It's talking about straight copying of code (with minor changes to fool a cursory examination).
If we're talking about code that solves a novel problem and does it in a new way, we're also talking about "minor changes" that MAKE IT WORK! I don't fear the programmers who copy others' work. I fear the ones who think they have to write every piece of code they use themselves. (wheel meet reinvention, maintainer meet torture)
Now, I expect a professor aught to be able to tell the difference between students doing what was assigned and those not doing it. But I wouldn't expect their code to be able to make such a distinction un-aided. Regardless, homework policing is beyond what a university professor should have to do. Do the work or don't, it should be the tests and unique projects that decide your merit. Perhaps professors should be working on getting to the unique stuff sooner if "weeding" is a problem. Or, perhaps we should have grad students teach smaller CS intro classes, instead of professors teaching huge ones...
All the consumers I know merely click "next" on the license agreement without reading it in the first place. They then proceed to break the agreement anytime it's convenient for them.
The first time a consumer goes to jail over breaking a software license, I think we'll see some d*#$ given to the idea. Consumers don't care what's in those agreements because they're not valid and never have been.
First, DVD's are not "easy" to copy. It takes a lot of bandwidth to truly distribute a DVD (even in divx format) online. So, small simple things are easy to copy, larger more complex things aren't... much like it's always been in the real world.
Of course with paper books we have a barrier of entry for getting the paper format into ASCII format, but ASCII is *really* easy to copy. (Actually I could just scan a book and send it to a friend...)
The fact it's easier to copy now than it ever has been in the past just makes copyright all the harder to enforce. Which makes it all the more important to decide if the costs of copyright outweigh the benefits. And (more importantly) which costs we can afford and which benefits are worthwhile.
If you think warez sucks for the producer, just think how much 80 year copyright terms suck for the consumer.
I'd love to see the look on Bill Gates face if he had to sell every copy of Windows for the same price, and couldn't control how hardware and software were sold together, or more importantly had no control in how distribution would actually proceed.
Hmm... Speaking as someone who had DSL before Northpoint went belly up and who now lives in an appartment, in the middle of the city, 3.01 cable miles away from a USWorst office, I think it's availability. If your mom had broadband in the past, she wouldn't go back. (you quit watching the news on TV, shopping changes, you don't read the newspaper anymore, drivers get real easy to download... etc)
Next house I buy I'll be considering whether it has broadband before I check for running water...
When Covad was still going strong, I nearly signed up to pay $80/mo for 128k access. I just couldn't conscience it after having real 200k SDSL for $50.
WINE had been getting along pretty well. Let's hope MS doesn't return to the old "The Job's not through 'til it doesn't run on OS/2!" days.
Have you taken a close look at Windows XP? From what I can tell it's arguable whether Windows XP support for win98 devices and programs is better or worse than say Mandrake 8.1's support for same. Windows 98 is where it's at for Joe Sixpack. Win2k isn't bad, but Microsoft already seems sorry they released that particular OS, and no home user is going to shell out for it. Every time they break something in WINE, how much do they hurt windows 98 compatibility?
In the OS/2 days the market was growing rapidly, today there's indication the Desktop market has plateaued.
in a few years, when all of the hardware we're using today is obsolete and in a landfill
Know your audience... my current computer won't be in a landfill for at least 10 years, much longer if this DRM crap keeps up. In the future, 850Mhz may seem slow, but it'll serve my purposes if it's the only thing running linux. As for law, I wouldn't recommend making replacement parts illegal... Or making open computers illegal... I(and a few million friends) might get touchy about that...
The problem is, in one sense, it seems totally fair that Microsoft should be able to create a "DRM" controlled OS, and that people who don't mind using such an OS should be able to buy and use it along with all the products that are available on it.
In another sense it seems just as fair that other people create free OS's and do what they like with them (like Linux). These "free" OS's would tend to create emulators and "compatability layers" for other OS's like Microsoft's. (example: Wine et al)
Now, what happens when Linux users start porting DRM protected apps from MS's "safe" OS to Linux and Wine, and some (or a lot) of those users also start distributing these products free and running them on Wine (or something similar) without paying for them or adhering to any other rules imposed.
Some would argue, that this is all perfectly fair, and part of the free market system. MS is free to create DRM technology and other coders to reverse engineer it (and in some cases) not pay for the content.
Others would argue(at least we hackers fear) that this is completely unfair, and that Linux should not even exist because of it's ability to "hack" (in this case hack meaning to take apart and understand) other systems. The fact remains, if freedom of thought, freedom to create is allowed, then DRM can never stand. This has been established again and again by cryptographers.
So, the dilemma remains. Do we give up copyright laws? Or do we give up our personal freedoms?
