1) having no trade restrictions 2) not subject to government regulation 3) enjoying political independence or freedom from outside domination 4)enjoying personal freedom : not subject to the control or domination of another
The GPL sure as hell doesn't meet this definition. Need I go on?
"For those that use this as a reason to NOT use the GPL...
What would have happened if they instead used a copy of WinNT4.0 without paying Microsoft? Microsoft would want blood, and would extract it via the BSA."
You are correct, but the community has been trying to convince businesses to use "free" software for the past couple of years.
"The creators of Busybox just want you to host the changes you've done to it. They wanted no money."
Right, so instead of a company paying some money to license the software, their entire business potentially gets destroyed.
Maybe they shouldn't have used it in the first place, but the OSS community should stop using the world free to represent something that obviously isn't.
"Suppose I wanted to run a landscaping business where instead of asking people up front if they wanted their lawns mowed, I'd just go down the street, mowing every lawn, and then bill people for it later. I'd have a hard time getting money out of the people who didn't want to pay me, right? That would be a pretty stupid model for me to try to use, if I had to enforce it myself. But suppose the government offered to help me collect that money, say, by sending the sheriff to everyone's house if they wouldn't pay me. That would be a subsidy."
you can take them to court for the money, and if you win, they are forced to give you the money back..by law.
"Sure there is; they're fine examples even if you'd like to pretend they don't exist. If I use a bunch of electricity during the month of June, I'll get billed for it at the end of June. If I refuse to pay that bill, I will have gotten all that electricity for free."
are you really this stupid? If you refuse to pay your bill, your electricity will get cut off and you may even get bill collectors after you and eventually be forced to pay the money back (same with cable, internet, and all of your other examples).
With your model, the person can't just get cut off. They will get it for free and can use it forever. They will also know about this before-hand. I'm waiting for you to give me a true example of this.
"There are plenty more, too: anything that you pay for after it's provided is something you could, theoretically, skip out on paying. A restaurant, for example: you could order a meal, eat it, and then sneak out without paying the check. And yet, most people don't do that; restaurants manage not to go out of business because of dine 'n dash. Now imagine how much less of a problem that would be if you had to identify yourself when you walked in, like you would when you agreed to pay for software development."
Now a better example would be if the food was sitting out there with nobody watching with a little sign that says "please pay". How many people do you think would actually pay?
"As a professional programmer, and a hobbyist programmer (both open and closed source), I can assure you I've created plenty of stuff worth copyrighting. Your ad hominem attack isn't just immature; it's incorrect."
I was getting you the benefit of the doubt. Now I know you are just inexperienced or stupid.
"Oh, and the artists/developers who can't make what they want to make, because it's too close to some other work or includes parts of it, or because they'd need some $10,000 tool."
Maybe they will think of something a little more creative than copying someone else's work.
"And the customers who aren't allowed to share the things they've paid for, or back them up, or enjoy them in the ways they'd prefer (watching a DVD without commercials, or exhibiting it for a large audience)."
1) you are allowed to legally backup anything you want 2) sharing? too bad. Tell your friends to buy it if you get value out of it 3) how large is a large audience? If you want to show a movie, for free, to 100 of your friends..I don't think it will be a problem. If you want to pass it out to them or charge for money, then you have a problem.
"And the third parties (web hosts, OS developers, electronics manufacturers, etc.) who are unwillingly dragged into enforcing copyright law."
protect and be protected.
"And the customers of those third parties who face restrictions because of copyright concerns (not being able to record certain TV shows with your DVR, not being able to back up certain DVDs, not being able to share excerpts on YouTube, not being able to stream your music collection from your home to your office, not being able to attach a debugger to certain processes, not being able to watch movies in full resolution on certain monitors, etc.)."
You can do most of these, legally. You just need to buy a copy of the content first (such as with streaming content or backing up dvds).
and how many excerpts do you want to share? Fair use laws allows you to share 5-10 seconds of a song and videos/written work allow a certain amount too.
"Are you stupid or what? Of course war is never something fun. But if you read that manual or only the description of its contents here, its a fucking al-Qaeda manual and if its done no fucking wonder that iraq is a fucking breedingground for terrorist and haters of USA!"
If you had even a hint of intelligence, you would have known that iraq and the middle east has been a breeding ground for terrorists many years before the united states was involved.
"I'd say they aren't using it because it isn't as quick and convenient, for them, and because it's difficult to compete using this model when your competitors' model is subsidized by the government."
I don't think you know what subsidized means. Copyright holders don't get their content subsidized by the government, otherwise it would passed out for free and paid for by your taxes. Now, it is protected by the government through copyright laws.
your model is not quick and convenient for them OR the customer, which is why they don't use it.
"Why would you want to pay your cable bill, your phone bill, or your electric bill? When you hire someone to paint your house, why would you want to pay him after he's done it?"
These are bad examples. If you don't pay any of those..you get your service shut-off. There is no theft of service. In your model, if you don't pay, you get it for free anyway. Give me an example of anything that works this way right now (and is successful).
"Well, whatever risk it adds for the customer, it subtracts from the developer. But that's not why I prefer this model; I prefer it because it works without copyright, and eliminating copyright has countless benefits for consumers, developers/artists, and third parties (web hosts, electronics manufacturers, etc.) who have to deal with the enforcement of copyright."
it has no benefits for developers/artists or anyone interested in creating something new. It would mean that if you don't find some way to protect yourself, a bigger company with more resources could steal your idea and you would have no recourse. This is why copyright was created in the first place. If you were a creator of anything worth copyrighting, you would understand this.
"Yes, and I wouldn't mind much if the only losers there were the developers who took the risk. But in order for that business model to have any chance of working at all, you need to pass and enforce copyright laws, and then everyone loses."
Everyone doesn't lose. Companies get protected, consumers get their music, movies, or software with almost no hoops to jump through. It's a win-win overall. The only people that lose are those that want to break the law and get shit for free. Which is what your argument is all about.
"Simple: the software isn't written until the money has been collected (or at least pledged via a binding contract)."
There will still be problems with this. Most people will not be willing to give their money to a company and wait a week, a month, or a year (or many years) before getting their software. The software can't really be given out to anyone until all money has actually been collected, because anyone that has paid could release it on the internet and prevent the rest of the money from getting collected.
Going back to your paving example, paving a road is simple (it's either paved or not paved..I guess an option might be the material used). Software involves hundreds or thousands of features. If everyone owns it, who decides what goes into it with regards to features? I have been involved with many software projects over the past couple of years and even a group of 10 people wanting different features can add 6 months (or more) onto the time-line of a software app (unless there is someone managing those 10 people and filtering out/making final decisions).
"Anyone who promises beforehand that he'll pay, but refuses to pay once the work is done, has broken his agreement and is liable as an individual. Everyone who held up their part of the deal is fine."
They won't be getting the software until they either pay up for those missing people or the company gets the rest of their money (and then, the people that refuse to pay will be getting the software anyway). As a customer, why would I even want to pay in the first place if I know someone else will eventually have to pick up the slack and I will get the software for free anyway?
"You haven't shown that to be true."
I just explained above and I still stand by this. It will not scale.
"Er... political campaigns manage to raise huge amounts of money via donations. Everyone who decides to send in money knows that they don't have to do it, but they choose to do it anyway, because they also know that if no one contributes, the goal will never be met."
