It's an issue for the lawyers and courts to decide, which frequently has little bearing on common sense. Should they prove that he did acquire the documents without permission (as opposed to, oh say, reverse-engineering the information) then I imagine that all they'd have to prove is that the information -could- be used by another party for economic benefit, not that his intention was for that to happen. And that will be very easy to prove, since there are companies that make cable converters and the like, and even an individual stealing DirecTV gains economically by virtue of not having to pay for what he/she receives.
Should be interesting to see if you get any bites on this one.:)
I noticed that they're not claiming a copyright violation or anything else. This isn't a free speech issue, it's a "you didn't figure this out on your own, but rather because you got something that doesn't belong to you" issue.
What he did is just as illegal as if I'd stolen a bunch of information on Magellan's tracking software to distribute or use for my company's navigation software. This doesn't appear to be a case where the technology was reverse engineered and published by that means, which should be protected.
You'll note that this is not being described as a DMCA case, but as industrial espionage. And if it's true and he's convicted, he should go to jail like all the other white-collar criminals who do this.
I give a shit, because Apple makes some cool shit.
Even if I never buy anything, I like looking at the latest whiz-bang wild-ass thing Apple's done, because even when they miss, it's at least because they're trying something new. The G4 Cube was such a beast... it missed the mark completely, but it was a cool lookin' box. Better than beige, better than bling! art.
It's like going out and test-driving cars when you don't even want a new car -- you do it just to see what's out there, and because it's fun.
If you need an explanation for this sort of thing on the other hand, why are you here?
I agree with "take the Lessig challenge," as you say. What's more, boycotts almost never work.
In order for a boycott to work, you have to have a huge amount of the customer base boycotting, and you have to make sure the message gets to the company that they are being boycotted and why, so that the company can't point to alternative explanations for the dip in revenues. What's more, certain corporations (such as McDonald's) try to tread more lightly than others, and will respond; other corporations (such as... well, the RIAA) have no interest in such things.
The appeal of Lessig's Challenge to me is that I know that even if I merely match the funds I spend on movies and records with the funds I give to the EFF, more of the EFF money will go directly into fighting policies I disagree with than money I spend on the RIAA, since the latter money has to go to packaging, materials, shipping, marketing costs, and the occasional penny or two for the artist.
Also, whenever possible, support the artists you enjoy directly. See if they have a website, or a collection of free MP3's. Support artists that you know oppose the RIAA's policies, such as The Offspring, Hole, or Prince -- of course, only if you like their work.
As for movies, nobody's forcing you to wait in line the day the movie comes out to pay full price. Go to a matinee, or better yet, wait until it comes out on HBO/TMC. Or get a group of friends to rent it or buy one copy that you all watch together later. Homes are more comfortable, anyway, and nobody will keep you from bringing your own beer to the show. (Enough beer, and you might even like the movie better.)
I met Lessig's challenge last week. I joined the EFF. I don't feel so bad about wanting to see Bond and Hobbits now.
This article reminds me a lot of the old American football saying, about how fans give their coach too much blame when the team loses and too much credit when the team wins. American McGee's comment is a great example of this:
"Grand Theft Auto is basically a rip-off of Zelda, because Zelda invented massive-world games that let players explore freely, rather than following a linear path. Miyamoto innovates, so he's pushing the form. End of story."
I'm sorry, but Ultima III and the Wizardry series were doing massive-world free-exploration games long before the NES even existed. And even those had predecessors. And from the way this article sounds, you'd think Miyamoto was the first to ever use 3D or a camera in a game.
This seems to be an underlying theme in the article -- that the video game industry is looking to Miyamoto for guidance, blaming him for not guiding them in the right way, and giving him way too much credit for its current state. It's as if Miyamoto is successful due to some magic he alone possesses, rather than because he was able to build on lessons of the past in the right ways.
Re:Harassment, no matter how funny, is illegal
on
HOWTO: Annoy a Spammer
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· Score: 3, Interesting
As a highly-ranked post in an earlier thread stated (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=47045&cid=482 8450), that's the whole point. What he does is not illegal, but is just as wrong -- if not MORE wrong, since it costs the RECIPIENT to receive the mail, and because it cannot be filtered en masse once a day. It is both easier to send spam e-mail and more intrusive. This form of harassment may be illegal, but clearly demonstrates the principle for why what he does should also be made illegal.
