We don't have such a law in Denmark, but an industry alliance between publishers and book stores has the same effect (price fixing). And we have laws that allows such an alliance to exists for books, even though they are illegal in other branches.
The effects are:
1) Books are prices beyond what most people are willing to pay (US$ 60 is a typical price for a paperback).
2) We have zillions of small identical bookstores that carries 20 bestsellers plus office supplies and travel guides.
3) The publishers can afford to publish "narrow" books with a 3 digit readership. And no, they are not the kind of books anyone on/. would read....
I'd gladly give up the zillions of small bookstores and books nobody reads for:
1) Cheap books for the masses in supermarkets.
2) A handful of large, well assorted bookstores. Maybe one in each of the four largest cities (and two in Copenhagen).
3) Put on the narrow books as "print on demand" on lulu.com in case anyone cares.
2) The acceptable delay depends on expectations, which again depends on what the norm is.
When access to information becomes faster, people also expect access to information to be faster (duh!), and are thus less tolerant of delays, even if the delays are within what used to be the norm.
These changing norms affects younger people faster than older people, as younger people have less mental baggage to carry around.
Oh, and bonus point:
3) Books are technically obsolete for looking stuff up. They are still excellent for a more in depth study of a subject.
In Scandinavian countries the major political power consist of a delicate balance between _three_ biggest parties (moderate left, moderate right and center (which usually is some sort of a descendant of an agricultural party)). It's not a simple boxing match between two biggest parties. Well, in Denmark the three biggest parties is Left, which is the ruling "liberal" party (old agricultural party) which are basically for an ever expanding public sector, the Social Democrats in opposition which demand the public sector to expand even faster, and the Danish Peoples party which want all Muslims to be expelled, as they see the Muslims as the major roadblock for expanding the public sector even more.
Basically, we have three largest parties are identical. Traditional social democratic values, plus some more recent anti-Muslim sentiments (for all three).
Then there are the three next biggest parties (usually the green party, radical left and some sort of liberals). They have an influence in the soup too. That'd be the Socialist Peoples party, which want the public sector to grow even faster than the previous three parties, the Conservatives (old name: "Right") who are junior partner in the government together with "Left", and the Radical Left. The two later parties are the only one who has political issue different from "expanding government" and "stop immigration". The both advocate big tax cuts for the rich. Yes, the main anti-tax party is called "the Radical Left".
Putting them in a left-right axes makes little sense, the only top-6 party with something resembling being right wing on economical issues is called "the Radical Left", and there is no right wing parties on social issues.
I don't feel having a lot of parties really give you a lot of choice when they are all leaning on the same focus groups to formulate their politics.
Last election I voted for the Communists (who are outside top-6, and was in danger of losing their seats) for the first time, just to have some dissenting voice in the parliament. At least, the Communists believe in something besides getting elected. Even if it happens not to be the same thing I believe in.
I wasn't much into Arcade games, I was too cheap to pay the 25 cent for a game.
We also got the original TV game console, but didn't spend too much time with it. It is limited how captivated you can get from "pong". I wasn't hooked until our local bookstore began selling Vic-20, and used Adventure (aka Colossal Cave) as their demo. I don't understand why they allowed me to spend so many hours there. It never generated a sale, I couldn't afford a Vic-20, and soon after I found out writing games was even more fun than playing them.
For the Thinkpad X series, which has similar specs, you can buy a base station. The base station has extra usb ports, as well as connectors for external monitor (plus usb keyboard and mouse). It also sports space for an optical drive and extra hard drives. You place your (closed) Thinkpad X laptop on the base station, and use it as desktop computer.
If the MacBook Air is to be used as a primary computer, it will need something similar.
It makes more sense to me than to move all your rarely used peripherals with you in your "ultraportable" package. When used "on the road" I have never needed any of the missing stuff. A single USB port is enough.
I don't care about 10 hour flights, my experience has been that those always have power plugs.
