But that's not what's happened. A better analogy would be if Toyota stole the plans for the Mercedes, started making them and sold theirs for less than the original. What you suggested was simply compitition.
Your analogy would be more acurate if Mercedes printed their plans in the wall street journal accessable to anyone who buy's a copy. And then they press criminal charges against anyone who uses it.
BTW, what do you half to say about all these companies who coppied the interface to the IBM compatable PC?
Las in the USA is not an end in itself. No the end in itself and the justification for law in the USA is very clearly stated in the preamble to the constitution. "Life, liberty, and the Persuit of Happyness...".
Now I would like anyone to tell me how copying stuff is going to deprive anyone of Liberty. And tell me, how the persuit of happyness wouldn't include sharing information at your disposal with people who you happen to come into.
What is right and wrong is not an opinion, even if it's a legally imposed opinion, it is measurable learnable and observable.
There is nothing wrong with copying and distributing information. It is not even wrong if you do it for a profit as part of a private orginasation. Now maybe if you use it fradulently, or in a way that is malicious, but were talking about information here not violent activities.
What is wrong is when you try to controll everybody else in the universe of what they can copy and what they can not because you think you have a god given right to a government granted monopoly on its distribution. If anything, that is a wrong that should be punished.
If you have 1000 files on a unix system, and they are all 90% similar, the system should be able to figure out how to store 90% of those blocks in the same space. And manage them so that none are deleted until all references to them are deleted.
That would take care of all the shared library problems, and all the missing soft link type problems. It would speed up local copying dramatically, and allow applications to copy all the information they use locally without hogging up a bunch of disk.
Also, all programs would be compiled statically, but if they shared the same library blocks as other programs, the system would store those blocks as a single item instead of multiple times. The library managment, and conflicts would be transparent to the programmer and the user.
And when I compile other peoples code, I wouldn't half hunt down 50 zillion other libraries and dependencies. Just the file blocks I don't have. It could even be done automatically on a p2p network in machine clusters to reduce overhead.
I don't need this story to prove patents are worthless. I and many other people already know that, all this does is just bolster our claim. People who dislike that should consider it as a punishment to be suffered for having a poorly thought out belief system.
The fact is, when it is allowed for ANYBODY else to controll how inventions are used, problems like this are going to happen. Problems like corruption in the system, problems like poorly defined boundries when asserting patents, problems like unproductive lawsuits, and most small inventors getting screwed - even though patents were supposed to help them. Heck, even trying to treat patents like a intellectual "Property" is a fraud and a deception.
What if the govt gave me a monopoly on growing fruit and called it fruit "proeprty" because I can buy and lease shares of my monopoly on the open market? Well patents are a fruity idea.
The Civil War was the bloodiest in American history.
Will such extreme measures be necessary this next time around?
I don't think so. The Civil war violence was in relation to a type of controll that had to be physically coercive and violent by nature. The information age violence is probably going to be more in terms of verbal violence, slandering, guilt trips, peer pressure, lawsuits, strong arming, etc... With trillions at stake, I wouldn't dout that things could get nasty at points, and for countries like China - copyright controlls could lead to a type of police state enforcement. But overall, I think in the US things will be harsh, but not muderous.
Another thing, is that during the civil war there was a somewhat defined north and south. Now it's going to be somewhat like a mixed anarchy brow-beat fest I think.
You see, there is a parallel to the industrial revolution here in the information age.
History teaches that during the 1800's there were many people who believed that
the entire meaning and purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and
profit.Ironically just the opposite was true,the industrial revolution actually
demanded a mobile and skilled workforce.
They responded first by making slavery last forever, and making laws so harsh you couldn't even teach a black person how to read. Then they responded by trying to micro-regulate the northern states, then they responded by trying to break off from the Union and fence themselves off from the rest of the world, and all hell broke loose.
Today many in media circles believe that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is to use inventions like the internet to leverage their copyright holdings to the far reaches of the earth for unlimited growth and profit.Ironically,just the opposite is true,the information age demands the unrestricted flow of information.