I'm glad I didn't get involved, because I'm too stupid to have done this without getting caught. But I'm glad someone else did, because it was the right thing to do -- maybe not equivalent in degree to the Boston Tea Party, but equivalent in kind.
From what I understand, the reason Wal-Mart is able to beat people on prices and still make scads of money is that their business model is based on doing lots of research to pick up things at the cheapest (wholesale) prices in town, and then sell them for less than other retailers can.
So Wal-Mart has put a lot of time and effort into how they price things (you notice that Wal-Mart has a lot of things selling for $4.67 and $3.12 rather than the standard $xyz.99 prices everyone else uses?) to get the most money out of the lowest possible price.
FatWallet interferes with their ability to do that, by giving people instant access to information that takes Wal-Mart lots of time to gather. What used to be something only Wal-Mart did, is now something anyone with an internet connection can do.
So basically Wal-Mart's just defending their turf; they know that if more people used FatWallet, it would be harder for Wal-Mart to make so much money from such low prices.
The hubbub is going to hurt Wal-Mart in the end more than help, however. People, like me, who've never even heard of FatWallet.com are going to hit the site to see if they (or rather, I) can save money through the site as well... rather than just heading out to Wal-Mart for a price that may not be the lowest in town, but will beat most retailers.
It's ironic, no? Wal-Mart feels a website is hurting its business -- and in attacking it, ensure that said website will hurt their business even more by drawing people's attention to it. Funny how heavy-handed legal action can have that effect!
Like the girl said -- if you read the interview -- she didn't make the story up.
The reason it's believable that she did NOT make the story up is because so many of us have had that same experience on a PC, and because so many Mac users made the switch for similar reasons long, long before the "Switch" campaign began.
Granted, the hardcore Mactivists don't like the campaign, because they like feeling like they're members of an ultra-elite club, and that somehow suffering through the abortions of the pre-Steve-Jobs-Returns years makes them better than all of these nouveau macintosh types they suddenly see around them.
One of the more brilliant features of this campaign is that Apple doesn't have to work hard -- AT ALL -- to find people who switched for good reasons. They probably could just go find anyone who owns a Mac, ask them, "Why do you use it?" and as long as the person isn't one of the rabid single-mouse-button-humping set, they'll probably find someone who used to use Windows, and is now a very happy Mac user.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Mac user and have no affiliation with Apple or anything.
My continued use of Windows comes down primarily to inertia:
1. I've been a very happy user of Cakewalk products. I recently upgraded to SONAR, and I've really enjoyed using it.
2. I own a Roland LAPC-1. I can't fit it in a Mac, and the Mac is the only system that has equal or better music-writing software.
3. Quicken. I swear by Quicken. I couldn't even balance my checkbook before it.
4. I've been a PC game player for many years.
But by and large, when I upgrade next, most of the above reasons will be gone:
1. As good as Cakewalk is, the Mac has a greater variety and quality of music-editing software than the PC. The products that are out there are also more mature. The Macintosh is the industry standard for music. Why am I settling for second-best?
2. I don't want to sacrifice the old LAPC-1's sound for anything, but as long as used MT-32's are available on eBay for $25, I no longer have to be stuck with it. Besides; even if I stay with a PC, motherboards with ISA slots are few and far between, and I no longer want to be limited to just mobos that have ISA slots.
3. They make Quicken for Mac, and there are similar programs (e.g. gnucash) for Linux.
4. I find that most of my game-playing time nowadays is done on consoles, and I rarely (if ever) play games on the PC other than simple Java apps.
A lot of these reasons have been around for a while, but only now am I at a point where something other than Windows can be considered an option -- in fact, a Macintosh is a much more attractive option for most of what I do now. My next computer will probably be a Macintosh, and my Windows box will get converted to a Linux machine.
God, I sound like one of those annoying "Switch" ads.:)
I believe an effective Peer-to-Peer networking technology would be much better than any site.
The problem with sites is that sites have to be paid for. Worse, the more effective a site is at getting its message out, the more expensive it is to maintain. More hits generally means more headaches.
Peer-to-peer networks have proven their ability to share popular music efficiently. They've also proven that they generate sales by encouraging people to download and listen to bands whose songs they otherwise might not have heard.