To my young naive mind, it appears that digital copyright has never worked, at least not in a strict sense. After all, I downloaded my first "cracked" game when I was 6 years old. (for an Apple IIe no less) It was the same year I got my first computer. I also fear the 80's and 90's showed me nothing better. Of course this is the same period in which the tech sector became a major force, and Bill Gates made 30 billion dollars... Some of this may have been due to a catch up game going on between producers and consumers, but I haven't seen signs of it letting up.
If there was one fault with this time period it was a lack of actual copyright enforcement. My friends who did drugs had run-ins with the cops, but I never once received a reprimand for downloading games.
So, why extend copyright? Do we need to pass more laws for everyone and his dog to disobey? I didn't see whole business sectors failing(that weren't obsolete) or massive down turns in the economy. So if copyright holders would ask for more than mere enforcement of the classical copyright law, I think the burden of proof lies with them to show that personal freedoms will not be infringed under such a system, and that they will actually have some effect on the "piracy problem".
All I see the new copyright laws doing today is stopping competition and stopping creativity. They certainly don't seem to have affected the warez channels.
Nothing like playing goalie and getting your face pounded again and again and again. Gotta get back in to that sport...
Oh yeah, and don't forget unlike computer games, real life has very few glitches, and no worries about ping.
Re:Barriers to Knowledge, and Business Models
on
The Future of Ideas
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· Score: 1
any change to support a commons must be based on a viable business model.
The very problem is that the change is not *to* supporting an intellectual commons, the change is *from* supporting an intellectual commons. Laws like the Sunny Bono act et al extend copyright terms to works that came before the laws were even conceived and extend those terms beyond anything even remotely reasonable. This essentially invalidates the original contract between author's and the government to release the works after a fixed period. (When Steamboat Willie enters the public domain I'll begin to feel some reasonableness has returned to copyright law)
The fact we are moving away from commons (and freedom) instead contemplating moving towards them should put the burden on businesses and copyright holders to show that viable business models CANNOT BE SUSTAINED without stricter copyright laws. (Yes, I realize the arguemnt for stronger laws comes from enforcement ie: stop piracy, but this would be better accomplished with more policing and some kind of punishment for those caught actually infringing! Neither of which we currently have.)
What's been established so far is that with copyright law circa 1985 strong monopolies and billion dollar companies could be created quite easily. I believe we've also shown that the same is much more difficult using open source, or absolutely no copyright law.
What I haven't seen is evidence that stronger copyright than what was available in 1985 will create bigger profits, or that bigger profits are even necessary. (I thought the MS antitrust case was all about too vigirous growth and stifling of competition through corporate and copyright law... This would seem to be an arguement in favor of weaker intellectual property laws. )
What would it have cost to do the same thing if you'd started 10 years earlier? Personally I'm in awe of the fact that so much can be done with so little today. I only hope this new meduim isn't choked off by "status quo" laws like the DMCA.
As for making money... 82,500 visitors a year (226/day) for 4 years. I'd put some banners up. Attempting to avoid banners entirely really will keep you from making money. Every successful(financially) site I've ever seen uses banners of one form or another(yes I consider google adwords, and many other things, to be banners). For those that *hate* banners you could have a $ubscription $ervice. My favorite comic does just this.
226 visitors a day is a fair number, and it should be enough to offset your $5000/year, but it certainly isn't enough to make a living off of. I'd say for each "devoted"(ie: daily) user expect no more than $50/year in earnings. 226*$50 = $11,300/year. That should be the most you could reasonably expect to earn off the traffic you currently have. (assuming constant traffic all 4 years) That's when you use banners and all other tools at your disposal. Without them it's obviously much less.
Honestly, I have to admit, if banners are done correctly I actually *like* them. (correctly means small targeted and no flashing!)
Professor Andrew Appel of Princeton University thought so. OF course, I wouldn't expect you to accept an appeal to authority without some background arguement.
To people who code for the shear joy of it, it's plainy obvious that source code = free speech. We're just not always gifted at conveying that idea. (It has something to do with "inalienable rights" ie: the kind you can never take away so shouldn't try...)
Problem is. You look at the stock market and the whole US economy and you'll find that the small cap and med cap companies, (small cap in particular) make up a much larger portion than the big cap ones. (small cap is what under 500 employees?)
So, if the government looks at Dmitry, they should be looking at all the other *little* guys that are also likely to get stepped on. It just *seems* more impressive when you can talk to one man that controls a 300 billion dollar corp instead of 3,000 men and women who collectively control a lot more. I suppose another problem is it's tough to get all 3,000 little guys going the same direction. So, if you're a large corp or government interest, you're much safer if you can pick them apart and eliminate them one at a time.
Draconian laws that can be enforced as "night and day" depending on a judge's whim are a great start in this direction.
