But why are you choosing the CC license to show your work? The idea of the CC license and the Creative Commons is to encourage sharing as I quoted from their own site. If you are not intend to share your work, then just don't use any license. Then your work is protected by copyright and anyone can see but not touch it.
Yes I can compare the GPL and the BSD to the CC license. Because the situation is almost the same. You can compare a developer with an author of a book. He faces the same problems about compensation/sharing. But most of the free licenses in the software world do not have a field-of-use restriction like NC or ND, because that would be pointless.
You need to make up your mind, either you want to share your work or you do not want. If you are sharing then you are expecting that others using your work in derivatives (even such simple act as re-sizing is a derivative) or for commercial products. If you want a slice of the profit of the commercial work, then stop sharing your work. Just create a portfolio with an easy way to contact you.
The GPL and the BSD do not have a field-of-use restriction. For the user of code they are both equal free. The GPL is only applying if you want to distribute your code with GPL code. Works with a CC-ND/-NC license I can't even use in my company for my internal projects. I can't take CC-ND/-NC works and use it for my company internal web-site, for example. The GPL have no such restrictions.
You see, a CC-ND/-NC is just pointless. Just use no license and show your work in a portfolio. For any practical purpose it's just the same. Since they are pointless and contrary to their mission the Creative Commons should just drop them.
Copyrighted work is not your property. It is not tangible, not an item, not physical. We have copyright to support art, it is not a human right or a fundamental right. Property cannot be licensed, it can be sold or be lend.
I really can't stress that enough. I have had it with musicians and artist and authors who somehow think their copyrighted work is their property or whatever. Also nobody is stealing from you. It's called copyright infringement, not rape not murder and not stealing.
(eg distributing Wikipedia on offline media, in communities without internet access), what's wrong with contacting the author to ask for another license, to be granted (or not) on a case by case basis?
Can you think of any practical way to ask the thousand of contributors of Wikipedia for an exception?
In my mind, the request to drop NC/ND from CC is akin to asking the Open Source community to abolish GPL and use only BSD derived licences.
No it is not. It is akin to abolish any field-of-use terms in the GPL or the BSD (which they not have). NC and ND basically say: That work is free but only if you are not using it for Xxxx and Zzzz. Which means it is not free at all.
Quite a few comments from artists(?) that want to share their work but at the same time do not want to share their works. So what do you want, to share or not to share?
I'm a software developer and any ND or NC license is useless for me. What is a derivation? If I take your art (like an icon) and re-size it or use a different color, ups can't do, because it is a derivation and ND don't allow it. What is commercial? I develop a free open source tool and release it on my site, but the site have ads from Google, or it have other commercial applications there, too. Can't do that with a NC license.
I think I'm not the only one who just skips any ND or NC licenses. Is it what you want? Why to share your work in the first place?
If some big studio takes your work and makes a great game out of it, isn't it what you want as an artist? Better to have your name in the credits of Big Game Foo then to live in obscurity. And just maybe the Big Publisher will hire you for the next game.
I'm agree with the article author opinion. The ND and NC licenses are contrary to the goal of Creative Commons.
What is Creative Commons? Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.
Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.
It's like the GPL or the BSD would be useless with a fields-of-use clause. And the ND or NC is like a fields-of-use clause.
Do you know Torchwood? The very first episode was that the policewoman find Torchwood and gets in the headquarter. After she gets out Jack drugs her with an amnesia-pill and she runs home and write everything about Torchwood in her PC before she fells asleep and forgets everything. Before she almost felt asleep, Torchwood control her PC, the PC goes blank and everything she wrote is gone.
Free operating systems are a thread to every government, because such controls are impossible on a system that can be modified by the user. If you think it's scri-fiction: the TPM chips are around since at least 2006.
TPM is for "Trusted Platform Module". Of course the "Trusted" part is that a third party can trust your PC that you didn't change it in any undesired way.
Twisted? Groklaw commented that the jury had some inconsistencies in their judgement, like awarded damages for devices that did not infringe on the patents, also the jury did not calculated the sum right. Also Groklaw commented that the juror make a statement that they wanted to punish Samsung, contrary to the jury instructions.
"We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."
So I do not know what Groklaw "twisted". And of course you get +4 "insightful" or whatever.
