IMHO copyrights create a culture that promote hype at the expense of other more valuable knowledge. In this way, I don't think people should see the failures of hollywood culture and crudy TV as a normal part of free societies.
In a copyright market the information that gets the most attention is the most valuable no matter how worthless it is intellectually, in a non copyright market we would put ourselves in a position that doesn't reward industries that push hype over substance in the same way. Not that there wouldn't be stupid TV or movies out there, but they wouldn't be worth hundreds of millions and they wouldn't be shoved down out throat from every part of our culture.
Just because they say copyrights are an incentive to create, does not mean that they are an incentive to create things that are intellectually and socially valuable. I think as society moves into the information age we really need to rethink the need for copyright monopolies.
Your comment about the Nazis is a myth and has no basis in fact. The gun laws in Germany were in effect before Hitler came to power. Hitler had no reason to ban guns - he was a popular leader in his country.
You are right, it happened before he came to power..... Adolph Hitler, 15 April 1935, in address to the Reichsta, "This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! "
Uhh, first off, from my history I seem to renember that almost all the federalist papers were written with a nom-de-plum (anonymous), since they are partly responsible for the founding of US society - I think I should be able to do just fine with an anomynous attitude.
Second, almost ALL of the intrusions on privacy I talked about happened in the last 50 years or so. So that begs the question, how come we were able to do fine for the other 150 years of this country's existence. Are you suggesting that as we become more modern we need to intrude into other peoples lives more... I would propose that just the opposite is true.
Third, I don't think I asked for total anominity or unaccountability to paying for services I use and never suggested that I am or should be an island totally seperate from everybody else. I just don't want the anal probe every single time. I'm tired of it.
I dream that I will be able to get health insurence, open bank accounts, go to college, get a job, and retire without using that *** ** **** social security number. I dream that we get rid of it and the ponzi retirement scheme that comes along with it.
I dream that my license will actually be linked to my prooven ability to drive safely, and not other issues like child support or failure to file state taxes, drinking a beer in the dorms, etc.... And that I won't be tracked and stored in massive centralized gov databases that have almost always prooven to be totally screwed up. (getting rid of frivolous tickets wile you're at it would be nice too)
I dream that I won't be harassed when I try to buy beer, ciggarates, and spray paint (one time I was even carded because I tried to buy a cigarette lighter).
I dream that my right to bear arms won't be nickled and dimed to death by people wanting to register me in govt databases like the Nazi's had before they confiscated all privately owned guns from its citizens.
I dream that my credit will only be checked when I want a loan from the bank, and not when I just want a debit card, not when a bank wants to send me a credit card offer that I half to shred before I throw out, and not when I try to get auto insurance.
The real evil isn't the DMCA, but copyrights being taken to their logical conclusion. In the mind of the RIAA - the DMCA is just a way for them to secure rights they've always been told that they have.
If I told someone that they owned a house, but then said they couldn't sell it, rent it, go inside it, use it, or even take a loan out on it - it would be a fraud. Either they own the house or they don't, and the same is true with copyrights today. We cant keep crying out that copyrights are some type of glorious rights that will help artists, and expect people never to try and transfer, sell, or secure them from new technologies that threaten them, like the internet.
That is why this whole compromize debate is pitifull. It reminds me of the people who insisted and desperately believed that the free states could peacefully get along with the slave states in the 1850's. Then as today, they just couldn't see that the root cause of the problem was people trying to exercise rights that they've been told they have, but didn't.
IMHO, the sooner we get to the point that copyrights are not really a just right - and get rid of them, the sooner we will be able to get on with the information age and make everyone happy.
Perhaps I have no incentive to grow trees unless I can plant one in your yard, perhaps Ford has no incentive to make cars and R&D car safety unless the government gives them a monopoly on making cars, so what. If a the government gave a farmer a monopoly on growing potatoes, and then called that free market because he had no incentive to do potato R&D, people would see it as the fraud that it is. If the govt called it free market because the farmer could sell potato licenses, people would also see it as the fraud that it is also. Perhaps there is no incentive to do cotton research and clothing maufacture unless the farmer can own slaves on the plantation, why couldn't they just get it.