This whole "surface scan" problem extends to much of politics (and modern thought on the subject). It *seems* like a good idea to have the government help out and do things for people, until you look closer and realize that everytime the government *does* something, they're doing it with money pulled out of the public pocket (call it stealing or call it protectionism it's at least as bad as pirating music). So, in general, it's a bad deal for the government to do anything.
Why would a corporate network need routeable IP addresses?
It would seem a small block of static IP's (some pooled some not) for machines needing to be accesible from the outside world is all that should be necessary. In fact, externally routeable IP's just let the rest of the world know what you're running, so you'd think from a security standpoint unrouteable(at least externally) IP's for most machines would work out pretty well.
Of course, IPv6 will release many of the pressures to subnet, if it ever comes about, but even with unlimited address space there are good reasons to have non-routeable subnets.
The short version: Only servers need externally routeable IP's, and those can even share at times.
Re:Time to stop the madness
on
DMCA 2, Freedom 0
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Well, I just about agree with you.
Only problem is, I always thought libertarians were rational minarchists(which is what I am). This means only the government that's necessary. I'd say if there's a rampant piracy problem, something to stop it is certainly necessary. You can't pass a law that says no jaywalking then have cops look the other way and expect people to follow it.
The problem is the DMCA is tantamount to making sidewalks illegal instead of policing for jaywalkers. But by your arguement, if we'd all quit jaywalking we could have sidewalks again. Personnally I feel I deserve sidewalks no matter how they are abused. It's up to the government to enforce the jaywalking(and copyright) rule if they think it's important enough to be worth the trouble. Anything less (like the DMCA) disrespects those of us who follow the rules.
It's important to question the concept of copyright, because once you do, you realize it's wonderful as a delicate balance. Anything else is... less wonderful.
This whole line of thought gets me thinking of high school and the childish adults who always asked us to "act grown up". If I'd acted like an adult, I would have walked out of the place and never come back long before graduation.
As for cable and satellite video feeds... One more arguement against copyright. They couldn't exist without it!
The government doesn't try to ban something unless there's a problem.
I bet you also think that because it's THE LAW, you should follow it!! Oh and here's another one: Since we see slow changes, they must be the explanation for everything!
As for gun control. How many people were robbed/raped/murdered/oppressed last year because they *didn't* have one? The amendment comes second because it was meant to protect the one just before it...
Guess UDP would then be illegal? Or what, we going to charge per datagram here? All someone has to do is hit me with ping to charge 50/50 on both sides...
Packet switching is not circuit switching, and we have a much better internet for it.
First, lets be honest with ourselves. Bandwidth is not the issue. I've seen whole networks that consume less bandwidth than one or two "warez d00dz". Yet the cable company doesn't complain about them. In fact they'd love to sell cable to whatever "warez d00dz" they can find. If bandwidth really were the issue, metering it would be a simple matter.
So what is the issue? My guess is that it has to do with this fact: Everytime I share my internet connection there's one less customer for the cable modem service. Does the cable company have the right to restrict what I do with the "bandwidth" they sell me? Do I have the right to abuse this "service" that they are offering by sharing it?
Personally I think the idea of a "controlled service" is absurd, it just never works in the real world, at least not by itself. This is because it's very easy to put a clause in a license agreement, but much more difficult to get Jane Consumer to follow it. Perhaps because she didn't read it. Perhaps because she's a good rationalizer. Or perhaps she's a lawyer and didn't recall any notarized signatures when she bought the service.
There are nefarious forces at work here. Lots of tools to use = good, path modifications = bad. gobs of files in bin = bad.
I think many OSS projects have too great a footprint in the bin directory. When a big project runs it should run in it's own directory, because modularity is *very* important. You think Linux has lots of stuff now just wait 5 years!
Of course, there's one problem with modularization how do you find the "right" version of the project? It's simple, you put a link or small bash script into bin that has the job of invoking the "big project" and doing it in the proper place. And it should only be 1 file per project. You heard me right 1 file! If you can't figure this out you shouldn't be writing big projects in the first place.
If you don't think 1 command can do any amount of processing necessary, you haven't used emacs(shudder) lately.
Here's an example:
I don't care how many files are in X11, but I'd like to have only 1 command to deal with it. In an ideal world you'd type in x11 -start or x11 -configure or x11 -do_my_laundry and one file and only one command would do absolutely everything. Actually... better yet, it should be x -configure or x -do_my_laundry with x11 also available, and just happening to be the default version invoked. (unless of course you were running some other type of x or something...)
Anything else is just a pain to use.
All that said, if you've got 2000 commands in your bin directory and each one represents a whole project with valid, original and useful functionality that you commonly use. All I've got to say is ye haw! (If only it were true...)