At first they responded my making copyrights last effectively forever, then they responded by making it so that illegal copying could be punished worse than rape, then they tried to micro-regulate the tech industries (DMCA) then they fence the information that they controlled off from the rest of the world (DRM). It is only a matter of time before society tells them to go to hell, and all hell breaks loose.
The fact is, it's a piece of cake to sign FireFox, and that's what Microsoft wants.
That way they can guarantee it's distinguished from the millions of other Windows programs out there and sabatoge random functionality in it (while in execution), but in a way that is impossible to effectively debug.
I don't like the current situation, I think it's totally unresonable and getting more so. I do think we should try to change the law rather than ignoring it or the problem will only get worse, and I think sites like this harm rather than help that aim.
I disagree with you about some things here. First off things are getting better, Linux is growing at 20%+ per year, the RIAA and MPAA as we know them are industries in decline, and the copyright press and media are slowly but steadially being bypassed by the internet. The only reason why things are so intense now, is that they are like a drowinding desperate fool thrasing arround violently and willing to bring anyone else down with them that they can grab onto. No doubt there is allot of collateral damage, but they are the ones under siege, they are the ones stuck in a doomed paradigm as society enters an information age that must be based off the unrestricted flow of information. It is parallel to how the industrial revolution demanded a free and mobile workforce, which brought doom to the plantation system, and all their phoney "property rights", and all their BS morality, and all their vast holdings and commerce allong with it.
Second, I disagree with you about breaking human made laws. If human systems have a right to impose unjust laws, humans souls have a right to defy them. The problem here isn't an unjust law or two that needs changing, it is an unjust belief system brought to it's logical conclusion. There is a big difference between ignoring a legal glitch vs outright defiance of an unjust belief.
I used to be a bit more sympathetic to this stuff, but I know too many people who view it as their RIGHT to access other people's work for free, without their permission. I guess its just another version of the "information wants to be free" zealotry (Free Software bigots who don't actually understand free software and usually hypocrites. The few, very loud ones that give the whole community a bad name to some.).
FYI, these people built on information that was given to them freely literally from the time they were born. Now to turn arround and say that they have a right to add to that, push it arround the world, and to controll it such as to lock everyone else out from copying is simply bullshit.
The right of people to copy and immitate freely - information that is at their disposal is a right. And in the information age, there is no natural way to distinguish from copyrights and free speech rights - so what are you saying?
It's not about property, respect, or any other type of right, it's about controll. If you stole my car, I think I would be very violated, but if you make a copy - hell have two. In fact it's a Geo, there are 10 million coppies, I am not violated. Implying that copying things violates people is bullshit morality. It's anything but free market. And most of all it's unworkable in the INFORMATION age.
If we killed off 100million native born US citizens - yeah that would technically mean that there is more left for everybody else, but I think most people would still agree that it would be a overwhelming loss none the less.
Well the same is true the other way. If a 100M people come to the US, they will get jobs, buy things, invest, open businesses, and take advantage of the liberties they likely didn't have in other places. Unless they get on welfare or are supported by the taxpayer - it is a major net gain no matter how you look at it.
Consider applying this to the drug industry: you don't have a monopoly so you can't make back the billions spent developing a drug because your competitor picks up your formula and starts selling it for pennies over cost. Result: all commercial research on drugs stop. Lots of patents are bad admittedly, but saying all patents are bad is naive.
That's not true. Maybe I don't have an incentive to build a billion $ car factory without a government monopoly either - but that doesn't mean one won't get built. and it's well known that most of the patent money made isn't spent on RnD, but marketing. And the truth is that if one researcher looses RnD money because he can't get a patent, but gains the collaberation of 10000 other experts in the field that he wouldn't have been able to get before because they don't half to keep things from each other anymore - then that is a net gain.