The one element that's missing in a P2P network, that's a big part of what makes a site like MP3.com valuable, is the ability for listeners to rank and categorize music they've heard, to allow others to get recommendations.
This would be the application that would benefit artists the most, because -- for one thing -- you wouldn't have to just be limited to your own local talent. You could listen to ANYONE's unsigned talent. You could get peer recommendations. And the like. And there's no centralized server to be bought out and controlled by the RIAA. Rankings can remove the effect of poorly-encoded MP3's, and falsely made MP3's.
I hate to answer the question with another question, but I'm finished with monolithic sites; even my friend who is one of the Top 50 bands on MP3.com doesn't make nearly enough money to even quit his day job; if a site can't help the successful musicians, how can it help lesser-known bands?
So the question is -- can P2P file-sharing be a better way, and if so, how?
The Economist had a terrific article on this point, but the link is not free (actually, if you have AvantGo on a PDA, you can subscribe to the channel for The Economist and get it for free, which is how I read it).
The executive summary, for those who don't want to take the time or spend the money to read it, goes as follows: The real benefit of the antitrust suit is not in the ruling, but that the trial itself aired all sorts of dirty laundry, causing both OEMs and consumers to grow more wary of Microsoft's behavior. People who used to trust Microsoft don't trust them any more. The failure of Passport and the new initiatives in many governments to adopt OSS only are two examples of how this mistrust has affected them.
I'm not trying to be a Polyanna here, but there has been a good bit of damage done to Microsoft by this case already, even if they get by without a penalty.
PLEASE! Mod the parent up! So few people understand the meaning of the 9th Amendment, and as such this is a comment that is very valuable to this -- and any -- discussion of our rights!
The first question I'd ask is: Are the applications there? If not, there it is.
You mentioned one application that uses Linux. There are probably many more that work under Windows, because that's probably what companies are developing for. More to the point, that's probably what companies are asking for -- "Give us something that looks like what we're used to for web surfing already!"
Now granted, within the past few years Linux's desktop has grown leaps and bounds beyond where it was -- but then, it wasn't there when these companies first started developing their apps, and wasn't an option then.
"Convince the people that using your hippie operating system is a good idea."
Watch your language; you're talking to a Republican here!:)
I've had the joy of using OS X, Windows 2000, and RedHat 7.x regularly at home and at work, and what amazes me nowadays is the high quality in all of them. There are things Windows does better than OS X and Linux. There are things OS X does better than Linux and Windows. And of course, there are even things Linux does -- as a desktop OS -- better than Windows and OS X. There's not really any downside to any of them now.
"How will you tiptoe around the fact that linux makes up 5% of the desktop market share?"
I'll walk right up to the fact that Linux makes up 5% of the desktop market share and confront it directly. But I want to hear more from your side of the story. Tell me, why is market share relevant? Why does it override the need that Villanueva demonstrates for publicly-owned software to have publicly-viewable source code? In what way does the greater market share of other software products -- and remember, we're not just talking about operating systems -- provide a significant benefit that makes the rights of the public subservient to it?
I know that I often fly off the hook when issues like these touch a nerve, so I understand if you were just making a good-natured jibe, and didn't actually mean anything by bringing up statistics.
"Is the idea that government is deliberately straightjacketed, is held to an artificially high standard, not taught in public schools anymore? Isn't this covered in high school civics classes, for instance?"
Yes. As you and I both know -- you can send the kids to class, but you can't make them learn. Even if we repeat "government with consent of the governed" from memory, that doesn't mean the concept takes root and affects how we think. I took my education seriously in High School, and this idea took root in my brain, but I frequently miss the connection between this high-minded ideal and reality.
This is a big reason why I appreciate Villanueva's letter so much. He shows how the ideal of "free" and reality of governments needing to accomplish things are related.
The reasoning has nothing to do with Freedom. You and I are meant to be free; governments, as the executors of the will of the people, are not. We do have the right to force our government to choose Open Source.
The real question is, is this a good idea? And as the Peruvian Congressman stated so eloquently in his own letter, yes it is. The reason it is a good idea is because anything used by the government is public property, and public property must be subject to public review.
I highly recommend looking up and reading what Congressman Villanueva had to say on the topic, because he says it much more eloquently, and covers the important details and facts for why this is a necessary step for the preservation of democracy in the digital age.