If you don't consider your projects worthwhile enough to take the time to list them on sourceforge and freshmeat (freshmeat in particular IMHO) then how can you expect anyone else to care that much about them? This TortoiseCVS thing sounds like a great idea, and probably would have been picked up if it was on freshmeat. Maybe you just need a big shove in the listing direction...
So here's your invition: List those puppies on freshmeat! Do it today!
Don't just expect Slashdot to do your legwork for ya...
Um... I'm trying to figure out just what you're saying...
Here we've got a CVS client for windows integrated with the windows explorer that somebody created because they thought WinCvs "wasn't good enough". Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds darned useful to me since I use CVS every day at work and get sick of using both explorer and WinCvs to do everything. Perhaps you know of some better projects which make this thing redundant? I sure don't.
Next, you seem to be implying that there are particular "more worthy" projects people should be working on. You supply a link to freenet and to mind.sourceforge.net whatever that is. Two pie in the sky projects that already have more developers then they'd ever warrant and likely will never amount to a hill of beans.
If you think Open Source is "public service" then you have fun with your "worthy" projects. Me, I'll be spending my time working on the tools that make my life easier. (and yes Margaret that includes whole operating systems for my extended family to use that I can actually get to work for them) Why will I give these tools away? So the next guy can work on something *more* useful, and maybe, just maybe, make my life easier in return.
hacker ethic n.
1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing open-source code and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible.
(taken from the Jargon File)
"Almost the same" and "leveraging your knowledge" are nearly useless in this industry. Any programmer that can't pick up a brand new language in under 2 weeks needs a different job title(yes, mastery and "pick up" are different, but so are Java and C#!). The least Microsoft could have done when they decided to clone Java would have been to make things "code compatible".
By making them "nearly" identical, they just create an appearance of similarity that fools only those so described. Of course, to actually be fully compatible they'd have to provide a library equivalent to what Java provides. In this, they aren't even close, and don't stand a chance for several years, partly because Sun has worked so hard on this, partly because of all the third party projects in Java.
The only thing.NET brings to the table that Java doesn't is "tight OS integration". Of course, I'm not even sure what that means at times... Your VM crashing is more likely to bring down your whole system? Your VM load time will get bundled into your boot time? Perhaps your windows might load a little faster? If you think this is desirable(maybe) and more important than good competitive library support(doubtful) *and* matters more than competitive VM support, by all means use.NET.
But lets ignore design issues and look at the track records so far..NET aside from being an abomination to any naming convention created is not even "code compatible" with their own products. All those poor sods who trusted their business to VB5 or VB6 a while back will have to rewrite lines and lines of code to even be able to run on this "new and improved" platform in their "language of choice": VB.NET. I mean come on, If I have to rewrite my code to get it to run, we are not talking the same language here! VB.NET is not VB7, it's.NET with a VB "skin". By the same token, C# is not a Java competitor, or an upgrade to C++, but just another skin for.NET.
Look at Sun's track record by comparison. Sure, they haven't made Java a "standard" and they've pushed at times against the community, but when the community started pushing back, by and large they listened. You can take Java 1.1 code and run it on a 1.3 VM, or even a 1.4 VM with no compatibility problems whatsoever.
Is.NET worth using? Maybe, but making it incompatible with all existing languages doesn't make it appeal to this developer. And quite frankly the idea that.NET will be the interface or "gatekeeper" to all future Windows components (it's the win32 of tomorrow) gets me thinking of alternatives.
Sun's goal may be to rule the world, but Microsoft's seems to be, "Make the developer's life a miserable and slow to product existence."
Instead they should reform copyright. I don't recall the constitution saying "To promote large megaconglomerates and the stomping of individual thought and freedom, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
Of course, then all those nice megaconglomerates would fall apart and we'd have a free market again. Chaos!
Well... I can sympathize with both sides to some degree...
But speaking as a programmer who regularly deploys code on a 5 9's system(or was that 9 5's), I wonder that you've never had to get a fix in "ten minutes ago" when a major problem comes up.
There are times when skill, foresight and knowledge come together to fix things no amount of testing will ever uncover.
In this particular case, I'd say the current bug(browser security hole) outweighs any possible "theoretical" bugs that might arise. If I were the manager for this part of IE at Microsoft, I'd get my best guy on a kludge, then get the "url" people together to explain what the heck they were thinking when they wrote that code. It would be fixed (fully) in the next minor revision. If there were any further exploits found in that revision having to do with urls and/or cookies, there would be jobs lost.
When people start telling me what they can't do because of quality control, I start adding to my "lame excuses to watch out for" list.
it doesn't matter, because they are free to do what they want.
