If you wanted to impose a few million dollars of restrictions upon society, the compelling reasons you mentioned would probably be good enough. But when you want to impose several trillion dollars worth of restrictions, the rules are a little different, it's kneejerk to make demands like "the sky is falling, lets regulate now and figure it out later". It fact, it is not only kneejerk, it is almost a sure sign that there is some very insincere political motives pushing it behind the scenes.
First prove it beyond a reasonable doubt - these studies are very compelling, but are not proof. In fact, I renember how all those computer models "proved" how the oil fires in the 1st Iraq war were going to cause massive atmospheric conditions for several years. They didn't. In fact, it turned out the main reason they were wrong is because they had political motives behind them, funny how that works isn't it.
You have to prove that the suggested remedy will solve the problem, which I have never even seen attempted. The fact that only remedy that's allowed to be considerd is Koyoto (or similar ), is a bad sign. Especially since it seems to be baisly geared to holding the US back relative to everyone else.
You half to prove that that these kind of massive restrictions are the only viable solution, which has also never been attempted. In fact there is compelling reason to believe that a far better solution would be to have a treaty requiring less restrictions on nuclear power, not more of co2 output.
Also every article I've read, incuuding this one, shure hasn't seemed to scientific. Phrases like "all rational people will agree that this is the only cuase" is so insane for something like atmospheric conditions. It sounds more like a manifesto than science. There is nothing even close to the "repeatable, measurable, testable, observable" that you see as the mantra in other fields like bioscience.
Falws and failures like these are the "price" people pay for being finite. The solution isn't to limit people more, that just exaserbates the problem. The solution you seek is not thru another law, but thru open dialog (or source, hint) - and to have justice for people who *choose* to do harmfull things to society vs attempting to *controll* people with the flowery justification that they might do something harmfull.
If the reason is compelling enough to impose yet another law, it is compelling enough
Security issues are a wonderfull way to convince people that the government should regulate IT, but ironically it will actually play to the favor of Microsoft most of all. As soon as regulations start out, it will start increasing the bariers to entry in the IT space.
This has happened in every industry it's been attempted in. Plumbing, electricity, telephones, auto-repair. Hell, you can't even sell a hot-dog without going thru 10-20 thousand dollars worth of regulation for it to be legal. Yeah, I know, don't say it. There is always a good sounding reason for these.... yeah..... right.
After all, wasn't SCO strongly supported by both Sun and Microsoft. The last thing these two companies would want is a permant legal affirmation of Linux and the GPL.
You know, I renember as a kid about how people would argue tirelessly about how the USSR was better because they "guaranteed" more economic security for their citizens. While it was true that that form of government guaranteed free room and board to every citizen - it was done so in a way that guaranteed people would also loose freedom, so in effect their promise was never tenable, and effectively worthless.
Well today we have parallel situation with Microsoft. You have no freedom to modify code, you have no freedom to redistribute MS created code bases, all you have is a "guarantee" that is backed up by nothing other than their ability to sue the crap out of (and possibly imprision) people who redistribute Microsoft created source and software. This is not a good position to be in - in the middle of an information age defined by the unrestricted flow of information. Perhaps MS should stop beliving their own propaganda that tries to pretend that copyrights are the same as any free market property right, and start seeing them more as a government microregulation on how people can use and distribute information at a time when such a social burdon can no longer be tolerated.
Be it economic security, or application security, you can argue tirelessly about all sorts of crap - but without the "freedom" part, it is an exercise in futility. The bottom line is that no matter what kind of "problem" is pointed out, there is always the freedom to do somthing about it where with MS products there isn't.
DISCLAIMER: I know some people will take this very offensively, so I apologize to them in advance because it's not intended that way. And this is not a flame or a troll. If you do not like it, please at least bother to read the moderator guidelines first before marking me down.
I for one hail our new overlord Martin Taylor.
Overloard? he is more like a "house nigger"
The term "house nigger" comes from the early 1800's were some slaves would strongly support the oppression of slavery in order to gain favor with their masters and win a position in the estate house which was often far more comfortable and safe than taking a beating out in the fields.