That is so typical of content-"producers" or copyright-holders of the "We want to eat our cake and have it, too" syndrome. They want the extra traffic generated from the news-aggrigators and search engines, but what also a share of the money the news-aggrigators and search engines are generating by offering an useful service.
If they do not want that the news-aggrigators and search engines are using their content, they could just use the robot.txt file to opt-out of the indexing. But of course then they do not get the extra traffic. So they choose the next "logical" step: get the benefit from the news-aggrigators and search engines but complain loudly and weeping so they get an extra piece from the money.
The inter-trade organizations VDZ and BDZV could also just exclude Google or any other news-aggrigators they don't like and either a) create their own search engine/news-aggrigators or negotiate an agreement with Google.
But of course weeping and crying is not only more easily, but with a new law they can extend their rights indefinitely. Right now the discussion is about the Topics and automatically extracted excerpts that should be protected for one year. In 5 years they will push the law for a protection of 5 years, and sooner or later it will be "aligned" with German copyright law and Topics and automatically extracted excerpts are protected for 70 years.
"Presseverlage im Online-Bereich mit anderen Werkmittlern gleichzustellen" und fordern die Bundesregierung auf, nicht "halbherzig" zu handeln.
Meaning that they want the same copyright protection for topics and excerpts that they have for the article itself, meaning 70 years after the death of the author.
How is Java not integrating well with Linux? Java is free like in libre, the reference implementation is under the GPLv2: OpenJDK. Oracle is now shipping JavaFX with OpenJDK: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/openjfx/
So let me get his straight. Nokia first buys Trolltech for Qt, develops Meego, drops Symbian, drops Meego and Qt, try to sell Windows Phones, and is now rescued by JavaME?
If I were a shareholder I would be so pissed of right now.
I would think that the APIs are going back to Java 1.0. So when Google released Android the APIs Android is using are back from Java 1.0, so Oracle believed that Google infringe on their copyrights. For example, almost all in the package java.lang (java.lang.Object, String) are from Java 1.0.
I think they started developing Android way before a first release of a Android phone? From wikipedia:
> Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States in October 2003 [...] Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17, 2005, making Android Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Google. > On 17 November 2006, Sun announced that it would be released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), thus making it free software. This happened in large part on 8 May 2007; > J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)
So I think Palo Alto started development of Android in 2003, which at that time Java 1.4 was available.
Nice FUD, troll. Google was sued because they took the Java APIs and have not got a license from Oracle (that was before Java was released under the GPL with OpenJDK). At least that what Oracle was trying to convince the judge and the jury.
Long story short: Orcale was thinking that Google needed the TCK license (or other license) to use the Java APIs. Orcale was trying to convince the court that APIs are copyrightable (or more specific, the Structure, Sequence and Organization of APIs). We now all know the result of that venture, the SSO of APIs is not copyrightable and Google did not needed any license from Sun/Oracle.
Since Java is now at least 6 years under the GPL there are no issues anymore.
I think there is still a Field-Of-Use clause, but that only applies to the TCK license and is needed if and only if you want to market your Java implementation as "Java". That was the reason why Apache Harmony was not an official "Java".
It really saddens me that we have invented that machine that can make copies for effective 0 costs and distribute them around the world with light speed for effective 0 costs again, but we pass legislation to cripple the new technology as best as we can.
It's like we invent the warp engine and pass legislation to limit the maximum speed to 100km/sec to prevent the old space rockets to go out of business. Or we invent the replicator and pass legislation to throw out at least as much food as we produce out of energy to save farming.
We need finally wake up and stop destroying new emerging markets. No wonder entrepreneurs have trouble come up with business models in the internet. It's not that people don't pay or the piracy or any other straw-man. It's the simple fact that any business on the internet is dealing with information and we try our best to destroy information sharing via politics.
Put the copyright back in the way it was (with registration, only 14 years and 14 years extension) and then successive lower the copyright terms as the distribution becomes easier and easier.
How much lost revenue we have because of the draconian copyright laws? How many new jobs can we create in the new markets?
It's just bafflest me that anyone would actually want to use a Windows re-implementation. It's just like you choose the worst of both worlds, bad architecture, more bugs and all viruses.