Again, the government is the executor of the policy of freedom -- not free in itself. This is what freedom is about: The government is bound to the people's will, as opposed to the other way around. There are exceptions to protect certain things from the tyranny of the majority -- which are listed in the Bill of Rights. But these restrict which laws can govern the people, not which laws govern the government.
Anyhow, go read Villanueva's letter. It is as important a statement on the meaning of liberty as any ever written.
I agree; it's very difficult for people to stand up to tyranny if (for the most part) they are living comfortably. Witness the end of the Roman Republic, and what the National Socialists did for Germany. It also has a lot to do with who has a say in how the government is run; true Roman Citizens were not exactly in the majority during the time of the Caesars, and it's hard to vote oppression out of office when you're inside a concentration camp. The inability of felons to vote is one flaw in the US' government system that might allow us to follow a similar path.
"You might not want to ponder this (most Americans won't), and you probably think I'm a crackpot for suggesting it, but I expect a second civil war in America within the next 100 years."
Freedom, in addition to the "moral" benefits implied, has a sound economic benefit -- it is the most efficient way to use a nation's resources. This is based on the fact that no monolithic government can possibly handle the overhead necessary to adeptly manage a country's resources; it is best if people are given personal reward for pursuing it. Given that, you are right that there will probably be another civil war, if the American government continues down the path of tyranny that it has gone down in the past dozen years.
Historically, when the government has gotten too big for its britches in the USA, it has been pulled back by idealism, popular opinion, and sometimes scandal. This is not the first time the US Government has tightened its grip. It's not even the worst time. The reality of "freedom" is that it ebbs and flows like a tide even in the best of circumstances.
We, the current generation, need not violently overthrow our government to restore sanity. All we really need to do is elect a few more libertarian idealists. That starts when we, who are concerned about these things, begin showing others why it is in their interest for them to be more libertarian. The first step is to take an interest in other people, and find out what they really want. From there, we can easily show people why they should vote differently.
"The fact that the UCITA is being amended, and not completely thrown out, shows that people are, as always, missing the forest for the trees."
Yesterday, I got into an argument with my boss. And I felt that he was wrong, and I made it clear to him in no uncertain terms that only an idiot would believe what he believed. Of course, he's not about to admit he's an idiot -- and at that point, he was not going to admit he's wrong, either.
In politics, as in life, it is VERY important to allow people to save face. If people do not have a way they can exit gracefully from their current position, you will never convince them to change their point of view.
UCITA will never die, but it can be altered to be something that doesn't look even remotely like what it was intended to be. And that may be the only way we can keep from getting what we don't want while allowing the people who have made the mistake of backing it to save face. They get to look good, we get what we want, and everyone (but Microsoft) is happy.
It's an easy mistake for people to make, to look at UCITA and think it's a good thing. Most people don't have time to concern themselves with these things, either in favor or against it. If we penalize people for making this mistake, people are less likely to come to an agreement with us. The people backing UCITA simply forgot to consider GPL'ed code; THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO LEGITIMIZE THE GPL!!!
Most of the people backing UCITA are NOT interested in destroying the GPL. If we can add clauses to UCITA that DO legitimize it, then not only do we not have to worry about UCITA, but more importantly, we'll have a legal means for defending the GPL -- we won't have to hold our breath every time a commercial app steals GPL'ed source without publishing full source; instead, we can rest confident in the knowledge that UCITA is our ally, and that it will help defend our GPL'ed software from those who would steal it!
So, I feel that rather than destroying UCITA, our aim should be to alter it to meet our own ends. The GPL will only gain legitimacy if we do it right, and the people who support UCITA now will become GPL supporters as well.
Slashdot Mirror
"Will the charges hold up under this act?"
It's an issue for the lawyers and courts to decide, which frequently has little bearing on common sense. Should they prove that he did acquire the documents without permission (as opposed to, oh say, reverse-engineering the information) then I imagine that all they'd have to prove is that the information -could- be used by another party for economic benefit, not that his intention was for that to happen. And that will be very easy to prove, since there are companies that make cable converters and the like, and even an individual stealing DirecTV gains economically by virtue of not having to pay for what he/she receives.
Should be interesting to see if you get any bites on this one. :)
I noticed that they're not claiming a copyright violation or anything else. This isn't a free speech issue, it's a "you didn't figure this out on your own, but rather because you got something that doesn't belong to you" issue.
