Two one hundred gig ATA/100 ide drives (yeah, SCSI would be better) would run about US$450... A box to put them in, say $500. Under $1000 plus the time to install and config Linux and Samba. Let's be pessimists and say its $5000 all added up.
I bet you guys wasted more than that already looking for a Windows solution.
Capitalism involves the application of capital to produce a return on investment, yes?
One possible form of capital is intellectual effort, and one possible form of return is a process to reduce ongoing operational inefficiencies (i.e. an automated tool to replace manual work).
Think cost reduction as opposed to direct revenue. This cost reduction, if the cost is part of another venture, translates into increased profit in that venture, though, for most, I expect it simply treanslates into convenience.
This probably isn't exactly what you want, and I am by no means an expert when it comes to SBB, but couldn't you use a Linux box, and Samba to export SMB shares of loopback mounted.iso images?
That's the obvious answer, until Linux (and all other non-DRM operating systems) is declared a "terrorist weapon".
We saw the trend with DVD playback development under Linux: the tools were declared "illegal", or "infringing", and cries of legitimate uses were met with the response, "it isn't necessary to make Linux do that, because Windows already does" [paraphrasing, of course].
So, while your suggestion is logical (though I take exception to calling Linux, "shitty", or "little"), it may not be legally practical.
Not to mention, it gets people adjusted to the idea of having a home server, which I think every home needs. If you leave it on all the time for answer machine functions it isn't a stretch to add other funtions like media/music server or security/webcam monitor or light/appliance controller.
Bingo!
Until people have a need/use for a home server, 24/7 applications (like answering machine, possibly alarm system, home control, etc.) aren't going to happen. Of course, there is no need for a home server if there are no apps to run on it 24/7 so you have a chicken and egg problem... what is the "killer app" for the home server?
email
The thought of connecting and polling some remote POP/IMAP/whatever server for email periodically sucks: I (or some application) wants to know I have email the instant it is delivered to my mailbox. This is kind of a pain with a dial-up connection (and keeping it up is likely a violation of the terms of service unless you have a dedicated connection), but very easy to do if you have a cable or DSL connection. One of the first things I did when I got my DSL connection was configure my PC to sink email for my domain (yes, I have a remote backup MX; no, I do not relay) and adjust my DNS records accordingly. This humble P200 PC will soon be relegated to the headend where it will serve as an email/media server.
Of course, an answering machine is little more than a repository for email with a voice attachment in disguise, so, with the right modem, this becomes a slam dunk. Remote monitoring of the house (sensors, webcams, etc.) is the next logical step. While we're at it, might as well provide remote ssh-tunneled access to that email and voice mail.
This is just the start, really. For example, why do TiVo and ReplayTV need hard disks? Shouldn't they just stream to local home storage (perhaps encrypting the content to keep the MPAA sharks at bay, not that I'd like this)? I see a potential revival of "push" technology services, when the possibility of caching, i.e. time-shifting, content becomes the norm.
Hard drives are noisy, and frankly computers are ugly in a family/livingroom setting. It might be reasonable for streamed media playback devices to accept local CD, DVD, or other media, but it makes little sense for them to cache locally -- cache on the home server. With less as opposed to more integration in such devices, planned obsolescence becomes easier: you aren't throwing out a whole computer when you upgrade an essentially integrated component. A plus: storage becomes independent of content -- you grow storage as you want.
Within the current paradigm, it is hard to envision that it is possible to make sufficient money to pay for the costs of software development.
However, does it really have to be that way, that the only way to make reasonable profits is by creating artificial scarcity? It's no natural law.
Clearly it doesn't have to be that way, else we'd have no free software at all.
But, it would help at this point to agree on a definition of profit. Let me suggest the following: "Profit is the perceived increase of value obtained as a result of an exchange." Thus, profit is individual: both parties in a voluntary exchange can be said to have profited. Of course, partucular exchanges can be viewed as profitable from the point of view of many people: since we all need to eat, any hungry person will view the exchange of non-food items for food-items, or money to buy same, as profitable.
Individuals profit in a cooperative two ways: by reducing the average production costs through economies of scale (traditional cooperatives), or by leveraging their contributions that can be reproduced with little or no cost in exchange for a copy of the whole (free software cooperatives). Where the investment per individual is perceived as small, and the gain as large, there is little need for an artificial scarcity to inflate this gain. Thus, free software in the GPL sense (which prohibits redistribution of proprietary derived works for moral reasons), and BSD sense (which permits this for the advantage of wider distribution, use, and hopefully support) both flourish. However, traditional "Cathedral" software of any complexity requires some degree of artificial scarcity.
It is easy to show why this is so. Because it is developed without the resources of a voluntary "Bazaar" of contributers, the per-contributer costs are high. Once developed, the reproduction costs are negligable. However, the investment needs to be recouped. Thus, the artificial scarcity. When we look at development of complex free software without the benefit of a large bazaar of contributors, it progresses ever so slowly because the investments of individual contributors are much larger and need to be ammortized over "free" time. This is why the Hurd is so long in coming: it's use of a micro-kernel is revolutionary (well, not so much any more), whereas Linux is based on tried an true (albeit limiting) techniques -- Linux (I speak of the kernel, here) attracts more developers because it is more accessable. GNU/Linux attracts more developers because the spec and path are clear: make it look like a traditional Unix.
So, where the need for a particular kind of software, particularly among developers of software, is wide-spread, production of implementations that are not artificially scarce can and does happen.
Software is no essential part of living, thus, creating artificial scarcity for software is something that we can live with, at least for some time.