But for my old laptops, the ability to change the battery has easily doubled their effective lifetime. I do need it to be able to stay alive for a 45 minute bus trip, plus some "sleeping" time before and after.
Of course, I can see the business case for making the lifetime of a product half as long, with a loyal customer base it means double sales.
Who needs a super-thin, super-light laptop and is willing to pay a premium for it? People who are traveling a great deal and need to carry it around all day long. I strongly suspect that particular target audience will stick with the Thinkpad X series for the foreseeable future. The weight, specs and price is at the same level, except that IBM (and Lenovo) decided not to compromise in order to get the thickness down, something Jobs rightly pointed out all the ultra-thin notebooks had to do.
The only reason if i modify the kernel source and distribute the binary, that I HAVE to give the source with it, is because of copyright. True, but if you couldn't control the distribution of the sourceless binaries, you would have much less incitement to distribute them without source in the first place.
So yes, copyleft would not exist without copyright, but copyleft would be much less needed without copyright as well.
If communism was as obvious a failure as you claim it was, then the Communist Party would not be one of the biggest parties in Italy, an educated and industrialized country. Despite their name, the Italian communist party is what would be considered a "social democratic" in the rest of Europe, not communistic.
Today the Communist Party is standing up against Vladimir Putin, The Russian communists have been nothing but loyal towards Czar Putin in the Duma.
What will happen is that purchases of proprietary software (the ones OSS cannot replace) will require a signed contract far more intrusive and draconian than current copyright law. Business that "leak" their copies will be punished severely, so they will set up equally draconian access policies. All of this will provide a pretty strong incitement for business to go with a free software solution instead, even if it means paying a significant amount to someone for developing any missing functionality. But yes, a niche will remain for contract based software, somewhere between the vertical markets (where businesses will go for in-house or ad-hoc solutions) and the horizontal markets (which free software will dominate).
What a strange statement. It is based on interviews with authors. A few (like Heinlein) does it for the money. But others (Gaiman, Ellison) describe it as compulsory, beyond their ability to control. I believe it was Ellison who called the first category "authors", and the second "writers".
We do have some experience with free software in times of recession.
Free software support companies typically do well during a recession, as it makes business more aware on cost. Buzzwords become less important to business decisions, and even TCO arguments have less weight compared to a saving here and now.
Most important free software is created by full time professionals, not hobbyists or people who do it part time as part of another job. The later two groups are not really affected at all, you don't drop your (free!) hobby because of a recession, nor does your employer stop using free software (see above), so that part of your work is as important as always.
The one place where I can see a problem is with companies that use free software as a loss leader, they might get scared and withdraw support. And that is a relatively new phenomena. Is Star Office a loss leader for Sun?
Well, any Linux developer could sue you for "contributory infringement" for posting the Linux kernel module.
Whether they would succeed would depend on the judge. The FSF claim that you cannot circumvent the GPL by distributing proprietary (or in this case, free under an incompatible license) as separate modules, with the expectation that the user does the link. I haven't seen too many people who believe in the FSF interpretation.
Think about it, the range is 3 cm. For how many Bluetooth applications is that relevant? Basically just those where you might as well plug the two devices together.
It will be convenient for transferring photos from your camera to your laptop, just place your camera on your laptop, and the transfer will happen automatically with no questions asked. [ Yes, people will be able steal data from you this way, but it almost requires physical access to the device because the range is so short. ]
But it won't do anything for your wireless mouse, keyboard or headset.
Programmers and musicians have one thing in common, they mostly make their money from non-copyright sources. The vast majority of programmers (no, I don't have recent numbers to back it up) make their money doing in-house programming. The vast majority of musician make their money on live performance, even if the occasional album sale feels nice.
The interesting issue is what will lack. For musicians, the underground will hardly be affected, they make their money on live performance. The established names ditto, as well as merchandise. Even the "boy bands" and other label made concept will likely continue, with other sponsors (currently TV seems to love the process of creating pop bands).