Unfortunately, there are allot of people out in the software/media industries that have this exact same mentality. They know what MS is, they know how MS acts, they even know that Linux is better and respects their freedom more, but they sell out anyhow for the short term cash and benefits.
IMHO, Martin Taylor was almost too gracious to MS's #1 competitor in this interview. Maybe it's because he knows that Linux *is* better - and that he's working for the *WRONG* side.
You see, even though MS has 35 bln. in the bank and a market cap of half a trillion - the euro economey puts out at least 6 trillion per year. With pure market forces pushing Linux to the front, MS doesn't have a hells chance in Europe unless they can cut it off with patents.
So in truth, it's not that MS dominates, it's that they can't compete and are taking desperate measures to stop the bleeding.
No one is going to drop 300 million on R&D to produce something, only make no money off it because people are just trading the seeds around. There needs to be SOME economic reason to invest that kind of capital, and the YEARS of HARD WORK. I realize all the/.ers who whine about IP aren't going to understand that that is what it is, but perhaps they can understand that overwhelming majority of GM technology WOULD NOT EXIST if not for people throwing billions into it. So you can pick a world with patents and the resulting technology or a world without patents, wherein the technology level is about 30 years away from where we are now.
I hear this backward logic all the time. It's like saying maybe Ford is never going to spend a billion $$ in time and effort on car factory unless they can lock out japaneese cars too. But the fact is, manufactures will still make cars and things will still improve and the same is true with genetic technology. It's called competition. The only business that I know of that like patnets are lawyer businesses, all the innovative tech business I have worked with simply get them to protect from lawsuits and leverage themselves into cross-licensing agreements.
The biggest flaw in this thinking is that it looks at all improvements in society as business and finance driven instead of people/consumer driven. History has shown that just the opposite is true, the most successfull businesses are the best servants and not the best masters. TRANSLATION: If there is a demand for a certain GM technology, it is going to happen patents or not, monopoly or not - so get rid of the patents because they are just going to get in the way and most likely inhibit things that were going to happen anyhow. And the myth that patnets help the clever little guy working in his grage is a pure lie. Calling patents "property" is also a pure lie. Once you get it, then it is easy to see how evil patent monopolies really are.
The problem isn't genetic technology, it is who controlls genetic technology. If you get rid of that unhealthy controll (PATENTS!), then lots of good things will happen with it naturally.
I don't have a problem with uning genetic technology for anything, what I have a problem with is that if someone controlls a specific piece of genetic technology - then they have a strong incentive to push/impose it even if it is not in my best interest. People are what they hold themselves accountable to, if Acme company has a patnet on a technology that sucks - they will push that technology even if they have the capability to make something far safer or better - that's just the way it is in a patent world. You can see this hapening in the pharmacutical industry all the time nowdays.
I don't know about you, but if I tried something like an unplaned house on my land - I suspect that the zoneing police wouldn't fine me, or even arrest me, but simply beat me to a bloody pulp! But oh, boy would I love to figure out how to get arround it.
First, it's not about having the money it's about having the controll. Nobody is going to pay big bucks to renovate the kitchen in an apartment they rent - but in the house they can own. The same is true with the power PC, as long as their is that string attached there is always the possibility of loosing controll and thus your long term investment.
Second, I own a VIA, but asside from that - it's the backwards binary compatability that I'm mainly talking about here. Get the "cell" to plug in seamlessly to commodity mother boards and run x86 programs - then who knows, they may have something.
Is that the 386 instruction set and arcitecture is so non proprietary. What made it so popular certainly wasn't that it was better. If I had the dough, I can literally make one and my own fab without asking a single soul. Alot of times it seems companies try to gather into consortiums to mimic the same effect and gather market momentum, but these are doomed to failure because the more valuable the technology becomes - the greater the pressure to diferentiate and fence off some "teritory" for themselves. We saw this happen first hand with UNIX, where all the flavors would constantly try to group under these unified standards - and they made little progress until Linux came along. The CPU world needs somthing similar to protect people from patent harassment. for design, cores, and fabrication.