This is true of anything new: the idea is that the producer of a new and valuable thing be rewarded for his intellectual contribution to knowledge and practical contribution to society. The problem is that the legal mechanisms we use to make this reward possible, can also lead to a runaway effect -- the framers of the U.S. Constitution were wise to envision copyright for a limited duration. The same is true of patents. It is very difficult, though, to decide how much artificial scarcity is "too much, too long". In practice, the issue has traditionally been resolved by force, either via an unruly mob, or a "legitimate" government. Hardly civilized.
But how about food...? People are starving... Food is a scarce resource, but in a nano-tech world, it doesn't need to be. Then, if people are starving, creating artificial scarcity would be immoral.
Again, the artificial scarcity is useful in rewarding those who create a desired thing that does not exist yet. If people are starving because of a grain blight, and it costs millions and the use of sophisticated technology to produce a resistant varient of the desired crop, far better that the rich get the crop than no one (at least it will exist to be stolen). It should be noted, though, that many have argued that much world hunger occurs not for lack of world food production, but because of repressive political regimes.
Artificial scarcity creates allows the skewing of reward vs. risk to make ventures worthwhile. Unfortunately, it creates a self-perpetuating profit machine feedback mechanism that is difficult to damp. I suspect that is the real problem with it.
You see it with AIDS drugs too. While software is very different from drugs (in the former case, it is not about prize, and the latter case, it is all about prize), it has some of the same issues: How do we ensure that R&D can be continued without enforcing scarcity on the drugs.
Well, enforced scarcity requires a source of force to do the enforcing. There are two disparate views here: government regulation and the free market.
Government regulation can certainly limit "abuse" of artificial scarcity, when such abuse is perceived by the public at large. Witness recent talk of lifting the patent on Cipro in order to combat wide-spread Anthrax infection (which I think is an overblown risk, but I digress). Perhaps public will can drive government policy toward restricting "excessive profit via artificial scarcity".
The free market supporters, however, note that any government strong enough to do good is also strong enough to do evil: power corrupts, after all. Recently we appear to see a feedback mechanism between "abusers" of artificial scarcity and the purported government regulation of same: corporatism arises because artificial scarcity leads to greater profits and money is more desirable than votes, in the long run. All the government should do, then, is not prevent alternatives to artificially scarce goods from being developed and offered -- at some point the cost of development of an alternative will be less than the cost of licensing the scarce version because of greed on the part of the producer.
Certainly, some will note that, without government legitimised force, natural free market processes will not occur fast enough. But, that is a debate for another day.
I think it is something that needs to be addressed. Really, artificial scarcity must be abandoned on the long term, it just isn't sustainable.
As much as I am a libertarian, I agree: Artificial scarcity is useful, and consistent with the belief that the individual control what he produces. But I do not think that such scarcity need continue in perpetuity in order for it's benefits (creation of new things with high development costs) to be reaped. The biq question of course, is how is the artificial scarcity to be ended? I do not subscribe to the idea that a strong government is the right way to do it.
I think it is imperative that all good thinkers come together and think about how continued research and development can be done without creating artificial scarcity.
Yes, anything that reduces the need for an artificial scarcity bugagoo would be a good thing. Subscription models are one idea. Legal protections for "excessive" artificial scarcity are another (i.e. patents on the obvious). But we must tread carefully here, lest we stifle a voluntary mechanism that helps fuel progress.
Indeed, we do not have the solution, and great caution is required in future efforts, but I welcome very much discussions on how to make a world that does not depend on artificial scarcity for profit.
When I see interviews or articles like this one, I always wonder where people get the idea that computer programs are something like other commodities. Computers are not like any other production tool invented in the whole history of man, computers are general purpose.
Whoa, there! (gee, moving to Texas is rubbing off on me)
Don't be so quick to throw out a useful model (i.e. capitalist economy).
First, of all, other things are general purpose as well: a pen or pencil can be used to write many different things in different styles, a stove can be used to cook different kinds of food, etc. There are limits to their generality, of course, but the same is true of a computer: a computer can be used to develop and run code, but not cook dinner (at least not without an appropriate interface).
Similarly, do not dismiss Free Software as not fitting in a capitalist economy. Eric Raymond's observations about egoboo and gift economies are not simply a feeble attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole. The essence of capitalism is that exchange of goods and services leads to greater value for all voluntary participants. The only thing special about Free Software is that value is not derived from possession of a scarce good, but rather an automated means to reduce effort.
To continue: the worth of a program is the automation of a task that it provides. This value is not lost if the program is shared, but is very much a real, tangible value: an accounting program saves me the trouble of balancing my books by hand. Because programs have value, the effort to produce them is undertaken: while the program provides value every time it is run, the effort to write the program need only be expended once. It just depends on how badly one wants the corresponding process automated.
The collaborative process traditional with major, popular, Free Software progrms is nothing more than capitalist efficiency at work: the efficiency provided by a cooperative. If the development effort can be spread out, but the fruits of the labour freely replicated, the cooperative mechanism provides tremendous efficiency: for minimal effort, one can contribute to the production of a program that provides value not diluted by the number of contributors.
None of this is inconsistent with capitalism.
However, there is a wrinkle to all this that is, perhaps, inconsistent with capitalism. So far I've been describing utility value: the value that a program has to reduce work through automation. However, if a program is scarce, it also has value because of it's scarcity. In a world where the right to use and share a program can be restricted, via, for example, license and copyright, it is natural that a program can be made scarce, in the legal sense.
