You're losing me here. There was actually very little research into vehicle safety until the government started mandating vehicles become safer. Ford's incentive to do researc...
Arrgh, Ford had nothing to do with it - just because someone claims a great incentive does not automatically give them the right to impose their will on every other part of society. This kind of attitude always leads to disaster.
Basic economics says it's not worth developing a product of ANY form if there's no payout in the end.....
Thank you, and that's why if a company can implement an idea that will make their assembly lines 10% more efficient, then they will do it with ot without a patent - and so will all their competitors. And that's why if a company can sell a new widget, they will make it even if they don't have a patent on it. And that's why people have a natural motive to do R&D even if they don't have a phoney monopoly, because making things better has it's own worth and market selling value.
... "Because it's cool!" is certainly valid for a hobbiest or garage inventor, but no one is going to spend hundreds of millions on inventions unless they're either independantly wealthy to a stupidly large degree, or they think there's a reasonable chance of recovering their investment.
IBM did not spend a billion dollars on Linux software development as charity to the Linux community, or because it was cool. They did it because it had real value on services, implementation, and sales. Funny thing is, they didn't have a patent on Linux or own a copyright on the code? Hmmmm.
Great point. While it is sad that he couldn't take advantage of his cotton gin skills to make a profit, what is even more sad is how some inventors have ruined most of their lives persuing patent royalties when they could have just relied off their reputation to gain more opportunities and success. Patents have ruined and locked out far more inventors then they have helped.
IMHO, the cotton gin example is an incredible irony. Many people back then believed that the entire purpose of the industrial revolution was to use inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. Today many people see the entire purpose of the information age is to leverage their IP holdings to the far corners of the earth using the internet. They just don't get it.
Are they tough questions because they're difficult to answer? Or are they tough questions because no one understands what the fuck he's talking about?
No, they are tough questions because nobody wants to accept the answer that's right in fromt of their noses - copyrights and patents are bullshit! They are not property, they are not free market, and they are not really the incentive they've been cracked up to be, and they are not going to work in the information age.
I think he did this for a fundamental reason. If you look at the industry, IP controlls are causing a huge amount of economic unstability. One example is the Microsoft/Linux issue. Microsoft has this HUGE revenue and savings, but is completely incapable from investing in the Linux paradigm - which many argue is the next generation of computer technology. This conflict of interest is caused specifically by Microsoft relying on IP to extract revenue which Linux would undercut.
You also see this with the media industries and the internet. - Magnify this across the entire US economy, then you have a huge IP problem that is making it impossible for our society to free up capital to innovate and move into the future.
This is probably more behind recent unstability than the dot.com crash, Enron, 9/11, and the War on Iraq. IMHO, all these are just distractions, and when this issue comes to the surface - the shit will hit the fan.
wrong. if drugs can't be patented then nobody will be willing to pony up the cash for the research. what we need, and it sounds like what greenspan is saying, is a balance between protection for corporations of intellectual property and a protection for consumers from privateering pharmaceutical companies.
What a crock, if they need the cash that badly then form a co-cop. I assure you, if I had AIDS, I would be happy to pony up the money even if someone else could copy the cure. With that logic we could say that Ford has no incentive to invest a billion in safety research unless they have a monopoly on making cars. SO WHAT!, there are plenty of lunatics and governments out there that have no incentive to do grand good unless they have the power to coerce the masses. Over time, they have all proven to be full of it, and so are patents.
What amazes me is that there are so many people who buy into the thought that patents are free market like some type of property right. WRONG! This is a government imposed monopoly, and a dysfunctional one at that.
I'm glad the EU countries have a differnt take on it. Unfortunately, the US government is becoming notorious for not caring about what the rest of the world thinks. The "best method" is probably somewhere in the middle, but we'll never see it in the US as long as the business that bought the government still get their way.
Did it ever occur to you that this "best method" attitude is why the EU is becomming so irrelavent? Right or wrong, we should at least have the balls to consider things taken to their logical conclusion. Patents are cut and dry, they are useless and simply need to go.
Never said it was easy. The problem is there is no incentive for the companies to do the raw research to develop the anti-(insert disease here) drug if they'll never get a return on the investment...