You know, I was thinking about this. The funny thing is that today I have a gcc compiler that is 1000 times more full featured and 1000 times more advanced not to mention tons of other free scripting languages, and instead of saying that it is unfair that I use it freely and callimg me a thief - the creators seem to welcome it.
Myabe he thinks he is owed pay for his hard work - then fine he should have worked as a contractor. Maybe he thinks he's advancing computing, but maybe he is just getting in the way and feeding off of things that were going to happen anyhow at every one elses expense.
When MS talks about trust, and what computers can do - they mean theings like DRM so "they" can trust the computers, not you! They mean things like "what computers can do to lock in their monopoly for eternity", not what computers can do for you!
In order to coerce an intellectual "property" regime, privacy must be sacrificed to ensure proper compliance. It looks like their intent is to force this to be an all or nothing game.
Funny you should mention that, just a day or two ago, a secretary in the office couldn't open up a power-point file sent to her by the boss. They were both created on different versions of Microsoft Office, but it woud crash every time she opened it.
I had her send it to me, opened it up in OpenOffice and re-saved it in a generic powerpoint format. I sent it back to her and it now works fine!
So yes, with a little effort - different versions of Microsoft Office can interpolate:)
FYI, I have an RCHE, I love Linux, and I when I first joined my most recent (small) company - I wanted everything to run on Linux. But now I'm very glad that I/they didn't. What has happened is that my Linux skills have made me too valuable in the server space (where the company makes it's real money) to waste my time and resources in the desktop space which brings in no revenue at all.
So in that way I say I agree. Linux on the desktop will cost you bigtime. It will suck away valuable talent doing miniscule tasks when it can be so much better used to create real revenue. I say people with Linux skills should look at it as a blessing in disguise - while almost all of my "MS" friends have had a hard time making it out there, I have had almost too much work to handle. And when I do need to do productive things on windows system - you'd be amazed at how usefull tools like tightVNC and cygwin are. (and now there is coLinux!)
Eventually, I know for a fact, Linux will take over the desktop too. But frankly, I'm no rush. If the powers that be are too stupid to "get it" - far be it for me to waste my time on less than productive matters to prove them wrong.
You know, I consider myself very libertarian and agree with much of what you way. But back in 95, I had come to a very lonely conclusion that copyrights weren't the like the other glorious free market property rights that I have come to love, and with that conclusion came the understanding that GNU/Linux was going completely to take over the market place.
IMHO, pure market forces were going to force Linux to be on top no matter what the mainstream thought about copyrights, and I feel that instead of taking advantage of that to secure and force the issue with freedoms, it was wasted pandering to those who didn't want to have their senses hurt.
Well they got their senses hurt anyhow, and for those of us who understand - haven't we been lied to and blown off over intellectual property stuff enough? For just once I'd like someone in the corporate world to say that copyrights are crap as a free market property right. The corporate world needs that, I need that, the USA and the world needs that. For all the brow beating I've taken for being "communist" when in truth I'm libertarian - I think I deserve that.
Freedom is like that blanket at the picnic, if you pinch the cloth in the middle and lift it up - it will tend to want to pull up all the fabric arround it too. Well the same is true with freedom, maybe the 3rd world won't understand, but they will feel it and live it none the less. And it's not just about words, it's about being honest to ourself about what's really going on.
Up till now, OSI has pretty much treated freedom as a non issue or a side issue in the FOSS community. I think this signifies a change in direction to where freedom becomes the main issue. If so, I welcome the change.
It doesn't really matter what you tell me. It matters what you tell a judge when you get sued for copyright, trademark or patent infringement. I think he's going to find "go to hell" to be a singularly unacceptable defense.
And theres your problem, right there, your version of the real world is defined by what a judge or a legal system says instead of what is. Good thing it's not 1000 years back, or you might be wanting to burn me at the stake for saying the earth goes arround the Sun. Maybe someday you'll figure out that you're and "the judges" version of reality is gonna half to change allot longer before mine does.
Reguarding physical property vs the non physical. You can play semantics games all you want, the reality is they are different by any measuremnet - and you are trying to treat them like they are the same. The emperor has no clothes!
Hows that?
