The fact is that even though Microsoft semantic lies might delay their death by a few months, the Linux sunami is still going to take over because of pure raw market forces - nothing is going to stop that.
If anything, this is a unherd of opportunity to remind the business leaders of the world that free markets are about freedom and not just markets. IMHO, the meaning of Linux is not to get revenge at Microsoft, not to get immediate market dominance, but to secure freedoms and liberties in the information space.
I think history has shown that markets don't drive freedoms, freedoms drive markets. If you want better markets, aim for better freedoms, not the other way arround.
There this should help contact me and explain where I'm comming from or at least why I see things this way.... the idea came to me when I was trying to question how needed copyrights were, and asked myself was thre ever another time in history where society asserted false property rights?
As for reference, I think most everything I said there was pretty much common knowledge from what I can tell. I think it's well known that they did pass harsher and harsher laws on slaves all the way up till the civil war, they did attempt to get the northern states to enforce laws on runaway slaves - and the northern states often didn't cooperate or like it. And they did break off from the union and push the US into a civil war after Lincon got elected symbolizing that the north would no longer cooperate with the south on runaway slave enforcement.
I am not a history expert, but from what I've gathered from people who are is that the northern and southern business leaders were very tight nit, but the forces that pushed them apart were greater than the forces that kept them together.
In fact there was even a stock market crash in the 1850's? due to rampant speculation on industrial technology, and our modern war on terrorisim looks very close to the problems the US had with indians (native americans) arround the same time frame. Not to mention that cooincidences like calling slaves a property right when they clearly wern't, and the vast prosperity that the initial industrial boom brought to the plantation system. There is even some similiarities, where Europe was far less interested in upholding slavery that the US was. In many ways, it seems history is repeating itself. Just something I noticed.
You see, what's going on here is that copyright enforcement is in a world of hurt right now - and so the media industries are trying to microregulate every other industry to do the enforcement for them. Right now we are seeing a back-lash that will likely succede, because the tech companies together have far more economic clout than Hollywood. This will also likely cause all hell to break loose.
This is not new, it happened in the industrial revolution too. Unlike farming, the industrial revolution required a mobile and educated workforce. It was a disaster for the plantation system who envisioned 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. At first they reactred by making tougher slave laws, till it got to the point you couldn't even teach a slave how to read, then they responded by trying to "force" the industrial northern states to enforce their slavery restrictions through a series of heavy handed regulations, when that went to hell the southern states tried to break off from the union and fence themselves off from the north.
Today the information age requires the free flow of information, and it is a disaster to those who rely on the copyright system whose vision of the information age was to use inventions like the internet to impose copyrights to the far corners of the earth. At first they responded by making copyrights last (effectively) forever, and imposing punishments for copyright infringement that rival those imposded for violent criminals. Then they pushed through the DMCA, to "force" all the other industries to impose copyrights via heavy handed microregulation. Now that's having problems they are trying to fence themselves off from the rest of the world by using DRM.
So watch out. SCO was a peace walk. All hell is about to break loose.
Is that manufacturing and assembly of products will move from the factory to on site in the home. Companies will respond to this by saying that you owe them patent and copy royalities on the things you repilcate. They will become extremely rich and powerfull, and be all to happy to attempt to impose an all encompasing police state to ensure collection of royalities. (don't believe me, just look at the RIAA when the internet came along, look at how the pharmacutical companies tried to sue millions of dirt poor africans dying of AIDS in the world court for patent infringement - if they're willing to do that they are willing to do anything)
Moral, if you want the benefits of future technology to promote freedon and not take it away, work to get rid of patents today. They hinder far more innovation than they promote, and they are far more like microregulation than some kind of free market property right.
IMHO, it's still alot easier to have a blimp in the upperatmosphere of venus than it is to have a habitat on mars. In the upper atmosphere the air pressure is about the same (as earths), the gravity is about the same, the temperature is about the same, and venus even has a thick enough atmosphere to protect from solar radiation and protecting against the sulfuric acid wouldn't be that hard (compairatively) either.
Can we really trust a company like this to controll our content? The fact is that with DRM or any of these types of technologies - computers and routers have no way of telling the difference between copyright content and free speech content, at some level you are going to need a person or an institution to decide what is permitted and what is not. Is MS really the kind of company we want making these decisions?
I agree, it's not that DRM will succede - it's that MS is effectively forced to use DRM, because without it they will half to compete against the sunami Linux head on.