The naievity comes from failing to understand that patents more like a government restriction on peoples freedoms on what they can do with inventions rather than that some kind of free market property right like they are often touted to be. Just because a bunch of prestigious people and government authorities call something a property doesn't mean that it is. That is as true today with patents as it was in 1850 with slaves.
seriously, give me that, ssh, and an internet connnection and people (I) would start doing all sorts of cool things with the palm. (putting a small gcc compiler and perl on there wouldn't hurt either)
Get rid of patents. Seriously. Think about it, you want to talk about bringing zillions of unused ideas into the mainstream. There's the way. For every monopoly an inventor looses, all of a sudden he'll have access to millions of other ideas he could never have access to without a royality or liability. Companies could save billions of dollars on lawsuits and lawyer expenses. Ford could make parts that are compatable with GM - it would force industries to consolidate parts standards and save a ton on excessive waste that often ends up as junk that is environmantal waste.
And it would force real commoditized competition which would likely increase quality and decrease prices.
So basically a country can choose between having more wealth or having more innovation.
I think it is more a choice between short term wealth vs freedom, because innovation and the right to immitate innovation while not being attacked is a freedom.
In that sense China will probably never say screw you because they are really not to accountable to protecting peoples freedom, and the US will put on great pressure to kill one of the few outlets of freedom Chineese people have. IMHO, this is extremely dangerous - akin to what happened in Germany in the late 1930's.
Freedoms lead to free markets and prosperity, but prosperity and markets don't necissairly lead to freedoms.
The root of the problem is the utter nation that a govt granted monopoly on invention is somehow beneficial at all. The incentive theory is complete bullshit. That it helps society even a little bit is complete bullshit.
Perhaps I don't have an incentive to run track, unless I have the right to make you start 5 paces back from me. Perhaps I could buy and sell shares of that incentive and call it a property right - it would still be complete bullshit.
Any inventor of a better mouse trap knows what I'm talking about. Make an invention in the US, advertize it in the papers, and it won't be long before you get a bunch of letters threatening to sue you. Not only that, but the nature of us patnets makes it impossible to integrate. If you make a car with ford like brakes, and a GM like engine, don't be supprised if you get sued by both of them - nope anyone who really wants to make a usefull invention has to absolutely start from scratch.
In japan, some of this is overcome with government micromanaging of business and regulation, and other parts of these problems are overcome with less agressive patnet enforcement (on foriegn patents epsecially)
When I was 8 or so, I blew off learning spelling in school so I could play on this new device my dad got called a computer (CBM). The funny thing is, yeah I failed most of my spelling tests and I was written off as a McFailure by most of my teachers, but I learn't how to program and use computers while they were learning how to spell.
Now some of those A+ spellers are wonderfull secrataries, while I program computers and set up corporate IT infrastructure. Somehow, I am not a bit sorry for how things turned out.
I love space, and space exploration but I think the truth is that the govt throwing our money at social security, hasn't given us social security (and for christsake - please don't call it a compact between the generations or a paid for retirement plan), the government throwing our money at education hasn't produced good education, the government throwing money at poor people hasn't alievated poverty, the government throwing money at 3rd world countries hasn't really helped them become rich.
IMHO, this really has to do with making sure that we're one steap ahead of the Chineese in the space race. While I'm all for that too, I'm not too enthuiastic about the governments ability to produce real space based results for the US public, I'm more worried about them drowning out the private sector.
My understanding was that a group of experts conspired to lie to Al Gore in hearings (a felony) and promised him that the internet could never be used for free dialog and the unrestricted flow of information in order to gain support for letting the internet to go commercial.
I recall reading somthing to that effect many years ago, but couldn't find it in searches. Anyone else hear this too?
IMHO, this cound change the entire distribution paradigm - for example - if you wanted an email server - you just download the virtual image off the network of a linux system that already has it preinstalled and mostly set up, of if you want a web server/ldap server/dns server - same thing. It is a very nice way to have the best of a full featured linux system while at the same time the xen application os has the minimal stuff nesissary to run what you want.
That's because the latest features appear in the Fedora Core development tree, not in already-released versions
Does that mean that it eventually will be released into fc2?... also I'm not quite sure how it will be released, as another kenrnel, package, or module? Right now I'm using a manual build on top of FC2, but it does not work too nicely with iptables, for example.
Slashdot Mirror
But that's not what's happened. A better analogy would be if Toyota stole the plans for the Mercedes, started making them and sold theirs for less than the original. What you suggested was simply compitition.