It also serves a valuable purpose: people who could not otherwise contribute to the development of a program can fund it's development by paying to license it. Such scare software can not, by definition, be freely shared, but this does not detract from the value it's creation provides to those who pay to license it and those who are paid to create it. Of course, once created, and paid for by enough licensees, there is no need to maintain scarcity, save the desire to leverage the scarcity itself for pure profit on the part of the program writer or writers.
Even this is not inherently evil: if there is risk in not finding enough willing licencees for a piece of scare software, then surely there should be the potential reward of more than enough. Note that, since this risk is minimized for the developer with subscribed production of software (that is, development starts, when there are enough committed licensees), the moral justification for continued artificial scarcity drops. However, suscribed-software production is a rarity. Perhaps, because the production risk has been transfered to the subscribers: there is no guarantee that what is produced, if anything, will work, or be what they want. The closest we have to subscribed-software production is public ownership of corporate producers of scarce sofware.
Yet another facet of the scarce software phenomenon is the willingness of it's users to put up with the scarcity. But, there is an advantage to them to do this: it excludes those who can not afford to license the software from benefitting from it's value. Some of those others might be competitors of the willing licensees and by excluding them from access to scarce software that would reduce their operating costs, a competetive advantage is gained. This is the classic "barrier to entry" in a market.
So, artificial software scarcity permits the production of software where otherwise there would be none, by providing for an increased reward in the face of increased risk. For those who would argue that the availability of software, at any price, is better than the non-availability of same, this is in no way immoral. Nevertheless, there is this nagging feeling that the production of similar free (i.e. non-scarce) software is somehow "better", and "more fair", because no one is excluded from the benefits it provides, and no one suffers from a loss of utility value because of others' gain thereof. The counter, of course, is that because production of new things of value is not bad, the benefits derived from any scarcity value associated with their production are not ill-gotten.
And here lies the rub: scarcity value is threatened by the abundance that Free Software represents, and the moral justification for scarcity value driven production is erased when non-scarce alternatives are available. Free Software production, conversly, is threatened by the lure of benefits available to those who seek to derive value from scarcity. No wonder both Microsoft and RMS are upset about the consequences of each other's philosophies!
Given that the moral justification for scarce software production evaporates when free alternatives are available, does that mean that such production should be, somehow, outlawed? No, this is not necessary, and would presume that no one derives value from the differences between free and scarce versions of the same software. It is not necessary, because a free market will naturally result in abandonment of a scarce good when a cheaper (yes, free as in beer) alternative is available that is perceived to be just as useful. Of course, it would be imoral to try to interfere with such a transition. It is fortuitous indeed then, that free as in speech does go hand in hand with free as in beer.
Perhaps that is the transition away from "a capitalist" ecomomy that is being described -- the replacement of scarce goods with non-scarce ones. But it is wrong to view this as somehow non-capitalist -- post-scarcity, perhaps, as far as software is concerend, but certainly very capitalist. And indeed, it would be folly to try to extend this to goods and services that do not have the potential non-scarce attributes of software.
Assuming that the major premise is correct, that in Canada, women can claim rape after consenting to sex (actually feminazis there weasel on the definition of consent), it stands to reason that all sorts of other absurdities are reasonable: i.e. violent video games, particularly where the virtual victims are respresentative of the source of absurdities in reality.
The only question then, is if the major premise holds up to scrutiny. See a previous reference on feminazi attitudes in Canada regarding consent, and thus whether rape occured.
I suppose one could argue that the link between the source of absurdities in reality, and objects of anger in a virtual setting is weak, and so the argument linking them is, indeed, a straw-man argument, but I don't hold that view.
Feminazi movements in Canada have resulted in absurdities such as child support payments that exceed the payor's income, resulting in jail time for contempt of court. The reasoning behind this folly is as follows: the payor is "artificially" earning less than he can to spite the recipient.
It strikes me that in such an environment, where legislation and attitude feeds a hatred of women, games that permit the resulting anger to be vented on virtual victims would be in demand.
I am not suggesting that this is reasonable or healthy, merely that it is to be expected.
The reasoning is similar to this, though not identical.
The notion is that a woman can claim to not have consented because of circumstantes that have not been communicated to her partner at the time, because they should have been "obvious" to him.
IOW, even without lack of explicit withdrawl of consent, her partner is supposed to know that consent is not present, or was withdrawn.
IIRC, in Canada, a woman can claim rape "after the consentual fact" if she changes her mind (perhaps she wasn't satisfied?).
In a world where women can claim rape after having consentual sex, it seams fair to have games where one can bash in the heads of prostitutes and recover one's "investment".
Yeah, I didn't want to run a bunch of different cable, but RG-6 was most practical. Believe me, I was thinking of all sorts of ways to use Cat5e for digital audio (doable on one pair) and component video (balun-ed on the other three), but the result is an ugly hack, permits only one video signal to a destination, and analog. Sending the baseband satellite feed on a coax, at least lets the receiver in each room decode a digital signal (albeit compressed).
And no, I would certainly not transcode a digital satellite feed -- you're right about the cascading errors. I just put the damn baseband feed from the multiswitch on the coax and be done with it.
Now, there are some interesting terrestrial HDTV decoder cards for PCs that provide an MPEG2 stream (either encoded off-line, or real-time with decent equipment (i.e. for live programming)) -- I think Telemann makes one for around US$400. A couple of these at the headend to permit streamed MPEG2-compressed HDTV over IP on the ethernet would be cool.
It is very seductive to want GigE and headend sources that can provide as much switched digital audio and video as each room can handle, and do away with the coax. But we "ain't there yet".