You're a lwayer, aren't you? By rejecting bullshit licenses like the CDDL, and embracing ones like the GPL for starters.
Hm. I'm gonna guess "drunk" here
No, I'm actually one of those "creative" people you keep talking about. I create art, I create literature, and I create a lot of code. In fact, alot of it had been copyrighted, and even some of the physical side of that I interface with is patented. You're the one that's drunk and dissilusioned. Nobody in the industries that create get copyrights and patents for property sake, they get them to protect from frivolus lawsuits or to get agreements not to be sue'd from other companies by cross-licensing or to have leverage to counter-sue when attacked. You really don't get it, they have nothing to do with property - they have to do with keeping people from competing. Now Sun doesn't want to compete head on with the x86 hardware space where Linux is taking over, I don't blame them, but I would advise not to expect me or anyone else who is rational to go along with it.
I don't really want to persuade you. But you are basically trying to say that you have a right to "pounce" me if I use ideas you think are "yours". Excuse me if I tell you go to hell. Ideas are not property. And property's are not created by "people agreeing", physical property has natural limits on supply and demand wether people agree on it or not. Non tangable things don't wether people agree on it or not. Having physical property deprives another person use of that same property wether they agree to it or not, non tangable things do not - agreement or not.
You can talk about property all you want, I don't need to convince you. I can leverage these facts to my advantage, like it or not, "agreement" (if you want to call it that) or not.
No I got your point christal clear. You didn't get mine - you get allot more works, ideas, and information freely given to you then you put out no matter who you are. It's disengenuious to sujest that the only people who don't care about owning ideas are the cone who aren't "blessed with creativity". Turnarround was fair play.
Well, that's funny, because that's exactly what people are trying to do when they equate patents to property, "intellectual property" to be more specific. I tell you what, get them to knock off the former and I'll be happy to knock off the latter.
The irony is that the open source movement argues "choice" at every turn... unless of course that choice is to not use open source software.
You can choose your choices, but you can not choose your consequences. Choosing software that helps others limit your freedoms has consequences that very very predictable and understandable. Why can't people get that!!
You see, when all the systems run Linux - then that pits Sun directly against the x86 PC commodity market just at the time it's starting to go 64 bit. In order for Sun to compete, they must do everything and anything to differentiate to make sure that they can cost justify the higher cost of their hardware.
Bottom line: Property is a good thing. People have good feelings about property. When you say "property," people think about buying their first house, or when they paid off their first car loan. Owning things gives people a sense of satisfaction, and being an owner of something is a position that commands the respect of one's peers. This is how things work.
Bottom line. It is not property. People do have good and just feelings about property, and that's why they use dishonest terms like "intellectual property" instead of more accurate terms like "private coerced monopoly". Yes buying my property was very fufilling, but please feel free to COPY my landscape onto your property any time. Somehow, I think my plants will still be there in the morning!
People want to own ideas because creating ideas is hard work for most people. The only people who think ideas shouldn't be owned are either individuals who have never had a good idea themselves or people who are so blessed with an excess of creativity that they aren't aware that most people don't find it so easy. The first group of people are moochers and slackers, and the second group are just insufferable. So don't associate yourself in public with either
Well, lets hear the great ideas that you've worked your ass off for. The only people who want patents are the ones who want to sit on their ass for ideas were happening anyhow and collect royalities for it. Somehow I doubt you made the next E=mc^2, or invented something as valuable as say calculus. I hope your inventions don't use math (unless you paid the royalities), smoocher!
I am positively stunned. I know I shouldn't be. I know I should be more cynical than this. But I'm absolutely shocked that you would have the audacity to compare patents to slavery.
I'm stunned. Ne never said patents were slavery, he said it was a bullshit property like slavery - you shouldn't fall for the bullshit logic, just because an institution calls something a property right, doesn't mean that it is does it?
" because I want to be able to take other people's stuff whenever I want."
copying and immitating isn't taking! did you take ABC's from your mama when you learned the alphabet? did you take the 123's from you daddy when you learn't to count?