Your analogy would be more acurate if Mercedes printed their plans in the wall street journal accessable to anyone who buy's a copy. And then they press criminal charges against anyone who uses it.
BTW, what do you half to say about all these companies who coppied the interface to the IBM compatable PC?
Las in the USA is not an end in itself. No the end in itself and the justification for law in the USA is very clearly stated in the preamble to the constitution. "Life, liberty, and the Persuit of Happyness...".
Now I would like anyone to tell me how copying stuff is going to deprive anyone of Liberty. And tell me, how the persuit of happyness wouldn't include sharing information at your disposal with people who you happen to come into.
What is right and wrong is not an opinion, even if it's a legally imposed opinion, it is measurable learnable and observable.
There is nothing wrong with copying and distributing information. It is not even wrong if you do it for a profit as part of a private orginasation. Now maybe if you use it fradulently, or in a way that is malicious, but were talking about information here not violent activities.
What is wrong is when you try to controll everybody else in the universe of what they can copy and what they can not because you think you have a god given right to a government granted monopoly on its distribution. If anything, that is a wrong that should be punished.
If you have 1000 files on a unix system, and they are all 90% similar, the system should be able to figure out how to store 90% of those blocks in the same space. And manage them so that none are deleted until all references to them are deleted.
That would take care of all the shared library problems, and all the missing soft link type problems. It would speed up local copying dramatically, and allow applications to copy all the information they use locally without hogging up a bunch of disk.
Also, all programs would be compiled statically, but if they shared the same library blocks as other programs, the system would store those blocks as a single item instead of multiple times. The library managment, and conflicts would be transparent to the programmer and the user.
And when I compile other peoples code, I wouldn't half hunt down 50 zillion other libraries and dependencies. Just the file blocks I don't have. It could even be done automatically on a p2p network in machine clusters to reduce overhead.
md5sum source/file blocks could become standard.
I don't need this story to prove patents are worthless. I and many other people already know that, all this does is just bolster our claim. People who dislike that should consider it as a punishment to be suffered for having a poorly thought out belief system.
The fact is, when it is allowed for ANYBODY else to controll how inventions are used, problems like this are going to happen. Problems like corruption in the system, problems like poorly defined boundries when asserting patents, problems like unproductive lawsuits, and most small inventors getting screwed - even though patents were supposed to help them. Heck, even trying to treat patents like a intellectual "Property" is a fraud and a deception.
What if the govt gave me a monopoly on growing fruit and called it fruit "proeprty" because I can buy and lease shares of my monopoly on the open market? Well patents are a fruity idea.
Microsoft users
The Civil War was the bloodiest in American history.
Will such extreme measures be necessary this next time around?
I don't think so. The Civil war violence was in relation to a type of controll that had to be physically coercive and violent by nature. The information age violence is probably going to be more in terms of verbal violence, slandering, guilt trips, peer pressure, lawsuits, strong arming, etc... With trillions at stake, I wouldn't dout that things could get nasty at points, and for countries like China - copyright controlls could lead to a type of police state enforcement. But overall, I think in the US things will be harsh, but not muderous.
Another thing, is that during the civil war there was a somewhat defined north and south. Now it's going to be somewhat like a mixed anarchy brow-beat fest I think.
You see, there is a parallel to the industrial revolution here in the information age.
History teaches that during the 1800's there were many people who believed that the entire meaning and purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit.Ironically just the opposite was true,the industrial revolution actually demanded a mobile and skilled workforce.
They responded first by making slavery last forever, and making laws so harsh you couldn't even teach a black person how to read. Then they responded by trying to micro-regulate the northern states, then they responded by trying to break off from the Union and fence themselves off from the rest of the world, and all hell broke loose.
Today many in media circles believe that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is to use inventions like the internet to leverage their copyright holdings to the far reaches of the earth for unlimited growth and profit.Ironically,just the opposite is true,the information age demands the unrestricted flow of information.
At first they responded my making copyrights last effectively forever, then they responded by making it so that illegal copying could be punished worse than rape, then they tried to micro-regulate the tech industries (DMCA) then they fence the information that they controlled off from the rest of the world (DRM). It is only a matter of time before society tells them to go to hell, and all hell breaks loose.