And perhaps Ford has no incentive to invest billions of dollars in safety research unless the govt can grant them a monopoly on making cars. - NO, I don't buy it. Sorry, but the world is full of lunatics and governments who have no incentive to do big public goods unless they have the power to impose their crazy schemes on society to ensure it's worth it. Fine, if they believe in it that strongly than form a co-op and make it work for themselves within. If I have AIDS, I assure you, the thought that someone else could copy my cure would not de-motivate me from funding it.
The problem isn't a system that needs a few tiny adjustments here and there, the problem is a fundamental failure to understand the nature of patents, monopoly, innovation, and freedom. The patent system is broken because patents are broken - it is the most obvious and rational explanation.
Reforming your patent laws might help this particular problem, but if you want a long term solution to this kind of crap then some more fundamental separation of private and public interests is in order. Campaign finance, political donations, and restrictions on the activities of lobby groups might be a good start...
This will do nothing, because it treats the symptom and not the cause. If you want to keep business out of government - then first keep government out of peoples business. Then they will have little motive or reason to interfere.
Granting artifical monopoiles in the name of promoting small inventors is just asking for abuse. It almost guarentees that the same tools will be used by big business to lock out everyone else. Now all of a sudden people are asking how could things go so wrong? The only thing worse than big business abusing government granted monopolies is government micro-regulating industries and business to prevent patent "abuses". No Thanks. The problem isn't business, it the belief in patents all together.
The original intent was to give an inventor time to get some return on their investment in an invention to help promote development. After some set period of time the patent would expire and others could benefit from the invention and manufacture it. Note: invention. They were implying some form of device. Not business model or one-click-shopping.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The simple fact is, that if you give the little guy the power to lock out the big guys, then you also can not aviod giving the big guys the power to further squish down the little guys. Now that this has happened, people suddenly act supprised and indignent.
Now, the patent system still has some benefits. The biotech industry is a good example, where the development costs are staggering and the times to market are long and arduous. It can take years to get a new drug approved, and by then the patent may nearly have expired.
The biotech industry is the worst example as demonstrated by it's close cousin the pharmacutical industry - who litterally went to the papers and said that they had no incentive to develop a cure for AIDS unless they could effectively have the power to lock out millions of Africans dying from AIDS. IMHO, quite a price to maintain an artificial government granted monopoly. Even worse, is how the patent system has made it nearly impossible for research firms to cooperate and collaberate on finding a cure.
Can you imagine the chaos that would occur without patents? You might think it would help the small inventor or business but in the long run only the big corporations would benefit from no patents. Only they would have the resources to clone a new idea/product and twist it so only they can sell it. Pushing out the original inventor who spent all the time and money in the first place. Such a system would only creat a hoarde of monopolies. OCP anyone?
Excuse me, but big corporations are the main ones who benefit from patents now. The small inventor who builds a better mouse trap and makes it big while holding back the big guys is a myth! Not only is a small inventor less likely to pony up the 10K or so it takes to secure a patent, but if you really want "big companies" not to have a hoard of monopolies - then not granting patents would be a good start. Then no matter what "twist" they come up with, you and smaller companies are free to copy it.
I think you're misunderstanding something here. The end game is not equality between nations, or even the environemnt, it is freedom and liberty.
The problem with patents is that too many people assume that patents are just like other property rights. Normally, property rights protect freedom and free markets. Patents do not. Unlike other properties they are an artificial construct of government without any foundation in the real world, or without any foundation such as finite physical utility.
This property ignorance is pushed only by a very narrow group of people, but since there are few large industrial forces that have motive to oppose them, and since they are so entrenched in US culture, it is really hard to get rid of them.
Like a leech they just keep growing bigger and bigger until the host can't bear it anymore. In some countries like Barzil and Africa, it took millions of people dying of AIDS and drugs that they could not manufacture or controll to get them to wake up - in the USA I shudder to think what it will take, but it will half to happen soooner or later.
People are putting too much faith in the patent system, and even worse is that they're assuming that patents are good for commerce, business, and free markets. IMHO, this is a bad road to go down, the problems of patents are well documented, and things will only get worse as society gets more advanced.
I think a quantum language would half to assume the answer. eg:
factor ( int c ){
int a, b;
a * b = c;
a > 1;
b > 1;
c > a;
c > b;
b >= a;
print a, b;
}
if c = 91, then it would print 7, 13 - because that's the only answer, and if there was no answer than it would be null, it there were multiple answers it would print a random working answer.