Do you really want an architecture, that is not POSIX, not a Unix, with the drivers letter-soup, where you can't just open a file in multiple applications, that does not offer a package manager, with the worst file manager ever (the explorer).
Why not just use Linux and Wine, so you have the best of two worlds? POSIX, Unix architecture and Windows applications.
So how do you know that? Me, for example, I don't buy any games retail anymore because there is no Linux support. I still have a Windows 7 copy that comes with my Dell Laptop sitting there using 50GB, but I'm too lazy to boot it up. The only games I buy I research first if they run on Linux via Wine.
If Valve ports it's Steam to Linux, my gaming expensive would increase 200% or more. Like it did with http://gog.com/ because most of there games runs well on Wine and have no DRM.
Governments have infinite money supply. Why people buy that "we are broke" nonsense. A government is not a commercial entity, it is not a firm. It cannot go broke. The worst thing for a Government can happen is you make a money reform and just delete all loans. Also the USA can just increase the loan ceiling to $100T or whatever.
Sure the banks will all cry and whine, but in the end, what should they do? Invade the USA and take over?
In an economic downturn the government should increase spending, because it is the only entity that have an infinite amount of money. It should spend that money on R&D, infrastructure and creating new markets.
I have no idea where the idiocy comes from to decrease government spending in an economic downturn. If the economy is down, the government needs to step in and revive the industry. That cannot be done with austerity programs.
Since the government is the biggest employee for example, austerity programs in an economic downturn leads to more unemployment, and thus weakens the economy more. Unemployed people tend to buy much less stuff.
But I do know where the idea comes from: from the banks, who's only interest is to get payed for the credits. They don't care if they put for example Greece for decades in recession, destroy social programs and widen the gap between the poor and the rich even more.
But the big advantage of servers are open standards. The whole internet is build on open standards. it's very easy to build a competing product, for say a HTTP server. Compare that with the difficulty to build a competing office suite (the whole OOXML or docx formats). Or a competing 3D graphics application. Or the mess with the CAD application formats.
If the real world would be like the end-user software world, you would have 5 different sockets for lamps, 10 different power plugs. And each TV would come with a custom proprietary power and cable plug.
Then there is funding. Nobody would fund you if you start a competing application for, for example, MS Office or Photoshop, with the goal to compete open in the market. OO.org, LibreOffice, GIMP goal is not to compete commercially, so they survive as a not-for-profit organization. Why do you think nobody just takes GIMP and sell it in Wallmarkt? Because nobody can compete with Adobe in the marketplace.
The end-user software market have not only a high bar of entry (only few big stores and few big OEMs) but it's also saturated. Adobe, Microsoft, Macaffee, Norton, Ubisoft, EA. Just go to your next Bestbuy or Wallmarkt, there are no small independent software firms.
The problem is that commercial open source end-user software is still taking baby steps. By that I mean platforms like Kickstarter are just starting to emerge. Also they have to compete with established end-user software like Adobe, Photoshop, etc.
So with software it's the same problem as with games. I don't see open source games starting to compete with commercial proprietary games. The bar of entry to market is very high in games and commercial proprietary end-user software. You can't just go to Walmarkt and offer your game, you are crushed by Ubisoft, EA.
Everywhere, where quality or price is an issue Linux won. Servers, Phones, Super-Computer. But on the desktop the bar of entry to market is very high, because of the Windows mono-culture.
That Valve wants to bring Steam to Linux is a very big step for desktop Linux. It could be a game changer.
Well, I was talking about the system. If you don't need all the software, you can use Linux just fine. And if my listed issues a) and b) are solved, the commercial software will follow the games. I think there is nothing that a home user would miss, expect the games.
The problem is like with the egg and the chicken, no games and no commercial software means less people like to use Linux and less people like to use Linux means no major OEM support. And no major OEM support means less people like to use Linux. And less people like to use Linux, less commercial games and software is targeting Linux.
Here are the efforts of Samba and Wine very important. I think a log of commercial Windows only software you could run in Wine now.
The only problems Linux on Desktop have are: a) no big OEM support (Dell, Hp, Asus,) b) no commercial games. The only problems of hardware and adoption are the result of a) and b). If the big OEMs would support Linux on all their hardware and offer Linux on all their hardware as a pre-installed choice, almost all hardware problems would disappear. And if b) was solved and you could just go to Mediamarkt, Saturn or Bestbuy and buy some games, there would be no market anymore for Windows.