The fact is, it's a piece of cake to sign FireFox, and that's what Microsoft wants.
That way they can guarantee it's distinguished from the millions of other Windows programs out there and sabatoge random functionality in it (while in execution), but in a way that is impossible to effectively debug.
I don't like the current situation, I think it's totally unresonable and getting more so. I do think we should try to change the law rather than ignoring it or the problem will only get worse, and I think sites like this harm rather than help that aim.
I disagree with you about some things here. First off things are getting better, Linux is growing at 20%+ per year, the RIAA and MPAA as we know them are industries in decline, and the copyright press and media are slowly but steadially being bypassed by the internet. The only reason why things are so intense now, is that they are like a drowinding desperate fool thrasing arround violently and willing to bring anyone else down with them that they can grab onto. No doubt there is allot of collateral damage, but they are the ones under siege, they are the ones stuck in a doomed paradigm as society enters an information age that must be based off the unrestricted flow of information. It is parallel to how the industrial revolution demanded a free and mobile workforce, which brought doom to the plantation system, and all their phoney "property rights", and all their BS morality, and all their vast holdings and commerce allong with it.
Second, I disagree with you about breaking human made laws. If human systems have a right to impose unjust laws, humans souls have a right to defy them. The problem here isn't an unjust law or two that needs changing, it is an unjust belief system brought to it's logical conclusion. There is a big difference between ignoring a legal glitch vs outright defiance of an unjust belief.
I used to be a bit more sympathetic to this stuff, but I know too many people who view it as their RIGHT to access other people's work for free, without their permission. I guess its just another version of the "information wants to be free" zealotry (Free Software bigots who don't actually understand free software and usually hypocrites. The few, very loud ones that give the whole community a bad name to some.).
FYI, these people built on information that was given to them freely literally from the time they were born. Now to turn arround and say that they have a right to add to that, push it arround the world, and to controll it such as to lock everyone else out from copying is simply bullshit.
The right of people to copy and immitate freely - information that is at their disposal is a right. And in the information age, there is no natural way to distinguish from copyrights and free speech rights - so what are you saying?
It's not about property, respect, or any other type of right, it's about controll. If you stole my car, I think I would be very violated, but if you make a copy - hell have two. In fact it's a Geo, there are 10 million coppies, I am not violated. Implying that copying things violates people is bullshit morality. It's anything but free market. And most of all it's unworkable in the INFORMATION age.
Look at the other way.
If we killed off 100million native born US citizens - yeah that would technically mean that there is more left for everybody else, but I think most people would still agree that it would be a overwhelming loss none the less.
Well the same is true the other way. If a 100M people come to the US, they will get jobs, buy things, invest, open businesses, and take advantage of the liberties they likely didn't have in other places. Unless they get on welfare or are supported by the taxpayer - it is a major net gain no matter how you look at it.
Consider applying this to the drug industry: you don't have a monopoly so you can't make back the billions spent developing a drug because your competitor picks up your formula and starts selling it for pennies over cost. Result: all commercial research on drugs stop. Lots of patents are bad admittedly, but saying all patents are bad is naive.
That's not true. Maybe I don't have an incentive to build a billion $ car factory without a government monopoly either - but that doesn't mean one won't get built. and it's well known that most of the patent money made isn't spent on RnD, but marketing. And the truth is that if one researcher looses RnD money because he can't get a patent, but gains the collaberation of 10000 other experts in the field that he wouldn't have been able to get before because they don't half to keep things from each other anymore - then that is a net gain.
The naievity comes from failing to understand that patents more like a government restriction on peoples freedoms on what they can do with inventions rather than that some kind of free market property right like they are often touted to be. Just because a bunch of prestigious people and government authorities call something a property doesn't mean that it is. That is as true today with patents as it was in 1850 with slaves.
seriously, give me that, ssh, and an internet connnection and people (I) would start doing all sorts of cool things with the palm. (putting a small gcc compiler and perl on there wouldn't hurt either)
Get rid of patents. Seriously. Think about it, you want to talk about bringing zillions of unused ideas into the mainstream. There's the way. For every monopoly an inventor looses, all of a sudden he'll have access to millions of other ideas he could never have access to without a royality or liability. Companies could save billions of dollars on lawsuits and lawyer expenses. Ford could make parts that are compatable with GM - it would force industries to consolidate parts standards and save a ton on excessive waste that often ends up as junk that is environmantal waste.