Ironically DRM reminds me of the 1850's. The industrial revolution required an educated and mobile workforce, but it was looking to be a disaster to the plantation system way of life. First they made tougher and tougher laws till you couldn't even teach slaves how to read, then they tried to regulate the northern states, and when that failed they tried to break off from the union and fence themselves off from the rest of the country. Of course, it wasn't long before all hell broke loose.
Today, they tried to extend copyrights to infinity, and then they tried to impose the DMCA, and now they are trying to use DRM and fence themselves off from the rest of the world. Watch out, SCO was a peace walk, all hell is about to break loose.
Just reading the article (yes I actually did this time) it becomes painfully clear that their view of convergence is completely out of touch with what's really happening. So perhaps I should explain something.....
COPYRIGHTS ARE DEAD!!!!... are you listening BusinessWeek?.... and all the industries that rely on a copyright model are dead with them. Maybe you hate them like I do, or maybe you love them. Maybe you want them to be dead, maybe you couldn't stand it and are deeply morally offended. But on no uncertain terms, they are dead. It's just the way things are. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear that, but don't blame me, I am just the messenger.
I renember a time from my history books where alot of highly educated people thought that the entire purpose and meaning of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. Today we have people who think that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is leverage their copyrights over the internet to the four corners of the earth for eternal controll and profit. Then as now, these people are idiots, begging for disaster, stay away from them and if you can't - then fight them. They just don't or won't get it!!!!!
Possibly, but since patents exist across all sectors in all industries - the complementary technologies (eg microchip, computer tech, and manufacturing) are likely just breaking into use too.
My thoughts exactly. A multibillion dollar industry is held up for twenty years with a technology that likely would have been invented anyhow - and I'm supposed to think patents are good for humanity? Sheesh, even the inventor has likley lost more than 3mil in opportunity costs.
So what you're saying is this guy held up a multi billion dollar industry for twenty years for the sake of 3 million in royalities. If anything, this is a great example of why patents are so evil.
By delaying 20 years, I would bet the guy has easially lost more than 3 million in opportunity costs anyhow - and does he deserve that amount if someone else would have invented the same thing anyhow a month after he did?
The analogy isn't perfect, but it still sound because even the production of a car plant (RND patents or not) costs a ton of money.
Patents are not meant as a production incentive. They're an incentive for the design/research that must take place beforehand. If you think research/invention doesn't require money, explain to your professors that they really don't need their research grants. Explain to every corporation in the country that they can fire all their R&D depts -- because inventing doesn't require money.
Some of the above is circular logic, for example, one of the primary reasons why universities require so much RnD is becuase the patent system makes it impossible for public usable RnD to happen anyplace else.
Also, it doesn't reflect true to what actually happens in the marketplace. When AMD could copy intel's design, Intel responded by making faster chips, not by shutting down it's RnD department. When ethernet could be coppied and implemented more freely than token-ring, ethernet became where all the new RnD happened. If I have a factory and I can make it 20% more efficient using a few innovations, then there is pressure to do that wether competitors will copy it or not. With Linux, a whole lot of RnD happens at OSDL, and it is funded by large corporations. Plenty of RnD happens, but none get a patent monopoly in return.
Plus, noone ever considers the downside to patents in terms of RnD. With patents there is great pressure for researchers from different companies not to share and collaberate publicly - for fear a competitor will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out. That hurts RnD.
Alot of innovation is expensive, but orders of magnitude more is incremental. Innovations making small locigal steps on previous innovations in a contunious progression. The patnet system does not help this, but rather hinders and gets in the way.
History has proven that the biggest tool used by these corrupt entities is government(eg the philipines) The more you limit the power of government to defend lberties and justice only, the more you limit the power of these entities to act unjustly.
The federal reserve act was passed in 1911, long before the great depression. After 20 years of loose money, then a suden pullback, the market crashed. Ever since then, we've had regular rescessions and regular inflation on a 7 year cycle - the whole justification for the fed system was to get rid of these cycles, it didn't - most each cycle has gotten bigger than the previous one as time has gone on.
Innovation is it's own reward. I think it's intellectualy dishonest to assume that without massive monopolies everywhere researchers would just starve in the streets. It hasn't happened that way in the open source software community at all.
From what I understand, the industry statistic is that companies spend almost twice as much on marketing as R&D. I'll half to look it up.
Yeah I don't like patnets. I used to love them, but the more I learnt about them the more I've come to dispise them. They are not free market, they are not property, they are not an incentive, they lock out small inventors, they fragment research and industry innovation, they encourage frivolous lawsuits and bogus claims by their very nature.
I renember hearing similar arguemnts as to why freedom doesn't work, and the USSR with the power to coerce peoples sharing the wealth would. It's wasn't true there and I dont think it is true here.
