Yes, I understand that issue fully. I'm reminded of the time NASA was looking for an island in the middle of the South Pacific ( you know, that part that's nothing but but blue when you look at it on a globe) that would be visible to the eye from the space shuttle. They pored over sattellite photographs and were coming up empty.
Eventually a libraian heard about the problem and refered them to a book on . ..birds.
She remembered reading a description of a completely unique island in a bird book.
NASA went back to the photos and sure enough, there it was.
The thing is that relationship existed in someone's mind, not in a database. It seems unlikely that if a database file system had existed at the time that they would have found it there either. A database is still completely dependant upon the relationships being built by a person and the computer can't make the leap of insight to build new and unsuspected relationships.
I myself use simple databases to keep track of which songs can be found on which albums by which artists ( I'm a folk singer so I have dozens of recordings of various versions of the same song by different artists, so I'm painfully aware of the issue), but I don't use this to replace my file system, I use it suplement it.
And I only use my computer's system of oranization to supplement the one I carry in my brain.
When I just want to listen to some Steeleye Span I can still just go to home/music/steeleye_span and have at it.
See http://www.dbdebunk.com/page/page/606457.htm for the refutation, but I warn you, you'll need a good grasp of set theory and mathmatical logic to truly understand it. I don't mean to be snide or demeaning ( I'm not above it, but in this case I really don't), but if you don't have the mathmatical background you aren't in a position to understand the field.
Storage at least has the advantage of being semi-relational.
"It's like CD collections, or books; libraries have nicely catalogued and ordered collections. Private individuals don't; they have roughly ordered collections on the shelf, and don't bother keeping them in any better order."
Private individuals don't keep collections of hundreds of thousands of books that at any given time could be in virtually anyone's hands.
Private individuals have a thousand or two books whith which they have a personal "relationship" and a database of what book can be found where in a data storage device called a "brain."
I like my brain. I'm told it's a very good brain ( which might color my opinion on this matter). I expect I'll keep using my brain for what my brain is best at and only rely on my computer for those things it does better than my brain. This might even serve to keep my brain running at something approaching optimum performance for longer than is considered the norm.
And to tell you the truth I really don't see this sort of thing being of any use to the sort of person who already just dumps every frickin' file they have on their desktop.
"Ok, now all you have to do is build your relationships."
Yeah, right Sparky. Blow me.
You either origanze your files or you don't and if you don't. ..you don't.
"No problemo, I'm heading that way later and I can grab it for you. What's your room?"
"Dorm 5, Room 109. It's the desk on the left."
( We didn't bother to state earth.us because we were already inside those directories)
Yes, yes we do think heirarchically. Most of the history of human thought has been fitting everything we can lay our filthy little brain cells on into heirarcheis, whether they wish to fit into them or not. It's intuitive.
As for natural language didn't we learn about that with COBOL? Natural language only speeds the learning process slightly ( the majority of the learning still lying in the realm of understanding the basic concepts involved), but then becomes a pain in the ass forever afterward.
Looking at the screenshots it's also ugly as all sin. The physicist in me can't help but feel that a model that ugly can't possibly be correct.
I think this makes just about as much sense as using a document preperation language (XML) as the basis of a database.
Well, that pretty much describes me and I certainly don't play for the other side. Not only am I rather fond of women, but they find me charming and personable.
Oh course I am 46, don't have a job, live in my mother's basement and read Slashdot, sometimes several times a day.
Does that mean I still get to use the secret handshake?
Indeed, that is later legislation postdating the court ruling. Just as the right of first sale, although now written into the copyright code, originally existed only as a court ruling.
Legislative law often chases the courts in such matters.
Nonetheless the EULA and the need to license software at all only exists because of that previous court ruling, an entire industry was built upon that decision and now the legislature is trying to codify consumer rights without damaging the Golden Goose. They are, unfortunately for us, not compatible goals.
Read that code carefully. It totally negates the very need for a license and makes software the equal of a phonograph record. If you possess the media you possess the right to use it.