Also, once you start doing things like PIP (picture in picture) at the receiver in each room, you suddenly realize that you don't need all the streams to be full-resolution, certainly not the PIP stream... it would make more sense for it to be downsampled in real time before being sent to the remote room.
It looks like what you want is a digital stream over 100 Mb/s ethernet or GigE (you did run Cat5e, right?) demodulated from whatever source (terrestrial HDTV, satellite, etc.) at the headend, with a resolution negotiated between equipment in each room and the headend demodulator. So, you could get a full-res main stream, and a 1/4 res PIP.
Yeah, and I looked into this as an option, but (a) converters are expensive, (b) building them yourself might be fun, but takes time (something I have little of (sigh)), (c) it requires all your RF equipment at the headend.
Often you want to distribute component video, so you need three pairs, and a digital audio signal (oops, another pair). You can't take advantage of multi-tuner capabilities of modern TV sets, 'cause you don't have a broadband feed.
I came to the conclusion that it's best to pull the coax for "legacy" equipment, and if I ever wanted to transmit video over IP, I'd use MPEG2 encoders -- they're no longer insanely priced and I expect them to become cheaper as time goes on.
Now, if your cable is already run, and you need that extra composite or svideo signal, and you've got a spare pair or two, by all means, use them.
Re:I am part of a "smart home" wiring company
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Wiring A New House?
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· Score: 2
I just wish your company (and others in the biz) would bash on the heads of homebuilders. They are SOOO in the 1960s when it comes to prewiring, and the costs are insignificant compared to the rest of the house (yeah, I know they count every penny like auto manufacturers, but geez, ethernet to each room is practically a necessity today).
Oh yeah! There's nothing quite like straddling the ceiling joists above the family room (you know, the one with the 12 foot ceiling), holding on to a wall stud, and drilling through a top plate.
You want to keep such runs at leastr 12" apart, cross them at 90 degree angles when necessary, and only bring them close in a split multi-ganged box (if your code permits that).
I ended up running 2 runs of Cat5e and 2 runs of quad-shielded RG-6 to 6 drops.
You will want the coax... trust me. While I'd like to run everythng over UTP or fiber, the costs of locating things like VCRs, and satellite receivers at a head end, and streaming video digitally are prohibitive compared to the costs of running the coax. You may want to plan for the day when everything is streamed over IP and carried on an ethernet or fiber physical layer, but I think it is far better to have dead cable in the wall than to use horribly expensive equipment today as opposed to your neighbor who just hooks up the new TV to the cable outlet and is done.
Fiber. I didn't run any, but mostly because of the cost -- it's still too expensive. Also, don't forget headend terminations for all those fiber lines -- they are expensive. If you can afford it, by all means. In my case, I figure I'll sell the house and build a new one before I have a real pressing need for fiber: am I really going to want to stream full-resolution uncompressed video room to room? I doubt it.
Do put in as many drops as you think you'll need, and then some. You have an advantage over me: your walls aren't up yet. Plan for a minimum of one per room, more if there are multiple entrances. For example, many central family rooms open up to formal dining/living rooms and kitchen -- place the outlet on the "wrong" wall and you'll have to snake a cable across an entryway... not cool.
If you can afford the cabling, make EACH 110VAC outlet have a co-located (but not sharing the box-- that violates code) coax/data drop. That's excessive, and you immediately have to separate the AC and other cables to avoid interference, but you'll have a drop whereever you need one. Personally, I'd probably stick with one outlet per continuous wall segment, more for bigger rooms.
I ran 2xCat5e and 2xRG-6 (quad-shielded). You can get combo cable (speedwrap) that contains this (with or without fiber) in a single jacket that makes for easy pulling, but expect to pay double over individual cables. If you're paying for installation, the reduced labour might pay for the more expensive cable. Note: the reason for two runs of coax is in case you want to run a video stream back to the headend, like, perhaps a baby monitor camera. However, with recent PVR having TWO tuners, you'll find you need to use both coax cables, espescially with satellite systems (the receiver sends a signal selecting satellite and polarization to the multiswitch over the coax -- you don't have all channels on the cable at once). If you want to do this and send video back to the headend you may need three coax cables.. though a cheap PC and webcam might do the trick over the Cat5-e instead (and I can think of creative uses of satellite diplexers to use two coaxes for two satellite signals, one cable/off air signal, and a backfeed, but I haven't tried it).
As for plugging phones into RJ-45s... why bother? Just terminate one of the Cat5e cables in an RJ-14 jack, leaving one pair not connected... you can have up to three lines on that RJ-14. Alternately, split it out in the box to two RJ-14s. You can always require for ethernet later, if you have to (or use a PBX that requires 8 wires). This also ensures that you don't accidently plug the phone in the wrong outlet (confusing the coax ports is bad enough).
Well, $7500 is pricy, but only because the output is so low... while it is true that you can get a 7,000 watt gas or propane generator for a few hundred dollars, they require major maintenance: oiling every 25 hours, and rebuilding every hundred. And they tend to run at 3600 rpm, making a heck of a racket.
The same specs, on a decent generator (runs at 1800 rpm, requires rebuilding every 1000 hours) raise the price by a factor of 10 to 20.
So, if the problems with wear and tear have been worked out, and the power output nudged up a bit, the price is not all that crazy.
It was published here about a year and a half ago.
Well, it doesn't concentrate on Free Software and Open Source per se, but it does recount the experience we had when we invited RMS to address developers at a former employer or mine regarding GPL complience -- primarily because we were starting to aggregate GPL code in a product we were developing.
It's more of a first person article, describinng the experience of having RMS address such a group in a commercial setting. I wrote it to dispel many of the myths surrounding RMS: I found him quite friendly and civil: hardly the ranting zealot has has the (unfair) reputation to be.