How about a counter reply that doesn't boil down to, "I wanna sit on my ass and collect royalities for something that was going to happen anyhow"
Slashdot Mirror
If you wanted to impose a few million dollars of restrictions upon society, the compelling reasons you mentioned would probably be good enough. But when you want to impose several trillion dollars worth of restrictions, the rules are a little different, it's kneejerk to make demands like "the sky is falling, lets regulate now and figure it out later". It fact, it is not only kneejerk, it is almost a sure sign that there is some very insincere political motives pushing it behind the scenes.
First prove it beyond a reasonable doubt - these studies are very compelling, but are not proof. In fact, I renember how all those computer models "proved" how the oil fires in the 1st Iraq war were going to cause massive atmospheric conditions for several years. They didn't. In fact, it turned out the main reason they were wrong is because they had political motives behind them, funny how that works isn't it.
You have to prove that the suggested remedy will solve the problem, which I have never even seen attempted. The fact that only remedy that's allowed to be considerd is Koyoto (or similar ), is a bad sign. Especially since it seems to be baisly geared to holding the US back relative to everyone else.
You half to prove that that these kind of massive restrictions are the only viable solution, which has also never been attempted. In fact there is compelling reason to believe that a far better solution would be to have a treaty requiring less restrictions on nuclear power, not more of co2 output.
Also every article I've read, incuuding this one, shure hasn't seemed to scientific. Phrases like "all rational people will agree that this is the only cuase" is so insane for something like atmospheric conditions. It sounds more like a manifesto than science. There is nothing even close to the "repeatable, measurable, testable, observable" that you see as the mantra in other fields like bioscience.
Falws and failures like these are the "price" people pay for being finite. The solution isn't to limit people more, that just exaserbates the problem. The solution you seek is not thru another law, but thru open dialog (or source, hint) - and to have justice for people who *choose* to do harmfull things to society vs attempting to *controll* people with the flowery justification that they might do something harmfull.
If the reason is compelling enough to impose yet another law, it is compelling enough
Security issues are a wonderfull way to convince people that the government should regulate IT, but ironically it will actually play to the favor of Microsoft most of all. As soon as regulations start out, it will start increasing the bariers to entry in the IT space.
.... yeah ..... right.
This has happened in every industry it's been attempted in. Plumbing, electricity, telephones, auto-repair. Hell, you can't even sell a hot-dog without going thru 10-20 thousand dollars worth of regulation for it to be legal. Yeah, I know, don't say it. There is always a good sounding reason for these
After all, wasn't SCO strongly supported by both Sun and Microsoft. The last thing these two companies would want is a permant legal affirmation of Linux and the GPL.
You know, I renember as a kid about how people would argue tirelessly about how the USSR was better because they "guaranteed" more economic security for their citizens. While it was true that that form of government guaranteed free room and board to every citizen - it was done so in a way that guaranteed people would also loose freedom, so in effect their promise was never tenable, and effectively worthless.
Well today we have parallel situation with Microsoft. You have no freedom to modify code, you have no freedom to redistribute MS created code bases, all you have is a "guarantee" that is backed up by nothing other than their ability to sue the crap out of (and possibly imprision) people who redistribute Microsoft created source and software. This is not a good position to be in - in the middle of an information age defined by the unrestricted flow of information. Perhaps MS should stop beliving their own propaganda that tries to pretend that copyrights are the same as any free market property right, and start seeing them more as a government microregulation on how people can use and distribute information at a time when such a social burdon can no longer be tolerated.
Be it economic security, or application security, you can argue tirelessly about all sorts of crap - but without the "freedom" part, it is an exercise in futility. The bottom line is that no matter what kind of "problem" is pointed out, there is always the freedom to do somthing about it where with MS products there isn't.
DISCLAIMER: I know some people will take this very offensively, so I apologize to them in advance because it's not intended that way. And this is not a flame or a troll. If you do not like it, please at least bother to read the moderator guidelines first before marking me down.
I for one hail our new overlord Martin Taylor.
Overloard? he is more like a "house nigger"
The term "house nigger" comes from the early 1800's were some slaves would strongly support the oppression of slavery in order to gain favor with their masters and win a position in the estate house which was often far more comfortable and safe than taking a beating out in the fields.