Let me say it once again. Under copyright law you only need a license to make a copy. You do not need a license to own, use or resell.
The EULA only exists because reading the program into memory was once legally defined as making a restricted copy. It has no other basis in law for existing. You do not license music CDs or books. You own them. Why do you think you don't own your software, but must license it? That legalism must have come from somewhere, and it didn't come from legislation.
Think about it. Think about it very hard. This is the very issue the gentleman is addressing with his auction. He is trying to press the issue of his right of ownership, not license. If he succeeds then all software licenses go down the drain and your install CDs become books.
When you purchase a book or CD you own it. You do not have license to it. As your property you can do with it as you will. This is the principle of first sale.
If you wished to make a copy of it you would need a license to do so. It is only copying that copyright covers.
Now here's the tricky bit. The bit that has unleashed the entire realm of software copyright license nonsense upon us, even where you own the physical medium, such as the install CD.
The courts have ruled that mere possession of the physical medium does not imply license to use, as does the possession of a book or musical recording, because to make use of the digital data it must be copied into memory first and that copying is covered under copyright law as restricted. Thus you need a license to copy that which you have already purchased for use.
Nice. Ain't it?
Without this one ruling the entire world of digital data and software licensing as we know it today wouldn't exist. Microsoft would be just another vendor of "stuff," without the license club to hold over everybodies head. In fact they are where they are today essentially by being the first to comprehend the power that gave them.
In this particular case not only will the gentleman have to make a copy of the music to transfer it as music, the buyer will have no valid license to play it. Such licenses are not directly transferable by third parties.
If I buy the rights to print a book I cannot then go and sell that right on the open market unless stated in the original contract.
Apple does not need to deny such a right. They would need to confirm it.
Do you understand the issue here? A book is perceived directly and a tape or phonograph record is translated directly into music. Data must make a copy of itself into memory. While you make use of it you have, legally, two copies. You need a license only for that second instance.
It flies in the face of common sense, but it's the law.
I told my travel agent that I wasn't much into water sports, but that I did like to spend hours just walking the beach.
She told me she had just the place, miles and miles of beach with unique red sand.
She didn't tell me there was no frickin' water. Oh, a little frost line on the ground maybe, but that's it. I don't think that counts. I may not swim or surf, but I do think the beach is kinda defined by the water.
But the author likes to eat; and therein lies the dilema.
We do not reward people for contributions to society ( or I'd be a happy a little camper churning out books for Project Gutenberg), we make our respective livings filching money from each other's pockets.
Socialism does not change this, unfortunately. It merely changes the pecking order and rules for doing the filching.
You and I can put together a top end machine, the sort that HP and Dell only hawk to the business market, for a fraction of what they charge. We support ourselves and thus don't have to pay for it, while at the same time OEM discounts on componants aren't as deep at the high end.
But don't fool yourself. The mass builders can put together bargain basement junk at a tiny fraction of the price you and I can do it, and still turn some sort of profit margin. They buy low end video cards and motherboards by the millions and do a lot better on the per unit price than you can find. They throw in power supplies that would make you shudder and they don't exactly get their cases from Addtronics.
These are throw away machines. The customers for them know they are throw away machines. They are price sensitive to the penny.
"Standardized consistent spellings coincided with the rise of dictionaries"
Correct.
"which are the authority on spelling and usage of words."
Incorrect. So incorrect, in fact, that it betokens a complete lack of understanding of the English language and how she is spoke; and spelled.
C has an authority. Java has an authority. French and Icelandic have authorities.
English does not. Nobody died and made Noah Webster king. Dictionaries are snapshots of the language as it exists in the majority opinion of a panel of experts ( who often disagree) and many ( if not most) dictionaries disagree with each other on certain particulars.
English is open source and we make it up as we go along.
On the other hand he can't just go on selling Andromeda forever. If it's really valuable (in the useful sense) he will eventually have competitors ( some of them open source) and the field will be comodetized.