I had planned to write a followup article about some of the pitfalls we faced (like some of the ways that the GPL hindered us in getting development code out to third party contractor developers, and the inability to generally free many of our enhancements to GPL code: our customers get source, of course, but generally don't redistribute).
However, it is more of a first person account of a visit by RMS to educate developers in a commercial setting, about the requirements of the GPL. It is non-technical and dispels many myths about RMS being unreasonable.
And yes, I speak with some degree of authority on the subject, having arranged a lecture by RMS to a former employer's developers on the subject of GPL compliance.
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Two one hundred gig ATA/100 ide drives (yeah, SCSI would be better) would run about US$450... A box to put them in, say $500. Under $1000 plus the time to install and config Linux and Samba. Let's be pessimists and say its $5000 all added up.
I bet you guys wasted more than that already looking for a Windows solution.
Methinks you work for morons. I know, I used to.
One possible form of capital is intellectual effort, and one possible form of return is a process to reduce ongoing operational inefficiencies (i.e. an automated tool to replace manual work).
Think cost reduction as opposed to direct revenue. This cost reduction, if the cost is part of another venture, translates into increased profit in that venture, though, for most, I expect it simply treanslates into convenience.
Yet...
At least your Windows boxen would see them, no?
We saw the trend with DVD playback development under Linux: the tools were declared "illegal", or "infringing", and cries of legitimate uses were met with the response, "it isn't necessary to make Linux do that, because Windows already does" [paraphrasing, of course].
So, while your suggestion is logical (though I take exception to calling Linux, "shitty", or "little"), it may not be legally practical.
Bingo!
Until people have a need/use for a home server, 24/7 applications (like answering machine, possibly alarm system, home control, etc.) aren't going to happen. Of course, there is no need for a home server if there are no apps to run on it 24/7 so you have a chicken and egg problem... what is the "killer app" for the home server?
email
The thought of connecting and polling some remote POP/IMAP/whatever server for email periodically sucks: I (or some application) wants to know I have email the instant it is delivered to my mailbox. This is kind of a pain with a dial-up connection (and keeping it up is likely a violation of the terms of service unless you have a dedicated connection), but very easy to do if you have a cable or DSL connection. One of the first things I did when I got my DSL connection was configure my PC to sink email for my domain (yes, I have a remote backup MX; no, I do not relay) and adjust my DNS records accordingly. This humble P200 PC will soon be relegated to the headend where it will serve as an email/media server.
Of course, an answering machine is little more than a repository for email with a voice attachment in disguise, so, with the right modem, this becomes a slam dunk. Remote monitoring of the house (sensors, webcams, etc.) is the next logical step. While we're at it, might as well provide remote ssh-tunneled access to that email and voice mail.
This is just the start, really. For example, why do TiVo and ReplayTV need hard disks? Shouldn't they just stream to local home storage (perhaps encrypting the content to keep the MPAA sharks at bay, not that I'd like this)? I see a potential revival of "push" technology services, when the possibility of caching, i.e. time-shifting, content becomes the norm.
Hard drives are noisy, and frankly computers are ugly in a family/livingroom setting. It might be reasonable for streamed media playback devices to accept local CD, DVD, or other media, but it makes little sense for them to cache locally -- cache on the home server. With less as opposed to more integration in such devices, planned obsolescence becomes easier: you aren't throwing out a whole computer when you upgrade an essentially integrated component. A plus: storage becomes independent of content -- you grow storage as you want.
However, does it really have to be that way, that the only way to make reasonable profits is by creating artificial scarcity? It's no natural law.
Clearly it doesn't have to be that way, else we'd have no free software at all.
But, it would help at this point to agree on a definition of profit. Let me suggest the following: "Profit is the perceived increase of value obtained as a result of an exchange." Thus, profit is individual: both parties in a voluntary exchange can be said to have profited. Of course, partucular exchanges can be viewed as profitable from the point of view of many people: since we all need to eat, any hungry person will view the exchange of non-food items for food-items, or money to buy same, as profitable.
Individuals profit in a cooperative two ways: by reducing the average production costs through economies of scale (traditional cooperatives), or by leveraging their contributions that can be reproduced with little or no cost in exchange for a copy of the whole (free software cooperatives). Where the investment per individual is perceived as small, and the gain as large, there is little need for an artificial scarcity to inflate this gain. Thus, free software in the GPL sense (which prohibits redistribution of proprietary derived works for moral reasons), and BSD sense (which permits this for the advantage of wider distribution, use, and hopefully support) both flourish. However, traditional "Cathedral" software of any complexity requires some degree of artificial scarcity.
It is easy to show why this is so. Because it is developed without the resources of a voluntary "Bazaar" of contributers, the per-contributer costs are high. Once developed, the reproduction costs are negligable. However, the investment needs to be recouped. Thus, the artificial scarcity. When we look at development of complex free software without the benefit of a large bazaar of contributors, it progresses ever so slowly because the investments of individual contributors are much larger and need to be ammortized over "free" time. This is why the Hurd is so long in coming: it's use of a micro-kernel is revolutionary (well, not so much any more), whereas Linux is based on tried an true (albeit limiting) techniques -- Linux (I speak of the kernel, here) attracts more developers because it is more accessable. GNU/Linux attracts more developers because the spec and path are clear: make it look like a traditional Unix.
So, where the need for a particular kind of software, particularly among developers of software, is wide-spread, production of implementations that are not artificially scarce can and does happen.