Unfortunately, there are allot of people out in the software/media industries that have this exact same mentality. They know what MS is, they know how MS acts, they even know that Linux is better and respects their freedom more, but they sell out anyhow for the short term cash and benefits.
IMHO, Martin Taylor was almost too gracious to MS's #1 competitor in this interview. Maybe it's because he knows that Linux *is* better - and that he's working for the *WRONG* side.
You see, even though MS has 35 bln. in the bank and a market cap of half a trillion - the euro economey puts out at least 6 trillion per year. With pure market forces pushing Linux to the front, MS doesn't have a hells chance in Europe unless they can cut it off with patents.
So in truth, it's not that MS dominates, it's that they can't compete and are taking desperate measures to stop the bleeding.
No one is going to drop 300 million on R&D to produce something, only make no money off it because people are just trading the seeds around. There needs to be SOME economic reason to invest that kind of capital, and the YEARS of HARD WORK. I realize all the /.ers who whine about IP aren't going to understand that that is what it is, but perhaps they can understand that overwhelming majority of GM technology WOULD NOT EXIST if not for people throwing billions into it. So you can pick a world with patents and the resulting technology or a world without patents, wherein the technology level is about 30 years away from where we are now.
I hear this backward logic all the time. It's like saying maybe Ford is never going to spend a billion $$ in time and effort on car factory unless they can lock out japaneese cars too. But the fact is, manufactures will still make cars and things will still improve and the same is true with genetic technology. It's called competition. The only business that I know of that like patnets are lawyer businesses, all the innovative tech business I have worked with simply get them to protect from lawsuits and leverage themselves into cross-licensing agreements.
The biggest flaw in this thinking is that it looks at all improvements in society as business and finance driven instead of people/consumer driven. History has shown that just the opposite is true, the most successfull businesses are the best servants and not the best masters. TRANSLATION: If there is a demand for a certain GM technology, it is going to happen patents or not, monopoly or not - so get rid of the patents because they are just going to get in the way and most likely inhibit things that were going to happen anyhow. And the myth that patnets help the clever little guy working in his grage is a pure lie. Calling patents "property" is also a pure lie. Once you get it, then it is easy to see how evil patent monopolies really are.
The problem isn't genetic technology, it is who controlls genetic technology. If you get rid of that unhealthy controll (PATENTS!), then lots of good things will happen with it naturally.
I don't have a problem with uning genetic technology for anything, what I have a problem with is that if someone controlls a specific piece of genetic technology - then they have a strong incentive to push/impose it even if it is not in my best interest. People are what they hold themselves accountable to, if Acme company has a patnet on a technology that sucks - they will push that technology even if they have the capability to make something far safer or better - that's just the way it is in a patent world. You can see this hapening in the pharmacutical industry all the time nowdays.
I don't know about you, but if I tried something like an unplaned house on my land - I suspect that the zoneing police wouldn't fine me, or even arrest me, but simply beat me to a bloody pulp! But oh, boy would I love to figure out how to get arround it.
First, it's not about having the money it's about having the controll. Nobody is going to pay big bucks to renovate the kitchen in an apartment they rent - but in the house they can own. The same is true with the power PC, as long as their is that string attached there is always the possibility of loosing controll and thus your long term investment.
Second, I own a VIA, but asside from that - it's the backwards binary compatability that I'm mainly talking about here. Get the "cell" to plug in seamlessly to commodity mother boards and run x86 programs - then who knows, they may have something.
Is that the 386 instruction set and arcitecture is so non proprietary. What made it so popular certainly wasn't that it was better. If I had the dough, I can literally make one and my own fab without asking a single soul. Alot of times it seems companies try to gather into consortiums to mimic the same effect and gather market momentum, but these are doomed to failure because the more valuable the technology becomes - the greater the pressure to diferentiate and fence off some "teritory" for themselves. We saw this happen first hand with UNIX, where all the flavors would constantly try to group under these unified standards - and they made little progress until Linux came along. The CPU world needs somthing similar to protect people from patent harassment. for design, cores, and fabrication.