It's happening right now in the office suite field and stand alone word processors are a dime a dozen.
If you stay just ahead of the curve and become the open source "alternative" yourself you retain all the customer good will to your own company.
Do not discount the financial value of good will. When a small business is sold this item often constitutes the majority of the selling price.
The catch is that it's a capital investment that doesn't return immediate cashflow, so it often gets either overlooked or outright discounted.
In my business ( which is instore) my most valuable asset is being able to greet my customers by name, not the stuff I have to sell them. The second I stop doing that I stop selling stuff.
There's no way I can quantify that on a balance sheet though.
Wal-Mart vaguely understands this, that's why they maintain a creepy semblence of the practice.
The trick is to maintain a personal relationship with your customers even when you get big, without doing it in a bizarre and creepy-crawly way like Wal-Mart.
In the software field one way to do that is opening the source of your older product, thus maintaining the relationship and the ability to sell them your newer product.
I think your product is a good example of why ESR "forked" free software into Open Source(tm) software.
In the pragmatic world of business some code is more valuable closed and some is more valuable open. At the moment your code is more valuable to you closed so you can sell it and make a living directly from your work.
There will come a time, however, when if you are going to continue to make a living by peddling your own code you are going to have to produce more product.
If that product builds upon and enhances what you have already done Andromeda may actually be more valuable to you open.
Wisdom lies in accurately determining when that line is crossed.
Videophones have been available for decades. It's a pretty safe bet to predict something that's available off the shelf. Marketing does it all the time. You could even say it's their job.
Weren't they just "predicting" that recorded media is a thing of the past?
When they "predict" things like this it's a clear indication of the direction they're trying to push us in.
In the case of videophones it's a direction that it turns out we weren't willing to be pushed in.
Bottom line is that most of us don't want the damned things and wouldn't use them if they were given to us for free.
I've measured it anecdotally myself. I was halfway through coding a major bit of software in Access with VBA. This started as a purely inhouse project but as it matured it became apparent that what I had cooking up was superiour to any other competeing program (in fact it would have been the very first Windows native program of its type) and the idea of a commercial release was being seriously considered.
Then Office 2000 was released which broke VBA compatibility between versions.
I said screw it all to hell and converted the entire business to open source.
Yes, that's one of the failures of the modern academic system, both on the part of the teachers who should be grading content; and on the part of the student who should be concerned with producing content rather than design. Unless it's a design subject, of course.
In any case Wordpad handles all of that nicely. No need for a fully fledged "Enterprise" word processer for most writing. Even serious writing. Even in the bloody "enterprise" itself. Formating memos is actually goofing off and playing around.
Hell for most writing applications parent is correct. About all you need is vi and ispell.
It'll even look good enough to get you a good grade. . . if you write worth a damn.
"On the other hand, I am surprised that the numbers for StarOffice are greater than the numbers for OpenOffice... How come?"
Money. StarOffice costs some.
No, I'm not just being snide ( that's just a value added bonus), SO contains propriatary filter code that Sun distributes under third party license, thus SO has always been a bit better at compatibility.
The OOo people are having to reverse engineering these propriatary filters themselves so they're still playing catch up. They get a bit closer with every release.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I understand that issue fully. I'm reminded of the time NASA was looking for an island in the middle of the South Pacific ( you know, that part that's nothing but but blue when you look at it on a globe) that would be visible to the eye from the space shuttle. They pored over sattellite photographs and were coming up empty.
.birds.
Eventually a libraian heard about the problem and refered them to a book on . .
She remembered reading a description of a completely unique island in a bird book.
NASA went back to the photos and sure enough, there it was.
The thing is that relationship existed in someone's mind, not in a database. It seems unlikely that if a database file system had existed at the time that they would have found it there either. A database is still completely dependant upon the relationships being built by a person and the computer can't make the leap of insight to build new and unsuspected relationships.
