Actually, the book "The Plot to Get Bill Gates" says that Microsoft was listed as the top giver to charities a few years back. The catch is that something like 80% of these donations where in the form of computer software such as MS Office, Windows, Encarta, etc. And when Microsoft recorded them they used the MSRP (retail price). So giving a copy of Office to a school means MS just donated 500$! No other company counts donations this way (they use a lower production cost). In fact, had MS calculated their donations the normal way, IBM would have beaten them for "most charitable". Just another way MS loves to delude us.
The thing is that those modems that you see today, well they aren't modems at all!
They don't contain a DSP or any other processor or any electronics that does _anything_ of interest. So, really the companies that make these modems are more _software_ companies than anything. Their modems are dumb cards with thus the necessary circuitry to get the signal into the computer. The drivers do all the work - a lot of code that isn't easy to write. And its likely different for each of the hundreds of kinds of modems. Now for every modem to be reverse engineered when they each follow their own propreitary standard is a _big_ job.
And futhermore they suck, because they eat up processor time.
Don't get me wrong... I too, love Linux to death. I do feel the pain though, when I am forced to rely on the whim of others - who are not writing this software for profit - to get things bugs fixed, hardware supported, and projects finished. Personally, I like Free Software, but do little to help its success.
This brings up a question I've been thinking about for a while (Slashdot Poll anyone?): How many people out there use free software extensively? How many of those who use it actually help support free software by writing GPLed code themselves, beta-testing (and reported the bugs!), or even answering questions on newsgroups for newbies? Everyone likes a free lunch, but I wonder how many out there actually dedicate their time to produce software (without getting paid). I know I for one would like to help out, but it is so hard to get motivated after a long workday of programming to code some more "just for fun".
I feel that free software is sort of like public TV. You can watch it without paying, but its more ethical if you do something to help out. The question is, how many of us "help out"?
In most industries, the market cap of a company is roughly equal to its yearly gross revenues - in your case 20k, or 10 times its actual profits. But the internet industry is often different and sometimes you'll see these numbers up an order of magnitude. Why? Because in certain areas it represents a much greater potential - ie. the first one to tap into a multi-billion/year market. But this is not the case for most "websites" and the internet companies that fall, fall hard! If you can't show that you'll make a billion dollars with your web site, well, than its worth _less_ than a business with real possesions - ie. real products. I'll give a little boost because it is internet though, and many people are stupid about that.
The question is did the creators of Cphack ever own their work to begin with?>
Think of it this way: What if I broke into a company stole some of their private files and posted them on the net under GPL? Does that give anyone the right to copy and redistribute them? Certainly not, they belong to the company still because I obtained them illegally
What if I de-assembled parts of Microsoft Word and translated into a my own more readable source code, posted it on the web and GPLed it? Can we now freely compile and distribute MS Word? Nope.
What the authors of Cphack did was similar. They broke the license agreement of a software package they obtained by reverse-engineering it. And they attempted to GPL a descriptions of the workings of this companies product. Maybe not as obviously illegal as the examples above, but certainly similar and maybe the same in a court of law.
So the question is whether the work was theirs and legit to beign with. Mattel might have screwed themselves already though -- by signing an agreement to transfer the rights to Cphack to themselves they are implying that the software belonged to the Cphack authors to begin with.
If not, you should have. You can just call up your credit card company and have them cancel payment on the purchase. When a customer does this, they win pretty much all the time. Some credit cards provide even more additional protection in the form of additional warranties and such.
By the way, good luck at finding an I-Opener at Circuit City. I searched their web pages and stores and they are no in stock _anywhere_, at least in Eastern MA. Probably Netpliance had them taken off the shelves so they could make their hardware changes.
First of all I am utterly confused as to what JonKatz is talking about. I sat through all 4+ hours of the Oscars last night and didn't notice a taste of anything that could even be remotely considered "interactive". Sure, maybe there was some behind the scenes looks and so one, but these can be boiled down to simply attempts to provide a bit of noveltly in a otherwise done-to-death event! Their not really trying to change the show - just breathe new life into so people don't get bored.
As for real "interactive" voting and TV, it won't work. Why? Because we already have it! The networks spend tons of time and money doing research on what people want to see and hear. They want to produce the shows that people want to watch because they make more money that way. There reason so much of what is on TV "sucks" in our opinion is because I suspect that many of us (slashdot) is in the minority in terms of what we like to see. Most of America likes silly sitcoms and cheezy movies.
Here's something intersting about Napster. Lets say I want to use it _legally_ to download music that has ben freely released as mp3s. Wow, gee, look at that. I can't! Napster scanned my hard drive I found the mp3's I legally made from my CD's (so I dont have to carry them around everywhere). Now its sharing them on the net so others can download. Wait, thats not legal! I don't want this. Napster does not make these easy to change.