You know, I was thinking about this.
The funny thing is that today I have a gcc compiler that is 1000 times more full featured and 1000 times more advanced not to mention tons of other free scripting languages, and instead of saying that it is unfair that I use it freely and callimg me a thief - the creators seem to welcome it.
Myabe he thinks he is owed pay for his hard work - then fine he should have worked as a contractor. Maybe he thinks he's advancing computing, but maybe he is just getting in the way and feeding off of things that were going to happen anyhow at every one elses expense.
When MS talks about trust, and what computers can do - they mean theings like DRM so "they" can trust the computers, not you! They mean things like "what computers can do to lock in their monopoly for eternity", not what computers can do for you!
In order to coerce an intellectual "property" regime, privacy must be sacrificed to ensure proper compliance. It looks like their intent is to force this to be an all or nothing game.
Funny you should mention that,
:)
just a day or two ago, a secretary in the office couldn't open up a power-point file sent to her by the boss. They were both created on different versions of Microsoft Office, but it woud crash every time she opened it.
I had her send it to me, opened it up in OpenOffice and re-saved it in a generic powerpoint format. I sent it back to her and it now works fine!
So yes, with a little effort - different versions of Microsoft Office can interpolate
FYI, I have an RCHE, I love Linux, and I when I first joined my most recent (small) company - I wanted everything to run on Linux. But now I'm very glad that I/they didn't. What has happened is that my Linux skills have made me too valuable in the server space (where the company makes it's real money) to waste my time and resources in the desktop space which brings in no revenue at all.
So in that way I say I agree. Linux on the desktop will cost you bigtime. It will suck away valuable talent doing miniscule tasks when it can be so much better used to create real revenue. I say people with Linux skills should look at it as a blessing in disguise - while almost all of my "MS" friends have had a hard time making it out there, I have had almost too much work to handle. And when I do need to do productive things on windows system - you'd be amazed at how usefull tools like tightVNC and cygwin are. (and now there is coLinux!)
Eventually, I know for a fact, Linux will take over the desktop too. But frankly, I'm no rush. If the powers that be are too stupid to "get it" - far be it for me to waste my time on less than productive matters to prove them wrong.
You know, I consider myself very libertarian and agree with much of what you way. But back in 95, I had come to a very lonely conclusion that copyrights weren't the like the other glorious free market property rights that I have come to love, and with that conclusion came the understanding that GNU/Linux was going completely to take over the market place.
IMHO, pure market forces were going to force Linux to be on top no matter what the mainstream thought about copyrights, and I feel that instead of taking advantage of that to secure and force the issue with freedoms, it was wasted pandering to those who didn't want to have their senses hurt.
Well they got their senses hurt anyhow, and for those of us who understand - haven't we been lied to and blown off over intellectual property stuff enough? For just once I'd like someone in the corporate world to say that copyrights are crap as a free market property right. The corporate world needs that, I need that, the USA and the world needs that. For all the brow beating I've taken for being "communist" when in truth I'm libertarian - I think I deserve that.
Freedom is like that blanket at the picnic, if you pinch the cloth in the middle and lift it up - it will tend to want to pull up all the fabric arround it too. Well the same is true with freedom, maybe the 3rd world won't understand, but they will feel it and live it none the less. And it's not just about words, it's about being honest to ourself about what's really going on.
Up till now, OSI has pretty much treated freedom as a non issue or a side issue in the FOSS community. I think this signifies a change in direction to where freedom becomes the main issue. If so, I welcome the change.
It doesn't really matter what you tell me. It matters what you tell a judge when you get sued for copyright, trademark or patent infringement. I think he's going to find "go to hell" to be a singularly unacceptable defense.
And theres your problem, right there, your version of the real world is defined by what a judge or a legal system says instead of what is. Good thing it's not 1000 years back, or you might be wanting to burn me at the stake for saying the earth goes arround the Sun. Maybe someday you'll figure out that you're and "the judges" version of reality is gonna half to change allot longer before mine does.
Reguarding physical property vs the non physical. You can play semantics games all you want, the reality is they are different by any measuremnet - and you are trying to treat them like they are the same. The emperor has no clothes!