Last time I checked, I never got a job from a poor person and *most* rich people didn't get rich pulling an Enron, robbing the banks, or pillaging the villages - they got rich because we choose to buy their stuff and use their services over someone elses. Now to turn arround and talk about how the rich owe us and aren't paying their "fair share" is sorta disingenuious - wouldn't you say. IMHO, it's like saying "well that gal got raped, so it's only fair that you do too - and more so because you're prettier". Look, if a rich person is doing something unethical to gain wealth, then fine lets address that action - but lets not attack everyone who happens to have wealth, that will destroy all of us in a hurry.
One more thing, if you gave a bunch of money to poor people, they would spend it and commerce would happen, and people would be engaged in work. But that won't help the economey one bit - just like we could also keep everybody actively engaged in making mud pies, and have the system pay them a good salary for it too - yeah everyone's buisy, yeah everyone's making money, but when you look at the greater picture - nothing helpfull is happening other than a bunch of shit.
I think you're right, but I see the same picture from a different angle....
Linux is more free market than Microsoft is, because MS relies on an artificial construct called "intellectual property" that Linux doesn't. IP puts unnatural limits on knowledge distribution and information, and is more like a government regulation than a genuine free market property right.
In that sense, it only makes sense that Linux would see it's greatest influence in the biggest free markets first - the USA. Not that other people and countries can't use it, but the real value it offers in terms of standardisation, collaberation, and customization will hit 1st world countries the hardest just like it did with the internet.
Just listen to yourselves - PIRACY???
on
BSA IDC FUD
·
· Score: 1
Excuse me, but even the terms they use are fradulent. I would have expected that from the BSA considering that they lie - even with their statistics, but not so much so from the/. crowd.
Piracy is where you attack a ship and beat and rape and kill people and hijack their stuff - it is not copying, not illegal copying, not unauthorized copying, and it never will be no matter how often they fradulently use the word Piracy. So, please I beg you, call it illegal copying if you wish, but please not Piracy.
As soon as you acknowledge that your core philosophy is "I want everything to be free, regardless of the consequences to others, or myself". Deal?
No Deal. I never said that I wanted everyone elses physical properties for free, so don't go arround touting bullshit property rights and expect me to worship them on just because so many others are dumb enought to believe it. That has consequences too you know.
lest see, first they were pissed off about copy machines, then the internet, then centralized p2p like napster, then decentralized p2p, now this - they surely must be peeing in their pants by now. When are just going to get it over with and decalre copyrights are dead.
If you were part of the upper echelon in the Soviet Union, would YOU want democracy? Would you give up the security--your nice apartment, caviar dinners, and KGB contacts--to live in a country where you didn't know what your lot/role in life would be?
and then...
My question to the/. community is: what do we do to change this? We are arguably the biggest nerd gathering on the planet. Individually we might not have clout, but with the right direction, collectively we might...
If you understand freedom, then freedom is not a risk. It is only when you don't care about freedom's and make things like money and lifestyle an end in themselves that you get caught up in the short sited road to failure. Your Soviet upper echlon eample makes that point even more, nobody was safe from being killed for any political reason. In fact, Stalin and Lennon were notorious for killing off close and trusted advisors.
In a way the same thing happened to me with Linux. I bet me career on it, and made it my focus several years ago, inspite of serious ridicule. Other people thought I was crazy, but I knew for a fact that free software was more accountable to free market economics than "commercial" software that at the core relied on artifical copyright monopolies granted by the government. That didn't spare me from being nailed from the dot.com bust, but neither were any of my MSCE friends.
Now that things are picking up, and Linux is 20 times better than it was 5 years ago when I started, and big companies have caught on, my long term future doen't look so bad. So if you really want to minimize the damage done by people who've worked their whole lives for false security at everyone elses expense - and you really want to help them and reach out, than the best thing you can do - is not stop them from falling, but offer to help pick them up again after they fall. Otherwise their beliefs will not have changed, and you will just be feeding the forces that will enentually bring you down with them.
A few years ago, I made some critical statements of Adobe systems - and soon after and a smooth sounding pro posted after me and made the most buttered up statement glorifying Adobe that I had ever heard. Later on, I found out that he was actually acting as a representative of Adobe - you can imagine how duped I felt.
