I have to say that I genuinely do not believe in the so called science behind the article. I would not be surprised if this study was funded, like so many others are, by the oil industry.
Because anyone else can get the same data for the same price; making money by adding value is no sin; it's a good thing.
So, since that company basically sued the state of West Virginia to get all of its data for $20, can I turn sue the company and get all of its data for, say, $20? That's where I'm coming from. If the information was so important, and so valuable, that you can make a billion dollar business with it, then, why is it so wrong for the state from which that information came from get a piece of the pie?
You can't say that ordinary people can get it for free but corporations (which, technically, have many of the rights of individual people) have to pay.
You've seen it, I've seen it - we all have: local-government's small fish. The things some of these people rationalize in their small ponds - especially when prompted emotion or greed - are just mind-boggling when viewed *from outside the situation*. This lady is a throwback that, sorry, needs to be thrown back into the general population and be replaced =/
Look, the corporation has the money. They should pay it. We are already paying higher income taxes every year so corporations can have lower taxes. Christ, don't you want some of this money back? Do you seriously think this company making demographic spyware will benefit the people of West Virginia at all? No, if anything, this software is going to enable them to be exploited even more.
How many corporate promises of a better life for states have been made, if only the government would just fork over everything for free. You know what the answer is? None!
West Virginia is absolutely right to fight this. They are heros in my book.
Everyone here seems to be jumping on the state of West Virginia because they had the gall to go and create a work, with tax dollars and try to recoup some of that investment.
Look at the company that is actually suing to get government records for free!
They are creating a system using publicly funded tax records, that is for profit, and even worse, ultimately going to be used to enable corporate spying on the American people. While you think the government should just hand over all of its digital data for $20, I think it is absurd that a well financed and well capitalized corporation cannot pay a few hundred thousand dollars for data that it is going to make millions on.
You are all right, this is an outrage. It is an outrage that a corporation can completely steal from the state in the name of commerce.
What we're looking at here is the looting of America, and unless you think that your job being sent over to India is a good side effect of trickle-down-economics, we need to rethink who is better, the investor, or the inventor, the shareholder, or the citizen. I for one am sick of our race to the bottom economic system let's-gut-america so that a bunch of people can take that money and lobby congress to do it -even more-.
When is this shit going to end!
If all of these people that we trade with around the world were so good as to be able to even remotely tolerate the massive disruption to American jobs that free trade brings, I would think they would be with the United States in Iraq. But they aren't, so screw them.
I think he gave up when, after explaining the importance of solar energy to life on earth, people started throwing chopping virgins to people to appease the Sun God.
ctually I Included that when I submitted the article! since BSG is in it's final season it currently got cut short to 16 eps. now hopefully it can go out with the full 20-22 eps. and finish as intended
Most definitely hope so. I've been waiting for a long time to see how the Galactica makes it out of that nebula.
More frightening than the act itself is the attitude of creeping intrusiveness justified by people who went through the American educational system
It seems like the United States is becoming every value we were taught to despise as children, and sacrificing everything we once held dear. WE say that Islam is this dangerous threat, but are they really that much more dangerous than a determined, educated, and intelligent set of western adversaries such as the Soviet Union or NAZI Germany? I don't think so.
Yeah, Neil Armstrong was stuck in Gemini 8 at about 360 degrees per second...interesting, that the end of the Time Magazine article which describes it:
Shaken by the near tragedy, but determined to put its lessons to good use on the remaining four Gemini flights, NASA officials last week continued to sift telemetry data to pinpoint the location and determine the cause of Gemini 8's short circuit. They indicated that they will probably include new attitude-thruster instrumentation on future flights. And as if to demonstrate their confidence that the U.S. space program will continue on schedule, they designated Space Veterans Virgil Grissom and Edward White and Rookie Roger Chaffee as crew members on the first three-man U.S. space mission--an earth-orbiting flight late this year in the Apollo moonship.
