Bundling it with support gives you a disencentive to produce quality Free Software, but bundling it with hardware doesn't, at least not directly. If hardware vendors end up dominating the software market, they are likely to produce only a few killer apps, but at least they will put effort into those apps to reduce support calls.
Of course, Free Software tends to repel 3rd party software vendors. Perhaps Bill and Company gave 3rd party software vendors a bad reputation, OTOH, if the Free Software that comes with the system lags in features, then 3rd party vendors who are "pure plays" in the software market will step in, and people will pay money for 3rd party software that does more than the stock install. Then we are back to square one, with some future Microsoft breathing life into the 21st century's equivalent of the stale, boring mainframe world.
That post wasn't plain enough.
Somebody else posted a link earlier, but I'll re-post it. It's the GNU Manifesto, one of the earliest GNU documents:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
Just do a keyword search for "Software Tax".
This is not the only indicator of Stallman's desires to implement such a tax. He has spoken for and worked with groups who favor government involvement. This aspect of his politic is intentionally played down because he knows it would be unpopular in many quarters.
The bit about guns comes from the fact that taxes are, ultimately, collected at the barrel of a gun. I didn't mean to imply that RMS *or* ESR wanted to personally go around holding people up. I think you're smart enough to realize that, but I just thought I should give a gentle reminder to people.
OK so ESR wants the government to enforce IP rights, ultimately, by using guns if need be.
RMS would like the government to collect a software tax to fund his "freedom", ultimately, by using guns if need be.
Same shit. Different toilet. Right?
Well, from my POV the ESR model creates lots of little "micro states" that each carve out a little monopoly under the "umbrella state". Under the RMS model the umbrella state becomes the only state. Then we have all the same problems associated with government monopolies. In other words, the FSF and Uncle Sam become Microsoft, except that competing with them isn't just difficult--it's illegal.
OK, the more I hear about XP, the less I like. I don't see myself buying XP anytime soon, and that's a shame because I was looking forward to continuing to use all my Windows apps on the latest and greatest hardware with the latest and greatest software.
This reminds me a lot of Netscape. Netscape peaked with 3.x of their browser. I seem to remember using it for what seemed like an eternity until IE 4.x, and the only reason I switched to IE was because OE was so much better than Eudora and Netscape Mail.
I think MS may have peaked with Windows98. From this point forward, it could be all down hill. The only question is what will replace Windows? Sorry guys, I just don't see Linux doing it for me. I could however, be easily persuaded to switch to OS-X if it were available for x86. I would even pay $200 for an x86 OS-X if I thought it had the staying power that Windows has had. Maybe Palm will keep going with Desktop Be, but that doesn't have the huge app base that a *NIX based OS does, and quite frankly I'm reluctant to go with any small market "alternative" OS.
I'm seeing a lot of disinformation here about the plugin API. It is currently possible to write a plugin DLL that will work with both Netscape Navigator and IE. There are a few places where the two browsers do things differently, but the intersection of functionality is sufficient to make writing compatable plugins a reasonable thing to do. So, at the very least it will still be possible to use most of your plugins with Netscape, and developers of IE plugins will just have to tweak their code a little bit, unless they were stupid enough to commit to features not supported by Netscape.
So, what will my solution be? Probably not to abandon Windows. I may actually haul out my old Netscape CD and install it. Who knows, the Mozilla project could actually get a big shot in the arm from this. I think MS is seriously shooting themselves in the foot with this... I mean, they've got me re-thinking Mozilla now, and if you had asked me about it yesterday I would have said something like "why would I want to run that? IE is so more stable".
Microsoft should be split into 3.14159... pieces. So that everyone can have a piece of the PI.
Governor Glendenning was unavailable for comment. One can only speculate as to the level of his involvement.
Proprietary software is an exercise of power, and it harms the users by denying their freedom.
If I use program X, I have the freedom to do what program X allows me to do. "Free" software that lags in features actually conveys *less* freedom, not more. Furthermore, Joe cannot oppress me simply by offering a product for sale. Suggesting otherwise is inherently elitist, tantamount to suggesting that we simpletons are capable of being held up by sending a letter that says "i have a gun".
When users lack the freedoms that define Free Software, they can't tell what the software is doing, can't check for back doors, can't monitor possible viruses and worms, can't find out what personal information is being reported (or stop the reports, even if they do find out).
In order to exercise these freedoms, you need only have access to the source, not the right to distribute it without compensating the developer. MFC meets these requirements, as do products under the SCSL and other licenses that reveal the source without stripping developers of their copyright priveleges.
If it breaks, they can't fix it; they have to wait for the developer to exercise its power to do so.
With Open Source/Free Software, you still have to wait for a developer to fix it, unless you yourself are a developer. While it's true that turnaround times for critical security fixes are often faster in OSS than closed source; new features often lag by months, even years. Why? As you said yourself, few people are software developers. People still have to wait for developers to add features, but because those developers aren't directly compensated for their work, the wait is often longer. The best example is Linux drivers.
If the software simply isn't quite what they need, they are stuck with it. They can't help each other improve it.
They can buy some other product. If they are developers, they can compete and win. It's called the Free Enterprise system. It's my system. It's America's system, and God willing it will continue to be our system.
That's my little bit to help "the people". I know, I could have done more, but you have a responsability too. You have to think for yourself. Don't let yourself be swayed by rhetoric; not leftist rhetoric, not my rhetoric, not anybody's.
Wake up and smell the coffee! The FSF is just another "special interest" that falls under the umbrella of the Democratic Party. When the time is right, they will push for government intervention, regulation, and the expansion of beurocracy to serve their cause. They will make things *worse* in the long run, not better.