Software is no essential part of living, thus, creating artificial scarcity for software is something that we can live with, at least for some time.
This is true of anything new: the idea is that the producer of a new and valuable thing be rewarded for his intellectual contribution to knowledge and practical contribution to society. The problem is that the legal mechanisms we use to make this reward possible, can also lead to a runaway effect -- the framers of the U.S. Constitution were wise to envision copyright for a limited duration. The same is true of patents. It is very difficult, though, to decide how much artificial scarcity is "too much, too long". In practice, the issue has traditionally been resolved by force, either via an unruly mob, or a "legitimate" government. Hardly civilized.
But how about food...? People are starving... Food is a scarce resource, but in a nano-tech world, it doesn't need to be. Then, if people are starving, creating artificial scarcity would be immoral.
Again, the artificial scarcity is useful in rewarding those who create a desired thing that does not exist yet. If people are starving because of a grain blight, and it costs millions and the use of sophisticated technology to produce a resistant varient of the desired crop, far better that the rich get the crop than no one (at least it will exist to be stolen). It should be noted, though, that many have argued that much world hunger occurs not for lack of world food production, but because of repressive political regimes.
Artificial scarcity creates allows the skewing of reward vs. risk to make ventures worthwhile. Unfortunately, it creates a self-perpetuating profit machine feedback mechanism that is difficult to damp. I suspect that is the real problem with it.
You see it with AIDS drugs too. While software is very different from drugs (in the former case, it is not about prize, and the latter case, it is all about prize), it has some of the same issues: How do we ensure that R&D can be continued without enforcing scarcity on the drugs.
Well, enforced scarcity requires a source of force to do the enforcing. There are two disparate views here: government regulation and the free market.
Government regulation can certainly limit "abuse" of artificial scarcity, when such abuse is perceived by the public at large. Witness recent talk of lifting the patent on Cipro in order to combat wide-spread Anthrax infection (which I think is an overblown risk, but I digress). Perhaps public will can drive government policy toward restricting "excessive profit via artificial scarcity".
The free market supporters, however, note that any government strong enough to do good is also strong enough to do evil: power corrupts, after all. Recently we appear to see a feedback mechanism between "abusers" of artificial scarcity and the purported government regulation of same: corporatism arises because artificial scarcity leads to greater profits and money is more desirable than votes, in the long run. All the government should do, then, is not prevent alternatives to artificially scarce goods from being developed and offered -- at some point the cost of development of an alternative will be less than the cost of licensing the scarce version because of greed on the part of the producer.
Certainly, some will note that, without government legitimised force, natural free market processes will not occur fast enough. But, that is a debate for another day.
I think it is something that needs to be addressed. Really, artificial scarcity must be abandoned on the long term, it just isn't sustainable.
As much as I am a libertarian, I agree: Artificial scarcity is useful, and consistent with the belief that the individual control what he produces. But I do not think that such scarcity need continue in perpetuity in order for it's benefits (creation of new things with high development costs) to be reaped. The biq question of course, is how is the artificial scarcity to be ended? I do not subscribe to the idea that a strong government is the right way to do it.
I think it is imperative that all good thinkers come together and think about how continued research and development can be done without creating artificial scarcity.
Yes, anything that reduces the need for an artificial scarcity bugagoo would be a good thing. Subscription models are one idea. Legal protections for "excessive" artificial scarcity are another (i.e. patents on the obvious). But we must tread carefully here, lest we stifle a voluntary mechanism that helps fuel progress.
Indeed, we do not have the solution, and great caution is required in future efforts, but I welcome very much discussions on how to make a world that does not depend on artificial scarcity for profit.
Agreed.
Whoa, there! (gee, moving to Texas is rubbing off on me)
Don't be so quick to throw out a useful model (i.e. capitalist economy).
First, of all, other things are general purpose as well: a pen or pencil can be used to write many different things in different styles, a stove can be used to cook different kinds of food, etc. There are limits to their generality, of course, but the same is true of a computer: a computer can be used to develop and run code, but not cook dinner (at least not without an appropriate interface).
Similarly, do not dismiss Free Software as not fitting in a capitalist economy. Eric Raymond's observations about egoboo and gift economies are not simply a feeble attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole. The essence of capitalism is that exchange of goods and services leads to greater value for all voluntary participants. The only thing special about Free Software is that value is not derived from possession of a scarce good, but rather an automated means to reduce effort.
To continue: the worth of a program is the automation of a task that it provides. This value is not lost if the program is shared, but is very much a real, tangible value: an accounting program saves me the trouble of balancing my books by hand. Because programs have value, the effort to produce them is undertaken: while the program provides value every time it is run, the effort to write the program need only be expended once. It just depends on how badly one wants the corresponding process automated.
The collaborative process traditional with major, popular, Free Software progrms is nothing more than capitalist efficiency at work: the efficiency provided by a cooperative. If the development effort can be spread out, but the fruits of the labour freely replicated, the cooperative mechanism provides tremendous efficiency: for minimal effort, one can contribute to the production of a program that provides value not diluted by the number of contributors.
None of this is inconsistent with capitalism.
However, there is a wrinkle to all this that is, perhaps, inconsistent with capitalism. So far I've been describing utility value: the value that a program has to reduce work through automation. However, if a program is scarce, it also has value because of it's scarcity. In a world where the right to use and share a program can be restricted, via, for example, license and copyright, it is natural that a program can be made scarce, in the legal sense.