For programmers, free software is already everywhere, about half of it produced by professionals according to the EU sponsored FLOSS report. Anything that can be created incrementally can be created by people paying for features the need.
For movies, outside the big languages (English, Spanish, Hindi) production is heavily subsidized, so generally not profitable.
Books will continue to be written (a writer has no choice but to write) but getting paid might be a problem (unless you are into propaganda). Again, for smaller languages government subsidies are already needed. In Denmark it takes the form of a library fee, authors of Danish language books gets a sum proportional to how many people borrow their books. Yes I know tax is stealing, but the majority in my country for some reason want to preserve our quaint language, even if it means higher taxes.
So what we lose out is international blockbuster movies (which is sad, while I likes Clerks which is the type of movie that would continue to be made, I loved Lord of the Rings), some types of "movie like games" that cannot be created incrementally, and maybe a system to pay authors in some countries. Music will be mostly unaffected.
Since you didn't actually read the interview, or at least doesn't show any signs that you did, it would be strange if you gained any form for respect for the man from it.
You do however seem to exemplify the "no intellectual capital" quote. Rather than take up a single point from the interview, you invent some of your own, and then "argue" against them. I put "argue" in quotes because you don't actually argue against the points you invented, you just dismiss them. Sad really.
The trick is to get paid, or enter a contract to be paid, before you do the work. People need some functionality, and you write it for a price. As a byproduct, you release the code as free software. It gets easier over time, as you and your code gains reputation.
I have made a living that way for the last 12 years.
It is a change of mindset, you get paid for your work, not for your code, just like if you were an ordinary wage slave. The difference is that since your code is free, you are too, you won't lose it when switching client.
My main argument for free software in general is that you are not dependent on a single supplier for support and upgraded. Let the suppliers compete on provided the best value for money, rather than lock yourself into a single vendor.
To gets more specific than that, I need to consider who want the software, and for what purpose. Often my advice will be to go with a proprietary solution.
(If all your friends are using Macs and you have no particular interest in computers or specialized needs, chance is that you will also be most happy with a Mac).
I don't know the case, but the most common reason to believe the information in this kind of cases is that the accused stand behind their words.
As the student in this case is politically active, he is probably much more likely to grab an opportunity to defend himself, rather than go for denial.
There really aren't any cheap laptops sold under the Thinkpad brand, but the R series is their "everyday" brand, while the T series is their "performance". The R61 and T61 models are probably their two top sellers.
I prefer the X series (their 12" models), but it is not as common as the óther two. It is also both slower and more expensive.
Static analysis tools aren't very good for memory leaks. Dynamic tools can do a better job, but the low level nature of the C memory model makes even those less than perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
We don't have such a law in Denmark, but an industry alliance between publishers and book stores has the same effect (price fixing). And we have laws that allows such an alliance to exists for books, even though they are illegal in other branches.
/. would read. ...
The effects are:
1) Books are prices beyond what most people are willing to pay (US$ 60 is a typical price for a paperback).
2) We have zillions of small identical bookstores that carries 20 bestsellers plus office supplies and travel guides.
3) The publishers can afford to publish "narrow" books with a 3 digit readership. And no, they are not the kind of books anyone on
I'd gladly give up the zillions of small bookstores and books nobody reads for:
1) Cheap books for the masses in supermarkets.
2) A handful of large, well assorted bookstores. Maybe one in each of the four largest cities (and two in Copenhagen).
3) Put on the narrow books as "print on demand" on lulu.com in case anyone cares.
1) Young people have always been impatient.
2) The acceptable delay depends on expectations, which again depends on what the norm is.
When access to information becomes faster, people also expect access to information to be faster (duh!), and are thus less tolerant of delays, even if the delays are within what used to be the norm.
These changing norms affects younger people faster than older people, as younger people have less mental baggage to carry around.