GPL -- Free as in speech
Microsoft EULA -- Also Free as in speech
What? Well, last time I checked, Free Speech meant that authors could say and publish whatever they want with a few narrow exceptions (shouting Fire! in a crowded theatre, libel, fraud, etc.).
Throughout the industrial age, there was little disagreement about this. If there was, then the New York Times would have been criticized by the likes of RMS for not being Free Speech. After all, they copyright all their articles and you can't just reprint them in some other newspaper. There are few if any compelling arguments for things to be any different in the digital age.
This business of "Free Speech" and "Free Beer" is just a subterfuge. Millions of people have picked it up and ran with it because it allows them to equate their desires with their rights.
Sign me up!
...was too big for Notepad to open when I viewed source on it. One of my little rules of thumb is that a web page should never get that big. I lost interest about half way through it. You can call me an LD'd short-attention span impatient kind of guy if you like, but there is something to be said for being concise and to the point. In other words, cut to the chase! Everybody remembered Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Nobody remembered the guy who spoke for two hours before Lincoln.
If you read that, you'd realize he wore a pressure suit. However, one of his gloves malfunctioned, causing his hand to expand to twice its normal size. (!). I would have aborted at that point, but that's not the way these guys play things.
Just buy a box or two of...
No, never do that to anybody. Just send them money. It will keep aluminized plastic and cardboard out of the landfill. It will be almost pure profit for the company.
More OSS developers need to be proactive when it comes to getting $. People shouldn't have to ask this question. I think developers would be surprised if they used a little line that said something like "you don't need to, but it'd be appreciated if you sent a check to... ".
It's amazing what you can get sometimes just by asking. Anybody who's read Feynman should get the humorous reference in the title of this post.
You start to notice things at 10,000. I know that from personal experience. 14,000 made me sick, but if I had been in Denver longer than a week, it would have been no problem. Yep, I drove my car up Mt. Evans and regretted it later. Of course, I'm from an area where the average alt. is less than 1000. If you live in a high area, your tolerance will be greater.
People pushing the limits of human endurance have ascended Everest without oxygen. That's 29,000+. I wouldn't be surprised if some AF pilots have survived short periods much higher. Those guys are in top shape. There are documented cases of people stowing away in unpressurized wheel wells of jumbo jets and living to tell the tale. They may have exceeded 30,000.
I think it goes without saying that exposure to 100,000 is instant death.
The point is moot, since this is an unmanned craft. 80,000 is an impressive altitude. You can see a nearly black sky, and the curve of the Earth. I wonder if anybody has considered the tourism potential of something like this, with a pressurized cabin and space suits of course. I would want a space suit in case the cabin pressure failed.
Steel wants to be FREE, people, and Nucor wants to keep this technology to themselves to help further their globalized corporate profitmaking.
Either that, or they want to charge out from the steppes on horseback to rape and pillage.
The idealists may not start out wanting to f*** you, but all too often they enter what I like to call the "dictator's delusion".
It works something like this:
Step 1. "The World would be great if everybody (blank)ed". This is the essence of idealism.
Step 2. A few people will (blank) but not everybody. Laws are passed to encourage people to (blank).
Step 3. Encouraging people to (blank) becomes a proxy for making the world a better place.
Step 4. The delusion is complete. The leaders of the revolution totally forget about making the world a better place, and cling stubbornly to the ideal that (blank) will do that. They forget the fundamental laws like "love thy neighbor" and cling to their preconceived notions of what is best, even when it is demonstrably flawed. Two famous examples: The Pharisees in the Bible and the leaders of any "communist" nation refusing to reform while the proletariat starves. Both groups started out with an ideal. In the first case it was religious, and in the second place political. The result is the same though.
I hope you get this. I can't tell you how many times I've frustrated people who try to pigeon-hole me into either a "leftist" or "rightest" category. Both are "ideals" and flawed because There is no algorithm for right living.
I think I probably summed it up best in this rather off-the-wall essay.
I thought I did a fair job expositing the flaws of both capitalists and idealists, the implication being that they will both f*** you, just in different ways and at different times. How is that idealist?
I feel the reason for running this project is wrong. "Let's start a project so we can register loads of patents" should instead be "Let's start a project to benefit humanity"
Omigosh! You mean... the guys who run this experiment are... ALIENS?!
In all seriousness, some of the *worst* disasters have been brought about by people trying to "benefit humanity". Crack-dealer infested housing projects, Eugenics etc...
That's not to say that capitalists don't screw up too, but I maintain a healthy skepticism towards altruists. So these guys want to patent stuff. Big deal. At least we know where we stand with them. When the idealists get a hold of things, you never know how they are going to f*** you.
This reminds me of teachers in school. There were many different kinds of teachers, but I'm thinking of two specific types. The first was the stern old man with the ruler. On the first day of class you thought it was going to be miserable, but then you got to know him, learned a lot, and by the last day you missed him. The second was the hippy teacher with the tie-die and the long hair. On the first day, you thought it would be an easy class, but then he had to lay down the law and it turned out that he wasn't very competent either.
Such is the way with capitalists and idealists.
The sorting program sounds interesting, but how does he know it works for any data set? If he can't understand it, he can't prove that.
Most likely, he evolved a program that sorts the data sets he fed it, and not much else. Even if it sorts a few other sets, I still wouldn't want to rely on it sorting my data.
That's the problem with most GA programs--they tend to be *very* sensitive to specific conditions. A while back there was an article about a tone descriminator designed using GA. It only worked within a very narrow temperature range, which was the range in the lab at which it was designed.
Maybe they should call it Automatics for the People and get REM to do the sounds this time.
When the world is a monster... blast it to bits.
Yeah, well, at least Americans don't have their noses in the air. Hey... wait a second... a "spork" user ID? This is an obvious troll. I bet you're from the Bronx. Nice troll though.
Do you think they'll have a cloning machine hooked up to a killing machine?