What he did is just as illegal as if I'd stolen a bunch of information on Magellan's tracking software to distribute or use for my company's navigation software. This doesn't appear to be a case where the technology was reverse engineered and published by that means, which should be protected.
You'll note that this is not being described as a DMCA case, but as industrial espionage. And if it's true and he's convicted, he should go to jail like all the other white-collar criminals who do this.
Actually, doesn't IBM's Micro Channel predate NuBus by a few years?
I give a shit, because Apple makes some cool shit.
Even if I never buy anything, I like looking at the latest whiz-bang wild-ass thing Apple's done, because even when they miss, it's at least because they're trying something new. The G4 Cube was such a beast... it missed the mark completely, but it was a cool lookin' box. Better than beige, better than bling! art.
It's like going out and test-driving cars when you don't even want a new car -- you do it just to see what's out there, and because it's fun.
If you need an explanation for this sort of thing on the other hand, why are you here?
Surprisingly easy to read.
This guy gets it.
Of course, that doesn't mean he won't be overturned, as common sense and the law have little to do with each other.
I agree with "take the Lessig challenge," as you say. What's more, boycotts almost never work.
In order for a boycott to work, you have to have a huge amount of the customer base boycotting, and you have to make sure the message gets to the company that they are being boycotted and why, so that the company can't point to alternative explanations for the dip in revenues. What's more, certain corporations (such as McDonald's) try to tread more lightly than others, and will respond; other corporations (such as... well, the RIAA) have no interest in such things.
The appeal of Lessig's Challenge to me is that I know that even if I merely match the funds I spend on movies and records with the funds I give to the EFF, more of the EFF money will go directly into fighting policies I disagree with than money I spend on the RIAA, since the latter money has to go to packaging, materials, shipping, marketing costs, and the occasional penny or two for the artist.
Also, whenever possible, support the artists you enjoy directly. See if they have a website, or a collection of free MP3's. Support artists that you know oppose the RIAA's policies, such as The Offspring, Hole, or Prince -- of course, only if you like their work.
As for movies, nobody's forcing you to wait in line the day the movie comes out to pay full price. Go to a matinee, or better yet, wait until it comes out on HBO/TMC. Or get a group of friends to rent it or buy one copy that you all watch together later. Homes are more comfortable, anyway, and nobody will keep you from bringing your own beer to the show. (Enough beer, and you might even like the movie better.)
I met Lessig's challenge last week. I joined the EFF. I don't feel so bad about wanting to see Bond and Hobbits now.
"There was no top-down adventure/RPG before Zelda."
Zelda: 1986.
Ultima III: 1983.
And oh yeah... Ultima IV: 1985.
And uhm... Ultima II and Ultima I.
And it's not like the Ultima series was the only top-down RPG that ever existed, either.
It's ok for you to make this mistake... but American McGee ought to have known better before opening his mouth in this article.
This article reminds me a lot of the old American football saying, about how fans give their coach too much blame when the team loses and too much credit when the team wins. American McGee's comment is a great example of this:
"Grand Theft Auto is basically a rip-off of Zelda, because Zelda invented massive-world games that let players explore freely, rather than following a linear path. Miyamoto innovates, so he's pushing the form. End of story."
I'm sorry, but Ultima III and the Wizardry series were doing massive-world free-exploration games long before the NES even existed. And even those had predecessors. And from the way this article sounds, you'd think Miyamoto was the first to ever use 3D or a camera in a game.
This seems to be an underlying theme in the article -- that the video game industry is looking to Miyamoto for guidance, blaming him for not guiding them in the right way, and giving him way too much credit for its current state. It's as if Miyamoto is successful due to some magic he alone possesses, rather than because he was able to build on lessons of the past in the right ways.
It seems ridiculous to me.
[insert picture of John Connor here] :)
As a highly-ranked post in an earlier thread stated (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=47045&cid=482 8450), that's the whole point. What he does is not illegal, but is just as wrong -- if not MORE wrong, since it costs the RECIPIENT to receive the mail, and because it cannot be filtered en masse once a day. It is both easier to send spam e-mail and more intrusive. This form of harassment may be illegal, but clearly demonstrates the principle for why what he does should also be made illegal.