Re:Too many 'this stuff sucks' moments
on
The Future of XML
·
· Score: 1
I'm not saying that XML is the end all be all, but if your application blows up because someone fed it bad data in XML, your program is broken, and no data format is going to fix it. As the developer, it is your responsibility to vet the data before trying to use it.
As long as you guys want to fit the bill for supporting that shoddy format, go right ahead!
The list is a fraud, without him. Old Man Murray and Sons was the funniest web site ever, and the games he's writing for now have a depth and clarity of writing that honestly eludes most title. Plus, he's pretty damned funny.
Consider, we could have built seven of those NY to LA maglev trains for what Bush has spent so far blowing stuff up in Iraq. Put another way, we could have built a national long-haul maglev infrastructure and had enough left over to roll out fibre to the curb nationwide.
The war in Iraq is pricey, but look at all the dough we waste on social security and medicare. That's almost a trillion dollars a year and would allow us to have a couple of Iraqs, a moonbase, and maglev trains, but oh no, we have to have entitlements going up at twice the rate of economic growth now for decades on end.
Time to cut the old people off and start spending that money on cool stuff. I'd say, cut medicare spending in half, cap the rate of growth, and let people take a ticket and wait.
Actually, I think he is making these remarks in his capacity as the author of and important license, in which case it is quite newsworthy. Or it may be in his capacity as the originator of the "free software" concept, I'm not sure.
Compiler writer, inventor of free software concept, really, not a bad resume at all. But that's the thing about RMS that makes me respect the socialist. The classic Republican retort, that I've used myself, to liberals that want the government to save the world, is, "if its so important to you, then why not do it yourself". And RMS DID just that. He didn't write a petition web site, he wasn't lobbying congress. He said that there ought to be bunch of free tools and he made it happen. He wrote the original gnu compiler, put a lot into emacs, put together the GNU project and the GPL and a whole bunch of things. He's done more for his cause by himself than 99% of most people do for theirs.
I may not agree with his politics, but I deeply respect the man, and yeah, I do donate to the GNU when I can, because, sometimes its better to support people that are just willing to work to make the world better in some way, regardless if it jives with your own half baked sensibilities. The work matters more than the politics, I say.
How do I figure, I figure because it was on the news, being reported by mainstream media, talked about by candidates and so on. The reason for denying embryonic stem cell research funding is the same as right to life anti abortion arguments, it kills life. That is one of the most decisive political issues out there and and has been well established.
Well, let's cut to the reality though. Stem cell research is a side show issue because both parties have pretty much the same position on all the really major issues. The war will continue for some indefinite period, the USA will continue to have a military larger than its top 5 rivals combined, the federal government will run along at roughly 20% of GDP and free trade will be the norm and that's that. No matter who wins the next election, supposedly liberal Obama or Clinton, or supposed conservative McCain or Romney, or even, gasp if Dick Cheney ran and won or Al Gore, those fundamentals will not change.
So we're left to arguing over crap when we really need to have a national debate over some basic economic fundamentals as was the case in 1980.
It's not that he's anti-science per se... He's merely anti views that don't agree with his agenda
That's not -really- it. Everyone sweeps science under the rug that doesn't agree with their views. Environmentalist opposition to nuclear power comes to mind, and the peacenik opposition to ballistic missile defense is the same.
The problem with Bush, is that, he is so utterly lacking in any diplomacy whatsover, and that he lies about it so badly, that, not only does everyone know he's lying, every knows that he knows he knows he is lying. I mean, Reagan could argue with a straight face that tobacco was good for you, except that he didn't smoke himself...
Never said anything about funding. I'm talking about the distortion of scientific research to meet political goals. I'm talking about slashing proven space programs to shift money into a single legacy-oriented goal of a Mars mission. I'm talking about pushing abstinence programs when we've already proven that educating kids about STDs and contraception is far more effective. It's not the size of the budget, but his general attitude towards academia.
This is a legitimate argument and the choice is not as clear cut as you make it, and, contains a few distortions of its own.