So, if the CD blows up when I open the box, or I contract Anthrax from white powder in the case, that's all part of them being free to "do what they want"?
Gee, and I thought that "compact disc" label on my cd-drive, and on the CD's I buy actually meant something. Silly me.
Slashdot Mirror
If we're talking about code that solves a novel problem and does it in a new way, we're also talking about "minor changes" that MAKE IT WORK! I don't fear the programmers who copy others' work. I fear the ones who think they have to write every piece of code they use themselves. (wheel meet reinvention, maintainer meet torture)
Now, I expect a professor aught to be able to tell the difference between students doing what was assigned and those not doing it. But I wouldn't expect their code to be able to make such a distinction un-aided. Regardless, homework policing is beyond what a university professor should have to do. Do the work or don't, it should be the tests and unique projects that decide your merit. Perhaps professors should be working on getting to the unique stuff sooner if "weeding" is a problem. Or, perhaps we should have grad students teach smaller CS intro classes, instead of professors teaching huge ones...
All the consumers I know merely click "next" on the license agreement without reading it in the first place. They then proceed to break the agreement anytime it's convenient for them.
The first time a consumer goes to jail over breaking a software license, I think we'll see some d*#$ given to the idea. Consumers don't care what's in those agreements because they're not valid and never have been.
First, DVD's are not "easy" to copy. It takes a lot of bandwidth to truly distribute a DVD (even in divx format) online. So, small simple things are easy to copy, larger more complex things aren't... much like it's always been in the real world.
Of course with paper books we have a barrier of entry for getting the paper format into ASCII format, but ASCII is *really* easy to copy. (Actually I could just scan a book and send it to a friend...)
The fact it's easier to copy now than it ever has been in the past just makes copyright all the harder to enforce. Which makes it all the more important to decide if the costs of copyright outweigh the benefits. And (more importantly) which costs we can afford and which benefits are worthwhile.
If you think warez sucks for the producer, just think how much 80 year copyright terms suck for the consumer.
I'd love to see the look on Bill Gates face if he had to sell every copy of Windows for the same price, and couldn't control how hardware and software were sold together, or more importantly had no control in how distribution would actually proceed.
Hmm... Speaking as someone who had DSL before Northpoint went belly up and who now lives in an appartment, in the middle of the city, 3.01 cable miles away from a USWorst office, I think it's availability. If your mom had broadband in the past, she wouldn't go back. (you quit watching the news on TV, shopping changes, you don't read the newspaper anymore, drivers get real easy to download... etc)
Next house I buy I'll be considering whether it has broadband before I check for running water...
When Covad was still going strong, I nearly signed up to pay $80/mo for 128k access. I just couldn't conscience it after having real 200k SDSL for $50.
Have you taken a close look at Windows XP? From what I can tell it's arguable whether Windows XP support for win98 devices and programs is better or worse than say Mandrake 8.1's support for same. Windows 98 is where it's at for Joe Sixpack. Win2k isn't bad, but Microsoft already seems sorry they released that particular OS, and no home user is going to shell out for it. Every time they break something in WINE, how much do they hurt windows 98 compatibility?
In the OS/2 days the market was growing rapidly, today there's indication the Desktop market has plateaued.
Know your audience... my current computer won't be in a landfill for at least 10 years, much longer if this DRM crap keeps up. In the future, 850Mhz may seem slow, but it'll serve my purposes if it's the only thing running linux. As for law, I wouldn't recommend making replacement parts illegal... Or making open computers illegal... I(and a few million friends) might get touchy about that...
The problem is, in one sense, it seems totally fair that Microsoft should be able to create a "DRM" controlled OS, and that people who don't mind using such an OS should be able to buy and use it along with all the products that are available on it.
In another sense it seems just as fair that other people create free OS's and do what they like with them (like Linux). These "free" OS's would tend to create emulators and "compatability layers" for other OS's like Microsoft's. (example: Wine et al)
Now, what happens when Linux users start porting DRM protected apps from MS's "safe" OS to Linux and Wine, and some (or a lot) of those users also start distributing these products free and running them on Wine (or something similar) without paying for them or adhering to any other rules imposed.
Some would argue, that this is all perfectly fair, and part of the free market system. MS is free to create DRM technology and other coders to reverse engineer it (and in some cases) not pay for the content.
Others would argue(at least we hackers fear) that this is completely unfair, and that Linux should not even exist because of it's ability to "hack" (in this case hack meaning to take apart and understand) other systems. The fact remains, if freedom of thought, freedom to create is allowed, then DRM can never stand. This has been established again and again by cryptographers.
So, the dilemma remains. Do we give up copyright laws? Or do we give up our personal freedoms?