I myself use simple databases to keep track of which songs can be found on which albums by which artists ( I'm a folk singer so I have dozens of recordings of various versions of the same song by different artists, so I'm painfully aware of the issue), but I don't use this to replace my file system, I use it suplement it.
And I only use my computer's system of oranization to supplement the one I carry in my brain.
When I just want to listen to some Steeleye Span I can still just go to home/music/steeleye_span and have at it.
KFG
See http://www.dbdebunk.com/page/page/606457.htm for the refutation, but I warn you, you'll need a good grasp of set theory and mathmatical logic to truly understand it. I don't mean to be snide or demeaning ( I'm not above it, but in this case I really don't), but if you don't have the mathmatical background you aren't in a position to understand the field.
Storage at least has the advantage of being semi-relational.
KFG
And I welcome the day Microsoft makes like investments in libraries. . .
Just so long as they make sure they have the complete O'Reilly catatlog and don't put up a fuss about the Linux backend running the catalog.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite bumper stickers:
"Welcome to New Jersey! Leave your money and go the fuck home"
KFG
"It's like CD collections, or books; libraries have nicely catalogued and ordered collections. Private individuals don't; they have roughly ordered collections on the shelf, and don't bother keeping them in any better order."
.you don't.
Private individuals don't keep collections of hundreds of thousands of books that at any given time could be in virtually anyone's hands.
Private individuals have a thousand or two books whith which they have a personal "relationship" and a database of what book can be found where in a data storage device called a "brain."
I like my brain. I'm told it's a very good brain ( which might color my opinion on this matter). I expect I'll keep using my brain for what my brain is best at and only rely on my computer for those things it does better than my brain. This might even serve to keep my brain running at something approaching optimum performance for longer than is considered the norm.
And to tell you the truth I really don't see this sort of thing being of any use to the sort of person who already just dumps every frickin' file they have on their desktop.
"Ok, now all you have to do is build your relationships."
Yeah, right Sparky. Blow me.
You either origanze your files or you don't and if you don't. .
KFG
"Well, where do you go?"
"Stanford."
"No problemo, I'm heading that way later and I can grab it for you. What's your room?"
"Dorm 5, Room 109. It's the desk on the left."
( We didn't bother to state earth.us because we were already inside those directories)
Yes, yes we do think heirarchically. Most of the history of human thought has been fitting everything we can lay our filthy little brain cells on into heirarcheis, whether they wish to fit into them or not. It's intuitive.
As for natural language didn't we learn about that with COBOL? Natural language only speeds the learning process slightly ( the majority of the learning still lying in the realm of understanding the basic concepts involved), but then becomes a pain in the ass forever afterward.
Looking at the screenshots it's also ugly as all sin. The physicist in me can't help but feel that a model that ugly can't possibly be correct.
I think this makes just about as much sense as using a document preperation language (XML) as the basis of a database.
Which is to say, none.
KFG
They might consider buying books and teachers, but there's no marketing value in that and all the children will get out of the deal is an education.
We wouldn't want that, now would we?
KFG
"Why do you people always assume the worst?"
I think it's called "experience."
KFG
Well, that pretty much describes me and I certainly don't play for the other side. Not only am I rather fond of women, but they find me charming and personable.
Oh course I am 46, don't have a job, live in my mother's basement and read Slashdot, sometimes several times a day.
Does that mean I still get to use the secret handshake?
KFG
"which is quite an acheivement considering my 15 years of web browsing..."
Which is quite an acheivement in and of itself.
KFG
I guess for the same reason that the Louvre is famous among art collectors when all they do is hang pictures on the wall.
But they've got the only Venus thingy and Mona thingy.
Some people find this remarkable. Go figure.
KFG
Indeed, that is later legislation postdating the court ruling. Just as the right of first sale, although now written into the copyright code, originally existed only as a court ruling.
Legislative law often chases the courts in such matters.
Nonetheless the EULA and the need to license software at all only exists because of that previous court ruling, an entire industry was built upon that decision and now the legislature is trying to codify consumer rights without damaging the Golden Goose. They are, unfortunately for us, not compatible goals.