Political campaigns are very important to people. In many ways as important as religion. Software software is not nearly as important and will not get these types of donations. Even the red cross can't get enough people to donate.
"If hardly anyone cares whether the software is written, then it won't be written, but so what? That's what already happens today, except instead of knowing how many people want to pay for the software, the programmers have to guess how many people will buy copies. When they guess wrong, they waste their effort and fail to recoup their development costs."
I'm surprised you are actually fighting for this model, because it adds significant risk for all the customers involved. They will be giving money to a company on blind faith and may not be getting anything in return for a couple of months or maybe a year (and may not even get their original investment back until that point either if things fall through).
I also don't think it will be very easy to get a couple thousand people to sign a contract, especially if a company is selling it online. What about international orders? Having a binding contracts in multiple countries would be a nightmare in paperwork and might not be enforceable.
As a customer, this is too much of a pain in the ass for me. I would rather just find a good piece of software, buy it, and start using it. I don't want to have to wait weeks or years until a shitload of paperwork goes through for me to get software that I can "own".
"That's what already happens today, except instead of knowing how many people want to pay for the software, the programmers have to guess how many people will buy copies. When they guess wrong, they waste their effort and fail to recoup their development costs."
That is the free market at work. You take a huge risk and you could come out on top and make a profit...or lose all of it.
Most successful companies selling software either:
"The people who are paying are paying for production -- the act of writing the program in the first place -- not for copies. Copies are freely available after it's written, because no one owns the program.
And not "everyone" needs to pay. Only enough people for the programmers to collect an amount of money that they feel is fair for the work they're going to do."
In your fantastic world of software companies using this model, what is to stop the first person buying it and giving it out for free to everyone else (before the company recoups the total cost of development).
Most freelancers/contractors don't give the complete program if the total development costs aren't paid. So, does that mean that nobody gets the software until the complete cost by everyone together is paid (since it's not a donation)? (which could take weeks, months, or years to collect).
"Suppose there are ten people living on a dirt road, and they're thinking about having the road paved. The pavers want $10,000 to do the job. If they all pooled their money, they'd pay $1000 each.
Now suppose the tenth guy doesn't want to pay. The other nine decide they're each willing to pay a little more to get the road paved (i.e. they think living on a paved road is worth $1111.11), so they pay for the service and the tenth guy gets to live on a paved road for free.
Does that mean the payments were "donations"? Of course not. The pavers agreed to do a certain task in exchange for the money, and if they didn't do a good job of it, the people who paid could demand their money back. That's not a donation. It's paying for a service."
Do you realize how many problems there are with your business model? Let's say the 9 people give the pavers $8000. He needs the other $2000 or he won't actually complete the work. Imagine this happening with thousands (or a million) people.
Can the pavers take them all to court if they don't pay? and if they do, who pays if they win, is the judgement divided among the 9? and should that 10th person be involved if he didn't pay?
This works for a small amount of people pooling their money together, but it doesn't scale. It would be too much of a pain in the ass for all parties involved. This is why this model isn't used.
People, by nature, will not pay if they don't have to (see: anything funded by donations and taxes). Once they learn that they may pay but other people may or may not have to, the actual number of people willing to pay will go down considerably, the cost will go up for each customer (since there is less to divide), and the likelihood that they will actually get to the total cost is almost nothing.
"Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Microsoft has a history of taking other peoples code and selling it as their own. Sometimes not even bothering to change the comments in the code."
"Then structure the product in such a way that people need to pay you for it."
You mean like copy protection or locked hardware?
"Firstly, it's stupid to sell a product that can be so easily ripped and then complain when it does get ripped (but not complain that suddenly it has become prevalent, thereby creating your market for you)."
This may work for a few very large companies, but if a small company's product is ripped and spread, they will eventually start losing sales until it drops off to 0.
"Secondly, if you had to charge millions for your first copy of a software product in the fear that your easily-rippable product will get ripped, then you need to go back and rethink your product, such as recovering costs by providing support or selling hardware that runs your product beautifully."
If the the first copy was a million dollars, the person or company that bought it would not be sharing it on the Internet.
"If the IP is music, then make money from performance or maybe printing sheet music or something else that is tangible."
performance is tangible? It's just sounds coming from an artist. Music and movies are on DVDS and CDs..how is this not tangible?
"If the market were free to determine the price of software, it would be a very low price. People at large don't see tangible value in something that can be copied at the cost of a couple of joules of electrical energy."
A couple of joules to copy, yes, but thousands of man hours to create (which is where the cost comes into play). The actual media is probably the smallest cost in the overall process. It always has been, even before the Internet.
Paper currency technically has the tangible value of the ink and paper, but it's still worth much more.
"They see value in things they just can't get another way, or quality they can't get elsewhere. That's where Apple's business model is somewhat viable, since they go to the effort to make a package that works as advertised that you can't really get anywhere else (OS X is basically inferior on non-Apple hardware and not really worth mass-piracy)."
Apple likes to keep the hardware AND software proprietary and closed. Do you really want this? Apple made a better unix-based operating system. It works well and looks pretty. This is why they are going to last. They may even beat Microsoft.
"The Linux vendors survive on providing service and support. There gets a point (mostly for corporations) when it's cheaper to pay the Linux vendor to do things for you than to do it all yourself. That's fair trade."
Linux vendors survive because programmers donated thousands of man-hours to create the product they are selling. They don't have as much of an initial investment to recoup and have the ability to only charge for service/support.
Linux users also generally don't want to spend money and will download it for free anyway. This is one of the reasons OSX will eventually win OS war. Businesses can sell software that runs on macs and people will actually be willing to pay for it.
I don't think I've heard of any successful commercial linux application vendors.
"Microsoft should be doing the same. Provide Vista free, unencumbered. Let it spread naturally. Sell boxes, sure, but sell them essentially at-cost. Let Microsoft's specialist abilities (software support, live updates etc) be the thing people pay for. The price point should be that at which it's cheaper to pay Microsoft to help you than to go it alone."
and why would they want to do this? People are willing to pay $199 or more for Vista and many of their other products.
"I don't see where socialized health is worse. Statistics doesn't support that, although it is somewhat difficult to find direct comparisons beyond very basic numbers."
Where are you getting these statistics (I still see no proof)? I don't see how any monopoly (IE: no choice to go elsewhere when your service is shit) can win over the free market.
"The one direct limitation of socialized health care is that the state dictates how much you get to spend on your health care, both in upper and lower limits."
And when the state runs out of money, what happens? People die.
"You can still have competing hospitals/doctors. They just can't compete on price, but only on service. Of course, this depends on how the goverment regulates things."
What is the incentive for hospital X to compete with hospital Y if they both are owned and operated by the same government? And let's say they do compete and one is deemed better, what will it get? better funding? and what happens to the under-funded hospitals? will people have to suffer and die as a result?
"As with most things, the free market is not an all or nothing situation. Also in some situations like emergency care I am pro-monopoly, because the free market simply does't work in situations where the buyer doesn't have an opportunity to make an informed choice."
and why don't they have an informed choice? Insurance companies give you a break-down of how much you will have to pay, what is covered, and what isn't. The last time I checked, the United States had a pretty high literacy rate.