1. Steal your work 2. Screw your wife 3. Profit!!. .....
You forgot one. Go to the patnet office, tell a few lies, and lock me out from using my own invention forever. At least with the former, we can compete on equal terms - and I will probably win out because I have a deeper understanding of the original idea - now I'm screwed.
Name one major cure that was made from patent R&D money? 90% of the ones I can think of were made by accident, or by independent researchers - then companies came in after the fact, grabbed the patents and spent the money on marketing.
You are also making the mistake of assuming that there is no downside to patents interms of medical discovery. that's not true. Patents have a drastic effect on how researchers share and collaberate.
Let's assume we do away with them though. Now let's compare two business models. In one, I spend hundreds of millions developing new drugs. Once I pass the very expensive FDA process, I sell my drugs at market rates. In the other, I sit on my ass and wait for someone else to develop drugs. Then I spend a million bucks reproducing the other guy's results and sell the same drugs at market rates.
Lets assume I spend 100's of millions developing a new car? get it? also, what you say doesn't reflect reality - most big patent money is spent on marketing not R&D.
second, the slavery analogy makes a good point. The property rights argument to justify patents is a bullshit argument. The incentive argument to justify patents is also a bullshit argument. The great wealth of the industry argument is also a bullshit argument. What else is there, other than I want to sit on my ass and collect royalties?
Keep in mind that if nobody spends the time, energy and cash to develop a drug, those people are going to die anyway.
Keep in mind that 1000's of researchers are forced to hold back sharing R&D and collaberating with other researchers for fear that one of them will get one up on them, get a patent, and lock everyone else out. Patnets cause this situation, and now you hawk patents as the solution - well no thanks.
Unless you want to present a viable alternative where drugs will be developed and put through FDA trials by somebody else, patents still seem to be the way to go.
And theres you're problem right there. You prove there isn't viable alternatives. You're the one who wants to coerce massive restrictions on what people can copy and immitate. You're the one who wishes to restrict everyone else. Any intellectual honesty would dictate a real justification for such impositions - not just bullshit talk about FDA approval, incentive and R&D that doesn't really match up with the real world.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact is that even though Microsoft semantic lies might delay their death by a few months, the Linux sunami is still going to take over because of pure raw market forces - nothing is going to stop that.
If anything, this is a unherd of opportunity to remind the business leaders of the world that free markets are about freedom and not just markets. IMHO, the meaning of Linux is not to get revenge at Microsoft, not to get immediate market dominance, but to secure freedoms and liberties in the information space.
I think history has shown that markets don't drive freedoms, freedoms drive markets. If you want better markets, aim for better freedoms, not the other way arround.
There this should help contact me and explain where I'm comming from or at least why I see things this way .... the idea came to me when I was trying to question how needed copyrights were, and asked myself was thre ever another time in history where society asserted false property rights?
BPAC
As for reference, I think most everything I said there was pretty much common knowledge from what I can tell. I think it's well known that they did pass harsher and harsher laws on slaves all the way up till the civil war, they did attempt to get the northern states to enforce laws on runaway slaves - and the northern states often didn't cooperate or like it. And they did break off from the union and push the US into a civil war after Lincon got elected symbolizing that the north would no longer cooperate with the south on runaway slave enforcement.
I am not a history expert, but from what I've gathered from people who are is that the northern and southern business leaders were very tight nit, but the forces that pushed them apart were greater than the forces that kept them together.
In fact there was even a stock market crash in the 1850's? due to rampant speculation on industrial technology, and our modern war on terrorisim looks very close to the problems the US had with indians (native americans) arround the same time frame. Not to mention that cooincidences like calling slaves a property right when they clearly wern't, and the vast prosperity that the initial industrial boom brought to the plantation system. There is even some similiarities, where Europe was far less interested in upholding slavery that the US was. In many ways, it seems history is repeating itself. Just something I noticed.
You see, what's going on here is that copyright enforcement is in a world of hurt right now - and so the media industries are trying to microregulate every other industry to do the enforcement for them. Right now we are seeing a back-lash that will likely succede, because the tech companies together have far more economic clout than Hollywood. This will also likely cause all hell to break loose.
This is not new, it happened in the industrial revolution too. Unlike farming, the industrial revolution required a mobile and educated workforce. It was a disaster for the plantation system who envisioned 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. At first they reactred by making tougher slave laws, till it got to the point you couldn't even teach a slave how to read, then they responded by trying to "force" the industrial northern states to enforce their slavery restrictions through a series of heavy handed regulations, when that went to hell the southern states tried to break off from the union and fence themselves off from the north.