Oh, and bonus point:
3) Books are technically obsolete for looking stuff up. They are still excellent for a more in depth study of a subject.
Zone transfer is not illegal in itself, zone transfer for certain purposes are illegal.
Basically, we have three largest parties are identical. Traditional social democratic values, plus some more recent anti-Muslim sentiments (for all three). Then there are the three next biggest parties (usually the green party, radical left and some sort of liberals). They have an influence in the soup too. That'd be the Socialist Peoples party, which want the public sector to grow even faster than the previous three parties, the Conservatives (old name: "Right") who are junior partner in the government together with "Left", and the Radical Left. The two later parties are the only one who has political issue different from "expanding government" and "stop immigration". The both advocate big tax cuts for the rich. Yes, the main anti-tax party is called "the Radical Left".
Putting them in a left-right axes makes little sense, the only top-6 party with something resembling being right wing on economical issues is called "the Radical Left", and there is no right wing parties on social issues.
I don't feel having a lot of parties really give you a lot of choice when they are all leaning on the same focus groups to formulate their politics.
Last election I voted for the Communists (who are outside top-6, and was in danger of losing their seats) for the first time, just to have some dissenting voice in the parliament. At least, the Communists believe in something besides getting elected. Even if it happens not to be the same thing I believe in.
Cain lived in Sweden?
I wasn't much into Arcade games, I was too cheap to pay the 25 cent for a game.
We also got the original TV game console, but didn't spend too much time with it. It is limited how captivated you can get from "pong". I wasn't hooked until our local bookstore began selling Vic-20, and used Adventure (aka Colossal Cave) as their demo. I don't understand why they allowed me to spend so many hours there. It never generated a sale, I couldn't afford a Vic-20, and soon after I found out writing games was even more fun than playing them.
For the Thinkpad X series, which has similar specs, you can buy a base station. The base station has extra usb ports, as well as connectors for external monitor (plus usb keyboard and mouse). It also sports space for an optical drive and extra hard drives. You place your (closed) Thinkpad X laptop on the base station, and use it as desktop computer.
If the MacBook Air is to be used as a primary computer, it will need something similar.
It makes more sense to me than to move all your rarely used peripherals with you in your "ultraportable" package. When used "on the road" I have never needed any of the missing stuff. A single USB port is enough.
I don't care about 10 hour flights, my experience has been that those always have power plugs.
But for my old laptops, the ability to change the battery has easily doubled their effective lifetime. I do need it to be able to stay alive for a 45 minute bus trip, plus some "sleeping" time before and after.
Of course, I can see the business case for making the lifetime of a product half as long, with a loyal customer base it means double sales.
So yes, copyleft would not exist without copyright, but copyleft would be much less needed without copyright as well.
We do have some experience with free software in times of recession.
Free software support companies typically do well during a recession, as it makes business more aware on cost. Buzzwords become less important to business decisions, and even TCO arguments have less weight compared to a saving here and now.
Most important free software is created by full time professionals, not hobbyists or people who do it part time as part of another job. The later two groups are not really affected at all, you don't drop your (free!) hobby because of a recession, nor does your employer stop using free software (see above), so that part of your work is as important as always.
The one place where I can see a problem is with companies that use free software as a loss leader, they might get scared and withdraw support. And that is a relatively new phenomena. Is Star Office a loss leader for Sun?
Well, any Linux developer could sue you for "contributory infringement" for posting the Linux kernel module.
Whether they would succeed would depend on the judge. The FSF claim that you cannot circumvent the GPL by distributing proprietary (or in this case, free under an incompatible license) as separate modules, with the expectation that the user does the link. I haven't seen too many people who believe in the FSF interpretation.
It is a competitor for plugs.
Think about it, the range is 3 cm. For how many Bluetooth applications is that relevant? Basically just those where you might as well plug the two devices together.