In the information age knowledge and information need to be more free, not less, need to be less regulated not more. I hope the commercial world gets it this time.
Copying something is not theft anymore than freeing a slave from the plantation is. Last I checked, SCO never claimed IBM deprived them of their own copy of UNIX. Unless you are suggesting that IBM stole market share, but frankly that goes on in free markets all the time, and I don't consider my patronage a right to be traded by them, but a right to be choosen by me.
Happened in industrial revolution too
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World of Ends
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· Score: 4, Insightful
A lot of people thought that the whole purpose of the industrial revolution was to use inventions like the cotton-gin to expand their plantations for unlimited controll and profits. While most people saw the invention as a great tool to end slavery, for others it was impossible to think of wealth in any other terms other than the size of a plantation, a farm, or estates. These people pushed slavery controlls to the point of civil war and were responsible for the deaths of millions.
I think today we have the same problem with "intellectual properties". It is impossible for people to think of wealth in any other terms than the number and amount of industires and people they can extract royalties from. It is impossible for them to understand that properties are not just about government edicts, or personal incentive, but natural forces - like everyone not being able to use the same thing at the same time. Well, with information - they can. And that is the real value of the internet.
I think this is the biggest problem. All too often I encounter this false faith that concepts like "intellectual property" can happily co-exist with concepts like "free as in freedom". I don't think it can, and this article touches on a fundamental reason why it can't. From the very beginning SCO, and now Sun thought they were better because they were covered in the flag of "intellectual property" and free markets. But this is a fraud, "intellectual property" is not a free market property right. It is so dishonest, and so many people fall for it, that it makes me cringe to see it.
The last time in US history where people were so disillusioned was over slavery. Why in the world couldn't people just pull their head out and see that slavery wasn't a property right? Why? The plantation masters were so well educated, and so wealthy, and such intellegent executive business men, so Why? Why did they ignore the forces of the industrial revolution that were going to force them to change? Why did they push it to the point that millions(?) ended up dead?
The fact that the forces of the industrial revolution caused all hell to break out then, and now we are suffering conflict directly related to our society moving into the information age really bothers me. How far are they going to push it this time? What will they be willing to do when push comes to shove and there's trillions at stake?
Perhaps copyrights and patents have made it impossible for us to cooperate on research and the open sharing of information. Perhaps regulations have made it impossible for us to use nuclear power, even though is it so much safer than even many solar technologies. And how about forcing everybody to pay for public education, perhaps this has set us up poor quality schools because there is no accountability. Or what about high taxes, and laws that pretty much force us to use dollars - that have made it impossible for people to accumulate wealth for R&D, education, and experiments unless they're already wealthy. Lets face it, the USA is not really that free, it is more free than many places, but it is not really that free - if it was I think we would all have alot more than we do now.
Unfortunately, R&D in the USA isn't about innovation, but more about getting patents on all the up and comming technologies before they happen. That way you can lock out competitors and squeeze a ton of royalities out of industries that will require all the up and comming technologies. However there are some times where good things happened - IBM wrongly assumed that they would be able to controll all the interfaces on the IBM compatable PC. When they were wrong, it created an economic explosion of companies that creating plug-in cards and periphials.
Because of patnets, researchers working for companies are often forced to be greedy and secretive about things they discover. There is little in depth sharing of knowledge and collaberation until the lawyers and bean counters give the ok. One big side effect of this is that a large amount of innovation in US society has been shifted to the University sector, which has made it extremely important in US society. Unfortunately, now even many Universities are getting greedy with patent controlls killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
However, the really good news is free (as in freedom) software. Never in the history of human existence has there been such a sharing of knowledge, spread of basic tallent, application of standardized orgin, economic colaberation, and the likes. It is having a strong effect of shifting R&D from the university sector back to the private sector. If we lift the monopoly on patents, I think the same thing will happen in other technology areas.
1st, when I leave a company that I don't like or a company harms me - I consider that their "punishment" is not having the best man for the job - a backdoor would nullify this high ground and proove that I wasn't the best man for the job. And if a company is good to me, or I like them - than these are the last people in the world I would want to harm or compromize - so either way, it's just plain a poor way of living.