Read that code carefully. It totally negates the very need for a license and makes software the equal of a phonograph record. If you possess the media you possess the right to use it.
Let me say it once again. Under copyright law you only need a license to make a copy. You do not need a license to own, use or resell.
The EULA only exists because reading the program into memory was once legally defined as making a restricted copy. It has no other basis in law for existing. You do not license music CDs or books. You own them. Why do you think you don't own your software, but must license it? That legalism must have come from somewhere, and it didn't come from legislation.
Think about it. Think about it very hard. This is the very issue the gentleman is addressing with his auction. He is trying to press the issue of his right of ownership, not license. If he succeeds then all software licenses go down the drain and your install CDs become books.
KFG
When you purchase a book or CD you own it. You do not have license to it. As your property you can do with it as you will. This is the principle of first sale.
If you wished to make a copy of it you would need a license to do so. It is only copying that copyright covers.
Now here's the tricky bit. The bit that has unleashed the entire realm of software copyright license nonsense upon us, even where you own the physical medium, such as the install CD.
The courts have ruled that mere possession of the physical medium does not imply license to use, as does the possession of a book or musical recording, because to make use of the digital data it must be copied into memory first and that copying is covered under copyright law as restricted. Thus you need a license to copy that which you have already purchased for use.
Nice. Ain't it?
Without this one ruling the entire world of digital data and software licensing as we know it today wouldn't exist. Microsoft would be just another vendor of "stuff," without the license club to hold over everybodies head. In fact they are where they are today essentially by being the first to comprehend the power that gave them.
In this particular case not only will the gentleman have to make a copy of the music to transfer it as music, the buyer will have no valid license to play it. Such licenses are not directly transferable by third parties.
If I buy the rights to print a book I cannot then go and sell that right on the open market unless stated in the original contract.
Apple does not need to deny such a right. They would need to confirm it.
Do you understand the issue here? A book is perceived directly and a tape or phonograph record is translated directly into music. Data must make a copy of itself into memory. While you make use of it you have, legally, two copies. You need a license only for that second instance.
It flies in the face of common sense, but it's the law.
KFG
Really, really big ACME potato guns?
KFG
Beaches? You want beaches?
I told my travel agent that I wasn't much into water sports, but that I did like to spend hours just walking the beach.
She told me she had just the place, miles and miles of beach with unique red sand.
She didn't tell me there was no frickin' water. Oh, a little frost line on the ground maybe, but that's it. I don't think that counts. I may not swim or surf, but I do think the beach is kinda defined by the water.
Next year I'm going back to the Jersey Shore.
KFG
But the author likes to eat; and therein lies the dilema.
We do not reward people for contributions to society ( or I'd be a happy a little camper churning out books for Project Gutenberg), we make our respective livings filching money from each other's pockets.
Socialism does not change this, unfortunately. It merely changes the pecking order and rules for doing the filching.
"Grant writer" has become a profession.
KFG
You and I can put together a top end machine, the sort that HP and Dell only hawk to the business market, for a fraction of what they charge. We support ourselves and thus don't have to pay for it, while at the same time OEM discounts on componants aren't as deep at the high end.
But don't fool yourself. The mass builders can put together bargain basement junk at a tiny fraction of the price you and I can do it, and still turn some sort of profit margin. They buy low end video cards and motherboards by the millions and do a lot better on the per unit price than you can find. They throw in power supplies that would make you shudder and they don't exactly get their cases from Addtronics.
These are throw away machines. The customers for them know they are throw away machines. They are price sensitive to the penny.
You can't match them to the dollar.
KFG
"Standardized consistent spellings coincided with the rise of dictionaries"
Correct.
"which are the authority on spelling and usage of words."
Incorrect. So incorrect, in fact, that it betokens a complete lack of understanding of the English language and how she is spoke; and spelled.
C has an authority. Java has an authority. French and Icelandic have authorities.
