By creating more competition amongst developers, they are all forced to put more thought into their code and pay more attention to what their user's want/need. That is why microsoft has sucked for so long...for years there was no adequate competition so many of their programs were just thrown out there without adequate testing or full regard to user needs.
I see just the opposite. Microsoft may suck, but it's not because of the lack of competition (I bet I can find proprietary software that competes with every one of microsoft's applications).
Open source encourages less innovation. Many applications are re-built on-top of existing code. If the source was proprietary, programmers would have to create their own version (with different code). There is also a drive by the programmer to come out with better applications.
This also has the added advantage of encouraging the commercial software developers to lower the prices for their software, which is often very expensive. Not to mention it drives user's towards opensource projects which are need more users because their software is free and often are only supported via user donations. Because they're opensource and contribute to the knowledge of the community, it is generally more of a public service to get them more users in hopes that some of them will donate something to help sustain the opensource project(s) as long as possible.
the market determines the price. Adobe wouldn't be charging $200 for photoshop, if people weren't buying it.
The sooner we can retire those millions of boxes that spread the malware via broken applications, the safer we all will be. It's the same reason the public health authorities want to do something about open sewers: they host very efficient disease vectors.
When linux becomes the new trendy operating system to hate, because everyone uses it, it will have the same issues.
The reason there aren't very many viruses or trojans right now for linux isn't because of a superiority in security design. It is mostly because there are more computers on the Internet with windows to infect. This is the same reason there isn't spyware on linux based systems. Advertisers don't want to waste their time writing a program for a very low percentage of the overall internet population.
Programming tools have also made windows a target. With tools from Microsoft, it is very easy to create a script that can destroy data. I hardly ever see a boot sector virus anymore (such as Monkey.B). It has also become very easy to write applications in general. Which is nice for Microsoft, but bad for us. Many applications are designed very poorly.
I have windows 2003 server edition installed at work (with a hardware firewall). We have only 2 third-party applications installed: mysql and a mail server. I think I have had to reboot it once or twice in the last few months, and it was only when I needed to install updates.
linux also has broken applications. This will become more apparent when they are exploited with malware.
Im not saying windows is secure. I actually use mandrake+linux+firefox on my computer at home. Just because something is open source, doesn't make it better or more secure.
Apple, with its constantly improving 10.x series compared to Windows and its stagnating OS and browser, is a good example of how a non-monopolistic company responds to market forced
apple is a monopoly, just not a convicted one. They have a monopoly over mac hardware and OS.
I'm sorry, there's no real way to ask this delicately. Are you a total muppet?
wow, this is sure going to convince companies to start using linux.
Installing a Linux box 10 years ago could be considered difficult, but getting a fully functional system up and running today is literally child's play.
functional? maybe. fully functional? hardly. Linux still needs work in the driver support department.
But seriously, if you can't get a standard click-the-next-button-a-few-times install CD to work then you either have some seriously non-standard/broken hardware, or you're a moron.
if you ever want linux to surpass windows in usage, you might consider a better approach.
) Servers are easy. Even on Windows it's harder to get a desktop system working with all hardware. In fact, Linux often does a better job at detecting hardware than Windows because on Windows you're expected to be able to go download a driver or two while most drivers on Linux come with the distribution. For example, an HP P1000 printer requires a 10MB download on Windows, but 'just works' with most Linux distros.
I think I stopped running linux when I found out there wasn't a driver even made for my wireless network card. In windows, it just works.
although you may have a valid example, there are more drivers built into windows than any linux distribution.
They are driven by profit only, not the pure need to make the software work. Evolution, or the possibility for it, is what makes GNU and Open Source a supreme development model in the long run.
they may be driven by profit, but closed source software helps innovation. When software is open source, there isn't any competition. Different projects will many times use the same source.
If you cannot see the sourcecode, programmers are forced to think of different ways to do things..on their own.
Software completion is also slowed down. Since many developers are not getting paid, projects are only worked on in spare time. This drastically reduces development time from 6 months (closed source) to a couple of years (open source). This is why programmers need to "carry the torch". Because programmers drop OSS projects when they don't feel like working on them or have found something else that is interesting. Many commerical apps cannot be dropped, because companies have money invested.
Good software is not coded, it's engineered.
Im not saying all Open source software is bad. I use mysql,php, and apache on a daily basis (I find it better than ASP or IIS). I just think that for it to truly become successful, something needs to change.