2nd, I don't know about you, but I worked on more than my fair share of projects where I could tell that the core was written badly, but didn't have the time, resources, or approval to do it the right way myself. There are plenty of things that could go wrong that I can get blamed for even if I do everything right, the last thing I want to do is add something else that can go wrong. No thanks!
3rd, I want denyability. When I leave a company, I want them to change the passwords, delete accounts, and for the code to be secure. The last thing I want is some breakin or failure put back on me years after the fact. There are plenty of shortcommings in life that can "catch up" with you, even if you do your darndest to be perfict. The last thing in the world I want to do is add some more to that pile.
4th, I rely on these people for contacts, reference, and refferals. Why risk burning bridges when I don't half too. Why risk a job when if I don't want it I am free to quit. If you don't like a company, why risk going to jail for them. If I must risk going to jail, I would much rather it be for a cause I believe in like that lady who refused to go to the back of the bus.
This has nothing to do with the moon, it has to do with the fact that much of the same technology that can be applied to sending somthing to the moon can also be used for accurate ICBM's. The same was even true for the US.
Just as the plantation masters of 1850, who in a desperate attempt to fence themselves off from the forces of the industrial revolution, succeded their states from the union. So is MS and hollywood, and a few other players trying to fence themselves off from an unavoidable consequence of the information age by using DRM (or Rights Managment Software). And just as in the 1850's, nobody is going to respect that boundary.
The whole value of the information age comes from the uninhibited free flow of information. Copyrights are very quickly becoming unenforcable, which is why Microsoft and Hollywood are doomed. But unfortunately, while p2p and Linux will have all the growth at first, MS and Hollywood will have all the revenue. There is no way that this will be a nice transition, with trillions at stake watch out for all hell to break loose.
notice the moderation points. slashdot seems to have unthreaded all the replies, but looking thru the parent article there were a ton of them (mostly negative)
Renember how UNIX started out with all these researchers from all these companies working together and sharing code, and building a unified OS standard until AT&T decided to claim back the copyright. Then all of a sudden DEC, IBM, HP, and AT&T all started to have their own flavors of UNIX that became notorious for fragmenting and impossible to keep together on future standards. In fact, inspite of constant industry pushes for a standardized UNIX and MS taking advantage of this fragmentation to march in and kick everybody's but, the only thing that really brought UNIX innovation back onto the same page was Linux with it's free license.
The fact is, this happens everywhere in the software industry, and is an "intellectual property" problem, not an innovation problem. IP may have been bearable when all it involved was a librarian saying what you could xerox, but in the information age it is not workable and causes us to come up with crazy philosophies - like trying to define certain types of innovation as bad.
This was the title to a post I made a few years ago on slashdot on an article that talked about the future of UNIX, and where I was quickly beat down by people who suggested I was arrogant and condosending, out of touch, blah blah blah.
The fact is that Linux dosen't have anything they couldn't have - it's just too many people are trying to create some type of equivalency relationship between (or even worse claim superiority to) software that is free and software that is not. I wish people would get it. Freedom matters, and free markets are not about markets but about freedom - and people using that freedom to become successfull.
Linux just goes to prove that when you have freedom, markets tend to come about naturally as people use that freedom to seek out their own best interests and desires. But when you have markets that does not necssairly lead to freedoms as people who are still trying to believe in controlled software are suffering for failing to understand.
Re:BTW: ozone problem is political not enviromenta
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Ozone As Pesticide
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· Score: 1
...Furthermore, this is not just speculation. These theories have been confirmed by high altitude U2 and baloon flights that actually measure the concentrations of the relevant chemicals. There is a direct correlation between the release of reactive chlorine in the spring and ozone depletion. There has also been plenty of laboratory effort dedicated to measurement of the kinetics of all the relevant reactions. Ozone depletion is a well-understood problem.
This is disingneuious, not even regular clouds are well understood. And what measurements? nobody is disputing that there is Cl up there, hell there is Cl everywhere, bleach your shorts lately? take a swim in the ocean lately? Funny how the weather pattern theory didn't come up until people noticed the hole actually decreased in size one year. Of course the fact that sunlight shining onto the poles would half to go through an amount of atmosphere that is orders of magnitude more thick than at the equator would have nothing to do with it I suppose.