First off, you are flat out wrong on space. The present Bush Mars plan is a direct consequence of Zubrin coming before the house and pitching his idea for a manned mars plan. The Bush plan IS the Zubrin plan, get it? Zubrin, you know, scientist! Prior to that, the Bush plan was to build unmanned nuclear rockets via the Prometheus project to go look for oceans on Europa, and possibly life. Of course, that got killed because the left wing got all in a tizzy about nuclear power in space, even though we have had the technology since the 1960s.
Speaking of nuclear power, the left has done a remarkable job of distorting every fact there is about the science and relative safety of nuclear power, and the effect of that has basically imposed fossil fuels to the point that you have, out of your irrational nuclear fears and lies about nuclear power, have caused global warming. Just look at the US energy portfolio, and understand that, if the left wing and environmental whack jobs had not have whined about nuclear power, there WOULD BE NO GLOBAL WARMING. All those dead bears and underwater cities are a direct consequence of your knee jerk reaction to a safe technology, largely fueled by science that you choose not to understand.
So please, go on about stem cells (which, if they were so lucrative, don't you think a Pharma company can pay for the research itself? or a university?) Please, go on about abstinence versus telling kids to have sex. Whatever.
But until the left wing comes around and grows up about nuclear power, the entire commitment to science on their side is a total joke.
Hmm, well I don't believe that for a second, especially if one adjusts for inflation, total budget size, etc. But I'm willing to entertain that claim if you can provide some concrete references
Is one you might believe. That's a fairly progressive web site and the figures do not include research for military purposes. Scroll down and you'll see that the biggest spender is Bush. Really, just look at the deficits, and ask yourself, what -hasn't- Bush spent money on!
Did he actually say that? Or did he merely call attention to the fact that the Bush administration has a long track record of trying to hush up the results of scientific enquiry that belie the myths of his corporate/neocon agenda?
Bush has had two main blocks on science. The first is that he's put up a few blocks on research using embryonic stem cells. And the second is that his administration has probably acted to squelch science which indicates a link between global warming and human activities. The second is decidedly corporate, for sure, but the first is based upon no corporate agenda whatsover. Let's face it, if McWalSoft could figure out a way to sell people stem cell products, then, they would, for sure.
And yeah, I don't disagree that there are some kooks on the right that think the earth is 3,000 years old, and we should ignore the needs of humanity to serve god, but as I see it, there are an equal number of kooks on the left that think the earth is an animistic spirit of sorts that we should ignore the needs of humanity to serve. So either way, if the kooks on either side got in, we'd be freezing in a cave, and really, regardless of whether it makes jesus or mother earth happy, I'm not giving up my V8 engine, assault rifle or the right of my wife to have a career.
Saying Bush is "anti-science" by painting him as a member of the far, far right is like saying Obama is "anti-humanity" by painting him in the far, far left. Of course, we'll do both.... but neither is inaccurate.
Bush has spent more on science than any other President in the history of the United States, so to say that he is anti-science is sharply distortionary.
He's actually made pretty clear some of his positions on technology, I'll give him that.
In general, Obama is:
a) in favor of investing in education b) against the NASA manned program to the moon and mars. I believe he was going to use that money to fund some third world development fund. c) is absolutely in favor of copyright protection in general, and is committed to the DMCA in particular. d) is in favor of environmental technology in general, ethanol in particular (thanks Iowa!) e) deploy next generation broadband f) in favor of net neutrality
t's a crap shoot, granted, but a major label has the power to move a lot of units.
Very true. And, the major label has the sales force that can walk into a radio stations across the country and offer a few incentives to pay a new song. Payola is illegal, for sure, but there's a ton of perks that the radios get for playing particular tunes... even launch parties and stuff. It's a very sleazy business and I would think that a lot of artists would be shocked if they realized just how much fist fighting goes on behind the scenes.
It makes no sense to sign a contract with a record label and only get 10%, let alone 4%. Pressing CD's is cheap, less than a $1 a piece. Digital downloads are even cheaper still. Credit card rates can be had in the single digits.