As for the marriage issue, I think a lot of people don't understand that marriage is far more than just an indication to society of two people being long term partners. There's a whole shedload of legal implications, such as ability to follow your partner to different places with a career change, or implications for what can be left in the event of your partner's death (especially from a taxation point of view), even implications for access to your partner under certain medical care situations. IANAL, so I can't fill you in on the details.. I'm also referring more to the situation in the UK, but I'm sure it's much the same in the US. Anybody with more legal knowledge care to comment?
if gays are allowed to get married legally, do citizenship rules apply? Could a foreigner marry someone from the U.S and obtain citizenship?
Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.
can you please stop spitting out this hashed over liberal bullshit. I think I was sick of hearing this after michael moore said it....about 300 times.
I don't agree with this law being passed either..but one has nothing to do with the other.
I actually wished a kerry would have won. Then I could see how fucked up the U.S would be with a democrat in office (and point out that fact).
Well, I say, it's time to stop. Not just stop pirating mainstream movies, but stop watching them altogether. There's plenty of content to be found out there on the Web (AtomFilms and INetFilm come to mind)
easier said than done. The average person likes mainstream movies and music. I think the polished look of a studio produced film easily beat out any film at atomfilms or inetfilm. To me, most low budget films remind me of a soap opera or a porno.
Show the RIAA that we are not sheep. Show them that we don't need to see the latest Keanu Reeves travesty. Show them we're tired of their shit. Don't see their movies. Don't pirate their movies. Don't have anything to do with their movies. If enough of us shake off the yoke, it will make a difference
if the RIAA was gone, artists would soon be against p2p, mostly because they would be relying on CD sales for their revenue.
it really makes you think: if pop artists and popular music are so shitty and worthless, why are they pirated the most??
This is unfortunate as I see it, as it was easier in the earlier days before spammers took over the internet and all forms of advertising were acceptable and just known as part of the internet. I dont think the tools to block adverts are doing good either. sometime somewhere someone has to pay for the sites you visit. Not accepting their advertising banners and emails is a form of ripping people off I thnk.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's ripping people off.
All large scale sites (including slashdot) need some form of advertising or revenue stream. If these ads are blocked continuously and the revenue isn't there, sites will go away or will be forced to charge money.
I would rather have free sites with advertisements than for-pay sites.
Simply because it gives the user what the user wants, even though the user has to work more for it.
users don't want to work more for anything. They just want it to work. This is why linux is still not fully mainstreamed.
Because it allows software to be free as in speech, but does not force it to be free as in price.
it might be free as in speech, but this does in fact force it to be free as in price. GNU software requires all source to be open. There is nothing stopping someone from 1) re-compiling the source code for free or 2) re-distributing the binaries for free. It's human nature (take p2p as an example): free will win over something that costs money.
right now, the reason people are starting to use open source is simply because it's free. Not free as in speech, but free as in money (or less than Microsoft).
It's kinda too bad actually. I go to a lot of scientific talks and I always enjoy watching Windows users tapping all sorts of keys, restarting, etc. just to get their presentation to show up on the projector screen.
too bad the reason many users' systems are slow isn't because of Microsoft. It's because of spyware. I have XP running on all of my computers and 2003 standard edition on my server. The 2003 machine has been running smooth for over a year now, I haven't even had to reboot it once. I have also used my XP machine (which is a laptop) for many presentations, and I have never had a problem.
rebooting and BSODs due to Microsoft issues are a thing of the past.
linux may not require reboots due to spyware, but that's only because it's not popular enough for the spyware companies to write software for it.
and stifle competition because having huge amounts of Intellectual property that no one else can ever touch is an unfair competitive advantage.
if I created something you want, but can't have it because you don't know how it works is not an unfair competitive advantage. It's simply a competitive advantage. Competitive advantages are used in business all the time, which in turn creates more innnovation (companies strive to create something better than their competition, which leads to innovation happening at an extremly fast rate).
GNU software actually slows innovation. The same code is re-used over and over and new software ideas and products aren't created. I don't think I can even name a revolutionary innovative product that came out of the open source community. Linux was copied from the original unix, Gnome/KDE take ideas from microsoft windows, open/star office take ideas from microsoft office,.... (and the list goes on).
It seems, for now, the open source community seems to be good at mimicking closed source programs (and some..not so well).
Customers who use GPL are forced to be more creative....
how are customers forced to be more creative?