From the technological aspect Linux desktops are working very well. I'm using for 3 years Linux on my computers and laptops now without major problems. KDE is rock solid, so is Gnome2. Some people even like Gnome3.
There is even now a big market for problem b). Just see how well the Humble Game Package have done. Sure there wasn't as many as Windows users, but Linux users were on par with MacOS users.
Sorry, you think I approve to get rid of the protocol part? Maybe I was not clear, I just stated that Firefox already not showing the protocol part in the URL bar. I am not agree to that, the very first thing was I changed it to show http:/// again.
What was the official reason from ICANN for new TLDs again? The current scheme don't make sense anymore anyhow, a company have to register.net,.com,.de,.org anyway to secure it's trademark. For example Disney: all TLDs redirect to the domain go.com with is registered with Disney Enterprises Inc., except.gov. So the only clasification that survived is.gov, all the others are basically the same.
After the introduction of cTLDs, there was no purpose for the ICANN anymore, other then to ensure that each country gets one cTLD. With a cTLD each country can make their own DNS sub-tree, like.co.uk. So there would be no issue what-so-ever with the long discussed berlin domain: just make.berlin.de,.munich.de, etc. and if a US company wishes they can get also their own domain: pepse.us.
Mark my prediction: there will be a time in the near future where the meaning of a TLD is gone and you can choose your TLD freely. That will be the final money grab of ICANN.
Firefox already got rid of the protocol part of the URL (the http://./ So why we not just get rid of the TLD part? (It's already in firefox, for http://slashdot.com/ I can just enter "slashdot" in the URL bar).
Slashdot Mirror
But why are you choosing the CC license to show your work? The idea of the CC license and the Creative Commons is to encourage sharing as I quoted from their own site. If you are not intend to share your work, then just don't use any license. Then your work is protected by copyright and anyone can see but not touch it.
Yes I can compare the GPL and the BSD to the CC license. Because the situation is almost the same. You can compare a developer with an author of a book. He faces the same problems about compensation/sharing. But most of the free licenses in the software world do not have a field-of-use restriction like NC or ND, because that would be pointless.
You need to make up your mind, either you want to share your work or you do not want. If you are sharing then you are expecting that others using your work in derivatives (even such simple act as re-sizing is a derivative) or for commercial products. If you want a slice of the profit of the commercial work, then stop sharing your work. Just create a portfolio with an easy way to contact you.
The GPL and the BSD do not have a field-of-use restriction. For the user of code they are both equal free. The GPL is only applying if you want to distribute your code with GPL code. Works with a CC-ND/-NC license I can't even use in my company for my internal projects. I can't take CC-ND/-NC works and use it for my company internal web-site, for example. The GPL have no such restrictions.
You see, a CC-ND/-NC is just pointless. Just use no license and show your work in a portfolio. For any practical purpose it's just the same. Since they are pointless and contrary to their mission the Creative Commons should just drop them.
Copyrighted work is not your property. It is not tangible, not an item, not physical. We have copyright to support art, it is not a human right or a fundamental right. Property cannot be licensed, it can be sold or be lend.
I really can't stress that enough. I have had it with musicians and artist and authors who somehow think their copyrighted work is their property or whatever. Also nobody is stealing from you. It's called copyright infringement, not rape not murder and not stealing.
(eg distributing Wikipedia on offline media, in communities without internet access), what's wrong with contacting the author to ask for another license, to be granted (or not) on a case by case basis?
Can you think of any practical way to ask the thousand of contributors of Wikipedia for an exception?
In my mind, the request to drop NC/ND from CC is akin to asking the Open Source community to abolish GPL and use only BSD derived licences.
No it is not. It is akin to abolish any field-of-use terms in the GPL or the BSD (which they not have). NC and ND basically say: That work is free but only if you are not using it for Xxxx and Zzzz. Which means it is not free at all.
Quite a few comments from artists(?) that want to share their work but at the same time do not want to share their works. So what do you want, to share or not to share?
I'm a software developer and any ND or NC license is useless for me.