If there was a need for any FOSS project, it would be a project that lets artists sell their music online, and simply so, so much so that ISPs could bundle it in like the way they bundle forum software or Apache.
Huh? What are you on about? Have you even read tCatB? How is the Linux project (Raymond's canonical bazaar) becoming more like the GNU project (Raymond's canonical cathedral)? And what does capital/corporate funding have to do with any of that?
Key pieces of Linux are getting bigger and more complicated and more centrally organized. Linux is less of a cathedral and more of a mall with superstores. Look at KDE, Gnome, Firefox, etc, all are becoming more wide open, and ironically, the GNU project cathedral, well, the gcc, is like a fine wine that keeps getting better with age.
You seem to have this delusion that Free/Libre software is anti-corporate, which has never been even remotely true.
Of course it is. Have you read anything by Stallman and company? He's an out and out socialista, and so, there's going to be a community that is devoted to Linux because they see a publicly owned thing as a rhetorical last stand against a corporate owned thing. But, given that things are what they are, without Stallman, there is no free C/C++ compiler, and thus no Linux. So hats off to him.
Bottom line is, Linux isn't libertarian, although there are libertarians that use it. Linux isn't socialist, even though, there are socialists that use it. Linux isn't conservative, although, there are republicans that use it. It's Linux, and whatever that means politically is beyond me. But its fun to argue about on slashdot, isn't it, and one of the things to think about is, how do we make sure that this Linux keeps getting funded?
It takes money to pay people. We're way beyond hackers working in their basements.
Is it too out of reach, mentally, to think that some sort of an NPR like thing for Linux might not be a bad idea?
Slashdot Mirror
I have to say that I genuinely do not believe in the so called science behind the article. I would not be surprised if this study was funded, like
so many others are, by the oil industry.
Because anyone else can get the same data for the same price; making money by adding value is no sin; it's a good thing.
So, since that company basically sued the state of West Virginia to get all of its data for $20, can I turn sue the company and get all of its data for, say, $20? That's where I'm coming from. If the information was so important, and so valuable, that you can make a billion dollar business with it, then, why is it so wrong for the state from which that information came from get a piece of the pie?
You can't say that ordinary people can get it for free but corporations (which, technically, have many of the rights of individual people) have to pay.
Sure I can. Corporations are not people.
You've seen it, I've seen it - we all have: local-government's small fish. The things some of these people rationalize in their small ponds - especially when prompted emotion or greed - are just mind-boggling when viewed *from outside the situation*. This lady is a throwback that, sorry, needs to be thrown back into the general population and be replaced =/
Look, the corporation has the money. They should pay it. We are already paying higher income taxes every year so corporations can have lower taxes. Christ, don't you want some of this money back? Do you seriously think this company making demographic spyware will benefit the people of West Virginia at all? No, if anything, this software is going to enable them to be exploited even more.
How many corporate promises of a better life for states have been made, if only the government would just fork over everything for free. You know what the answer is? None!
West Virginia is absolutely right to fight this. They are heros in my book.
Everyone here seems to be jumping on the state of West Virginia because they had the gall to go and create a work, with tax dollars and try to recoup some of that investment.
Look at the company that is actually suing to get government records for free!
They are creating a system using publicly funded tax records, that is for profit, and even worse, ultimately going to be used to enable corporate spying on the American people. While you think the government should just hand over all of its digital data for $20, I think it is absurd that a well financed and well capitalized corporation cannot pay a few hundred thousand dollars for data that it is going to make millions on.
You are all right, this is an outrage. It is an outrage that a corporation can completely steal from the state in the name of commerce.
What we're looking at here is the looting of America, and unless you think that your job being sent over to India is a good side effect of trickle-down-economics, we need to rethink who is better, the investor, or the inventor, the shareholder, or the citizen. I for one am sick of our race to the bottom economic system let's-gut-america so that a bunch of people can take that money and lobby congress to do it -even more-.