Today the information age requires the free flow of information, and it is a disaster to those who rely on the copyright system whose vision of the information age was to use inventions like the internet to impose copyrights to the far corners of the earth. At first they responded by making copyrights last (effectively) forever, and imposing punishments for copyright infringement that rival those imposded for violent criminals. Then they pushed through the DMCA, to "force" all the other industries to impose copyrights via heavy handed microregulation. Now that's having problems they are trying to fence themselves off from the rest of the world by using DRM.
So watch out. SCO was a peace walk. All hell is about to break loose.
Is that manufacturing and assembly of products will move from the factory to on site in the home. Companies will respond to this by saying that you owe them patent and copy royalities on the things you repilcate. They will become extremely rich and powerfull, and be all to happy to attempt to impose an all encompasing police state to ensure collection of royalities. (don't believe me, just look at the RIAA when the internet came along, look at how the pharmacutical companies tried to sue millions of dirt poor africans dying of AIDS in the world court for patent infringement - if they're willing to do that they are willing to do anything)
Moral, if you want the benefits of future technology to promote freedon and not take it away, work to get rid of patents today. They hinder far more innovation than they promote, and they are far more like microregulation than some kind of free market property right.
IMHO, it's still alot easier to have a blimp in the upperatmosphere of venus than it is to have a habitat on mars. In the upper atmosphere the air pressure is about the same (as earths), the gravity is about the same, the temperature is about the same, and venus even has a thick enough atmosphere to protect from solar radiation and protecting against the sulfuric acid wouldn't be that hard (compairatively) either.
Can we really trust a company like this to controll our content? The fact is that with DRM or any of these types of technologies - computers and routers have no way of telling the difference between copyright content and free speech content, at some level you are going to need a person or an institution to decide what is permitted and what is not. Is MS really the kind of company we want making these decisions?
yet another repost, but somehow I keep thinking that it needs to be resaid ..... BPAC
I agree, it's not that DRM will succede - it's that MS is effectively forced to use DRM, because without it they will half to compete against the sunami Linux head on.
Ironically DRM reminds me of the 1850's. The industrial revolution required an educated and mobile workforce, but it was looking to be a disaster to the plantation system way of life. First they made tougher and tougher laws till you couldn't even teach slaves how to read, then they tried to regulate the northern states, and when that failed they tried to break off from the union and fence themselves off from the rest of the country. Of course, it wasn't long before all hell broke loose.
Today, they tried to extend copyrights to infinity, and then they tried to impose the DMCA, and now they are trying to use DRM and fence themselves off from the rest of the world. Watch out, SCO was a peace walk, all hell is about to break loose.
OK, did it, thanks.
I know this has been posted here before, but ....
BPAC
Just reading the article (yes I actually did this time) it becomes painfully clear that their view of convergence is completely out of touch with what's really happening. So perhaps I should explain something.....
... are you listening BusinessWeek? .... and all the industries that rely on a copyright model are dead with them. Maybe you hate them like I do, or maybe you love them. Maybe you want them to be dead, maybe you couldn't stand it and are deeply morally offended. But on no uncertain terms, they are dead. It's just the way things are. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear that, but don't blame me, I am just the messenger.
COPYRIGHTS ARE DEAD!!!!
I renember a time from my history books where alot of highly educated people thought that the entire purpose and meaning of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. Today we have people who think that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is leverage their copyrights over the internet to the four corners of the earth for eternal controll and profit. Then as now, these people are idiots, begging for disaster, stay away from them and if you can't - then fight them. They just don't or won't get it!!!!!
heres one I found....
/ co untries.html
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index
Possibly, but since patents exist across all sectors in all industries - the complementary technologies (eg microchip, computer tech, and manufacturing) are likely just breaking into use too.
My thoughts exactly. A multibillion dollar industry is held up for twenty years with a technology that likely would have been invented anyhow - and I'm supposed to think patents are good for humanity? Sheesh, even the inventor has likley lost more than 3mil in opportunity costs.
So what you're saying is this guy held up a multi billion dollar industry for twenty years for the sake of 3 million in royalities. If anything, this is a great example of why patents are so evil.
By delaying 20 years, I would bet the guy has easially lost more than 3 million in opportunity costs anyhow - and does he deserve that amount if someone else would have invented the same thing anyhow a month after he did?
The analogy isn't perfect, but it still sound because even the production of a car plant (RND patents or not) costs a ton of money.
Patents are not meant as a production incentive. They're an incentive for the design/research that must take place beforehand. If you think research/invention doesn't require money, explain to your professors that they really don't need their research grants. Explain to every corporation in the country that they can fire all their R&D depts -- because inventing doesn't require money.