To my young naive mind, it appears that digital copyright has never worked, at least not in a strict sense. After all, I downloaded my first "cracked" game when I was 6 years old. (for an Apple IIe no less) It was the same year I got my first computer. I also fear the 80's and 90's showed me nothing better. Of course this is the same period in which the tech sector became a major force, and Bill Gates made 30 billion dollars... Some of this may have been due to a catch up game going on between producers and consumers, but I haven't seen signs of it letting up.
If there was one fault with this time period it was a lack of actual copyright enforcement. My friends who did drugs had run-ins with the cops, but I never once received a reprimand for downloading games.
So, why extend copyright? Do we need to pass more laws for everyone and his dog to disobey? I didn't see whole business sectors failing(that weren't obsolete) or massive down turns in the economy. So if copyright holders would ask for more than mere enforcement of the classical copyright law, I think the burden of proof lies with them to show that personal freedoms will not be infringed under such a system, and that they will actually have some effect on the "piracy problem".
All I see the new copyright laws doing today is stopping competition and stopping creativity. They certainly don't seem to have affected the warez channels.
but indoor soccor is much better!
Nothing like playing goalie and getting your face pounded again and again and again. Gotta get back in to that sport...
Oh yeah, and don't forget unlike computer games, real life has very few glitches, and no worries about ping.
The very problem is that the change is not *to* supporting an intellectual commons, the change is *from* supporting an intellectual commons. Laws like the Sunny Bono act et al extend copyright terms to works that came before the laws were even conceived and extend those terms beyond anything even remotely reasonable. This essentially invalidates the original contract between author's and the government to release the works after a fixed period. (When Steamboat Willie enters the public domain I'll begin to feel some reasonableness has returned to copyright law)
The fact we are moving away from commons (and freedom) instead contemplating moving towards them should put the burden on businesses and copyright holders to show that viable business models CANNOT BE SUSTAINED without stricter copyright laws. (Yes, I realize the arguemnt for stronger laws comes from enforcement ie: stop piracy, but this would be better accomplished with more policing and some kind of punishment for those caught actually infringing! Neither of which we currently have.)
What's been established so far is that with copyright law circa 1985 strong monopolies and billion dollar companies could be created quite easily. I believe we've also shown that the same is much more difficult using open source, or absolutely no copyright law.
What I haven't seen is evidence that stronger copyright than what was available in 1985 will create bigger profits, or that bigger profits are even necessary. (I thought the MS antitrust case was all about too vigirous growth and stifling of competition through corporate and copyright law... This would seem to be an arguement in favor of weaker intellectual property laws. )
What would it have cost to do the same thing if you'd started 10 years earlier? Personally I'm in awe of the fact that so much can be done with so little today. I only hope this new meduim isn't choked off by "status quo" laws like the DMCA.
As for making money... 82,500 visitors a year (226/day) for 4 years. I'd put some banners up. Attempting to avoid banners entirely really will keep you from making money. Every successful(financially) site I've ever seen uses banners of one form or another(yes I consider google adwords, and many other things, to be banners). For those that *hate* banners you could have a $ubscription $ervice. My favorite comic does just this.
226 visitors a day is a fair number, and it should be enough to offset your $5000/year, but it certainly isn't enough to make a living off of. I'd say for each "devoted"(ie: daily) user expect no more than $50/year in earnings. 226*$50 = $11,300/year. That should be the most you could reasonably expect to earn off the traffic you currently have. (assuming constant traffic all 4 years) That's when you use banners and all other tools at your disposal. Without them it's obviously much less. Honestly, I have to admit, if banners are done correctly I actually *like* them. (correctly means small targeted and no flashing!)
Professor Andrew Appel of Princeton University thought so. OF course, I wouldn't expect you to accept an appeal to authority without some background arguement.
To people who code for the shear joy of it, it's plainy obvious that source code = free speech. We're just not always gifted at conveying that idea. (It has something to do with "inalienable rights" ie: the kind you can never take away so shouldn't try...)
Problem is. You look at the stock market and the whole US economy and you'll find that the small cap and med cap companies, (small cap in particular) make up a much larger portion than the big cap ones. (small cap is what under 500 employees?)
So, if the government looks at Dmitry, they should be looking at all the other *little* guys that are also likely to get stepped on. It just *seems* more impressive when you can talk to one man that controls a 300 billion dollar corp instead of 3,000 men and women who collectively control a lot more. I suppose another problem is it's tough to get all 3,000 little guys going the same direction. So, if you're a large corp or government interest, you're much safer if you can pick them apart and eliminate them one at a time.
Draconian laws that can be enforced as "night and day" depending on a judge's whim are a great start in this direction.