And it would force real commoditized competition which would likely increase quality and decrease prices.
subject says it all
So basically a country can choose between having more wealth or having more innovation.
I think it is more a choice between short term wealth vs freedom, because innovation and the right to immitate innovation while not being attacked is a freedom.
In that sense China will probably never say screw you because they are really not to accountable to protecting peoples freedom, and the US will put on great pressure to kill one of the few outlets of freedom Chineese people have. IMHO, this is extremely dangerous - akin to what happened in Germany in the late 1930's.
Freedoms lead to free markets and prosperity, but prosperity and markets don't necissairly lead to freedoms.
The root of the problem is the utter nation that a govt granted monopoly on invention is somehow beneficial at all. The incentive theory is complete bullshit. That it helps society even a little bit is complete bullshit.
Perhaps I don't have an incentive to run track, unless I have the right to make you start 5 paces back from me. Perhaps I could buy and sell shares of that incentive and call it a property right - it would still be complete bullshit.
Any inventor of a better mouse trap knows what I'm talking about. Make an invention in the US, advertize it in the papers, and it won't be long before you get a bunch of letters threatening to sue you. Not only that, but the nature of us patnets makes it impossible to integrate. If you make a car with ford like brakes, and a GM like engine, don't be supprised if you get sued by both of them - nope anyone who really wants to make a usefull invention has to absolutely start from scratch.
In japan, some of this is overcome with government micromanaging of business and regulation, and other parts of these problems are overcome with less agressive patnet enforcement (on foriegn patents epsecially)
When I was 8 or so, I blew off learning spelling in school so I could play on this new device my dad got called a computer (CBM). The funny thing is, yeah I failed most of my spelling tests and I was written off as a McFailure by most of my teachers, but I learn't how to program and use computers while they were learning how to spell.
Now some of those A+ spellers are wonderfull secrataries, while I program computers and set up corporate IT infrastructure. Somehow, I am not a bit sorry for how things turned out.
I love space, and space exploration but I think the truth is that the govt throwing our money at social security, hasn't given us social security (and for christsake - please don't call it a compact between the generations or a paid for retirement plan), the government throwing our money at education hasn't produced good education, the government throwing money at poor people hasn't alievated poverty, the government throwing money at 3rd world countries hasn't really helped them become rich.
IMHO, this really has to do with making sure that we're one steap ahead of the Chineese in the space race. While I'm all for that too, I'm not too enthuiastic about the governments ability to produce real space based results for the US public, I'm more worried about them drowning out the private sector.
My understanding was that a group of experts conspired to lie to Al Gore in hearings (a felony) and promised him that the internet could never be used for free dialog and the unrestricted flow of information in order to gain support for letting the internet to go commercial.
I recall reading somthing to that effect many years ago, but couldn't find it in searches. Anyone else hear this too?
IMHO, this cound change the entire distribution paradigm - for example - if you wanted an email server - you just download the virtual image off the network of a linux system that already has it preinstalled and mostly set up, of if you want a web server/ldap server/dns server - same thing. It is a very nice way to have the best of a full featured linux system while at the same time the xen application os has the minimal stuff nesissary to run what you want.
That's because the latest features appear in the Fedora Core development tree, not in already-released versions
Does that mean that it eventually will be released into fc2?... also I'm not quite sure how it will be released, as another kenrnel, package, or module? Right now I'm using a manual build on top of FC2, but it does not work too nicely with iptables, for example.
[root@ root]# yum install xen #yeah like this will really work /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.6_FC2/|grep -i xen /var/cache/yum/|grep -i xen
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Fedora Core 2 - i386 - Base
Server: Fedora Core 2 - i386 - Released Updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Cannot find a package matching xen
No actions to take
[root@ root]# find
[root@ root]# find
[root@ root]#