When is this shit going to end!
If all of these people that we trade with around the world were so good as to be able to even remotely tolerate the massive disruption to American jobs that free trade brings, I would think they would be with the United States in Iraq. But they aren't, so screw them.
However, its creator, God, forgot to document it
I think he gave up when, after explaining the importance of solar energy to life on earth, people started throwing chopping virgins to people to appease the Sun God.
ctually I Included that when I submitted the article! since BSG is in it's final season it currently got cut short to 16 eps. now hopefully it can go out with the full 20-22 eps. and finish as intended
Most definitely hope so. I've been waiting for a long time to see how the Galactica makes it out of that nebula.
40 comments about the writer strike ending and not a single one of you posted the obligatory:
That's Great, When's Battlestar Galactica Going to Be On Finally?
They just don't make geeks like they used to, I guess.
More frightening than the act itself is the attitude of creeping intrusiveness justified by people who went through the American educational system
It seems like the United States is becoming every value we were taught to despise as children, and sacrificing everything we once held dear. WE say that Islam is this dangerous threat, but are they really that much more dangerous than a determined, educated, and intelligent set of western adversaries such as the Soviet Union or NAZI Germany? I don't think so.
Yeah, Neil Armstrong was stuck in Gemini 8 at about 360 degrees per second...interesting, that the end of the Time Magazine article which describes it:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840655-2,00.html
Shaken by the near tragedy, but determined to put its lessons to good use on the remaining four Gemini flights, NASA officials last week continued to sift telemetry data to pinpoint the location and determine the cause of Gemini 8's short circuit. They indicated that they will probably include new attitude-thruster instrumentation on future flights. And as if to demonstrate their confidence that the U.S. space program will continue on schedule, they designated Space Veterans Virgil Grissom and Edward White and Rookie Roger Chaffee as crew members on the first three-man U.S. space mission--an earth-orbiting flight late this year in the Apollo moonship.
I'm not saying that XML is the end all be all, but if your application blows up because someone fed it bad data in XML, your program is broken, and no data format is going to fix it. As the developer, it is your responsibility to vet the data before trying to use it.
As long as you guys want to fit the bill for supporting that shoddy format, go right ahead!
interoperability is overrated.
The list is a fraud, without him. Old Man Murray and Sons was the funniest web site ever, and the games he's writing for now have a depth and clarity of writing that honestly eludes most title. Plus, he's pretty damned funny.
Consider, we could have built seven of those NY to LA maglev trains for what Bush has spent so far blowing stuff up in Iraq. Put another way, we could have built a national long-haul maglev infrastructure and had enough left over to roll out fibre to the curb nationwide.
The war in Iraq is pricey, but look at all the dough we waste on social security and medicare. That's almost a trillion dollars a year and would allow us to have a couple of Iraqs, a moonbase, and maglev trains, but oh no, we have to have entitlements going up at twice the rate of economic growth now for decades on end.
Time to cut the old people off and start spending that money on cool stuff. I'd say, cut medicare spending in half, cap the rate of growth, and let people take a ticket and wait.
Actually, I think he is making these remarks in his capacity as the author of and important license, in which case it is quite newsworthy. Or it may be in his capacity as the originator of the "free software" concept, I'm not sure.
Compiler writer, inventor of free software concept, really, not a bad resume at all. But that's the thing about RMS that makes me respect the socialist. The classic Republican retort, that I've used myself, to liberals that want the government to save the world, is, "if its so important to you, then why not do it yourself". And RMS DID just that. He didn't write a petition web site, he wasn't lobbying congress. He said that there ought to be bunch of free tools and he made it happen. He wrote the original gnu compiler, put a lot into emacs, put together the GNU project and the GPL and a whole bunch of things. He's done more for his cause by himself than 99% of most people do for theirs.