"Btw, lots of people have very little choice in the US where insurance companies gets to pick the doctors and treatment, and your employer gets to pick the insurance company. I just added this remark to note that the amount of free market in health care is not really dependent on how socialized the health care is."
You can change jobs (and pick a company that has better coverage) or buy your own health care (there are MANY affordable health care companies to choose from).
Every job that I have gotten in the past 5 years has had average or better health care coverage (and this includes small companies and large ones). Almost all businesses nowadays have a health-care package for their employees.
"Unfortunately, the "traditional model" depends on seizing everyone else's rights. The model I've described is one that will work even when those rights are returned"
At the expense of the companies rights. Even with no copyrights, companies will not resort to your model. It just doesn't work.
"Or Adobe would charge for support, which makes sense since many of those people would've gotten the software for free."
How would they have gotten it for free if everyone is paying a small amount for it? If someone has the ability to not pay under your model, then it is called a donation. I would say about 10-20% of the people that are asked to donate actually donate.
Wikipedia, which probably costs millions to run and is one of the most popular websites on the Internet got less than $100,000 in donations. This is probably less than 1% of the people that visit the site.
A few years back, Stephen king wrote a book, released it exclusively online, and asked for donations. Less than 5% donated and his book was shared across the Internet. He hasn't released one online since then, and sells many copies every time he comes out with a new book.
"All you're doing is telling them facts about the book, a physical object that you own. That's speech, unquestionably. And the same applies to discs: there's a certain pattern of bits stamped into that CD, and if you're prohibited from describing it to someone else, that's a restriction on your speech - someone else is forcing you to keep a secret."
Just lik with books, you can tell them about the software, what it's called, and who it's by (or with music, what it sounds like). That is your freedom of speech.
You don't, however, have the freedom to photo-copy an entire book at the local library and give it out for free when someone asks.
Books have the same business model as software. Binding and paper are very negligible costs compared to the unique content written on the pages. People are charged per copy, not per job, and they don't have rights to re-distribute it.
"Ok, that confirms that you are a rich spoiled libertarian atleast. Only rich people can afford coming to the US to get their special treatment, except maybe for a few specific cases where there was a lack of basic medical equipment in Canada."
and what happens to people that aren't rich in canada or the UK? They die because they can't get the proper treatment.
"Actually, I don't get why scaling came into the discussion in the first place"
because the more people there are, the more people the government will have to support through the health-care system.
"The US is so inefficent that it fails to treat 1/6 of it its own population. (and that is not including those who are under insured)"
The current system is broken. Socialized health care is worse.
"The goverment isn't a business. And it doesn't seem to be the least efficent either considering goverment run health care seems to cost less per capita than the same US run health care that doesn't produce better results on average."
It isn't a business, but it needs to be run like one. If you look at basic economics, you will see that monopolies are not as efficient as the free market. I guess you are pro-monopoly..right?
"Ok, that probably reinforces what you believe. That the rich should pay and get their treatment directly, while the poor should shut up, die and go to hell."
At least with the current health-care system of the US, you can get care and live. You might have debt, but you will still be alive. In your system, you wouldn't even have the option.
I am not against the poor getting the proper care, I just would like the ability to get better care if I can afford it. Socialized health care puts everyone on the same level and will make it impossible for anyone with the means to get better care.
"No. That was the whole point of bringing up political campaigns: thousands of people pay a small amount, and those small payments add up to millions of dollars. (As you pointed out, political campaign contributions are donations, but then we both agreed it's a "payment" instead when you're guaranteed something in return, which in this case would be the service of writing software.)
Instead of having one person pay $10 million for development, you could have a million people each paying $10, or a hundred thousand each paying $100, or some combination of both: all that matters is that the company eventually collects the $10 million they're looking for."
Companies can do that if they choose, but most decide to go with the traditional model. If a million people were using the software and a company like adobe had to support them, the price would quickly go up.
"I have the right to communicate (which may involve sharing numbers that represent software) and to use my own property (which may involve feeding one of those numbers into my computer)."
Software isn't your property. Even when you purchase it, you are buying the right to use it, not to own the original source code. And saying that sharing numbers is free speech is a bit of a stretch.
Making it harder for businesses to make money by not protecting their rights in any industry will quickly make it disappear.
"What investment? If they got paid for developing it, there is no investment. The money has changed hands and the job is done."
Investment of developing a product to sell. The initial investment may include development, marketing and any other costs related to creating the piece of software.
"Yes, that's true, they face the unnecessary risk of losing their investment. That risk would go away if they'd charge for production, of course."
I see, so 1 single person would be wiling to pay 10 million dollars for adobe photoshop? The only reason software is "subsidized" is to get it out to the masses. Otherwise, it would only be in the hands of businesses and people that could afford the large amount of money required for development.
and let's not forget support. Commercial software vendors have to spend time and hire people to support the software that they sold you (which costs money).
"If it were only that company's fortunes at stake, then I'd have no objection. But the problem is, they're not the only ones who lose. Everyone is forced to play along, facing restrictions on their speech and actions just so this company with the broken business model can roll the dice and pray to strike it rich. Even if the company wins, everyone else still loses: we don't get our freedoms back when the company recoups their investment. They're gone forever (well, for life + 70 years, as long as the copyright terms aren't retroactively extended before then)."
You never had any rights to the software to begin with. You are granted rights when a company sells you a license to use their software for $retail cost when they paid millions to develop it.
"Wow, a libertarian web site does not agree with the idea of socialized medicine. You've been drinking too much of the old libertarian cool-aid"
and you have been sipping the old socialist toilet water. Sprayed into your mouth by Obama and his comrades.
"People I've talked to from Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan, France, and Italy all love their socialized medicine. No one I've talked has ever, or even knows anyone, who has had to go to a free market health care system to cover what theirs will not."
and what is the population of the united states? (280 million)
I asked for ONE example of a country the size of the US with successful socialized healthcare and you gave me a list of countries that aren't even half the size in terms of population.
"All you are doing here is parroting back the right wing lies I've heard a million times before. Please try to provide more than anecdotes with no verified evidence. Please do not use libertarian sources unless they are backed up with other, reputable sources. Libertarians almost all think the ends justify the means, and lie all the time."
well, I can give the same evidence as you. I have friends and relatives that live in China and Canada (both with socialized health care). They all have the same story. Checkups are okay, but anything beyond that is a very long waiting list and most just come to the united states.
"All you are doing here is parroting back the right wing lies I've heard a million times before. Please try to provide more than anecdotes with no verified evidence. Please do not use libertarian sources unless they are backed up with other, reputable sources. Libertarians almost all think the ends justify the means, and lie all the time."
now you are resorting to personal attacks and generalizations that just aren't true. You don't think the liberal media lies on a constant basis to push agendas?
It's pretty easy to see why universal health care won't work. In terms of a business, which is better, a monopoly or a free market? With socialized health-care, we would have one large monopoly run by the most inefficient business there is: the government.
Here is a nice example of how great french health care is (since you did include it on your list).
another great side-effect of universal health-care.
"So socialized medicine, which has been proven to work far better than privatized medicine in the entire rest of the developed world, somehow equates to 100% of Americans losing their property rights?"
I suggest you take a look at this page if you really believe in universal health care.