English does not. Nobody died and made Noah Webster king. Dictionaries are snapshots of the language as it exists in the majority opinion of a panel of experts ( who often disagree) and many ( if not most) dictionaries disagree with each other on certain particulars.
English is open source and we make it up as we go along.
KFG
On the other hand he can't just go on selling Andromeda forever. If it's really valuable (in the useful sense) he will eventually have competitors ( some of them open source) and the field will be comodetized.
It's happening right now in the office suite field and stand alone word processors are a dime a dozen.
If you stay just ahead of the curve and become the open source "alternative" yourself you retain all the customer good will to your own company.
Do not discount the financial value of good will. When a small business is sold this item often constitutes the majority of the selling price.
The catch is that it's a capital investment that doesn't return immediate cashflow, so it often gets either overlooked or outright discounted.
In my business ( which is instore) my most valuable asset is being able to greet my customers by name, not the stuff I have to sell them. The second I stop doing that I stop selling stuff.
There's no way I can quantify that on a balance sheet though.
Wal-Mart vaguely understands this, that's why they maintain a creepy semblence of the practice.
The trick is to maintain a personal relationship with your customers even when you get big, without doing it in a bizarre and creepy-crawly way like Wal-Mart.
In the software field one way to do that is opening the source of your older product, thus maintaining the relationship and the ability to sell them your newer product.
KFG
I think your product is a good example of why ESR "forked" free software into Open Source(tm) software.
In the pragmatic world of business some code is more valuable closed and some is more valuable open. At the moment your code is more valuable to you closed so you can sell it and make a living directly from your work.
There will come a time, however, when if you are going to continue to make a living by peddling your own code you are going to have to produce more product.
If that product builds upon and enhances what you have already done Andromeda may actually be more valuable to you open.
Wisdom lies in accurately determining when that line is crossed.
KFG
Nah, them damned texters are going to ruin it for everybody.
I wouldn't be surprised if the MPAA file a class action suit against everybody with texting capability.
Their new motto?:
"Only pirates text"
KFG
"What does Gun-Young's research mean to me, the almighty consumer?"
It tastes great; and it's less filling.
KFG
Videophones have been available for decades. It's a pretty safe bet to predict something that's available off the shelf. Marketing does it all the time. You could even say it's their job.
Weren't they just "predicting" that recorded media is a thing of the past?
When they "predict" things like this it's a clear indication of the direction they're trying to push us in.
In the case of videophones it's a direction that it turns out we weren't willing to be pushed in.
Bottom line is that most of us don't want the damned things and wouldn't use them if they were given to us for free.
KFG
I've measured it anecdotally myself. I was halfway through coding a major bit of software in Access with VBA. This started as a purely inhouse project but as it matured it became apparent that what I had cooking up was superiour to any other competeing program (in fact it would have been the very first Windows native program of its type) and the idea of a commercial release was being seriously considered.
Then Office 2000 was released which broke VBA compatibility between versions.
I said screw it all to hell and converted the entire business to open source.
I've never regreted it.
KFG
Yes, that's one of the failures of the modern academic system, both on the part of the teachers who should be grading content; and on the part of the student who should be concerned with producing content rather than design. Unless it's a design subject, of course.
In any case Wordpad handles all of that nicely. No need for a fully fledged "Enterprise" word processer for most writing. Even serious writing. Even in the bloody "enterprise" itself. Formating memos is actually goofing off and playing around.
Hell for most writing applications parent is correct. About all you need is vi and ispell.
It'll even look good enough to get you a good grade. . . if you write worth a damn.
KFG
"On the other hand, I am surprised that the numbers for StarOffice are greater than the numbers for OpenOffice... How come?"
Money. StarOffice costs some.
No, I'm not just being snide ( that's just a value added bonus), SO contains propriatary filter code that Sun distributes under third party license, thus SO has always been a bit better at compatibility.
The OOo people are having to reverse engineering these propriatary filters themselves so they're still playing catch up. They get a bit closer with every release.
KFG