It will be convenient for transferring photos from your camera to your laptop, just place your camera on your laptop, and the transfer will happen automatically with no questions asked. [ Yes, people will be able steal data from you this way, but it almost requires physical access to the device because the range is so short. ]
But it won't do anything for your wireless mouse, keyboard or headset.
Programmers and musicians have one thing in common, they mostly make their money from non-copyright sources. The vast majority of programmers (no, I don't have recent numbers to back it up) make their money doing in-house programming. The vast majority of musician make their money on live performance, even if the occasional album sale feels nice.
The interesting issue is what will lack. For musicians, the underground will hardly be affected, they make their money on live performance. The established names ditto, as well as merchandise. Even the "boy bands" and other label made concept will likely continue, with other sponsors (currently TV seems to love the process of creating pop bands).
For programmers, free software is already everywhere, about half of it produced by professionals according to the EU sponsored FLOSS report. Anything that can be created incrementally can be created by people paying for features the need.
For movies, outside the big languages (English, Spanish, Hindi) production is heavily subsidized, so generally not profitable.
Books will continue to be written (a writer has no choice but to write) but getting paid might be a problem (unless you are into propaganda). Again, for smaller languages government subsidies are already needed. In Denmark it takes the form of a library fee, authors of Danish language books gets a sum proportional to how many people borrow their books. Yes I know tax is stealing, but the majority in my country for some reason want to preserve our quaint language, even if it means higher taxes.
So what we lose out is international blockbuster movies (which is sad, while I likes Clerks which is the type of movie that would continue to be made, I loved Lord of the Rings), some types of "movie like games" that cannot be created incrementally, and maybe a system to pay authors in some countries. Music will be mostly unaffected.
Since you didn't actually read the interview, or at least doesn't show any signs that you did, it would be strange if you gained any form for respect for the man from it.
You do however seem to exemplify the "no intellectual capital" quote. Rather than take up a single point from the interview, you invent some of your own, and then "argue" against them. I put "argue" in quotes because you don't actually argue against the points you invented, you just dismiss them. Sad really.
The trick is to get paid, or enter a contract to be paid, before you do the work. People need some functionality, and you write it for a price. As a byproduct, you release the code as free software. It gets easier over time, as you and your code gains reputation.
I have made a living that way for the last 12 years.
It is a change of mindset, you get paid for your work, not for your code, just like if you were an ordinary wage slave. The difference is that since your code is free, you are too, you won't lose it when switching client.
My main argument for free software in general is that you are not dependent on a single supplier for support and upgraded. Let the suppliers compete on provided the best value for money, rather than lock yourself into a single vendor.
To gets more specific than that, I need to consider who want the software, and for what purpose. Often my advice will be to go with a proprietary solution.
(If all your friends are using Macs and you have no particular interest in computers or specialized needs, chance is that you will also be most happy with a Mac).
I don't know the case, but the most common reason to believe the information in this kind of cases is that the accused stand behind their words.
As the student in this case is politically active, he is probably much more likely to grab an opportunity to defend himself, rather than go for denial.
There really aren't any cheap laptops sold under the Thinkpad brand, but the R series is their "everyday" brand, while the T series is their "performance". The R61 and T61 models are probably their two top sellers.
I prefer the X series (their 12" models), but it is not as common as the óther two. It is also both slower and more expensive.
Watermarks do not limit the right a user have under copyright law, unless DRM which use technical means to circumvent the law.
Watermarks works *with* the law, not against it.
DRM is an affront to anyone who believe in copyright law. Watermarks is only an affront to those who don't believe in copyright law.
Static analysis tools aren't very good for memory leaks. Dynamic tools can do a better job, but the low level nature of the C memory model makes even those less than perfect.
> I fuckin' *hate* C++. I'd much rather have to code straight C while being punched
> repeatedly by a baboon.
You hate having to cast malloc that much? That is the only significant thing you would have to do differently when writing C++.
Now if you were talking about reading someone else's C++ code, you might have a point.