Socialism may work with smaller countries, but I would like to see a successful example of a country the size of the united states (the key word is successful..not barely functioning).
The US health care system may not be perfect, but it does tell you something when people from Canada come over to the US to get major surgeries because there is too much of a wait there.
Salaries are also capped for doctors. The best ones will either go somewhere else where they can make more money or become vets (and yes, some may not care about money, but $100,000 needs to get paid somehow).
"You're making my point for me. TurboTax did that because they thought they could get away with it. No one forced them, and copyright law didn't change."
I was only pointing out that turbo tax went to a service based app...not that the copyright laws have changed. They could and did get away with it..and as more and more households get high-speed internet, so will more companies.
"No, they wouldn't. It's only treated like "property" in the first place because copyright subsidizes the business models that treat information as property."
Yes, they would. Software companies would still sell software, but they would find some other way to protect their investment. This might mean software as a service or maybe even more locked down hardware (which would still be crackable, but as long as the average user couldn't easily defeat it, would still be a viable option. This seems to be working pretty well for the satellite companies, although they have had their fair share of hardware getting cracked in the past).
"But if you've already been paid for writing something, because you asked for money when you did the work instead of praying to earn some money later by selling copies, you don't need to "protect" it anymore."
You still have no viable reason for abolishing copyright besides this selfish view of the world where you seem to think you are owed everything for free.
If a company wants to invest a million dollars into the development of software, only to be "subsidized" by the people that purchase it, so be it. They are also the ones that lose that million dollars if there is no market for it or it just doesn't sell (but you never seem to talk about this fact). Selling movies or albums also carries that same risk.
"Let's say I run a web hosting service, and one of my users uploads a copy of that new game to his public folder. Now I have to enforce Company X's copying policies on their behalf, even though I don't give a rat's ass about the game. They've dragged me into their business model against my will."
It has more to do with a business's rights than their business model. Here is an example where copyrights might help you and your web hosting company (call it web hosting X). You are running a.com. Another company decides to call themselves web hosting X and buy up the.net. They are now selling the exact same service as you, but with very poor service (and your reputation is now gone as a hosting provider).
Copyrights allow you to get them shutdown or change their name.
"But everyone is dragged in, to some extent. Everyone is forced to limit their speech and actions, whether they buy the game or not, because copyright makes it illegal to say certain things to other people or burn certain numbers to a disc without permission."
Sharing proprietary software illegally != freedom of speech. And what are these certain numbers that are deemed illegal? The 1-billion binary numbers that may make up a piece of software?
"Huh. From your other comment, I thought you understood the difference between donating and paying for a service, but I guess not"
Can you really not tell when someone is being sarcastic?
"If they thought they could get away with that, they would've done it already."
If they are forced to because copyright goes away, they will find a way to make their application a service. Turbo tax did (and any other have followed).
If copyrights and patents were gone, our world would be even more protected and proprietary than before. Mainly because companies would have to go to great lengths to protect their property.
There really is a simple solution: don't download commercial software from pirate sites that you aren't willing to buy. If you do, and use it (or listen/watch it), you find value in it and the original author should be compensated.
"he plural of anecdote is not data. As a university student, I know that I and many of my friends have downloaded cracked versions of software, simply because the software's activation scheme was so god-awfully unreliable, the cracked version was actually more useful than the legitimate version (MATLAB, I'm looking squarely at you). We paid for the software (sometimes directly, but usually through our university tuition), so why shouldn't we be able to use the software?"
did you and each one of your friends purchase a valid license as well?
If a large percentage of people were cracking software only because the activation system didn't work on their valid copy, businesses wouldn't be investing all kinds of money into copy-protection systems (there would be no point).
"For me, the real progress from open source is social progress, not (only) technological. There is massive duplication of effort in the proprietary software business, because every application requires its implementation of UI/networking/interfacing etc. On the one side, this is countered by commercial houses that offer RAD tools to minimize such duplication, on the other side you have free software, that instead opts to share said implementations, and reduce duplication that way."
Money drives companies to try different implementations/ideas and as a result, there is technical innovation in software. With open source, when something works, most developers just fork the source.
Look at VNC. It's had the same shitty code-base re-implemented 100 times into different variants. I don't think there is another open source equivalent. However, there are many proprietary examples of software that have the same functionality as VNC or better (RDP is a good example).
"Markets which close because of open source tools are akin to weavers complaining about mechanical looms in days of old."
Not quite. That was real progress. Open source isn't progress, it's software at $0 cost. Most open source projects that I have seen are either technically inferior than its proprietary counterpart or it takes months or years longer to get wanted features completed, because it relies on developers that may or may not finish something based on their own personal preference.
It's more like private health care companies going out of business because it is now subsidized by the government.
"Technology advances and no one wants to buy the old way any more. It is not a bad thing, it's progress. The less companies are paying for software the more they can spend on expanding their products and making money instead of sinking money into re-inventing the wheel."
Free/open source software will eventually cheapen developer positions because companies will be able to get most of what they want for free. This will mean less requirements for programming jobs (think only code monkey jobs) at less pay. Would you consider this "innovation" too?
It's true that political campaigns are funded by donations, yes. But the reason they're called donations is that you're not guaranteed anything in return. You don't know whether the candidate will spend your money on radio ads, fliers, etc., or even whether it'll be spent at all, and you certainly have no recourse if it gets spent on something you don't like."
You say not quite..and then explain exactly what I was saying. Thanks for making my point.
"If you do offer guarantees, however, then it's not a donation: it's payment for a service, which of course works quite well for businesses. You have a reasonably good idea of what you're getting in exchange for your money, and if the result doesn't measure up to what you were promised, you can demand your money back."
I know. Again, my point. Donations don't work well for businesses, this is why they charge for services.
"If only it were that simple. See, copyright restricts everyone's freedom. It forces everyone to participate in that business model, even the people who "don't fucking buy it"."
How is everyone forced to participate? company X comes out with a new game. Customers that want the game are involved in the business model..and customers that don't aren't.
"By the way, political campaigns also cost millions of dollars to run. Do you know how they're funded? (Hint: it's not by finding one person and asking him for a hundred million dollars. Nor is it by producing an ad with borrowed money and then hoping to recoup it by charging everyone who watches the ad.)"
hint: it's through donations, which only works in certain situations. I guess there could be a new model. You "donate" $10 to a company and they give you a copy of their software.
"Without copyright, you would be able to. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, because everyone would be free to share your proprietary application, disassemble it, and port your changes back into the open source code. RMS disagrees with me, but oh well."
Money drives all thriving industries. With no copyrights, 99.9% of all commercial software would immediately go to service/web-based within a couple of months. I guess that will be better, because then there will be no argument here. You will have no code to share.
"For an example of how this works, look at political campaign web sites. Millions of people make small contributions that add up to millions of dollars, and they're not even guaranteed anything in return! Setting up a similar system for the development of software, music, etc. would be straightforward - the only hard part would be getting people used to the system. But it's already being tried to an extent: see sellaband.com for something similar (but not quite the same) for music."
what you are talking about is called a donation. Which generally does not work for a business.
Slashdot Mirror
thanks for the link.