Consumers win because companies have to be more competitive
consumers win because they get free software. Programmers lose because it makes the job of "programmer" almost worthless. It's a lot easier to piece together bits of code that you didn't write than to actually write it yourself.
Microsoft can sit on their ass right now and say "You want an office package? Great, here's our package for $600 a person. What, you don't want to pay that price? Lick my ass n00b, you can't do shit without my software, we 0wnz j00r ass!"
you can't do anything...except use another software package. You are not forced to use microsoft products (example: open office/star office, linux). Microsoft might have a monopoly, but they started somewhere. Consumers bought and used their products in the beginning to give them that power.
Here's another way to look at it. Before the internet, most networks were proprietary. Closed off and not communicating with each other. Companies had their own networks, colleges has theirs, and some of them even tried to create VANs (value added networks) to perform EDI (electronic data interchange). Most of those attempts were novel but they sucked. When the internet came out, everyone was suddenly connected. Now EDI is easy, because as long as your computer is on the internet, I can build something that communicates with you seamlessly
and how did the Internet get this way? through big company support. Without profitability, the Internet would still be a small proprietary network.
Competition has been lacking in the last several decades, because people think it's okay for big companies to hold big power. The GPL is simply taking current overly controlling law and turning it against itself by guarenteeing that information released under it is free.
what the fuck are you talking about? Take a look at the billions of software and service companies on the Internet today (including a countless number of linux distributions) and then tell me if there is "no competition". Just because the world isn't using linux, does not mean there isn't any competition.
yup, software as a service is great, the software company get to line their pockets over and over again with subscriptions to the service, or pay per use. so we end up being fucked over even more by capitalist scum who don't give a shit about anyone else
blame it on software piracy. As a developer who would like to own his own business, this is the future and best choice. If you don't like it, you can go to another service. It's not like you don't have the freedom to do so.
The purpose of the GPL is to ensure freedom. If it wern't for the possibility that someone monopolist would take free code and use it to make obscene profits, while at the same time making that code incompatible with the free versions, most of the "open source" or "free software" work would probably have been Public Domain instead.
I would like to ensure freedom..of the programmer. Which is why I choose to use the BSD license.
The reason RMS devised the GPL was as a great way to subvert the system to force freedom
hmm..forcing freedom...sounds like an oxymoron to me.
The RIAA on the other hand is an immoral, corrupt organization that keeps artists poor, charges obscene prices for music, while using those profits to lobby congress to get themselves infinite copyright against the intent in the US constitution, and stamp out any competing form of music distribution. I don't see any moral comparison at all.
while they do have shady practices (and I don't agree with some of the things that they are doing), I don't think they keep artists poor. Artists have the freedom to accept or not accept a recording contract with a major label.
Most artists choose the major label. They do this because they only have to focus on one thing: playing music. It's similar to the difference between having a steady job (being signed) (less responsibility, more of a regular income) and being self-employed (being independent) (a lot more responsiblity and less of a chance of making a profit).
After all, you aren't complaining about programmers getting screwed out of money when they build a program while working for a large company and get paid their regular hourly salary (as opposed to the actual profit on the software).
Sharing music on the Internet does not help in the defeat if the RIAA, it only helps to make them stronger. In the beginning, Independent artists make most of their money off of CD sales and T-shirts). Most small venues only pay a small amount of money which is not enough for a typical band to live off of. If CD sales are out of the picture due to sharing, an artist will be more likely to accept an offer from a major label. if there is a demand there will be a supply.
You should follow the GPL because its purpose is to ensure freedom. Your freedom even. The GPL is to ensure YOUR freedom to use and study the code
Unless there is a law against it, there will always be proprietary code. Even if there were no copyright laws, companies would most likely convert software to services and charge for the access (this is actually a good idea....no need to worry about copyright infringement). Some companies are doing this already (turbo tax comes to mind)..even though they have an actual software counter-part.
Namely, if there's GPL code out there, you have access to the source code. Then someone takes your code, makes some modifications and does not release it GPL. Everyone has lost rights in this situation, as no one is now able to get the source code
This isn't true. The original GPLd code is still GPLd, you just don't get the changes.
1. The player uses lots of Flash trickery that doesn't work well, as far as I can tell- the ticker that tells you what song you are listening to is frequently wrong.
XM just changed the interface. It's less flashy (I don't think it's even using flash anymore).
as for the low quality. I believe the high-quality feed is now at 128K.