I may not agree with his politics, but I deeply respect the man, and yeah, I do donate to the GNU when I can, because, sometimes its better to support people that are just willing to work to make the world better in some way, regardless if it jives with your own half baked sensibilities. The work matters more than the politics, I say.
How do I figure, I figure because it was on the news, being reported by mainstream media, talked about by candidates and so on. The reason for denying embryonic stem cell research funding is the same as right to life anti abortion arguments, it kills life. That is one of the most decisive political issues out there and and has been well established.
Well, let's cut to the reality though. Stem cell research is a side show issue because both parties have pretty much the same position on all the really major issues. The war will continue for some indefinite period, the USA will continue to have a military larger than its top 5 rivals combined, the federal government will run along at roughly 20% of GDP and free trade will be the norm and that's that. No matter who wins the next election, supposedly liberal Obama or Clinton, or supposed conservative McCain or Romney, or even, gasp if Dick Cheney ran and won or Al Gore, those fundamentals will not change.
So we're left to arguing over crap when we really need to have a national debate over some basic economic fundamentals as was the case in 1980.
If you write an important compiler, and you say something provocative, it's news. If you don't, it's flamebait!
Clearly, I can't troll without writing a compiler.
Sigh...
Must get to work!
It's not that he's anti-science per se... He's merely anti views that don't agree with his agenda
That's not -really- it. Everyone sweeps science under the rug that doesn't agree with their views. Environmentalist opposition to nuclear power comes to mind, and the peacenik opposition to ballistic missile defense is the same.
The problem with Bush, is that, he is so utterly lacking in any diplomacy whatsover, and that he lies about it so badly, that, not only does everyone know he's lying, every knows that he knows he knows he is lying. I mean, Reagan could argue with a straight face that tobacco was good for you, except that he didn't smoke himself...
Never said anything about funding. I'm talking about the distortion of scientific research to meet political goals. I'm talking about slashing proven space programs to shift money into a single legacy-oriented goal of a Mars mission. I'm talking about pushing abstinence programs when we've already proven that educating kids about STDs and contraception is far more effective. It's not the size of the budget, but his general attitude towards academia.
This is a legitimate argument and the choice is not as clear cut as you make it, and, contains a few distortions of its own.
First off, you are flat out wrong on space. The present Bush Mars plan is a direct consequence of Zubrin coming before the house and pitching his idea for a manned mars plan. The Bush plan IS the Zubrin plan, get it? Zubrin, you know, scientist! Prior to that, the Bush plan was to build unmanned nuclear rockets via the Prometheus project to go look for oceans on Europa, and possibly life. Of course, that got killed because the left wing got all in a tizzy about nuclear power in space, even though we have had the technology since the 1960s.
Speaking of nuclear power, the left has done a remarkable job of distorting every fact there is about the science and relative safety of nuclear power, and the effect of that has basically imposed fossil fuels to the point that you have, out of your irrational nuclear fears and lies about nuclear power, have caused global warming. Just look at the US energy portfolio, and understand that, if the left wing and environmental whack jobs had not have whined about nuclear power, there WOULD BE NO GLOBAL WARMING. All those dead bears and underwater cities are a direct consequence of your knee jerk reaction to a safe technology, largely fueled by science that you choose not to understand.
So please, go on about stem cells (which, if they were so lucrative, don't you think a Pharma company can pay for the research itself? or a university?) Please, go on about abstinence versus telling kids to have sex. Whatever.
But until the left wing comes around and grows up about nuclear power, the entire commitment to science on their side is a total joke.
Hmm, well I don't believe that for a second, especially if one adjusts for inflation, total budget size, etc. But I'm willing to entertain that claim if you can provide some concrete references
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/07/b1984135.html
Is one you might believe. That's a fairly progressive web site and the figures do not include research for military purposes. Scroll down and you'll see that the biggest spender is Bush. Really, just look at the deficits, and ask yourself, what -hasn't- Bush spent money on!
Did he actually say that? Or did he merely call attention to the fact that the Bush administration has a long track record of trying to hush up the results of scientific enquiry that belie the myths of his corporate/neocon agenda?