1) having no trade restrictions
2) not subject to government regulation
3) enjoying political independence or freedom from outside domination
4)enjoying personal freedom : not subject to the control or domination of another
The GPL sure as hell doesn't meet this definition. Need I go on?
"For those that use this as a reason to NOT use the GPL...
What would have happened if they instead used a copy of WinNT4.0 without paying Microsoft? Microsoft would want blood, and would extract it via the BSA."
You are correct, but the community has been trying to convince businesses to use "free" software for the past couple of years.
"The creators of Busybox just want you to host the changes you've done to it. They wanted no money."
Right, so instead of a company paying some money to license the software, their entire business potentially gets destroyed.
Maybe they shouldn't have used it in the first place, but the OSS community should stop using the world free to represent something that obviously isn't.
"Suppose I wanted to run a landscaping business where instead of asking people up front if they wanted their lawns mowed, I'd just go down the street, mowing every lawn, and then bill people for it later. I'd have a hard time getting money out of the people who didn't want to pay me, right? That would be a pretty stupid model for me to try to use, if I had to enforce it myself. But suppose the government offered to help me collect that money, say, by sending the sheriff to everyone's house if they wouldn't pay me. That would be a subsidy."
you can take them to court for the money, and if you win, they are forced to give you the money back..by law.
"Sure there is; they're fine examples even if you'd like to pretend they don't exist. If I use a bunch of electricity during the month of June, I'll get billed for it at the end of June. If I refuse to pay that bill, I will have gotten all that electricity for free."
are you really this stupid? If you refuse to pay your bill, your electricity will get cut off and you may even get bill collectors after you and eventually be forced to pay the money back (same with cable, internet, and all of your other examples).
With your model, the person can't just get cut off. They will get it for free and can use it forever. They will also know about this before-hand. I'm waiting for you to give me a true example of this.
"There are plenty more, too: anything that you pay for after it's provided is something you could, theoretically, skip out on paying. A restaurant, for example: you could order a meal, eat it, and then sneak out without paying the check. And yet, most people don't do that; restaurants manage not to go out of business because of dine 'n dash. Now imagine how much less of a problem that would be if you had to identify yourself when you walked in, like you would when you agreed to pay for software development."
Now a better example would be if the food was sitting out there with nobody watching with a little sign that says "please pay". How many people do you think would actually pay?
"As a professional programmer, and a hobbyist programmer (both open and closed source), I can assure you I've created plenty of stuff worth copyrighting. Your ad hominem attack isn't just immature; it's incorrect."
I was getting you the benefit of the doubt. Now I know you are just inexperienced or stupid.
"Oh, and the artists/developers who can't make what they want to make, because it's too close to some other work or includes parts of it, or because they'd need some $10,000 tool."
Maybe they will think of something a little more creative than copying someone else's work.
"And the customers who aren't allowed to share the things they've paid for, or back them up, or enjoy them in the ways they'd prefer (watching a DVD without commercials, or exhibiting it for a large audience)."
1) you are allowed to legally backup anything you want
2) sharing? too bad. Tell your friends to buy it if you get value out of it
3) how large is a large audience? If you want to show a movie, for free, to 100 of your friends..I don't think it will be a problem. If you want to pass it out to them or charge for money, then you have a problem.
"And the third parties (web hosts, OS developers, electronics manufacturers, etc.) who are unwillingly dragged into enforcing copyright law."
protect and be protected.
"And the customers of those third parties who face restrictions because of copyright concerns (not being able to record certain TV shows with your DVR, not being able to back up certain DVDs, not being able to share excerpts on YouTube, not being able to stream your music collection from your home to your office, not being able to attach a debugger to certain processes, not being able to watch movies in full resolution on certain monitors, etc.)."
You can do most of these, legally. You just need to buy a copy of the content first (such as with streaming content or backing up dvds).
and how many excerpts do you want to share? Fair use laws allows you to share 5-10 seconds of a song and videos/written work allow a certain amount too.
"Are you stupid or what? Of course war is never something fun. But if you read that manual or only the description of its contents here, its a fucking al-Qaeda manual and if its done no fucking wonder that iraq is a fucking breedingground for terrorist and haters of USA!"
If you had even a hint of intelligence, you would have known that iraq and the middle east has been a breeding ground for terrorists many years before the united states was involved.
"I'd say they aren't using it because it isn't as quick and convenient, for them, and because it's difficult to compete using this model when your competitors' model is subsidized by the government."
I don't think you know what subsidized means. Copyright holders don't get their content subsidized by the government, otherwise it would passed out for free and paid for by your taxes. Now, it is protected by the government through copyright laws.
your model is not quick and convenient for them OR the customer, which is why they don't use it.
"Why would you want to pay your cable bill, your phone bill, or your electric bill? When you hire someone to paint your house, why would you want to pay him after he's done it?"
These are bad examples. If you don't pay any of those..you get your service shut-off. There is no theft of service. In your model, if you don't pay, you get it for free anyway. Give me an example of anything that works this way right now (and is successful).
"Well, whatever risk it adds for the customer, it subtracts from the developer. But that's not why I prefer this model; I prefer it because it works without copyright, and eliminating copyright has countless benefits for consumers, developers/artists, and third parties (web hosts, electronics manufacturers, etc.) who have to deal with the enforcement of copyright."
it has no benefits for developers/artists or anyone interested in creating something new. It would mean that if you don't find some way to protect yourself, a bigger company with more resources could steal your idea and you would have no recourse. This is why copyright was created in the first place. If you were a creator of anything worth copyrighting, you would understand this.
"Yes, and I wouldn't mind much if the only losers there were the developers who took the risk. But in order for that business model to have any chance of working at all, you need to pass and enforce copyright laws, and then everyone loses."
Everyone doesn't lose. Companies get protected, consumers get their music, movies, or software with almost no hoops to jump through. It's a win-win overall. The only people that lose are those that want to break the law and get shit for free. Which is what your argument is all about.
"Simple: the software isn't written until the money has been collected (or at least pledged via a binding contract)."
There will still be problems with this. Most people will not be willing to give their money to a company and wait a week, a month, or a year (or many years) before getting their software. The software can't really be given out to anyone until all money has actually been collected, because anyone that has paid could release it on the internet and prevent the rest of the money from getting collected.
Going back to your paving example, paving a road is simple (it's either paved or not paved..I guess an option might be the material used). Software involves hundreds or thousands of features. If everyone owns it, who decides what goes into it with regards to features? I have been involved with many software projects over the past couple of years and even a group of 10 people wanting different features can add 6 months (or more) onto the time-line of a software app (unless there is someone managing those 10 people and filtering out/making final decisions).
"Anyone who promises beforehand that he'll pay, but refuses to pay once the work is done, has broken his agreement and is liable as an individual. Everyone who held up their part of the deal is fine."
They won't be getting the software until they either pay up for those missing people or the company gets the rest of their money (and then, the people that refuse to pay will be getting the software anyway). As a customer, why would I even want to pay in the first place if I know someone else will eventually have to pick up the slack and I will get the software for free anyway?
"You haven't shown that to be true."
I just explained above and I still stand by this. It will not scale.
"Er... political campaigns manage to raise huge amounts of money via donations. Everyone who decides to send in money knows that they don't have to do it, but they choose to do it anyway, because they also know that if no one contributes, the goal will never be met."