What is a derivation? If I take your art (like an icon) and re-size it or use a different color, ups can't do, because it is a derivation and ND don't allow it.
What is commercial? I develop a free open source tool and release it on my site, but the site have ads from Google, or it have other commercial applications there, too. Can't do that with a NC license.
I think I'm not the only one who just skips any ND or NC licenses. Is it what you want? Why to share your work in the first place?
If some big studio takes your work and makes a great game out of it, isn't it what you want as an artist? Better to have your name in the credits of Big Game Foo then to live in obscurity. And just maybe the Big Publisher will hire you for the next game.
I'm agree with the article author opinion. The ND and NC licenses are contrary to the goal of Creative Commons.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.
Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical
infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and
innovation.
It's like the GPL or the BSD would be useless with a fields-of-use clause. And the ND or NC is like a fields-of-use clause.
Do you know Torchwood? The very first episode was that the policewoman find Torchwood and gets in the headquarter. After she gets out Jack drugs her with an amnesia-pill and she runs home and write everything about Torchwood in her PC before she fells asleep and forgets everything. Before she almost felt asleep, Torchwood control her PC, the PC goes blank and everything she wrote is gone.
Free operating systems are a thread to every government, because such controls are impossible on a system that can be modified by the user. If you think it's scri-fiction: the TPM chips are around since at least 2006.
TPM is for "Trusted Platform Module". Of course the "Trusted" part is that a third party can trust your PC that you didn't change it in any undesired way.
Twisted? Groklaw commented that the jury had some inconsistencies in their judgement, like awarded damages for devices that did not infringe on the patents, also the jury did not calculated the sum right. Also Groklaw commented that the juror make a statement that they wanted to punish Samsung, contrary to the jury instructions.
"We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."
So I do not know what Groklaw "twisted". And of course you get +4 "insightful" or whatever.
Did you even read Groklaw? The quote is from CNET. Groklaw quoted CNET sufficient and made some conclusions.
That is so typical of content-"producers" or copyright-holders of the "We want to eat our cake and have it, too" syndrome. They want the extra traffic generated from the news-aggrigators and search engines, but what also a share of the money the news-aggrigators and search engines are generating by offering an useful service.
If they do not want that the news-aggrigators and search engines are using their content, they could just use the robot.txt file to opt-out of the indexing. But of course then they do not get the extra traffic. So they choose the next "logical" step: get the benefit from the news-aggrigators and search engines but complain loudly and weeping so they get an extra piece from the money.
The inter-trade organizations VDZ and BDZV could also just exclude Google or any other news-aggrigators they don't like and either a) create their own search engine/news-aggrigators or negotiate an agreement with Google.
But of course weeping and crying is not only more easily, but with a new law they can extend their rights indefinitely. Right now the discussion is about the Topics and automatically extracted excerpts that should be protected for one year. In 5 years they will push the law for a protection of 5 years, and sooner or later it will be "aligned" with German copyright law and Topics and automatically extracted excerpts are protected for 70 years.
from http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Google-Leistungsschutzrecht-beispielloser-Eingriff-ins-Netz-1671227.html
"Presseverlage im Online-Bereich mit anderen Werkmittlern gleichzustellen" und fordern die Bundesregierung auf, nicht "halbherzig" zu handeln.
Meaning that they want the same copyright protection for topics and excerpts that they have for the article itself, meaning 70 years after the death of the author.
How is Java not integrating well with Linux? Java is free like in libre, the reference implementation is under the GPLv2: OpenJDK.
Oracle is now shipping JavaFX with OpenJDK: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/openjfx/
So let me get his straight. Nokia first buys Trolltech for Qt, develops Meego, drops Symbian, drops Meego and Qt, try to sell Windows Phones, and is now rescued by JavaME?
If I were a shareholder I would be so pissed of right now.
I would think that the APIs are going back to Java 1.0. So when Google released Android the APIs Android is using are back from Java 1.0, so Oracle believed that Google infringe on their copyrights. For example, almost all in the package java.lang (java.lang.Object, String) are from Java 1.0.
I think they started developing Android way before a first release of a Android phone? From wikipedia:
> Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States in October 2003 [...] Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17, 2005, making Android Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Google.