Bush has had two main blocks on science. The first is that he's put up a few blocks on research using embryonic stem cells. And the second is that his administration has probably acted to squelch science which indicates a link between global warming and human activities. The second is decidedly corporate, for sure, but the first is based upon no corporate agenda whatsover. Let's face it, if McWalSoft could figure out a way to sell people stem cell products, then, they would, for sure.
And yeah, I don't disagree that there are some kooks on the right that think the earth is 3,000 years old, and we should ignore the needs of humanity to serve god, but as I see it, there are an equal number of kooks on the left that think the earth is an animistic spirit of sorts that we should ignore the needs of humanity to serve. So either way, if the kooks on either side got in, we'd be freezing in a cave, and really, regardless of whether it makes jesus or mother earth happy, I'm not giving up my V8 engine, assault rifle or the right of my wife to have a career.
Saying Bush is "anti-science" by painting him as a member of the far, far right is like saying Obama is "anti-humanity" by painting him in the far, far left. Of course, we'll do both.... but neither is inaccurate.
Science has been bad news for Bush's agenda.
Bush has spent more on science than any other President in the history of the United States, so to say that he is anti-science is sharply distortionary.
He's actually made pretty clear some of his positions on technology, I'll give him that.
In general, Obama is:
a) in favor of investing in education
b) against the NASA manned program to the moon and mars. I believe he was going to use that money to fund some third world development fund.
c) is absolutely in favor of copyright protection in general, and is committed to the DMCA in particular.
d) is in favor of environmental technology in general, ethanol in particular (thanks Iowa!)
e) deploy next generation broadband
f) in favor of net neutrality
t's a crap shoot, granted, but a major label has the power to move a lot of units.
Very true. And, the major label has the sales force that can walk into a radio stations across the country and offer a few incentives to pay a new song. Payola is illegal, for sure, but there's a ton of perks that the radios get for playing particular tunes... even launch parties and stuff. It's a very sleazy business and I would think that a lot of artists would be shocked if they realized just how much fist fighting goes on behind the scenes.
It makes no sense to sign a contract with a record label and only get 10%, let alone 4%. Pressing CD's is cheap, less than a $1 a piece. Digital downloads are even cheaper still. Credit card rates can be had in the single digits.
If there was a need for any FOSS project, it would be a project that lets artists sell their music online, and simply so, so much so that ISPs could bundle it in like the way they bundle forum software or Apache.
Signing with a real label seems madness.
Huh? What are you on about? Have you even read tCatB? How is the Linux project (Raymond's canonical bazaar) becoming more like the GNU project (Raymond's canonical cathedral)? And what does capital/corporate funding have to do with any of that?
Key pieces of Linux are getting bigger and more complicated and more centrally organized. Linux is less of a cathedral and more of a mall with superstores. Look at KDE, Gnome, Firefox, etc, all are becoming more wide open, and ironically, the GNU project cathedral, well, the gcc, is like a fine wine that keeps getting better with age.
You seem to have this delusion that Free/Libre software is anti-corporate, which has never been even remotely true.
Of course it is. Have you read anything by Stallman and company? He's an out and out socialista, and so, there's going to be a community that is devoted to Linux because they see a publicly owned thing as a rhetorical last stand against a corporate owned thing. But, given that things are what they are, without Stallman, there is no free C/C++ compiler, and thus no Linux. So hats off to him.
Bottom line is, Linux isn't libertarian, although there are libertarians that use it. Linux isn't socialist, even though, there are socialists that use it. Linux isn't conservative, although, there are republicans that use it. It's Linux, and whatever that means politically is beyond me. But its fun to argue about on slashdot, isn't it, and one of the things to think about is, how do we make sure that this Linux keeps getting funded?
It takes money to pay people. We're way beyond hackers working in their basements.
Is it too out of reach, mentally, to think that some sort of an NPR like thing for Linux might not be a bad idea?