Some of the above is circular logic, for example, one of the primary reasons why universities require so much RnD is becuase the patent system makes it impossible for public usable RnD to happen anyplace else.
Also, it doesn't reflect true to what actually happens in the marketplace. When AMD could copy intel's design, Intel responded by making faster chips, not by shutting down it's RnD department. When ethernet could be coppied and implemented more freely than token-ring, ethernet became where all the new RnD happened. If I have a factory and I can make it 20% more efficient using a few innovations, then there is pressure to do that wether competitors will copy it or not. With Linux, a whole lot of RnD happens at OSDL, and it is funded by large corporations. Plenty of RnD happens, but none get a patent monopoly in return.
Plus, noone ever considers the downside to patents in terms of RnD. With patents there is great pressure for researchers from different companies not to share and collaberate publicly - for fear a competitor will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out. That hurts RnD.
Alot of innovation is expensive, but orders of magnitude more is incremental. Innovations making small locigal steps on previous innovations in a contunious progression. The patnet system does not help this, but rather hinders and gets in the way.
History has proven that the biggest tool used by these corrupt entities is government(eg the philipines) The more you limit the power of government to defend lberties and justice only, the more you limit the power of these entities to act unjustly.
The federal reserve act was passed in 1911, long before the great depression. After 20 years of loose money, then a suden pullback, the market crashed. Ever since then, we've had regular rescessions and regular inflation on a 7 year cycle - the whole justification for the fed system was to get rid of these cycles, it didn't - most each cycle has gotten bigger than the previous one as time has gone on.
Innovation is it's own reward. I think it's intellectualy dishonest to assume that without massive monopolies everywhere researchers would just starve in the streets. It hasn't happened that way in the open source software community at all.
From what I understand, the industry statistic is that companies spend almost twice as much on marketing as R&D. I'll half to look it up.
Yeah I don't like patnets. I used to love them, but the more I learnt about them the more I've come to dispise them. They are not free market, they are not property, they are not an incentive, they lock out small inventors, they fragment research and industry innovation, they encourage frivolous lawsuits and bogus claims by their very nature.
Well then how come the pharmacutical companies sued a bunch of African nations for attempting to make their own generics in the world court?
I renember hearing similar arguemnts as to why freedom doesn't work, and the USSR with the power to coerce peoples sharing the wealth would. It's wasn't true there and I dont think it is true here.
1. Steal your work
2. Screw your wife
3. Profit!!.
You forgot one. Go to the patnet office, tell a few lies, and lock me out from using my own invention forever. At least with the former, we can compete on equal terms - and I will probably win out because I have a deeper understanding of the original idea - now I'm screwed.
Name one major cure that was made from patent R&D money? 90% of the ones I can think of were made by accident, or by independent researchers - then companies came in after the fact, grabbed the patents and spent the money on marketing.
You are also making the mistake of assuming that there is no downside to patents interms of medical discovery. that's not true. Patents have a drastic effect on how researchers share and collaberate.
Let's assume we do away with them though. Now let's compare two business models. In one, I spend hundreds of millions developing new drugs. Once I pass the very expensive FDA process, I sell my drugs at market rates. In the other, I sit on my ass and wait for someone else to develop drugs. Then I spend a million bucks reproducing the other guy's results and sell the same drugs at market rates.
Lets assume I spend 100's of millions developing a new car? get it? also, what you say doesn't reflect reality - most big patent money is spent on marketing not R&D.
second, the slavery analogy makes a good point. The property rights argument to justify patents is a bullshit argument. The incentive argument to justify patents is also a bullshit argument. The great wealth of the industry argument is also a bullshit argument. What else is there, other than I want to sit on my ass and collect royalties?
Keep in mind that if nobody spends the time, energy and cash to develop a drug, those people are going to die anyway.
Keep in mind that 1000's of researchers are forced to hold back sharing R&D and collaberating with other researchers for fear that one of them will get one up on them, get a patent, and lock everyone else out. Patnets cause this situation, and now you hawk patents as the solution - well no thanks.
Unless you want to present a viable alternative where drugs will be developed and put through FDA trials by somebody else, patents still seem to be the way to go.
And theres you're problem right there. You prove there isn't viable alternatives. You're the one who wants to coerce massive restrictions on what people can copy and immitate. You're the one who wishes to restrict everyone else. Any intellectual honesty would dictate a real justification for such impositions - not just bullshit talk about FDA approval, incentive and R&D that doesn't really match up with the real world.