There is a higher cost in producing music/software/films than you think. For music there is the cost of promoting the band through music video's, flooding radio stations with CDs, etc. And then there is the cost of physically mass-producing CDs (cheap per-CD, but a high startup cost). Films today are costing more and more money. Even crappy films like "Mission to Mars" cost 100 million dollars due to expense special effects which almost seem to be a prerequisite to a successful movie these days. And computer games take movie-sized crews to churn out a succesful game (long gone are text-adventures). Free software may be the single exception to this. But the internet doesn't make software cheaper, it just makes it easier to distribute Now, I'm not saying you can't produce a good low budget film/game/CD but it will always be the alternative method -- I'm afraid big media is here to stay
It is sad and unfortunate that artists are often forced into unfair contracts by record companies. But without those companies is unlikely that these artists would ever become successful on their own. It is possible though - through lots of touring, constant self-promotion, and help from indy record labels. But its difficult and many up-and-coming would much rather sign with a large label first.
There are many large record companies out there so thus it is not correct to say there is a monopoly. Artists have the freedom to choose which company the wish to sign with. It is a fact of the industry though, that the artist ends up with so little of the profits - it is quite a risk and investment to produce and promote a new, unknown musician. This is called "capitalism" and I, for one as many Americans stand by it.
Finally, there are alternative that are open to mucisian - such as selling CDs online pr releasing their music through mp3.com. But honestly, how many people out actually download and listen to unknown bands through services such as mp3.com?
I don't think that the idea of having an mp3 player that would charge per listen would work First of all, the mp3 format as it stands now would not work. You'd have to create a new format and convince people to use that. So there still would be the problem of pirated mp3s. Secondly, the new format and player would very likely be hacked so you wouldn't have to pay and we'd be back to square one. Look what happened with the players that can save RealAudio streams to a disk.
Hayao Miyazaki's famous anime film Kaze no Tani Nausicaa (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) explains pretty clearly what happens when "nature" cleans up pollution! You get deadly spores that spew all kinds of lung-rotting miasma into the air! And you get giant insects that kill to protect their fungal homes.
Simply stated: PLANTS + POLLUTION = BAD NEWS You emd up with turbo-charged plants that fight back! Some Ecotopia that is!
Slashdot Mirror
I "asked jeeves" if I'll ever get first post.
He just replied... "Not as long as Natalie Portman has hot grits in her pants."
Actually, the book "The Plot to Get Bill Gates" says that Microsoft was listed as the top giver to charities a few years back.
The catch is that something like 80% of these donations where in the form of computer software such as MS Office, Windows, Encarta, etc. And when Microsoft recorded them they used the MSRP (retail price). So giving a copy of Office to a school means MS just donated 500$! No other company counts donations this way (they use a lower production cost). In fact, had MS calculated their donations the normal way, IBM would have beaten them for "most charitable".
Just another way MS loves to delude us.
The thing is that those modems that you see today,
well they aren't modems at all!
They don't contain a DSP or any other processor or any electronics that does _anything_ of interest.
So, really the companies that make these modems are more _software_ companies than anything.
Their modems are dumb cards with thus the necessary circuitry to get the signal into the computer.
The drivers do all the work - a lot of code that isn't easy to write.
And its likely different for each of the hundreds of kinds of modems. Now for every modem to be reverse engineered
when they each follow their own propreitary standard is a _big_ job.
And futhermore they suck, because they eat up processor time.
Don't get me wrong... I too, love Linux to death. I do feel the pain though, when I am forced to rely on the whim of others - who are not writing this software for profit - to get things bugs fixed, hardware supported, and projects finished. Personally, I like Free Software, but do little to help its success.
This brings up a question I've been thinking about for a while (Slashdot Poll anyone?):
How many people out there use free software extensively? How many of those who use it actually help support free software by writing GPLed code themselves, beta-testing (and reported the bugs!), or even answering questions on newsgroups for newbies? Everyone likes a free lunch, but I wonder how many out there actually dedicate their time
to produce software (without getting paid).
I know I for one would like to help out, but it is so hard to get motivated after a long workday of programming to code some more "just for fun".
I feel that free software is sort of like public TV. You can watch it without paying, but its more ethical if you do something to help out. The question is, how many of us "help out"?
In most industries, the market cap of a company is roughly equal to its yearly gross revenues -
in your case 20k, or 10 times its actual profits.
But the internet industry is often different and sometimes you'll see these numbers up an order of magnitude.
Why?
Because in certain areas it represents a much greater potential - ie. the first one to tap into a multi-billion/year market.
But this is not the case for most "websites" and the internet companies that fall, fall hard! If you can't show that you'll make a billion
dollars with your web site, well, than its worth _less_ than a business with real possesions - ie. real products.
I'll give a little boost because it is internet though, and many people are stupid about that.