Well this time, I have multiple examples. EDS not only did this to my company, but a relative of mine who works for the Navy (not in IT, but uses the computer systems alot) - is having the same kind of problems in a different city, on a much more recent contract. IMHO, this is much more serious, because the incompetence is effecting national secutiry. The same thing happened, long term expensive deals were closed with high level people without even checking if it could integrate into the Navy's specialized technology and software. Then when they tried to implement, it is turning out to be a similar disaster - where the people they brought in can not make the stuff work. Infact, now many of the offices have two systems, one to do their work and the other to satisfy the EDS deals.
Perhaps if you just have a bunch of data entry people just filling in forms all day long on PC clones - and nothing else, than just maybe EDS might be able to pull it off. But IMHO, they really need to be called on this, they are acting unprofessionally and unethically.
Now that the war's going on - I'm sure the copyright lords are going to take every advantage of the public focusing on other priorities to ream us hard and fast. I hope freenet's ready for the big-league, it's basicly the point of no return now. Either all information is going to be controlled, or none of it.
At one large multi-national company I worked for, EDS made this cozy deal with high level managers - and our company signed a very long term IT outsorcing contract at a very expensive rate. Of course the contract stipulated that EDS would take over all IT services within the company.
After my company was locked in, EDS proceeded to hire a large number of low wage McWorkers who were billed out at an extremely expensive rate as consultants. Of course, I doubt some could even figure out how to use a mouse, but that did not stop them from trying to run all the infrascructure and datacenters. It was truely an amazing sight.
Thankfully, at the time - the dot.com boom was still going pretty strong so it didn't take much to quietly tip-toe out the door as the IT department fell into chaos. I'm still sorry for them to this day, poor souls.
Does that mean the US government does not back freedom?
I would say, with copyright and patent monopolies - they are sure not, and that's a big problem because we are entering into the information age right now. The consequences for this failure to effectively govern are getting worse and worse.
BTW, in all fairness, the other (GSM) technologies are covered by a lot of French and German patents.
Slashdot Mirror
You're losing me here. There was actually very little research into vehicle safety until the government started mandating vehicles become safer. Ford's incentive to do researc...
Arrgh, Ford had nothing to do with it - just because someone claims a great incentive does not automatically give them the right to impose their will on every other part of society. This kind of attitude always leads to disaster.
Basic economics says it's not worth developing a product of ANY form if there's no payout in the end. ....
Thank you, and that's why if a company can implement an idea that will make their assembly lines 10% more efficient, then they will do it with ot without a patent - and so will all their competitors. And that's why if a company can sell a new widget, they will make it even if they don't have a patent on it. And that's why people have a natural motive to do R&D even if they don't have a phoney monopoly, because making things better has it's own worth and market selling value.
IBM did not spend a billion dollars on Linux software development as charity to the Linux community, or because it was cool. They did it because it had real value on services, implementation, and sales. Funny thing is, they didn't have a patent on Linux or own a copyright on the code? Hmmmm.
Great point. While it is sad that he couldn't take advantage of his cotton gin skills to make a profit, what is even more sad is how some inventors have ruined most of their lives persuing patent royalties when they could have just relied off their reputation to gain more opportunities and success. Patents have ruined and locked out far more inventors then they have helped.
IMHO, the cotton gin example is an incredible irony. Many people back then believed that the entire purpose of the industrial revolution was to use inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. Today many people see the entire purpose of the information age is to leverage their IP holdings to the far corners of the earth using the internet. They just don't get it.
Are they tough questions because they're difficult to answer? Or are they tough questions because no one understands what the fuck he's talking about?
No, they are tough questions because nobody wants to accept the answer that's right in fromt of their noses - copyrights and patents are bullshit! They are not property, they are not free market, and they are not really the incentive they've been cracked up to be, and they are not going to work in the information age.
I think he did this for a fundamental reason. If you look at the industry, IP controlls are causing a huge amount of economic unstability. One example is the Microsoft/Linux issue. Microsoft has this HUGE revenue and savings, but is completely incapable from investing in the Linux paradigm - which many argue is the next generation of computer technology. This conflict of interest is caused specifically by Microsoft relying on IP to extract revenue which Linux would undercut.