I'm glad I didn't get involved, because I'm too stupid to have done this without getting caught. But I'm glad someone else did, because it was the right thing to do -- maybe not equivalent in degree to the Boston Tea Party, but equivalent in kind.
From what I understand, the reason Wal-Mart is able to beat people on prices and still make scads of money is that their business model is based on doing lots of research to pick up things at the cheapest (wholesale) prices in town, and then sell them for less than other retailers can.
So Wal-Mart has put a lot of time and effort into how they price things (you notice that Wal-Mart has a lot of things selling for $4.67 and $3.12 rather than the standard $xyz.99 prices everyone else uses?) to get the most money out of the lowest possible price.
FatWallet interferes with their ability to do that, by giving people instant access to information that takes Wal-Mart lots of time to gather. What used to be something only Wal-Mart did, is now something anyone with an internet connection can do.
So basically Wal-Mart's just defending their turf; they know that if more people used FatWallet, it would be harder for Wal-Mart to make so much money from such low prices.
The hubbub is going to hurt Wal-Mart in the end more than help, however. People, like me, who've never even heard of FatWallet.com are going to hit the site to see if they (or rather, I) can save money through the site as well... rather than just heading out to Wal-Mart for a price that may not be the lowest in town, but will beat most retailers.
It's ironic, no? Wal-Mart feels a website is hurting its business -- and in attacking it, ensure that said website will hurt their business even more by drawing people's attention to it. Funny how heavy-handed legal action can have that effect!
Like the girl said -- if you read the interview -- she didn't make the story up.
The reason it's believable that she did NOT make the story up is because so many of us have had that same experience on a PC, and because so many Mac users made the switch for similar reasons long, long before the "Switch" campaign began.
Granted, the hardcore Mactivists don't like the campaign, because they like feeling like they're members of an ultra-elite club, and that somehow suffering through the abortions of the pre-Steve-Jobs-Returns years makes them better than all of these nouveau macintosh types they suddenly see around them.
One of the more brilliant features of this campaign is that Apple doesn't have to work hard -- AT ALL -- to find people who switched for good reasons. They probably could just go find anyone who owns a Mac, ask them, "Why do you use it?" and as long as the person isn't one of the rabid single-mouse-button-humping set, they'll probably find someone who used to use Windows, and is now a very happy Mac user.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Mac user and have no affiliation with Apple or anything.
My continued use of Windows comes down primarily to inertia:
:)
1. I've been a very happy user of Cakewalk products. I recently upgraded to SONAR, and I've really enjoyed using it.
2. I own a Roland LAPC-1. I can't fit it in a Mac, and the Mac is the only system that has equal or better music-writing software.
3. Quicken. I swear by Quicken. I couldn't even balance my checkbook before it.
4. I've been a PC game player for many years.
But by and large, when I upgrade next, most of the above reasons will be gone:
1. As good as Cakewalk is, the Mac has a greater variety and quality of music-editing software than the PC. The products that are out there are also more mature. The Macintosh is the industry standard for music. Why am I settling for second-best?
2. I don't want to sacrifice the old LAPC-1's sound for anything, but as long as used MT-32's are available on eBay for $25, I no longer have to be stuck with it. Besides; even if I stay with a PC, motherboards with ISA slots are few and far between, and I no longer want to be limited to just mobos that have ISA slots.
3. They make Quicken for Mac, and there are similar programs (e.g. gnucash) for Linux.
4. I find that most of my game-playing time nowadays is done on consoles, and I rarely (if ever) play games on the PC other than simple Java apps.
A lot of these reasons have been around for a while, but only now am I at a point where something other than Windows can be considered an option -- in fact, a Macintosh is a much more attractive option for most of what I do now. My next computer will probably be a Macintosh, and my Windows box will get converted to a Linux machine.
God, I sound like one of those annoying "Switch" ads.
I believe an effective Peer-to-Peer networking technology would be much better than any site.
The problem with sites is that sites have to be paid for. Worse, the more effective a site is at getting its message out, the more expensive it is to maintain. More hits generally means more headaches.
Peer-to-peer networks have proven their ability to share popular music efficiently. They've also proven that they generate sales by encouraging people to download and listen to bands whose songs they otherwise might not have heard.
The one element that's missing in a P2P network, that's a big part of what makes a site like MP3.com valuable, is the ability for listeners to rank and categorize music they've heard, to allow others to get recommendations.