Another political angle on the ozone is how any researcher seeking grant money only has to merely whimper the word ozone hole - and whop there it is.
Re:BTW: ozone problem is political not enviromenta
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Ozone As Pesticide
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· Score: 1
For a compound that can be poured into open bowl and left there for days without notable loss, I find it a strech that it would dissapate into the upper atmosphere. It is also a strech that it would all happen to end up on the poles, end even more of a strech that any Cl in the upper atmosphere is caused by CFC's compared to the evaporation of say a billion tons of sea water anually. Not to mention a vast array of other natural pheonomia (like volcanos) that would put man made production to shame.
However, if you consider that freon was banned on the very same month that DOW's patent ran out - then it is not such a strech to believe it's more about cold blooded greed than facts.
BTW: ozone problem is political not enviromental
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Ozone As Pesticide
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· Score: 2, Interesting
FYI, There has always been less ozone on the poles because there is less light there, and if the ozone layer was going away - it would go away by the ozone layer moving to lower and lower altitudes, not by dissapating. This is because most ozone is created by certain frequencies of sunlight passing through regular O2.
Arguments like the freon argument are a fraud and have much more to do with DOW chemical loosing its patent on freon and having a patent on the only known replacement then they do to do with freon destroying the layer.
... It's a trivial insight that the routing with such multihop systems is very problematic, especially if you want optimal routing. A second problem is the non-static structure of the network with hops coming into "existence" (= connection to the networks) and vanishing (= leaving it). This fucks up routing majorly....
Actually, there are practical solutions to these type of problems. One solution might be to send out a small boradcat packet at every say 100th of a second. The packet has a say a 100 use ttl so it won't go on forever, and every packet gets the route it's taking piggy backed onto it. The first packet that gets to the destination node (or the one with the strongest signal and within a fraction of a second) is the route that gets sent back and used. PS. Go easy on the guy.
If you think p2p software makes copyrights hard to enforce, wait till you have p2p hardware networks where they will be impossible to enforce unless the copyright lords track every single node in relation to every other node. Shal we register our p2p hardware with the government?
How do you know I didn't just find some bacteria in a spring that fights resistant bacteria, but big pharmacutical companies couldn't pattnet it so they slandered me and fear mongered anyone from investing in my company.
And that explains why there are tens of millions of smaller groups out there that have developed cures for AIDS and cancer...
Maybe they did, but because the drugs they independently came up with were alrealy patented by someone else - everyone is screwed. Of course that point totally ignores how patents are a complete dis-incentive for companies to collaberate.
ME: Maybe Ford wouldn't invest in auto safety without a monopoly on making cars - so what?
YOU: Of course, that isn't true, since most of the cost of a car is in building it - not in coming up with a design. Even still, designs often have patents associated with them.
Of course, that was the point. The excuse doesn't matter with the suggested first artifical government granted monopoly, as it doesn't with the 2nd - patents.
Except that if there were no profits in drugs, there would be no drugs. At least not any new ones. The ones already out there will be cheap in ten years anyway - all you have to do is wait if your concern is the cost of cutting-edge medicine. Your issue is that in ten years there will be better cutting-edge medicines out there which will be exensive. Your solution seems to be to just get rid of new drug development, thus solving the problem with the cost of new drugs... Trust me, nobody will develop new drugs if they don't make money off them. And if government takes over the best and brightest reasearchers will just find another industry to work in...
With patents, the government already has taken over. What do you think patnets are - a property right? This is a government granted monopoly, and it is rediculous to assume we need it to make money off of medicines - infact India where there are no patnets on drugs have plenty of profitable pharmacutical industries. The suggestion that people should just wait 10 years is just cynical, especially if they are dying of AIDS.
For every billion dollar cure patents produce, there are litterly thousands of cheaper and safer possibbilities passed by because they can not be patented. This story is a classic example - in a non patent world this discovery would quickly be spread all over the planet. Even worse are the issues with the AIDS drugs, where African countries were litterally sued to prevent the manufacture of generics. This patent philosophy literally reaks with ignorance, it is based of an assumption that one company with a patent monopoly would do more than the tens of millions of smaller groups arround the world with the same knowledge - bullshit. Before shoving this monopoly down everyones throat, how about taking a real burdon of proof, that does more than wine about incentive and point to the success of economies whose free market nature would have made them successfull anyhow.