As a musician I believe that music ought to be free. I can't bear the thought of my work only going to horrible radio stations that are going to try to make the kids buy things they don't want.
But I'm powerless to stop it.
how are you powerless? Powerless to stop OTHER artists from releasing their music on the radio to "make the kids buy things they don't want", maybe.
It takes some major effort to get your music played on the radio. A radio station isn't going to just start playing your music, without your permission.
If you enjoy radio, then I suggest you listen to Triple J - available from the ABC website www.abc.net.au
you are basically trying to "sell things to the kids" on a different medium.
http://shop.abc.net.au/.
earning thousands of dollars in a single night (of lip-synching).
someone sounds bitter. Some artists lip-sync, and some do not. If you never sign with a recording company, don't expect to make very much money.
2) It isn't exactly one of their core revenue products
well, I don't think any company that releases their product under #1 has that same product as #2. Even the linux distro companies make most of their money in support..not that actual software.
think about the uses to which you can put that underlying code, which is now all open source. now imagine what will happen when someone takes this open source code and perverts it into a complete ID theft tool. what will the M$ press release look like then?
it will will be just one more reason not to use/release Open Source. If there was no sourcecode available, there wouldn't be a complete ID theft tool. Only a child-porn busting tool.
They are suspecting the wrong people. Do you have Internet at home? Do you make a connection to a web page via a browser? Can you download a file? You have just used p2p. So guess what, you're a suspect. Have fun
I think you're going a little overboard with this one. People going to websites and accessing the Internet from home are not suspects. People using p2p and sharing copyrighted materials are.
Im not worried because I don't share copyrighted materials with thousands of other people, but if I did, it would be the same if I used OSS in a closed source application, I would be worried.
Reality: OSS has the support of mouth advertisement. The cheapest and most effective. Smaller businesses are much more likely to adopt than large ones. But that is history. Right now we are observing IBM and Novell to see where it all leads
cheapest? yes. Most effective? no. If this were the case, businesses would not spend millions of dollars per year on advertising.
IBM and Novell using open source is the equivalent of a recording company picking up an independent artist.
They haven't, they tried to is what I said. Off the top of my head, SCO. Manipulating law does not exclude your assumption of someone passing a law, but there are many ways to manipulate one. Such a law will never pass (heh...) because of it's inherent incapability to make sense.
im not saying I agree with what SCO is saying about copyright infringement and the linux kernel, but they are not trying to destroy open source or make it illegal.
They are doing the exact same thing the FSF is doing, exept they have an advantage: they can see all of the code of the possible infringers.
GNU and the FSF: going after people or companies using OSS in closed-source applications. SCO: going after people/compaines using closed source in an OSS application.
I could just as easily say that the FSF is attempting to destroy closed-source applications.
Of course I can't state that as a fact, it is a mere speculation. Over the cource of its existance, OSS has been met with hostility from closed source vendors. Some of the major ones went as far as spreading propaganda against use of such software. They have tried to manipulate the law so that it would become impossible to develop OSS. They have marketed their inferior, clumsy (you may disagree at your discression) down so many people's throats so that now no one without a geek friend knows about OSS. And to add to the cake, closed source means you can never verify anything if they don't want you to.
how have they manipulated the law to make it impossible to make open source applications? If you want to make an application and release its source under a license under your choosing there is no law against it (and I don't seem to recall a law trying to get passed that would prevent it).
marketing is the difference between someone using OSS and someone using a closed source application. In the past, most companies have sold and marketed closed source applications and open source applications were released into the public by the developer that created them (with little or no marketing).
I can perfectly see why every OSS developer who understands the implications of the GPL will not trust these companies. These companies don't know when to stop sometimes. So yes, there is suspicion, but it is quite probable that it's well rooted, and a much more honest suspicion than what we have seen from the other side so far.
I can also see why closed source application developers are suspicious. Looking at the amount of p2p applicatons out there and the number of applications shared tells me they have a good reason.
Perhaps it was a poor choice of words, but "must play fair" is not the same as "I'm watching you". The difference in the position is that OSS is already quite more liberal than closed source. Also, you don't necessarily get the feeling of someone always suspecting you of something
literally, they are different. But what about suspecting closed source companies of using OSS in a proprietary application? In the past few weeks there have been many accusations made against developers for using OSS in their closed source apps.
this sure seems like they are being watched and suspected of doing something to me.