This would be the application that would benefit artists the most, because -- for one thing -- you wouldn't have to just be limited to your own local talent. You could listen to ANYONE's unsigned talent. You could get peer recommendations. And the like. And there's no centralized server to be bought out and controlled by the RIAA. Rankings can remove the effect of poorly-encoded MP3's, and falsely made MP3's.
I hate to answer the question with another question, but I'm finished with monolithic sites; even my friend who is one of the Top 50 bands on MP3.com doesn't make nearly enough money to even quit his day job; if a site can't help the successful musicians, how can it help lesser-known bands?
So the question is -- can P2P file-sharing be a better way, and if so, how?
The article is here: Was the big trial a waste of time?
The executive summary, for those who don't want to take the time or spend the money to read it, goes as follows: The real benefit of the antitrust suit is not in the ruling, but that the trial itself aired all sorts of dirty laundry, causing both OEMs and consumers to grow more wary of Microsoft's behavior. People who used to trust Microsoft don't trust them any more. The failure of Passport and the new initiatives in many governments to adopt OSS only are two examples of how this mistrust has affected them.
I'm not trying to be a Polyanna here, but there has been a good bit of damage done to Microsoft by this case already, even if they get by without a penalty.
PLEASE! Mod the parent up! So few people understand the meaning of the 9th Amendment, and as such this is a comment that is very valuable to this -- and any -- discussion of our rights!
"...ever heard of a portable DVD player that lets you watch DVDs in high quality on the go? No, neither have I."
a zon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/1725 21/ref=etk_ce_av__hp_ct_3_24/102-8605741-2697769
http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/search/1,1 0126,0-6342366-1301-0,00.html?tag=srch&qt=portable +DVD+players&cn=Home+Video&ca=6342366
http://www.portabledvdstore.com/
http://www.am
Not to mention every black-market electronics store in Shanghai and every electronics gadget shop in Times Square.
The first question I'd ask is: Are the applications there? If not, there it is.
You mentioned one application that uses Linux. There are probably many more that work under Windows, because that's probably what companies are developing for. More to the point, that's probably what companies are asking for -- "Give us something that looks like what we're used to for web surfing already!"
Now granted, within the past few years Linux's desktop has grown leaps and bounds beyond where it was -- but then, it wasn't there when these companies first started developing their apps, and wasn't an option then.
That, ultimately, is the issue.
"Convince the people that using your hippie operating system is a good idea."
:)
Watch your language; you're talking to a Republican here!
I've had the joy of using OS X, Windows 2000, and RedHat 7.x regularly at home and at work, and what amazes me nowadays is the high quality in all of them. There are things Windows does better than OS X and Linux. There are things OS X does better than Linux and Windows. And of course, there are even things Linux does -- as a desktop OS -- better than Windows and OS X. There's not really any downside to any of them now.
"How will you tiptoe around the fact that linux makes up 5% of the desktop market share?"
I'll walk right up to the fact that Linux makes up 5% of the desktop market share and confront it directly. But I want to hear more from your side of the story. Tell me, why is market share relevant? Why does it override the need that Villanueva demonstrates for publicly-owned software to have publicly-viewable source code? In what way does the greater market share of other software products -- and remember, we're not just talking about operating systems -- provide a significant benefit that makes the rights of the public subservient to it?
I know that I often fly off the hook when issues like these touch a nerve, so I understand if you were just making a good-natured jibe, and didn't actually mean anything by bringing up statistics.
"Is the idea that government is deliberately straightjacketed, is held to an artificially high standard, not taught in public schools anymore? Isn't this covered in high school civics classes, for instance?"
Yes. As you and I both know -- you can send the kids to class, but you can't make them learn. Even if we repeat "government with consent of the governed" from memory, that doesn't mean the concept takes root and affects how we think. I took my education seriously in High School, and this idea took root in my brain, but I frequently miss the connection between this high-minded ideal and reality.
This is a big reason why I appreciate Villanueva's letter so much. He shows how the ideal of "free" and reality of governments needing to accomplish things are related.
"I refuse to provide proof that I exist, because proof denies Faith, and without Faith, I am nothing."
Man: "But the gecko's a dead giveaway, isn't it? I mean, nothing could have come about solely through evolution."
God: "Oh, gee, I hadn't thought of that..." and *poof* vanishes in a puff of logic.