I really don't care about the costs of development for the industry, every industry has cost development issues, even fast food joints. Maybe Ford wouldn't invest in auto safety without a monopoly on making cars - so what? That's their problem, not everyone elses.
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO copyrights create a culture that promote hype at the expense of other more valuable knowledge. In this way, I don't think people should see the failures of hollywood culture and crudy TV as a normal part of free societies.
In a copyright market the information that gets the most attention is the most valuable no matter how worthless it is intellectually, in a non copyright market we would put ourselves in a position that doesn't reward industries that push hype over substance in the same way. Not that there wouldn't be stupid TV or movies out there, but they wouldn't be worth hundreds of millions and they wouldn't be shoved down out throat from every part of our culture.
Just because they say copyrights are an incentive to create, does not mean that they are an incentive to create things that are intellectually and socially valuable. I think as society moves into the information age we really need to rethink the need for copyright monopolies.
Your comment about the Nazis is a myth and has no basis in fact. The gun laws in Germany were in effect before Hitler came to power. Hitler had no reason to ban guns - he was a popular leader in his country.
You are right, it happened before he came to power ..... Adolph Hitler, 15 April 1935, in address to the Reichsta, "This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! "
I also think that you must be pretty young if you still get harassed about cigarettes.
Actually that wasn't the point, I'm over 30 and have never smoked.
Uhh, first off, from my history I seem to renember that almost all the federalist papers were written with a nom-de-plum (anonymous), since they are partly responsible for the founding of US society - I think I should be able to do just fine with an anomynous attitude.
Second, almost ALL of the intrusions on privacy I talked about happened in the last 50 years or so. So that begs the question, how come we were able to do fine for the other 150 years of this country's existence. Are you suggesting that as we become more modern we need to intrude into other peoples lives more
Third, I don't think I asked for total anominity or unaccountability to paying for services I use and never suggested that I am or should be an island totally seperate from everybody else. I just don't want the anal probe every single time. I'm tired of it.
I dream that I will be able to get health insurence, open bank accounts, go to college, get a job, and retire without using that *** ** **** social security number. I dream that we get rid of it and the ponzi retirement scheme that comes along with it.
I dream that my license will actually be linked to my prooven ability to drive safely, and not other issues like child support or failure to file state taxes, drinking a beer in the dorms, etc.... And that I won't be tracked and stored in massive centralized gov databases that have almost always prooven to be totally screwed up. (getting rid of frivolous tickets wile you're at it would be nice too)
I dream that I won't be harassed when I try to buy beer, ciggarates, and spray paint (one time I was even carded because I tried to buy a cigarette lighter).
I dream that my right to bear arms won't be nickled and dimed to death by people wanting to register me in govt databases like the Nazi's had before they confiscated all privately owned guns from its citizens.
I dream that my credit will only be checked when I want a loan from the bank, and not when I just want a debit card, not when a bank wants to send me a credit card offer that I half to shred before I throw out, and not when I try to get auto insurance.
Can you think of any others...
The real evil isn't the DMCA, but copyrights being taken to their logical conclusion. In the mind of the RIAA - the DMCA is just a way for them to secure rights they've always been told that they have.
If I told someone that they owned a house, but then said they couldn't sell it, rent it, go inside it, use it, or even take a loan out on it - it would be a fraud. Either they own the house or they don't, and the same is true with copyrights today. We cant keep crying out that copyrights are some type of glorious rights that will help artists, and expect people never to try and transfer, sell, or secure them from new technologies that threaten them, like the internet.
That is why this whole compromize debate is pitifull. It reminds me of the people who insisted and desperately believed that the free states could peacefully get along with the slave states in the 1850's. Then as today, they just couldn't see that the root cause of the problem was people trying to exercise rights that they've been told they have, but didn't.
IMHO, the sooner we get to the point that copyrights are not really a just right - and get rid of them, the sooner we will be able to get on with the information age and make everyone happy.