> On 17 November 2006, Sun announced that it would be released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), thus making it free software. This happened in large part on 8 May 2007;
> J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)
So I think Palo Alto started development of Android in 2003, which at that time Java 1.4 was available.
I'm not a lawyer, but since APIs are only a dictionary of methods, classes, (i.e. of names or facts) they are not protected by the copyright law. Please go to http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=OracleGoogle to a better explanation.
Nice FUD, troll. Google was sued because they took the Java APIs and have not got a license from Oracle (that was before Java was released under the GPL with OpenJDK). At least that what Oracle was trying to convince the judge and the jury.
Long story short: Orcale was thinking that Google needed the TCK license (or other license) to use the Java APIs. Orcale was trying to convince the court that APIs are copyrightable (or more specific, the Structure, Sequence and Organization of APIs). We now all know the result of that venture, the SSO of APIs is not copyrightable and Google did not needed any license from Sun/Oracle.
Since Java is now at least 6 years under the GPL there are no issues anymore.
I think there is still a Field-Of-Use clause, but that only applies to the TCK license and is needed if and only if you want to market your Java implementation as "Java". That was the reason why Apache Harmony was not an official "Java".
It really saddens me that we have invented that machine that can make copies for effective 0 costs and distribute them around the world with light speed for effective 0 costs again, but we pass legislation to cripple the new technology as best as we can.
It's like we invent the warp engine and pass legislation to limit the maximum speed to 100km/sec to prevent the old space rockets to go out of business. Or we invent the replicator and pass legislation to throw out at least as much food as we produce out of energy to save farming.
We need finally wake up and stop destroying new emerging markets. No wonder entrepreneurs have trouble come up with business models in the internet. It's not that people don't pay or the piracy or any other straw-man. It's the simple fact that any business on the internet is dealing with information and we try our best to destroy information sharing via politics.
Put the copyright back in the way it was (with registration, only 14 years and 14 years extension) and then successive lower the copyright terms as the distribution becomes easier and easier.
How much lost revenue we have because of the draconian copyright laws? How many new jobs can we create in the new markets?
It's just bafflest me that anyone would actually want to use a Windows re-implementation. It's just like you choose the worst of both worlds, bad architecture, more bugs and all viruses.
Do you really want an architecture, that is not POSIX, not a Unix, with the drivers letter-soup, where you can't just open a file in multiple applications, that does not offer a package manager, with the worst file manager ever (the explorer).
Why not just use Linux and Wine, so you have the best of two worlds? POSIX, Unix architecture and Windows applications.
> they won't grow their user base at all.
So how do you know that? Me, for example, I don't buy any games retail anymore because there is no Linux support. I still have a Windows 7 copy that comes with my Dell Laptop sitting there using 50GB, but I'm too lazy to boot it up. The only games I buy I research first if they run on Linux via Wine.
If Valve ports it's Steam to Linux, my gaming expensive would increase 200% or more. Like it did with http://gog.com/ because most of there games runs well on Wine and have no DRM.
Governments have infinite money supply. Why people buy that "we are broke" nonsense. A government is not a commercial entity, it is not a firm. It cannot go broke. The worst thing for a Government can happen is you make a money reform and just delete all loans.
Also the USA can just increase the loan ceiling to $100T or whatever.
Sure the banks will all cry and whine, but in the end, what should they do? Invade the USA and take over?
No nation ever paid off their debts.
In an economic downturn the government should increase spending, because it is the only entity that have an infinite amount of money. It should spend that money on R&D, infrastructure and creating new markets.
I have no idea where the idiocy comes from to decrease government spending in an economic downturn. If the economy is down, the government needs to step in and revive the industry. That cannot be done with austerity programs.
Since the government is the biggest employee for example, austerity programs in an economic downturn leads to more unemployment, and thus weakens the economy more. Unemployed people tend to buy much less stuff.
But I do know where the idea comes from: from the banks, who's only interest is to get payed for the credits. They don't care if they put for example Greece for decades in recession, destroy social programs and widen the gap between the poor and the rich even more.
But the big advantage of servers are open standards. The whole internet is build on open standards. it's very easy to build a competing product, for say a HTTP server. Compare that with the difficulty to build a competing office suite (the whole OOXML or docx formats). Or a competing 3D graphics application. Or the mess with the CAD application formats.