Hows that?
You're a lwayer, aren't you? By rejecting bullshit licenses like the CDDL, and embracing ones like the GPL for starters.
Hm. I'm gonna guess "drunk" here
No, I'm actually one of those "creative" people you keep talking about. I create art, I create literature, and I create a lot of code. In fact, alot of it had been copyrighted, and even some of the physical side of that I interface with is patented. You're the one that's drunk and dissilusioned. Nobody in the industries that create get copyrights and patents for property sake, they get them to protect from frivolus lawsuits or to get agreements not to be sue'd from other companies by cross-licensing or to have leverage to counter-sue when attacked. You really don't get it, they have nothing to do with property - they have to do with keeping people from competing. Now Sun doesn't want to compete head on with the x86 hardware space where Linux is taking over, I don't blame them, but I would advise not to expect me or anyone else who is rational to go along with it.
I don't really want to persuade you. But you are basically trying to say that you have a right to "pounce" me if I use ideas you think are "yours". Excuse me if I tell you go to hell. Ideas are not property. And property's are not created by "people agreeing", physical property has natural limits on supply and demand wether people agree on it or not. Non tangable things don't wether people agree on it or not. Having physical property deprives another person use of that same property wether they agree to it or not, non tangable things do not - agreement or not.
You can talk about property all you want, I don't need to convince you. I can leverage these facts to my advantage, like it or not, "agreement" (if you want to call it that) or not.
No I got your point christal clear. You didn't get mine - you get allot more works, ideas, and information freely given to you then you put out no matter who you are. It's disengenuious to sujest that the only people who don't care about owning ideas are the cone who aren't "blessed with creativity". Turnarround was fair play.
Using Z to prove A never makes any sense.
Well, that's funny, because that's exactly what people are trying to do when they equate patents to property, "intellectual property" to be more specific. I tell you what, get them to knock off the former and I'll be happy to knock off the latter.
The irony is that the open source movement argues "choice" at every turn... unless of course that choice is to not use open source software.
You can choose your choices, but you can not choose your consequences. Choosing software that helps others limit your freedoms has consequences that very very predictable and understandable. Why can't people get that!!
You see, when all the systems run Linux - then that pits Sun directly against the x86 PC commodity market just at the time it's starting to go 64 bit. In order for Sun to compete, they must do everything and anything to differentiate to make sure that they can cost justify the higher cost of their hardware.
Bottom line: Property is a good thing. People have good feelings about property. When you say "property," people think about buying their first house, or when they paid off their first car loan. Owning things gives people a sense of satisfaction, and being an owner of something is a position that commands the respect of one's peers. This is how things work.
Bottom line. It is not property. People do have good and just feelings about property, and that's why they use dishonest terms like "intellectual property" instead of more accurate terms like "private coerced monopoly". Yes buying my property was very fufilling, but please feel free to COPY my landscape onto your property any time. Somehow, I think my plants will still be there in the morning!
People want to own ideas because creating ideas is hard work for most people. The only people who think ideas shouldn't be owned are either individuals who have never had a good idea themselves or people who are so blessed with an excess of creativity that they aren't aware that most people don't find it so easy. The first group of people are moochers and slackers, and the second group are just insufferable. So don't associate yourself in public with either
Well, lets hear the great ideas that you've worked your ass off for. The only people who want patents are the ones who want to sit on their ass for ideas were happening anyhow and collect royalities for it. Somehow I doubt you made the next E=mc^2, or invented something as valuable as say calculus. I hope your inventions don't use math (unless you paid the royalities), smoocher!
I'm stunned. Ne never said patents were slavery, he said it was a bullshit property like slavery - you shouldn't fall for the bullshit logic, just because an institution calls something a property right, doesn't mean that it is does it?
" because I want to be able to take other people's stuff whenever I want."
copying and immitating isn't taking! did you take ABC's from your mama when you learned the alphabet? did you take the 123's from you daddy when you learn't to count?
How about a counter reply that doesn't boil down to, "I wanna sit on my ass and collect royalities for something that was going to happen anyhow"