Perhaps I have no incentive to grow trees unless I can plant one in your yard, perhaps Ford has no incentive to make cars and R&D car safety unless the government gives them a monopoly on making cars, so what. If a the government gave a farmer a monopoly on growing potatoes, and then called that free market because he had no incentive to do potato R&D, people would see it as the fraud that it is. If the govt called it free market because the farmer could sell potato licenses, people would also see it as the fraud that it is also. Perhaps there is no incentive to do cotton research and clothing maufacture unless the farmer can own slaves on the plantation, why couldn't they just get it.
In the information age knowledge and information need to be more free, not less, need to be less regulated not more. I hope the commercial world gets it this time.
Copying something is not theft anymore than freeing a slave from the plantation is. Last I checked, SCO never claimed IBM deprived them of their own copy of UNIX. Unless you are suggesting that IBM stole market share, but frankly that goes on in free markets all the time, and I don't consider my patronage a right to be traded by them, but a right to be choosen by me.
A lot of people thought that the whole purpose of the industrial revolution was to use inventions like the cotton-gin to expand their plantations for unlimited controll and profits. While most people saw the invention as a great tool to end slavery, for others it was impossible to think of wealth in any other terms other than the size of a plantation, a farm, or estates. These people pushed slavery controlls to the point of civil war and were responsible for the deaths of millions.
I think today we have the same problem with "intellectual properties". It is impossible for people to think of wealth in any other terms than the number and amount of industires and people they can extract royalties from. It is impossible for them to understand that properties are not just about government edicts, or personal incentive, but natural forces - like everyone not being able to use the same thing at the same time. Well, with information - they can. And that is the real value of the internet.
conflict of interest?
I think this is the biggest problem. All too often I encounter this false faith that concepts like "intellectual property" can happily co-exist with concepts like "free as in freedom". I don't think it can, and this article touches on a fundamental reason why it can't. From the very beginning SCO, and now Sun thought they were better because they were covered in the flag of "intellectual property" and free markets. But this is a fraud, "intellectual property" is not a free market property right. It is so dishonest, and so many people fall for it, that it makes me cringe to see it.
The last time in US history where people were so disillusioned was over slavery. Why in the world couldn't people just pull their head out and see that slavery wasn't a property right? Why? The plantation masters were so well educated, and so wealthy, and such intellegent executive business men, so Why? Why did they ignore the forces of the industrial revolution that were going to force them to change? Why did they push it to the point that millions(?) ended up dead?
The fact that the forces of the industrial revolution caused all hell to break out then, and now we are suffering conflict directly related to our society moving into the information age really bothers me. How far are they going to push it this time? What will they be willing to do when push comes to shove and there's trillions at stake?
Perhaps copyrights and patents have made it impossible for us to cooperate on research and the open sharing of information. Perhaps regulations have made it impossible for us to use nuclear power, even though is it so much safer than even many solar technologies. And how about forcing everybody to pay for public education, perhaps this has set us up poor quality schools because there is no accountability. Or what about high taxes, and laws that pretty much force us to use dollars - that have made it impossible for people to accumulate wealth for R&D, education, and experiments unless they're already wealthy. Lets face it, the USA is not really that free, it is more free than many places, but it is not really that free - if it was I think we would all have alot more than we do now.
Unfortunately, R&D in the USA isn't about innovation, but more about getting patents on all the up and comming technologies before they happen. That way you can lock out competitors and squeeze a ton of royalities out of industries that will require all the up and comming technologies. However there are some times where good things happened - IBM wrongly assumed that they would be able to controll all the interfaces on the IBM compatable PC. When they were wrong, it created an economic explosion of companies that creating plug-in cards and periphials.
Because of patnets, researchers working for companies are often forced to be greedy and secretive about things they discover. There is little in depth sharing of knowledge and collaberation until the lawyers and bean counters give the ok. One big side effect of this is that a large amount of innovation in US society has been shifted to the University sector, which has made it extremely important in US society. Unfortunately, now even many Universities are getting greedy with patent controlls killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
However, the really good news is free (as in freedom) software. Never in the history of human existence has there been such a sharing of knowledge, spread of basic tallent, application of standardized orgin, economic colaberation, and the likes. It is having a strong effect of shifting R&D from the university sector back to the private sector. If we lift the monopoly on patents, I think the same thing will happen in other technology areas.