Political campaigns are very important to people. In many ways as important as religion. Software software is not nearly as important and will not get these types of donations. Even the red cross can't get enough people to donate.
"If hardly anyone cares whether the software is written, then it won't be written, but so what? That's what already happens today, except instead of knowing how many people want to pay for the software, the programmers have to guess how many people will buy copies. When they guess wrong, they waste their effort and fail to recoup their development costs."
I'm surprised you are actually fighting for this model, because it adds significant risk for all the customers involved. They will be giving money to a company on blind faith and may not be getting anything in return for a couple of months or maybe a year (and may not even get their original investment back until that point either if things fall through).
I also don't think it will be very easy to get a couple thousand people to sign a contract, especially if a company is selling it online. What about international orders? Having a binding contracts in multiple countries would be a nightmare in paperwork and might not be enforceable.
As a customer, this is too much of a pain in the ass for me. I would rather just find a good piece of software, buy it, and start using it. I don't want to have to wait weeks or years until a shitload of paperwork goes through for me to get software that I can "own".
"That's what already happens today, except instead of knowing how many people want to pay for the software, the programmers have to guess how many people will buy copies. When they guess wrong, they waste their effort and fail to recoup their development costs."
That is the free market at work. You take a huge risk and you could come out on top and make a profit...or lose all of it.
Most successful companies selling software either:
"The people who are paying are paying for production -- the act of writing the program in the first place -- not for copies. Copies are freely available after it's written, because no one owns the program.
And not "everyone" needs to pay. Only enough people for the programmers to collect an amount of money that they feel is fair for the work they're going to do."
In your fantastic world of software companies using this model, what is to stop the first person buying it and giving it out for free to everyone else (before the company recoups the total cost of development).
Most freelancers/contractors don't give the complete program if the total development costs aren't paid. So, does that mean that nobody gets the software until the complete cost by everyone together is paid (since it's not a donation)? (which could take weeks, months, or years to collect).
"Suppose there are ten people living on a dirt road, and they're thinking about having the road paved. The pavers want $10,000 to do the job. If they all pooled their money, they'd pay $1000 each.
Now suppose the tenth guy doesn't want to pay. The other nine decide they're each willing to pay a little more to get the road paved (i.e. they think living on a paved road is worth $1111.11), so they pay for the service and the tenth guy gets to live on a paved road for free.
Does that mean the payments were "donations"? Of course not. The pavers agreed to do a certain task in exchange for the money, and if they didn't do a good job of it, the people who paid could demand their money back. That's not a donation. It's paying for a service."
Do you realize how many problems there are with your business model? Let's say the 9 people give the pavers $8000. He needs the other $2000 or he won't actually complete the work. Imagine this happening with thousands (or a million) people.
Can the pavers take them all to court if they don't pay? and if they do, who pays if they win, is the judgement divided among the 9? and should that 10th person be involved if he didn't pay?
This works for a small amount of people pooling their money together, but it doesn't scale. It would be too much of a pain in the ass for all parties involved. This is why this model isn't used.
People, by nature, will not pay if they don't have to (see: anything funded by donations and taxes). Once they learn that they may pay but other people may or may not have to, the actual number of people willing to pay will go down considerably, the cost will go up for each customer (since there is less to divide), and the likelihood that they will actually get to the total cost is almost nothing.
"Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Microsoft has a history of taking other peoples code and selling it as their own. Sometimes not even bothering to change the comments in the code."
You mean legally licensed BSD code?
"Then structure the product in such a way that people need to pay you for it."
You mean like copy protection or locked hardware?
"Firstly, it's stupid to sell a product that can be so easily ripped and then complain when it does get ripped (but not complain that suddenly it has become prevalent, thereby creating your market for you)."
This may work for a few very large companies, but if a small company's product is ripped and spread, they will eventually start losing sales until it drops off to 0.
"Secondly, if you had to charge millions for your first copy of a software product in the fear that your easily-rippable product will get ripped, then you need to go back and rethink your product, such as recovering costs by providing support or selling hardware that runs your product beautifully."
If the the first copy was a million dollars, the person or company that bought it would not be sharing it on the Internet.
"If the IP is music, then make money from performance or maybe printing sheet music or something else that is tangible."
performance is tangible? It's just sounds coming from an artist. Music and movies are on DVDS and CDs..how is this not tangible?
"If the market were free to determine the price of software, it would be a very low price. People at large don't see tangible value in something that can be copied at the cost of a couple of joules of electrical energy."
A couple of joules to copy, yes, but thousands of man hours to create (which is where the cost comes into play). The actual media is probably the smallest cost in the overall process. It always has been, even before the Internet.
Paper currency technically has the tangible value of the ink and paper, but it's still worth much more.
"They see value in things they just can't get another way, or quality they can't get elsewhere. That's where Apple's business model is somewhat viable, since they go to the effort to make a package that works as advertised that you can't really get anywhere else (OS X is basically inferior on non-Apple hardware and not really worth mass-piracy)."
Apple likes to keep the hardware AND software proprietary and closed. Do you really want this? Apple made a better unix-based operating system. It works well and looks pretty. This is why they are going to last. They may even beat Microsoft.
"The Linux vendors survive on providing service and support. There gets a point (mostly for corporations) when it's cheaper to pay the Linux vendor to do things for you than to do it all yourself. That's fair trade."
Linux vendors survive because programmers donated thousands of man-hours to create the product they are selling. They don't have as much of an initial investment to recoup and have the ability to only charge for service/support.
Linux users also generally don't want to spend money and will download it for free anyway. This is one of the reasons OSX will eventually win OS war. Businesses can sell software that runs on macs and people will actually be willing to pay for it.
I don't think I've heard of any successful commercial linux application vendors.
"Microsoft should be doing the same. Provide Vista free, unencumbered. Let it spread naturally. Sell boxes, sure, but sell them essentially at-cost. Let Microsoft's specialist abilities (software support, live updates etc) be the thing people pay for. The price point should be that at which it's cheaper to pay Microsoft to help you than to go it alone."
and why would they want to do this? People are willing to pay $199 or more for Vista and many of their other products.
"I don't see where socialized health is worse. Statistics doesn't support that, although it is somewhat difficult to find direct comparisons beyond very basic numbers."
Where are you getting these statistics (I still see no proof)? I don't see how any monopoly (IE: no choice to go elsewhere when your service is shit) can win over the free market.
"The one direct limitation of socialized health care is that the state dictates how much you get to spend on your health care, both in upper and lower limits."
And when the state runs out of money, what happens? People die.
"You can still have competing hospitals/doctors. They just can't compete on price, but only on service. Of course, this depends on how the goverment regulates things."
What is the incentive for hospital X to compete with hospital Y if they both are owned and operated by the same government? And let's say they do compete and one is deemed better, what will it get? better funding? and what happens to the under-funded hospitals? will people have to suffer and die as a result?
"As with most things, the free market is not an all or nothing situation. Also in some situations like emergency care I am pro-monopoly, because the free market simply does't work in situations where the buyer doesn't have an opportunity to make an informed choice."
and why don't they have an informed choice? Insurance companies give you a break-down of how much you will have to pay, what is covered, and what isn't. The last time I checked, the United States had a pretty high literacy rate.