It also serves a valuable purpose: people who could not otherwise contribute to the development of a program can fund it's development by paying to license it. Such scare software can not, by definition, be freely shared, but this does not detract from the value it's creation provides to those who pay to license it and those who are paid to create it. Of course, once created, and paid for by enough licensees, there is no need to maintain scarcity, save the desire to leverage the scarcity itself for pure profit on the part of the program writer or writers.
Even this is not inherently evil: if there is risk in not finding enough willing licencees for a piece of scare software, then surely there should be the potential reward of more than enough. Note that, since this risk is minimized for the developer with subscribed production of software (that is, development starts, when there are enough committed licensees), the moral justification for continued artificial scarcity drops. However, suscribed-software production is a rarity. Perhaps, because the production risk has been transfered to the subscribers: there is no guarantee that what is produced, if anything, will work, or be what they want. The closest we have to subscribed-software production is public ownership of corporate producers of scarce sofware.
Yet another facet of the scarce software phenomenon is the willingness of it's users to put up with the scarcity. But, there is an advantage to them to do this: it excludes those who can not afford to license the software from benefitting from it's value. Some of those others might be competitors of the willing licensees and by excluding them from access to scarce software that would reduce their operating costs, a competetive advantage is gained. This is the classic "barrier to entry" in a market.
So, artificial software scarcity permits the production of software where otherwise there would be none, by providing for an increased reward in the face of increased risk. For those who would argue that the availability of software, at any price, is better than the non-availability of same, this is in no way immoral. Nevertheless, there is this nagging feeling that the production of similar free (i.e. non-scarce) software is somehow "better", and "more fair", because no one is excluded from the benefits it provides, and no one suffers from a loss of utility value because of others' gain thereof. The counter, of course, is that because production of new things of value is not bad, the benefits derived from any scarcity value associated with their production are not ill-gotten.
And here lies the rub: scarcity value is threatened by the abundance that Free Software represents, and the moral justification for scarcity value driven production is erased when non-scarce alternatives are available. Free Software production, conversly, is threatened by the lure of benefits available to those who seek to derive value from scarcity. No wonder both Microsoft and RMS are upset about the consequences of each other's philosophies!
Given that the moral justification for scarce software production evaporates when free alternatives are available, does that mean that such production should be, somehow, outlawed? No, this is not necessary, and would presume that no one derives value from the differences between free and scarce versions of the same software. It is not necessary, because a free market will naturally result in abandonment of a scarce good when a cheaper (yes, free as in beer) alternative is available that is perceived to be just as useful. Of course, it would be imoral to try to interfere with such a transition. It is fortuitous indeed then, that free as in speech does go hand in hand with free as in beer.
Perhaps that is the transition away from "a capitalist" ecomomy that is being described -- the replacement of scarce goods with non-scarce ones. But it is wrong to view this as somehow non-capitalist -- post-scarcity, perhaps, as far as software is concerend, but certainly very capitalist. And indeed, it would be folly to try to extend this to goods and services that do not have the potential non-scarce attributes of software.
Assuming that the major premise is correct, that in Canada, women can claim rape after consenting to sex (actually feminazis there weasel on the definition of consent), it stands to reason that all sorts of other absurdities are reasonable: i.e. violent video games, particularly where the virtual victims are respresentative of the source of absurdities in reality.
The only question then, is if the major premise holds up to scrutiny. See a previous reference on feminazi attitudes in Canada regarding consent, and thus whether rape occured.
I suppose one could argue that the link between the source of absurdities in reality, and objects of anger in a virtual setting is weak, and so the argument linking them is, indeed, a straw-man argument, but I don't hold that view.
Feminazi movements in Canada have resulted in absurdities such as child support payments that exceed the payor's income, resulting in jail time for contempt of court. The reasoning behind this folly is as follows: the payor is "artificially" earning less than he can to spite the recipient.
It strikes me that in such an environment, where legislation and attitude feeds a hatred of women, games that permit the resulting anger to be vented on virtual victims would be in demand.
I am not suggesting that this is reasonable or healthy, merely that it is to be expected.
The notion is that a woman can claim to not have consented because of circumstantes that have not been communicated to her partner at the time, because they should have been "obvious" to him.
IOW, even without lack of explicit withdrawl of consent, her partner is supposed to know that consent is not present, or was withdrawn.
IIRC, in Canada, a woman can claim rape "after the consentual fact" if she changes her mind (perhaps she wasn't satisfied?).
In a world where women can claim rape after having consentual sex, it seams fair to have games where one can bash in the heads of prostitutes and recover one's "investment".
And no, I would certainly not transcode a digital satellite feed -- you're right about the cascading errors. I just put the damn baseband feed from the multiswitch on the coax and be done with it.
Now, there are some interesting terrestrial HDTV decoder cards for PCs that provide an MPEG2 stream (either encoded off-line, or real-time with decent equipment (i.e. for live programming)) -- I think Telemann makes one for around US$400. A couple of these at the headend to permit streamed MPEG2-compressed HDTV over IP on the ethernet would be cool.
It is very seductive to want GigE and headend sources that can provide as much switched digital audio and video as each room can handle, and do away with the coax. But we "ain't there yet".
Also, once you start doing things like PIP (picture in picture) at the receiver in each room, you suddenly realize that you don't need all the streams to be full-resolution, certainly not the PIP stream... it would make more sense for it to be downsampled in real time before being sent to the remote room.
It looks like what you want is a digital stream over 100 Mb/s ethernet or GigE (you did run Cat5e, right?) demodulated from whatever source (terrestrial HDTV, satellite, etc.) at the headend, with a resolution negotiated between equipment in each room and the headend demodulator. So, you could get a full-res main stream, and a 1/4 res PIP.
D1 over GigE? I suppose it is possible.