1st, when I leave a company that I don't like or a company harms me - I consider that their "punishment" is not having the best man for the job - a backdoor would nullify this high ground and proove that I wasn't the best man for the job. And if a company is good to me, or I like them - than these are the last people in the world I would want to harm or compromize - so either way, it's just plain a poor way of living.
2nd, I don't know about you, but I worked on more than my fair share of projects where I could tell that the core was written badly, but didn't have the time, resources, or approval to do it the right way myself. There are plenty of things that could go wrong that I can get blamed for even if I do everything right, the last thing I want to do is add something else that can go wrong. No thanks!
3rd, I want denyability. When I leave a company, I want them to change the passwords, delete accounts, and for the code to be secure. The last thing I want is some breakin or failure put back on me years after the fact. There are plenty of shortcommings in life that can "catch up" with you, even if you do your darndest to be perfict. The last thing in the world I want to do is add some more to that pile.
4th, I rely on these people for contacts, reference, and refferals. Why risk burning bridges when I don't half too. Why risk a job when if I don't want it I am free to quit. If you don't like a company, why risk going to jail for them. If I must risk going to jail, I would much rather it be for a cause I believe in like that lady who refused to go to the back of the bus.
This has nothing to do with the moon, it has to do with the fact that much of the same technology that can be applied to sending somthing to the moon can also be used for accurate ICBM's. The same was even true for the US.
Just as the plantation masters of 1850, who in a desperate attempt to fence themselves off from the forces of the industrial revolution, succeded their states from the union. So is MS and hollywood, and a few other players trying to fence themselves off from an unavoidable consequence of the information age by using DRM (or Rights Managment Software). And just as in the 1850's, nobody is going to respect that boundary.
The whole value of the information age comes from the uninhibited free flow of information. Copyrights are very quickly becoming unenforcable, which is why Microsoft and Hollywood are doomed. But unfortunately, while p2p and Linux will have all the growth at first, MS and Hollywood will have all the revenue. There is no way that this will be a nice transition, with trillions at stake watch out for all hell to break loose.
AH HA, I found it... March 25, 2000
d =1 172882
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4452&ci
notice the moderation points. slashdot seems to have unthreaded all the replies, but looking thru the parent article there were a ton of them (mostly negative)
Renember how UNIX started out with all these researchers from all these companies working together and sharing code, and building a unified OS standard until AT&T decided to claim back the copyright. Then all of a sudden DEC, IBM, HP, and AT&T all started to have their own flavors of UNIX that became notorious for fragmenting and impossible to keep together on future standards. In fact, inspite of constant industry pushes for a standardized UNIX and MS taking advantage of this fragmentation to march in and kick everybody's but, the only thing that really brought UNIX innovation back onto the same page was Linux with it's free license.
The fact is, this happens everywhere in the software industry, and is an "intellectual property" problem, not an innovation problem. IP may have been bearable when all it involved was a librarian saying what you could xerox, but in the information age it is not workable and causes us to come up with crazy philosophies - like trying to define certain types of innovation as bad.
This was the title to a post I made a few years ago on slashdot on an article that talked about the future of UNIX, and where I was quickly beat down by people who suggested I was arrogant and condosending, out of touch, blah blah blah.
The fact is that Linux dosen't have anything they couldn't have - it's just too many people are trying to create some type of equivalency relationship between (or even worse claim superiority to) software that is free and software that is not. I wish people would get it. Freedom matters, and free markets are not about markets but about freedom - and people using that freedom to become successfull.
Linux just goes to prove that when you have freedom, markets tend to come about naturally as people use that freedom to seek out their own best interests and desires. But when you have markets that does not necssairly lead to freedoms as people who are still trying to believe in controlled software are suffering for failing to understand.
This is disingneuious, not even regular clouds are well understood. And what measurements? nobody is disputing that there is Cl up there, hell there is Cl everywhere, bleach your shorts lately? take a swim in the ocean lately? Funny how the weather pattern theory didn't come up until people noticed the hole actually decreased in size one year. Of course the fact that sunlight shining onto the poles would half to go through an amount of atmosphere that is orders of magnitude more thick than at the equator would have nothing to do with it I suppose.