Man attempts to prove that black is white and white is black for an encore, and gets killed at the next zebra crossing.
[with apologies to Douglas Adams]
The reasoning has nothing to do with Freedom. You and I are meant to be free; governments, as the executors of the will of the people, are not. We do have the right to force our government to choose Open Source.
The real question is, is this a good idea? And as the Peruvian Congressman stated so eloquently in his own letter, yes it is. The reason it is a good idea is because anything used by the government is public property, and public property must be subject to public review.
I highly recommend looking up and reading what Congressman Villanueva had to say on the topic, because he says it much more eloquently, and covers the important details and facts for why this is a necessary step for the preservation of democracy in the digital age.
Again, the government is the executor of the policy of freedom -- not free in itself. This is what freedom is about: The government is bound to the people's will, as opposed to the other way around. There are exceptions to protect certain things from the tyranny of the majority -- which are listed in the Bill of Rights. But these restrict which laws can govern the people, not which laws govern the government.
Anyhow, go read Villanueva's letter. It is as important a statement on the meaning of liberty as any ever written.
I agree; it's very difficult for people to stand up to tyranny if (for the most part) they are living comfortably. Witness the end of the Roman Republic, and what the National Socialists did for Germany. It also has a lot to do with who has a say in how the government is run; true Roman Citizens were not exactly in the majority during the time of the Caesars, and it's hard to vote oppression out of office when you're inside a concentration camp. The inability of felons to vote is one flaw in the US' government system that might allow us to follow a similar path.
"You might not want to ponder this (most Americans won't), and you probably think I'm a crackpot for suggesting it, but I expect a second civil war in America within the next 100 years."
Freedom, in addition to the "moral" benefits implied, has a sound economic benefit -- it is the most efficient way to use a nation's resources. This is based on the fact that no monolithic government can possibly handle the overhead necessary to adeptly manage a country's resources; it is best if people are given personal reward for pursuing it. Given that, you are right that there will probably be another civil war, if the American government continues down the path of tyranny that it has gone down in the past dozen years.
Historically, when the government has gotten too big for its britches in the USA, it has been pulled back by idealism, popular opinion, and sometimes scandal. This is not the first time the US Government has tightened its grip. It's not even the worst time. The reality of "freedom" is that it ebbs and flows like a tide even in the best of circumstances.
We, the current generation, need not violently overthrow our government to restore sanity. All we really need to do is elect a few more libertarian idealists. That starts when we, who are concerned about these things, begin showing others why it is in their interest for them to be more libertarian. The first step is to take an interest in other people, and find out what they really want. From there, we can easily show people why they should vote differently.
"The fact that the UCITA is being amended, and not completely thrown out, shows that people are, as always, missing the forest for the trees."
Yesterday, I got into an argument with my boss. And I felt that he was wrong, and I made it clear to him in no uncertain terms that only an idiot would believe what he believed. Of course, he's not about to admit he's an idiot -- and at that point, he was not going to admit he's wrong, either.
In politics, as in life, it is VERY important to allow people to save face. If people do not have a way they can exit gracefully from their current position, you will never convince them to change their point of view.
UCITA will never die, but it can be altered to be something that doesn't look even remotely like what it was intended to be. And that may be the only way we can keep from getting what we don't want while allowing the people who have made the mistake of backing it to save face. They get to look good, we get what we want, and everyone (but Microsoft) is happy.
It's an easy mistake for people to make, to look at UCITA and think it's a good thing. Most people don't have time to concern themselves with these things, either in favor or against it. If we penalize people for making this mistake, people are less likely to come to an agreement with us. The people backing UCITA simply forgot to consider GPL'ed code; THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO LEGITIMIZE THE GPL!!!
Most of the people backing UCITA are NOT interested in destroying the GPL. If we can add clauses to UCITA that DO legitimize it, then not only do we not have to worry about UCITA, but more importantly, we'll have a legal means for defending the GPL -- we won't have to hold our breath every time a commercial app steals GPL'ed source without publishing full source; instead, we can rest confident in the knowledge that UCITA is our ally, and that it will help defend our GPL'ed software from those who would steal it!
So, I feel that rather than destroying UCITA, our aim should be to alter it to meet our own ends. The GPL will only gain legitimacy if we do it right, and the people who support UCITA now will become GPL supporters as well.