I don't deny what you are saying, but I have had exactly the opposite experience, at least with HP CDRW drives.
Often you want to distribute component video, so you need three pairs, and a digital audio signal (oops, another pair). You can't take advantage of multi-tuner capabilities of modern TV sets, 'cause you don't have a broadband feed.
I came to the conclusion that it's best to pull the coax for "legacy" equipment, and if I ever wanted to transmit video over IP, I'd use MPEG2 encoders -- they're no longer insanely priced and I expect them to become cheaper as time goes on.
Now, if your cable is already run, and you need that extra composite or svideo signal, and you've got a spare pair or two, by all means, use them.
I just wish your company (and others in the biz) would bash on the heads of homebuilders. They are SOOO in the 1960s when it comes to prewiring, and the costs are insignificant compared to the rest of the house (yeah, I know they count every penny like auto manufacturers, but geez, ethernet to each room is practically a necessity today).
Oh yeah! There's nothing quite like straddling the ceiling joists above the family room (you know, the one with the 12 foot ceiling), holding on to a wall stud, and drilling through a top plate.
You want to keep such runs at leastr 12" apart, cross them at 90 degree angles when necessary, and only bring them close in a split multi-ganged box (if your code permits that).
I ended up running 2 runs of Cat5e and 2 runs of quad-shielded RG-6 to 6 drops.
You will want the coax... trust me. While I'd like to run everythng over UTP or fiber, the costs of locating things like VCRs, and satellite receivers at a head end, and streaming video digitally are prohibitive compared to the costs of running the coax. You may want to plan for the day when everything is streamed over IP and carried on an ethernet or fiber physical layer, but I think it is far better to have dead cable in the wall than to use horribly expensive equipment today as opposed to your neighbor who just hooks up the new TV to the cable outlet and is done.
Fiber. I didn't run any, but mostly because of the cost -- it's still too expensive. Also, don't forget headend terminations for all those fiber lines -- they are expensive. If you can afford it, by all means. In my case, I figure I'll sell the house and build a new one before I have a real pressing need for fiber: am I really going to want to stream full-resolution uncompressed video room to room? I doubt it.
Do put in as many drops as you think you'll need, and then some. You have an advantage over me: your walls aren't up yet. Plan for a minimum of one per room, more if there are multiple entrances. For example, many central family rooms open up to formal dining/living rooms and kitchen -- place the outlet on the "wrong" wall and you'll have to snake a cable across an entryway... not cool.
If you can afford the cabling, make EACH 110VAC outlet have a co-located (but not sharing the box-- that violates code) coax/data drop. That's excessive, and you immediately have to separate the AC and other cables to avoid interference, but you'll have a drop whereever you need one. Personally, I'd probably stick with one outlet per continuous wall segment, more for bigger rooms.
I ran 2xCat5e and 2xRG-6 (quad-shielded). You can get combo cable (speedwrap) that contains this (with or without fiber) in a single jacket that makes for easy pulling, but expect to pay double over individual cables. If you're paying for installation, the reduced labour might pay for the more expensive cable. Note: the reason for two runs of coax is in case you want to run a video stream back to the headend, like, perhaps a baby monitor camera. However, with recent PVR having TWO tuners, you'll find you need to use both coax cables, espescially with satellite systems (the receiver sends a signal selecting satellite and polarization to the multiswitch over the coax -- you don't have all channels on the cable at once). If you want to do this and send video back to the headend you may need three coax cables.. though a cheap PC and webcam might do the trick over the Cat5-e instead (and I can think of creative uses of satellite diplexers to use two coaxes for two satellite signals, one cable/off air signal, and a backfeed, but I haven't tried it).
As for plugging phones into RJ-45s... why bother? Just terminate one of the Cat5e cables in an RJ-14 jack, leaving one pair not connected... you can have up to three lines on that RJ-14. Alternately, split it out in the box to two RJ-14s. You can always require for ethernet later, if you have to (or use a PBX that requires 8 wires). This also ensures that you don't accidently plug the phone in the wrong outlet (confusing the coax ports is bad enough).
I'd post more, but have to go.
The same specs, on a decent generator (runs at 1800 rpm, requires rebuilding every 1000 hours) raise the price by a factor of 10 to 20.
So, if the problems with wear and tear have been worked out, and the power output nudged up a bit, the price is not all that crazy.
Well, it doesn't concentrate on Free Software and Open Source per se, but it does recount the experience we had when we invited RMS to address developers at a former employer or mine regarding GPL complience -- primarily because we were starting to aggregate GPL code in a product we were developing.
It's more of a first person article, describinng the experience of having RMS address such a group in a commercial setting. I wrote it to dispel many of the myths surrounding RMS: I found him quite friendly and civil: hardly the ranting zealot has has the (unfair) reputation to be.
I had planned to write a followup article about some of the pitfalls we faced (like some of the ways that the GPL hindered us in getting development code out to third party contractor developers, and the inability to generally free many of our enhancements to GPL code: our customers get source, of course, but generally don't redistribute).
However, it is more of a first person account of a visit by RMS to educate developers in a commercial setting, about the requirements of the GPL. It is non-technical and dispels many myths about RMS being unreasonable.
... better that than listening to the KPMG theme song. Er, oops.
There, I did it, well, probably not by the time I submit it, but I'm at my karma cap, any way. I was silly just this once, and it felt good!
As for nice TOS, I hear that Speakeasy.net is cool, but have no experience with them
And yes, I speak with some degree of authority on the subject, having arranged a lecture by RMS to a former employer's developers on the subject of GPL compliance.