You also see this with the media industries and the internet. - Magnify this across the entire US economy, then you have a huge IP problem that is making it impossible for our society to free up capital to innovate and move into the future.
This is probably more behind recent unstability than the dot.com crash, Enron, 9/11, and the War on Iraq. IMHO, all these are just distractions, and when this issue comes to the surface - the shit will hit the fan.
wrong. if drugs can't be patented then nobody will be willing to pony up the cash for the research. what we need, and it sounds like what greenspan is saying, is a balance between protection for corporations of intellectual property and a protection for consumers from privateering pharmaceutical companies.
What a crock, if they need the cash that badly then form a co-cop. I assure you, if I had AIDS, I would be happy to pony up the money even if someone else could copy the cure. With that logic we could say that Ford has no incentive to invest a billion in safety research unless they have a monopoly on making cars. SO WHAT!, there are plenty of lunatics and governments out there that have no incentive to do grand good unless they have the power to coerce the masses. Over time, they have all proven to be full of it, and so are patents.
What amazes me is that there are so many people who buy into the thought that patents are free market like some type of property right. WRONG! This is a government imposed monopoly, and a dysfunctional one at that.
I'm glad the EU countries have a differnt take on it. Unfortunately, the US government is becoming notorious for not caring about what the rest of the world thinks. The "best method" is probably somewhere in the middle, but we'll never see it in the US as long as the business that bought the government still get their way.
Did it ever occur to you that this "best method" attitude is why the EU is becomming so irrelavent? Right or wrong, we should at least have the balls to consider things taken to their logical conclusion. Patents are cut and dry, they are useless and simply need to go.
Never said it was easy. The problem is there is no incentive for the companies to do the raw research to develop the anti-(insert disease here) drug if they'll never get a return on the investment...
And perhaps Ford has no incentive to invest billions of dollars in safety research unless the govt can grant them a monopoly on making cars. - NO, I don't buy it. Sorry, but the world is full of lunatics and governments who have no incentive to do big public goods unless they have the power to impose their crazy schemes on society to ensure it's worth it. Fine, if they believe in it that strongly than form a co-op and make it work for themselves within. If I have AIDS, I assure you, the thought that someone else could copy my cure would not de-motivate me from funding it.
The problem isn't a system that needs a few tiny adjustments here and there, the problem is a fundamental failure to understand the nature of patents, monopoly, innovation, and freedom. The patent system is broken because patents are broken - it is the most obvious and rational explanation.
Reforming your patent laws might help this particular problem, but if you want a long term solution to this kind of crap then some more fundamental separation of private and public interests is in order. Campaign finance, political donations, and restrictions on the activities of lobby groups might be a good start...
This will do nothing, because it treats the symptom and not the cause. If you want to keep business out of government - then first keep government out of peoples business. Then they will have little motive or reason to interfere.
Granting artifical monopoiles in the name of promoting small inventors is just asking for abuse. It almost guarentees that the same tools will be used by big business to lock out everyone else. Now all of a sudden people are asking how could things go so wrong? The only thing worse than big business abusing government granted monopolies is government micro-regulating industries and business to prevent patent "abuses". No Thanks. The problem isn't business, it the belief in patents all together.
The original intent was to give an inventor time to get some return on their investment in an invention to help promote development. After some set period of time the patent would expire and others could benefit from the invention and manufacture it. Note: invention. They were implying some form of device. Not business model or one-click-shopping.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The simple fact is, that if you give the little guy the power to lock out the big guys, then you also can not aviod giving the big guys the power to further squish down the little guys. Now that this has happened, people suddenly act supprised and indignent.
Now, the patent system still has some benefits. The biotech industry is a good example, where the development costs are staggering and the times to market are long and arduous. It can take years to get a new drug approved, and by then the patent may nearly have expired.
The biotech industry is the worst example as demonstrated by it's close cousin the pharmacutical industry - who litterally went to the papers and said that they had no incentive to develop a cure for AIDS unless they could effectively have the power to lock out millions of Africans dying from AIDS. IMHO, quite a price to maintain an artificial government granted monopoly. Even worse, is how the patent system has made it nearly impossible for research firms to cooperate and collaberate on finding a cure.
Can you imagine the chaos that would occur without patents?