This whole "surface scan" problem extends to much of politics (and modern thought on the subject). It *seems* like a good idea to have the government help out and do things for people, until you look closer and realize that everytime the government *does* something, they're doing it with money pulled out of the public pocket (call it stealing or call it protectionism it's at least as bad as pirating music). So, in general, it's a bad deal for the government to do anything.
Why would a corporate network need routeable IP addresses?
It would seem a small block of static IP's (some pooled some not) for machines needing to be accesible from the outside world is all that should be necessary. In fact, externally routeable IP's just let the rest of the world know what you're running, so you'd think from a security standpoint unrouteable(at least externally) IP's for most machines would work out pretty well.
Of course, IPv6 will release many of the pressures to subnet, if it ever comes about, but even with unlimited address space there are good reasons to have non-routeable subnets.
The short version: Only servers need externally routeable IP's, and those can even share at times.
Well, I just about agree with you.
Only problem is, I always thought libertarians were rational minarchists(which is what I am). This means only the government that's necessary. I'd say if there's a rampant piracy problem, something to stop it is certainly necessary. You can't pass a law that says no jaywalking then have cops look the other way and expect people to follow it.
The problem is the DMCA is tantamount to making sidewalks illegal instead of policing for jaywalkers. But by your arguement, if we'd all quit jaywalking we could have sidewalks again. Personnally I feel I deserve sidewalks no matter how they are abused. It's up to the government to enforce the jaywalking(and copyright) rule if they think it's important enough to be worth the trouble. Anything less (like the DMCA) disrespects those of us who follow the rules.
It's important to question the concept of copyright, because once you do, you realize it's wonderful as a delicate balance. Anything else is... less wonderful.
This whole line of thought gets me thinking of high school and the childish adults who always asked us to "act grown up". If I'd acted like an adult, I would have walked out of the place and never come back long before graduation.
As for cable and satellite video feeds... One more arguement against copyright. They couldn't exist without it!
I bet you also think that because it's THE LAW, you should follow it!! Oh and here's another one: Since we see slow changes, they must be the explanation for everything!
As for gun control. How many people were robbed/raped/murdered/oppressed last year because they *didn't* have one? The amendment comes second because it was meant to protect the one just before it...
Guess UDP would then be illegal? Or what, we going to charge per datagram here? All someone has to do is hit me with ping to charge 50/50 on both sides...
Packet switching is not circuit switching, and we have a much better internet for it.
First, lets be honest with ourselves. Bandwidth is not the issue. I've seen whole networks that consume less bandwidth than one or two "warez d00dz". Yet the cable company doesn't complain about them. In fact they'd love to sell cable to whatever "warez d00dz" they can find. If bandwidth really were the issue, metering it would be a simple matter.
So what is the issue? My guess is that it has to do with this fact: Everytime I share my internet connection there's one less customer for the cable modem service. Does the cable company have the right to restrict what I do with the "bandwidth" they sell me? Do I have the right to abuse this "service" that they are offering by sharing it?
Personally I think the idea of a "controlled service" is absurd, it just never works in the real world, at least not by itself. This is because it's very easy to put a clause in a license agreement, but much more difficult to get Jane Consumer to follow it. Perhaps because she didn't read it. Perhaps because she's a good rationalizer. Or perhaps she's a lawyer and didn't recall any notarized signatures when she bought the service.
$5 per IP address indeed!
There are nefarious forces at work here. Lots of tools to use = good, path modifications = bad. gobs of files in bin = bad.
I think many OSS projects have too great a footprint in the bin directory. When a big project runs it should run in it's own directory, because modularity is *very* important. You think Linux has lots of stuff now just wait 5 years!
Of course, there's one problem with modularization how do you find the "right" version of the project? It's simple, you put a link or small bash script into bin that has the job of invoking the "big project" and doing it in the proper place. And it should only be 1 file per project. You heard me right 1 file! If you can't figure this out you shouldn't be writing big projects in the first place.
If you don't think 1 command can do any amount of processing necessary, you haven't used emacs(shudder) lately.
Here's an example:
I don't care how many files are in X11, but I'd like to have only 1 command to deal with it. In an ideal world you'd type in x11 -start or x11 -configure or x11 -do_my_laundry and one file and only one command would do absolutely everything. Actually... better yet, it should be x -configure or x -do_my_laundry with x11 also available, and just happening to be the default version invoked. (unless of course you were running some other type of x or something...)
Anything else is just a pain to use.
All that said, if you've got 2000 commands in your bin directory and each one represents a whole project with valid, original and useful functionality that you commonly use. All I've got to say is ye haw! (If only it were true...)
Good thoughts but...
If you don't consider your projects worthwhile enough to take the time to list them on sourceforge and freshmeat (freshmeat in particular IMHO) then how can you expect anyone else to care that much about them? This TortoiseCVS thing sounds like a great idea, and probably would have been picked up if it was on freshmeat. Maybe you just need a big shove in the listing direction...