If the real world would be like the end-user software world, you would have 5 different sockets for lamps, 10 different power plugs. And each TV would come with a custom proprietary power and cable plug.
Then there is funding. Nobody would fund you if you start a competing application for, for example, MS Office or Photoshop, with the goal to compete open in the market. OO.org, LibreOffice, GIMP goal is not to compete commercially, so they survive as a not-for-profit organization. Why do you think nobody just takes GIMP and sell it in Wallmarkt? Because nobody can compete with Adobe in the marketplace.
The end-user software market have not only a high bar of entry (only few big stores and few big OEMs) but it's also saturated. Adobe, Microsoft, Macaffee, Norton, Ubisoft, EA. Just go to your next Bestbuy or Wallmarkt, there are no small independent software firms.
The problem is that commercial open source end-user software is still taking baby steps. By that I mean platforms like Kickstarter are just starting to emerge. Also they have to compete with established end-user software like Adobe, Photoshop, etc.
So with software it's the same problem as with games. I don't see open source games starting to compete with commercial proprietary games. The bar of entry to market is very high in games and commercial proprietary end-user software. You can't just go to Walmarkt and offer your game, you are crushed by Ubisoft, EA.
Everywhere, where quality or price is an issue Linux won. Servers, Phones, Super-Computer. But on the desktop the bar of entry to market is very high, because of the Windows mono-culture.
That Valve wants to bring Steam to Linux is a very big step for desktop Linux. It could be a game changer.
Well, I was talking about the system. If you don't need all the software, you can use Linux just fine. And if my listed issues a) and b) are solved, the commercial software will follow the games. I think there is nothing that a home user would miss, expect the games.
The problem is like with the egg and the chicken, no games and no commercial software means less people like to use Linux and less people like to use Linux means no major OEM support. And no major OEM support means less people like to use Linux. And less people like to use Linux, less commercial games and software is targeting Linux.
Here are the efforts of Samba and Wine very important. I think a log of commercial Windows only software you could run in Wine now.
The only problems Linux on Desktop have are: a) no big OEM support (Dell, Hp, Asus,) b) no commercial games. The only problems of hardware and adoption are the result of a) and b). If the big OEMs would support Linux on all their hardware and offer Linux on all their hardware as a pre-installed choice, almost all hardware problems would disappear. And if b) was solved and you could just go to Mediamarkt, Saturn or Bestbuy and buy some games, there would be no market anymore for Windows.
From the technological aspect Linux desktops are working very well. I'm using for 3 years Linux on my computers and laptops now without major problems. KDE is rock solid, so is Gnome2. Some people even like Gnome3.
There is even now a big market for problem b). Just see how well the Humble Game Package have done. Sure there wasn't as many as Windows users, but Linux users were on par with MacOS users.
I don't think the costs for the patent protection is that high. I really hope that the Apple vs. Samsung case will show us the terms. See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120730152649225
Complain to the Firefox developers.
Sorry, you think I approve to get rid of the protocol part? Maybe I was not clear, I just stated that Firefox already not showing the protocol part in the URL bar. I am not agree to that, the very first thing was I changed it to show http:/// again.
What was the official reason from ICANN for new TLDs again? .net, .com, .de, .org anyway to secure it's trademark. For example Disney: all TLDs redirect to the domain go.com with is registered with Disney Enterprises Inc., except .gov. So the only clasification that survived is .gov, all the others are basically the same.
The current scheme don't make sense anymore anyhow, a company have to register
After the introduction of cTLDs, there was no purpose for the ICANN anymore, other then to ensure that each country gets one cTLD. With a cTLD each country can make their own DNS sub-tree, like .co.uk. So there would be no issue what-so-ever with the long discussed berlin domain: just make .berlin.de, .munich.de, etc. and if a US company wishes they can get also their own domain: pepse.us.
Mark my prediction: there will be a time in the near future where the meaning of a TLD is gone and you can choose your TLD freely. That will be the final money grab of ICANN.
Firefox already got rid of the protocol part of the URL (the http://./ So why we not just get rid of the TLD part? (It's already in firefox, for http://slashdot.com/ I can just enter "slashdot" in the URL bar).