You might think it would help the small inventor or business but in the long run only the big corporations would benefit from no patents. Only they would have the resources to clone a new idea/product and twist it so only they can sell it. Pushing out the original inventor who spent all the time and money in the first place.
Such a system would only creat a hoarde of monopolies. OCP anyone?
Excuse me, but big corporations are the main ones who benefit from patents now. The small inventor who builds a better mouse trap and makes it big while holding back the big guys is a myth! Not only is a small inventor less likely to pony up the 10K or so it takes to secure a patent, but if you really want "big companies" not to have a hoard of monopolies - then not granting patents would be a good start. Then no matter what "twist" they come up with, you and smaller companies are free to copy it.
I think you're misunderstanding something here. The end game is not equality between nations, or even the environemnt, it is freedom and liberty.
The problem with patents is that too many people assume that patents are just like other property rights. Normally, property rights protect freedom and free markets. Patents do not. Unlike other properties they are an artificial construct of government without any foundation in the real world, or without any foundation such as finite physical utility.
This property ignorance is pushed only by a very narrow group of people, but since there are few large industrial forces that have motive to oppose them, and since they are so entrenched in US culture, it is really hard to get rid of them.
Like a leech they just keep growing bigger and bigger until the host can't bear it anymore. In some countries like Barzil and Africa, it took millions of people dying of AIDS and drugs that they could not manufacture or controll to get them to wake up - in the USA I shudder to think what it will take, but it will half to happen soooner or later.
People are putting too much faith in the patent system, and even worse is that they're assuming that patents are good for commerce, business, and free markets. IMHO, this is a bad road to go down, the problems of patents are well documented, and things will only get worse as society gets more advanced.
I think a quantum language would half to assume the answer. eg:
factor ( int c ){
int a, b;
a * b = c;
a > 1;
b > 1;
c > a;
c > b;
b >= a;
print a, b;
}
if c = 91, then it would print 7, 13 - because that's the only answer, and if there was no answer than it would be null, it there were multiple answers it would print a random working answer.
Last time I checked, I never got a job from a poor person and *most* rich people didn't get rich pulling an Enron, robbing the banks, or pillaging the villages - they got rich because we choose to buy their stuff and use their services over someone elses. Now to turn arround and talk about how the rich owe us and aren't paying their "fair share" is sorta disingenuious - wouldn't you say. IMHO, it's like saying "well that gal got raped, so it's only fair that you do too - and more so because you're prettier". Look, if a rich person is doing something unethical to gain wealth, then fine lets address that action - but lets not attack everyone who happens to have wealth, that will destroy all of us in a hurry.
One more thing, if you gave a bunch of money to poor people, they would spend it and commerce would happen, and people would be engaged in work. But that won't help the economey one bit - just like we could also keep everybody actively engaged in making mud pies, and have the system pay them a good salary for it too - yeah everyone's buisy, yeah everyone's making money, but when you look at the greater picture - nothing helpfull is happening other than a bunch of shit.
I think you're right, but I see the same picture from a different angle....
Linux is more free market than Microsoft is, because MS relies on an artificial construct called "intellectual property" that Linux doesn't.
IP puts unnatural limits on knowledge distribution and information, and is more like a government regulation than a genuine free market property right.
In that sense, it only makes sense that Linux would see it's greatest influence in the biggest free markets first - the USA. Not that other people and countries can't use it, but the real value it offers in terms of standardisation, collaberation, and customization will hit 1st world countries the hardest just like it did with the internet.
Excuse me, but even the terms they use are fradulent. I would have expected that from the BSA considering that they lie - even with their statistics, but not so much so from the /. crowd.
Piracy is where you attack a ship and beat and rape and kill people and hijack their stuff - it is not copying, not illegal copying, not unauthorized copying, and it never will be no matter how often they fradulently use the word Piracy. So, please I beg you, call it illegal copying if you wish, but please not Piracy.
Thank you.
I wonder, is how the copyright police are ever going to nail someone for using something like BitTorrent, or for the more paranoid, Freenet.
They can't, but what's even more funny - is if they want to try, then they will half to contribute to the p2p network data exchanges.
As soon as you acknowledge that your core philosophy is "I want everything to be free, regardless of the consequences to others, or myself". Deal?