So here's your invition: List those puppies on freshmeat! Do it today!
Don't just expect Slashdot to do your legwork for ya...
Um... I'm trying to figure out just what you're saying...
Here we've got a CVS client for windows integrated with the windows explorer that somebody created because they thought WinCvs "wasn't good enough". Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds darned useful to me since I use CVS every day at work and get sick of using both explorer and WinCvs to do everything. Perhaps you know of some better projects which make this thing redundant? I sure don't.
Next, you seem to be implying that there are particular "more worthy" projects people should be working on. You supply a link to freenet and to mind.sourceforge.net whatever that is. Two pie in the sky projects that already have more developers then they'd ever warrant and likely will never amount to a hill of beans.
If you think Open Source is "public service" then you have fun with your "worthy" projects. Me, I'll be spending my time working on the tools that make my life easier. (and yes Margaret that includes whole operating systems for my extended family to use that I can actually get to work for them) Why will I give these tools away? So the next guy can work on something *more* useful, and maybe, just maybe, make my life easier in return.
hacker ethic n.
1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing open-source code and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible. (taken from the Jargon File)
Horseshoes and Nuclear weapons.
.NET brings to the table that Java doesn't is "tight OS integration". Of course, I'm not even sure what that means at times... Your VM crashing is more likely to bring down your whole system? Your VM load time will get bundled into your boot time? Perhaps your windows might load a little faster? If you think this is desirable(maybe) and more important than good competitive library support(doubtful) *and* matters more than competitive VM support, by all means use .NET.
.NET aside from being an abomination to any naming convention created is not even "code compatible" with their own products. All those poor sods who trusted their business to VB5 or VB6 a while back will have to rewrite lines and lines of code to even be able to run on this "new and improved" platform in their "language of choice": VB.NET. I mean come on, If I have to rewrite my code to get it to run, we are not talking the same language here! VB.NET is not VB7, it's .NET with a VB "skin". By the same token, C# is not a Java competitor, or an upgrade to C++, but just another skin for .NET.
.NET worth using? Maybe, but making it incompatible with all existing languages doesn't make it appeal to this developer. And quite frankly the idea that .NET will be the interface or "gatekeeper" to all future Windows components (it's the win32 of tomorrow) gets me thinking of alternatives.
"Almost the same" and "leveraging your knowledge" are nearly useless in this industry. Any programmer that can't pick up a brand new language in under 2 weeks needs a different job title(yes, mastery and "pick up" are different, but so are Java and C#!). The least Microsoft could have done when they decided to clone Java would have been to make things "code compatible".
By making them "nearly" identical, they just create an appearance of similarity that fools only those so described. Of course, to actually be fully compatible they'd have to provide a library equivalent to what Java provides. In this, they aren't even close, and don't stand a chance for several years, partly because Sun has worked so hard on this, partly because of all the third party projects in Java.
The only thing
But lets ignore design issues and look at the track records so far.
Look at Sun's track record by comparison. Sure, they haven't made Java a "standard" and they've pushed at times against the community, but when the community started pushing back, by and large they listened. You can take Java 1.1 code and run it on a 1.3 VM, or even a 1.4 VM with no compatibility problems whatsoever.
Is
Sun's goal may be to rule the world, but Microsoft's seems to be, "Make the developer's life a miserable and slow to product existence."
They should go nowhere with it.
Instead they should reform copyright. I don't recall the constitution saying "To promote large megaconglomerates and the stomping of individual thought and freedom, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
Of course, then all those nice megaconglomerates would fall apart and we'd have a free market again. Chaos!
Well... I can sympathize with both sides to some degree...
But speaking as a programmer who regularly deploys code on a 5 9's system(or was that 9 5's), I wonder that you've never had to get a fix in "ten minutes ago" when a major problem comes up.
There are times when skill, foresight and knowledge come together to fix things no amount of testing will ever uncover.
In this particular case, I'd say the current bug(browser security hole) outweighs any possible "theoretical" bugs that might arise. If I were the manager for this part of IE at Microsoft, I'd get my best guy on a kludge, then get the "url" people together to explain what the heck they were thinking when they wrote that code. It would be fixed (fully) in the next minor revision. If there were any further exploits found in that revision having to do with urls and/or cookies, there would be jobs lost.
When people start telling me what they can't do because of quality control, I start adding to my "lame excuses to watch out for" list.
So, if the CD blows up when I open the box, or I contract Anthrax from white powder in the case, that's all part of them being free to "do what they want"?
Gee, and I thought that "compact disc" label on my cd-drive, and on the CD's I buy actually meant something. Silly me.