How about 50k?
The question is did the creators of Cphack ever own their work to begin with?>
Think of it this way: What if I broke into a company stole some of their private files and
posted them on the net under GPL?
Does that give anyone the right to copy and redistribute them?
Certainly not, they belong to the company still because I obtained them illegally
What if I de-assembled parts of Microsoft Word and translated into a my own more readable source code,
posted it on the web and GPLed it? Can we now freely compile and distribute MS Word? Nope.
What the authors of Cphack did was similar. They broke the license agreement of a software package they obtained by reverse-engineering it.
And they attempted to GPL a descriptions of the workings of this companies product.
Maybe not as obviously illegal as the examples above, but certainly similar and maybe the same in a court of law.
So the question is whether the work was theirs and legit to beign with.
Mattel might have screwed themselves already though -- by signing an agreement to transfer the rights to Cphack to themselves they are implying
that the software belonged to the Cphack authors to begin with.
Did you purchase it with a credit card?
If not, you should have. You can just call up your credit card company and have them cancel payment on the purchase.
When a customer does this, they win pretty much all the time.
Some credit cards provide even more additional protection in the form of additional warranties and such.
By the way, good luck at finding an I-Opener at Circuit City.
I searched their web pages and stores and they are no in stock
_anywhere_, at least in Eastern MA. Probably Netpliance had them taken
off the shelves so they could make their hardware changes.
First of all I am utterly confused as to what JonKatz is talking about.
I sat through all 4+ hours of the Oscars last night and didn't notice a taste of anything that could even be remotely considered "interactive".
Sure, maybe there was some behind the scenes looks and so one, but these can be boiled down to simply attempts to provide a bit
of noveltly in a otherwise done-to-death event! Their not really trying to change the show - just breathe new life into so people don't get bored.
As for real "interactive" voting and TV, it won't work. Why? Because we already have it! The networks spend tons of time and money
doing research on what people want to see and hear. They want to produce the shows that people want to watch because they make more money that way.
There reason so much of what is on TV "sucks" in our opinion is because I suspect that many of us (slashdot)
is in the minority in terms of what we like to see. Most of America likes silly sitcoms and cheezy movies.
Here's something intersting about Napster. Lets say I want to use it _legally_ to download music that has ben freely released as mp3s.
Wow, gee, look at that. I can't! Napster scanned my hard drive I found the mp3's I legally made from my CD's (so I dont have to carry them around everywhere). Now its sharing them on the net so others can download. Wait, thats not legal! I don't want this. Napster does not make these easy to change.
There is a higher cost in producing music/software/films than you think.
For music there is the cost of promoting the band through music video's, flooding radio stations with CDs, etc. And then there is the cost of physically mass-producing CDs (cheap per-CD, but a high startup cost).
Films today are costing more and more money. Even crappy films like "Mission to Mars" cost 100 million dollars due to expense special effects which almost seem to be a prerequisite to a successful movie these days.
And computer games take movie-sized crews to churn out a succesful game (long gone are text-adventures). Free software may be the single exception to this. But the internet doesn't make software cheaper, it just makes it easier to distribute
Now, I'm not saying you can't produce a good low budget film/game/CD but it will always be the alternative method -- I'm afraid big media is here to stay
It is sad and unfortunate that artists are often forced into unfair contracts by record companies. But without those companies is unlikely that these artists would ever become successful on their own. It is possible though - through lots of touring, constant self-promotion, and help from indy record labels. But its difficult and many up-and-coming would much rather sign with a large label first.
There are many large record companies out there so thus it is not correct to say there is a monopoly. Artists have the freedom to choose which company the wish to sign with. It is a fact of the industry though, that the artist ends up with so little of the profits - it is quite a risk and investment to produce and promote a new, unknown musician. This is called "capitalism" and I, for one as many Americans stand by it.
Finally, there are alternative that are open to mucisian - such as selling CDs online pr releasing their music through mp3.com. But honestly, how many people out actually download and listen to unknown bands through services such as mp3.com?
I don't think that the idea of having an mp3 player that would charge per listen would work
First of all, the mp3 format as it stands now would not work.
You'd have to create a new format and convince people to use that. So there still would be the problem of pirated mp3s.
Secondly, the new format and player would very likely be hacked so you wouldn't have to pay and we'd be back to square one.
Look what happened with the players that can save RealAudio streams to a disk.
Hayao Miyazaki's famous anime film Kaze no Tani Nausicaa (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) explains
pretty clearly what happens when "nature" cleans up pollution!
You get deadly spores that spew all kinds of lung-rotting miasma into the air!
And you get giant insects that kill to protect their fungal homes.
Simply stated: PLANTS + POLLUTION = BAD NEWS
You emd up with turbo-charged plants that fight back!
Some Ecotopia that is!