No Deal. I never said that I wanted everyone elses physical properties for free, so don't go arround touting bullshit property rights and expect me to worship them on just because so many others are dumb enought to believe it. That has consequences too you know.
lest see,
first they were pissed off about copy machines,
then the internet,
then centralized p2p like napster,
then decentralized p2p,
now this - they surely must be peeing in their pants by now. When are just going to get it over with and decalre copyrights are dead.
If you were part of the upper echelon in the Soviet Union, would YOU want democracy? Would you give up the security--your nice apartment, caviar dinners, and KGB contacts--to live in a country where you didn't know what your lot/role in life would be? and then ...
My question to the /. community is: what do we do to change this? We are arguably the biggest nerd gathering on the planet. Individually we might not have clout, but with the right direction, collectively we might...
If you understand freedom, then freedom is not a risk. It is only when you don't care about freedom's and make things like money and lifestyle an end in themselves that you get caught up in the short sited road to failure. Your Soviet upper echlon eample makes that point even more, nobody was safe from being killed for any political reason. In fact, Stalin and Lennon were notorious for killing off close and trusted advisors.
In a way the same thing happened to me with Linux. I bet me career on it, and made it my focus several years ago, inspite of serious ridicule. Other people thought I was crazy, but I knew for a fact that free software was more accountable to free market economics than "commercial" software that at the core relied on artifical copyright monopolies granted by the government. That didn't spare me from being nailed from the dot.com bust, but neither were any of my MSCE friends.
Now that things are picking up, and Linux is 20 times better than it was 5 years ago when I started, and big companies have caught on, my long term future doen't look so bad. So if you really want to minimize the damage done by people who've worked their whole lives for false security at everyone elses expense - and you really want to help them and reach out, than the best thing you can do - is not stop them from falling, but offer to help pick them up again after they fall. Otherwise their beliefs will not have changed, and you will just be feeding the forces that will enentually bring you down with them.
A few years ago, I made some critical statements of Adobe systems - and soon after and a smooth sounding pro posted after me and made the most buttered up statement glorifying Adobe that I had ever heard. Later on, I found out that he was actually acting as a representative of Adobe - you can imagine how duped I felt.
Well this time, I have multiple examples. EDS not only did this to my company, but a relative of mine who works for the Navy (not in IT, but uses the computer systems alot) - is having the same kind of problems in a different city, on a much more recent contract. IMHO, this is much more serious, because the incompetence is effecting national secutiry. The same thing happened, long term expensive deals were closed with high level people without even checking if it could integrate into the Navy's specialized technology and software. Then when they tried to implement, it is turning out to be a similar disaster - where the people they brought in can not make the stuff work. Infact, now many of the offices have two systems, one to do their work and the other to satisfy the EDS deals.
Perhaps if you just have a bunch of data entry people just filling in forms all day long on PC clones - and nothing else, than just maybe EDS might be able to pull it off. But IMHO, they really need to be called on this, they are acting unprofessionally and unethically.
Now that the war's going on - I'm sure the copyright lords are going to take every advantage of the public focusing on other priorities to ream us hard and fast. I hope freenet's ready for the big-league, it's basicly the point of no return now. Either all information is going to be controlled, or none of it.
IMHO, EDS is evil - stay away.
At one large multi-national company I worked for, EDS made this cozy deal with high level managers - and our company signed a very long term IT outsorcing contract at a very expensive rate. Of course the contract stipulated that EDS would take over all IT services within the company.
After my company was locked in, EDS proceeded to hire a large number of low wage McWorkers who were billed out at an extremely expensive rate as consultants. Of course, I doubt some could even figure out how to use a mouse, but that did not stop them from trying to run all the infrascructure and datacenters. It was truely an amazing sight.
Thankfully, at the time - the dot.com boom was still going pretty strong so it didn't take much to quietly tip-toe out the door as the IT department fell into chaos. I'm still sorry for them to this day, poor souls.
Does that mean the US government does not back freedom?
I would say, with copyright and patent monopolies - they are sure not, and that's a big problem because we are entering into the information age right now. The consequences for this failure to effectively govern are getting worse and worse.
BTW, in all fairness, the other (GSM) technologies are covered by a lot of French and German patents.
They could forfiet their patent royalities on that technology which was originally developed for the military at taxpayers expense.