Another political angle on the ozone is how any researcher seeking grant money only has to merely whimper the word ozone hole - and whop there it is.
For a compound that can be poured into open bowl and left there for days without notable loss, I find it a strech that it would dissapate into the upper atmosphere. It is also a strech that it would all happen to end up on the poles, end even more of a strech that any Cl in the upper atmosphere is caused by CFC's compared to the evaporation of say a billion tons of sea water anually. Not to mention a vast array of other natural pheonomia (like volcanos) that would put man made production to shame.
However, if you consider that freon was banned on the very same month that DOW's patent ran out - then it is not such a strech to believe it's more about cold blooded greed than facts.
FYI, There has always been less ozone on the poles because there is less light there, and if the ozone layer was going away - it would go away by the ozone layer moving to lower and lower altitudes, not by dissapating. This is because most ozone is created by certain frequencies of sunlight passing through regular O2.
Arguments like the freon argument are a fraud and have much more to do with DOW chemical loosing its patent on freon and having a patent on the only known replacement then they do to do with freon destroying the layer.
Actually, there are practical solutions to these type of problems. One solution might be to send out a small boradcat packet at every say 100th of a second. The packet has a say a 100 use ttl so it won't go on forever, and every packet gets the route it's taking piggy backed onto it. The first packet that gets to the destination node (or the one with the strongest signal and within a fraction of a second) is the route that gets sent back and used. PS. Go easy on the guy.
If you think p2p software makes copyrights hard to enforce, wait till you have p2p hardware networks where they will be impossible to enforce unless the copyright lords track every single node in relation to every other node. Shal we register our p2p hardware with the government?
Then why don't you develop one of them?
How do you know I didn't just find some bacteria in a spring that fights resistant bacteria, but big pharmacutical companies couldn't pattnet it so they slandered me and fear mongered anyone from investing in my company.
And that explains why there are tens of millions of smaller groups out there that have developed cures for AIDS and cancer...
Maybe they did, but because the drugs they independently came up with were alrealy patented by someone else - everyone is screwed. Of course that point totally ignores how patents are a complete dis-incentive for companies to collaberate.
ME: Maybe Ford wouldn't invest in auto safety without a monopoly on making cars - so what?
YOU: Of course, that isn't true, since most of the cost of a car is in building it - not in coming up with a design. Even still, designs often have patents associated with them.
Of course, that was the point. The excuse doesn't matter with the suggested first artifical government granted monopoly, as it doesn't with the 2nd - patents.
Except that if there were no profits in drugs, there would be no drugs. At least not any new ones. The ones already out there will be cheap in ten years anyway - all you have to do is wait if your concern is the cost of cutting-edge medicine. Your issue is that in ten years there will be better cutting-edge medicines out there which will be exensive. Your solution seems to be to just get rid of new drug development, thus solving the problem with the cost of new drugs... Trust me, nobody will develop new drugs if they don't make money off them. And if government takes over the best and brightest reasearchers will just find another industry to work in...
With patents, the government already has taken over. What do you think patnets are - a property right? This is a government granted monopoly, and it is rediculous to assume we need it to make money off of medicines - infact India where there are no patnets on drugs have plenty of profitable pharmacutical industries. The suggestion that people should just wait 10 years is just cynical, especially if they are dying of AIDS.
For every billion dollar cure patents produce, there are litterly thousands of cheaper and safer possibbilities passed by because they can not be patented. This story is a classic example - in a non patent world this discovery would quickly be spread all over the planet. Even worse are the issues with the AIDS drugs, where African countries were litterally sued to prevent the manufacture of generics. This patent philosophy literally reaks with ignorance, it is based of an assumption that one company with a patent monopoly would do more than the tens of millions of smaller groups arround the world with the same knowledge - bullshit. Before shoving this monopoly down everyones throat, how about taking a real burdon of proof, that does more than wine about incentive and point to the success of economies whose free market nature would have made them successfull anyhow.
I really don't care about the costs of development for the industry, every industry has cost development issues, even fast food joints. Maybe Ford wouldn't invest in auto safety without a monopoly on making cars - so what? That's their problem, not everyone elses.