"Btw, lots of people have very little choice in the US where insurance companies gets to pick the doctors and treatment, and your employer gets to pick the insurance company. I just added this remark to note that the amount of free market in health care is not really dependent on how socialized the health care is."
You can change jobs (and pick a company that has better coverage) or buy your own health care (there are MANY affordable health care companies to choose from).
Every job that I have gotten in the past 5 years has had average or better health care coverage (and this includes small companies and large ones). Almost all businesses nowadays have a health-care package for their employees.
"Unfortunately, the "traditional model" depends on seizing everyone else's rights. The model I've described is one that will work even when those rights are returned"
At the expense of the companies rights. Even with no copyrights, companies will not resort to your model. It just doesn't work.
"Or Adobe would charge for support, which makes sense since many of those people would've gotten the software for free."
How would they have gotten it for free if everyone is paying a small amount for it? If someone has the ability to not pay under your model, then it is called a donation. I would say about 10-20% of the people that are asked to donate actually donate.
Wikipedia, which probably costs millions to run and is one of the most popular websites on the Internet got less than $100,000 in donations. This is probably less than 1% of the people that visit the site.
A few years back, Stephen king wrote a book, released it exclusively online, and asked for donations. Less than 5% donated and his book was shared across the Internet. He hasn't released one online since then, and sells many copies every time he comes out with a new book.
"All you're doing is telling them facts about the book, a physical object that you own. That's speech, unquestionably. And the same applies to discs: there's a certain pattern of bits stamped into that CD, and if you're prohibited from describing it to someone else, that's a restriction on your speech - someone else is forcing you to keep a secret."
Just lik with books, you can tell them about the software, what it's called, and who it's by (or with music, what it sounds like). That is your freedom of speech.
You don't, however, have the freedom to photo-copy an entire book at the local library and give it out for free when someone asks.
Books have the same business model as software. Binding and paper are very negligible costs compared to the unique content written on the pages. People are charged per copy, not per job, and they don't have rights to re-distribute it.
"Ok, that confirms that you are a rich spoiled libertarian atleast. Only rich people can afford coming to the US to get their special treatment, except maybe for a few specific cases where there was a lack of basic medical equipment in Canada."
and what happens to people that aren't rich in canada or the UK? They die because they can't get the proper treatment.
"Actually, I don't get why scaling came into the discussion in the first place"
because the more people there are, the more people the government will have to support through the health-care system.
"The US is so inefficent that it fails to treat 1/6 of it its own population. (and that is not including those who are under insured)"
The current system is broken. Socialized health care is worse.
"The goverment isn't a business. And it doesn't seem to be the least efficent either considering goverment run health care seems to cost less per capita than the same US run health care that doesn't produce better results on average."
It isn't a business, but it needs to be run like one. If you look at basic economics, you will see that monopolies are not as efficient as the free market. I guess you are pro-monopoly..right?
"Ok, that probably reinforces what you believe. That the rich should pay and get their treatment directly, while the poor should shut up, die and go to hell."
At least with the current health-care system of the US, you can get care and live. You might have debt, but you will still be alive. In your system, you wouldn't even have the option.
I am not against the poor getting the proper care, I just would like the ability to get better care if I can afford it. Socialized health care puts everyone on the same level and will make it impossible for anyone with the means to get better care.
"No. That was the whole point of bringing up political campaigns: thousands of people pay a small amount, and those small payments add up to millions of dollars. (As you pointed out, political campaign contributions are donations, but then we both agreed it's a "payment" instead when you're guaranteed something in return, which in this case would be the service of writing software.)
Instead of having one person pay $10 million for development, you could have a million people each paying $10, or a hundred thousand each paying $100, or some combination of both: all that matters is that the company eventually collects the $10 million they're looking for."
Companies can do that if they choose, but most decide to go with the traditional model. If a million people were using the software and a company like adobe had to support them, the price would quickly go up.
"I have the right to communicate (which may involve sharing numbers that represent software) and to use my own property (which may involve feeding one of those numbers into my computer)."
Software isn't your property. Even when you purchase it, you are buying the right to use it, not to own the original source code. And saying that sharing numbers is free speech is a bit of a stretch.
Making it harder for businesses to make money by not protecting their rights in any industry will quickly make it disappear.
"What investment? If they got paid for developing it, there is no investment. The money has changed hands and the job is done."
Investment of developing a product to sell. The initial investment may include development, marketing and any other costs related to creating the piece of software.
"Yes, that's true, they face the unnecessary risk of losing their investment. That risk would go away if they'd charge for production, of course."
I see, so 1 single person would be wiling to pay 10 million dollars for adobe photoshop? The only reason software is "subsidized" is to get it out to the masses. Otherwise, it would only be in the hands of businesses and people that could afford the large amount of money required for development.
and let's not forget support. Commercial software vendors have to spend time and hire people to support the software that they sold you (which costs money).
"If it were only that company's fortunes at stake, then I'd have no objection. But the problem is, they're not the only ones who lose. Everyone is forced to play along, facing restrictions on their speech and actions just so this company with the broken business model can roll the dice and pray to strike it rich. Even if the company wins, everyone else still loses: we don't get our freedoms back when the company recoups their investment. They're gone forever (well, for life + 70 years, as long as the copyright terms aren't retroactively extended before then)."
You never had any rights to the software to begin with. You are granted rights when a company sells you a license to use their software for $retail cost when they paid millions to develop it.
"Wow, a libertarian web site does not agree with the idea of socialized medicine. You've been drinking too much of the old libertarian cool-aid"
and you have been sipping the old socialist toilet water. Sprayed into your mouth by Obama and his comrades.
"People I've talked to from Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan, France, and Italy all love their socialized medicine. No one I've talked has ever, or even knows anyone, who has had to go to a free market health care system to cover what theirs will not."
UK population: 60 million: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html
Germany - population 82 million
Japan - population 127 million
France - population 60 million
Italy - population: 58 million
canada - population: 33 million
and what is the population of the united states? (280 million)
I asked for ONE example of a country the size of the US with successful socialized healthcare and you gave me a list of countries that aren't even half the size in terms of population.
"All you are doing here is parroting back the right wing lies I've heard a million times before. Please try to provide more than anecdotes with no verified evidence. Please do not use libertarian sources unless they are backed up with other, reputable sources. Libertarians almost all think the ends justify the means, and lie all the time."
well, I can give the same evidence as you. I have friends and relatives that live in China and Canada (both with socialized health care). They all have the same story. Checkups are okay, but anything beyond that is a very long waiting list and most just come to the united states.
"All you are doing here is parroting back the right wing lies I've heard a million times before. Please try to provide more than anecdotes with no verified evidence. Please do not use libertarian sources unless they are backed up with other, reputable sources. Libertarians almost all think the ends justify the means, and lie all the time."
now you are resorting to personal attacks and generalizations that just aren't true. You don't think the liberal media lies on a constant basis to push agendas?
It's pretty easy to see why universal health care won't work. In terms of a business, which is better, a monopoly or a free market? With socialized health-care, we would have one large monopoly run by the most inefficient business there is: the government.
Here is a nice example of how great french health care is (since you did include it on your list).
another great side-effect of universal health-care.
"So socialized medicine, which has been proven to work far better than privatized medicine in the entire rest of the developed world, somehow equates to 100% of Americans losing their property rights?"
I suggest you take a look at this page if you really believe in universal health care.
Socialism may work with smaller countries, but I would like to see a successful example of a country the size of the united states (the key word is successful..not barely functioning).
The US health care system may not be perfect, but it does tell you something when people from Canada come over to the US to get major surgeries because there is too much of a wait there.
Salaries are also capped for doctors. The best ones will either go somewhere else where they can make more money or become vets (and yes, some may not care about money, but $100,000 needs to get paid somehow).
"You're making my point for me. TurboTax did that because they thought they could get away with it. No one forced them, and copyright law didn't change."
I was only pointing out that turbo tax went to a service based app...not that the copyright laws have changed. They could and did get away with it..and as more and more households get high-speed internet, so will more companies.
"No, they wouldn't. It's only treated like "property" in the first place because copyright subsidizes the business models that treat information as property."
Yes, they would. Software companies would still sell software, but they would find some other way to protect their investment. This might mean software as a service or maybe even more locked down hardware (which would still be crackable, but as long as the average user couldn't easily defeat it, would still be a viable option. This seems to be working pretty well for the satellite companies, although they have had their fair share of hardware getting cracked in the past).
"But if you've already been paid for writing something, because you asked for money when you did the work instead of praying to earn some money later by selling copies, you don't need to "protect" it anymore."
You still have no viable reason for abolishing copyright besides this selfish view of the world where you seem to think you are owed everything for free.
If a company wants to invest a million dollars into the development of software, only to be "subsidized" by the people that purchase it, so be it. They are also the ones that lose that million dollars if there is no market for it or it just doesn't sell (but you never seem to talk about this fact). Selling movies or albums also carries that same risk.
"Let's say I run a web hosting service, and one of my users uploads a copy of that new game to his public folder. Now I have to enforce Company X's copying policies on their behalf, even though I don't give a rat's ass about the game. They've dragged me into their business model against my will."
.com. Another company decides to call themselves web hosting X and buy up the .net. They are now selling the exact same service as you, but with very poor service (and your reputation is now gone as a hosting provider).
It has more to do with a business's rights than their business model. Here is an example where copyrights might help you and your web hosting company (call it web hosting X). You are running a
Copyrights allow you to get them shutdown or change their name.
"But everyone is dragged in, to some extent. Everyone is forced to limit their speech and actions, whether they buy the game or not, because copyright makes it illegal to say certain things to other people or burn certain numbers to a disc without permission."
Sharing proprietary software illegally != freedom of speech. And what are these certain numbers that are deemed illegal? The 1-billion binary numbers that may make up a piece of software?
"Huh. From your other comment, I thought you understood the difference between donating and paying for a service, but I guess not"
Can you really not tell when someone is being sarcastic?
"If they thought they could get away with that, they would've done it already."
If they are forced to because copyright goes away, they will find a way to make their application a service. Turbo tax did (and any other have followed).
If copyrights and patents were gone, our world would be even more protected and proprietary than before. Mainly because companies would have to go to great lengths to protect their property.
There really is a simple solution: don't download commercial software from pirate sites that you aren't willing to buy. If you do, and use it (or listen/watch it), you find value in it and the original author should be compensated.
"he plural of anecdote is not data. As a university student, I know that I and many of my friends have downloaded cracked versions of software, simply because the software's activation scheme was so god-awfully unreliable, the cracked version was actually more useful than the legitimate version (MATLAB, I'm looking squarely at you). We paid for the software (sometimes directly, but usually through our university tuition), so why shouldn't we be able to use the software?"
did you and each one of your friends purchase a valid license as well?
If a large percentage of people were cracking software only because the activation system didn't work on their valid copy, businesses wouldn't be investing all kinds of money into copy-protection systems (there would be no point).
The exception does not make the rule.
"For me, the real progress from open source is social progress, not (only) technological. There is massive duplication of effort in the proprietary software business, because every application requires its implementation of UI/networking/interfacing etc. On the one side, this is countered by commercial houses that offer RAD tools to minimize such duplication, on the other side you have free software, that instead opts to share said implementations, and reduce duplication that way."
Money drives companies to try different implementations/ideas and as a result, there is technical innovation in software. With open source, when something works, most developers just fork the source.
Look at VNC. It's had the same shitty code-base re-implemented 100 times into different variants. I don't think there is another open source equivalent. However, there are many proprietary examples of software that have the same functionality as VNC or better (RDP is a good example).
I don't see how this is advancement.
"Markets which close because of open source tools are akin to weavers complaining about mechanical looms in days of old."
Not quite. That was real progress. Open source isn't progress, it's software at $0 cost. Most open source projects that I have seen are either technically inferior than its proprietary counterpart or it takes months or years longer to get wanted features completed, because it relies on developers that may or may not finish something based on their own personal preference.
It's more like private health care companies going out of business because it is now subsidized by the government.
"Technology advances and no one wants to buy the old way any more. It is not a bad thing, it's progress. The less companies are paying for software the more they can spend on expanding their products and making money instead of sinking money into re-inventing the wheel."
Free/open source software will eventually cheapen developer positions because companies will be able to get most of what they want for free. This will mean less requirements for programming jobs (think only code monkey jobs) at less pay. Would you consider this "innovation" too?
"Not quite.
It's true that political campaigns are funded by donations, yes. But the reason they're called donations is that you're not guaranteed anything in return. You don't know whether the candidate will spend your money on radio ads, fliers, etc., or even whether it'll be spent at all, and you certainly have no recourse if it gets spent on something you don't like."
You say not quite..and then explain exactly what I was saying. Thanks for making my point.
"If you do offer guarantees, however, then it's not a donation: it's payment for a service, which of course works quite well for businesses. You have a reasonably good idea of what you're getting in exchange for your money, and if the result doesn't measure up to what you were promised, you can demand your money back."
I know. Again, my point. Donations don't work well for businesses, this is why they charge for services.
"If only it were that simple. See, copyright restricts everyone's freedom. It forces everyone to participate in that business model, even the people who "don't fucking buy it"."
How is everyone forced to participate? company X comes out with a new game. Customers that want the game are involved in the business model..and customers that don't aren't.
"By the way, political campaigns also cost millions of dollars to run. Do you know how they're funded? (Hint: it's not by finding one person and asking him for a hundred million dollars. Nor is it by producing an ad with borrowed money and then hoping to recoup it by charging everyone who watches the ad.)"
hint: it's through donations, which only works in certain situations. I guess there could be a new model. You "donate" $10 to a company and they give you a copy of their software.
"Without copyright, you would be able to. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, because everyone would be free to share your proprietary application, disassemble it, and port your changes back into the open source code. RMS disagrees with me, but oh well."
Money drives all thriving industries. With no copyrights, 99.9% of all commercial software would immediately go to service/web-based within a couple of months. I guess that will be better, because then there will be no argument here. You will have no code to share.
"For an example of how this works, look at political campaign web sites. Millions of people make small contributions that add up to millions of dollars, and they're not even guaranteed anything in return! Setting up a similar system for the development of software, music, etc. would be straightforward - the only hard part would be getting people used to the system. But it's already being tried to an extent: see sellaband.com for something similar (but not quite the same) for music."
what you are talking about is called a donation. Which generally does not work for a business.