Does it actually make sense to you to concider any type of software based on its price tag alone? Big or small, it has nothing to do with the motivation behind the project when it comes to OSS. Once again, I will reiterate my opinion of how M$ relates to what you can/can't do with OSS: it doesn't. It has nothing to do with how OSS is. OSS will do fine with or without M$. It only depends on the availability of cheap hardware. If it was so profitable to take up the OSS project and out compete on rebundling and service, why hasn't this happened? Why are the good projects thriving just fine? Is there an actual example of this that you know of and care to share?
im talking about businesses. Sometimes, the pricetag is usually a big consideration in whether a piece of software is used.
I really doubt that this happens when people's minds are in the right place. OSS takes the position of "I don't care, but you must play fair, cause if not, then I will", whatever's closed is "I'm watching you, god forbid you do something *I* don't agree with, and also, would that be cash or credit?". Under this light, who are you to judge mentality.
"must play fair" is the same as "im watching you, god forbid you do something *I* don't agree with".
Examples of this can be seen in the many companies examined recently for not complying with the GNU license. It all comes down to IP usage, and in this respect, open source software is just as bad as closed source.
Slashdot Mirror
When was the last time Microsoft came up with a technology of it's own? (Microsoft Bob!?)
when has the open source community come up with technology on it's own? Everything seems to be a copy of a closed source app.
By creating more competition amongst developers, they are all forced to put more thought into their code and pay more attention to what their user's want/need. That is why microsoft has sucked for so long...for years there was no adequate competition so many of their programs were just thrown out there without adequate testing or full regard to user needs.
I see just the opposite. Microsoft may suck, but it's not because of the lack of competition (I bet I can find proprietary software that competes with every one of microsoft's applications).
Open source encourages less innovation. Many applications are re-built on-top of existing code. If the source was proprietary, programmers would have to create their own version (with different code). There is also a drive by the programmer to come out with better applications.
This also has the added advantage of encouraging the commercial software developers to lower the prices for their software, which is often very expensive. Not to mention it drives user's towards opensource projects which are need more users because their software is free and often are only supported via user donations. Because they're opensource and contribute to the knowledge of the community, it is generally more of a public service to get them more users in hopes that some of them will donate something to help sustain the opensource project(s) as long as possible.
the market determines the price. Adobe wouldn't be charging $200 for photoshop, if people weren't buying it.
The sooner we can retire those millions of boxes that spread the malware via broken applications, the safer we all will be. It's the same reason the public health authorities want to do something about open sewers: they host very efficient disease vectors.
When linux becomes the new trendy operating system to hate, because everyone uses it, it will have the same issues.
The reason there aren't very many viruses or trojans right now for linux isn't because of a superiority in security design. It is mostly because there are more computers on the Internet with windows to infect. This is the same reason there isn't spyware on linux based systems. Advertisers don't want to waste their time writing a program for a very low percentage of the overall internet population.
Programming tools have also made windows a target. With tools from Microsoft, it is very easy to create a script that can destroy data.
I hardly ever see a boot sector virus anymore (such as Monkey.B). It has also become very easy to write applications in general. Which is nice for Microsoft, but bad for us. Many applications are designed very poorly.
I have windows 2003 server edition installed at work (with a hardware firewall). We have only 2 third-party applications installed: mysql and a mail server. I think I have had to reboot it once or twice in the last few months, and it was only when I needed to install updates.
linux also has broken applications. This will become more apparent when they are exploited with malware.
Im not saying windows is secure. I actually use mandrake+linux+firefox on my computer at home. Just because something is open source, doesn't make it better or more secure.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Putting Windows admins at work on Linux is an exercise in futility (or sick humor, depending)
hmm, so rather than giving some constructive criticism, you insult an admin who is trying to use linux.
and you wonder why most companies are still using windows.
you linux zealots are all the same...
Apple, with its constantly improving 10.x series compared to Windows and its stagnating OS and browser, is a good example of how a non-monopolistic company responds to market forced
apple is a monopoly, just not a convicted one. They have a monopoly over mac hardware and OS.
I'm sorry, there's no real way to ask this delicately. Are you a total muppet?
wow, this is sure going to convince companies to start using linux.
Installing a Linux box 10 years ago could be considered difficult, but getting a fully functional system up and running today is literally child's play.
functional? maybe. fully functional? hardly. Linux still needs work in the driver support department.
But seriously, if you can't get a standard click-the-next-button-a-few-times install CD to work then you either have some seriously non-standard/broken hardware, or you're a moron.
if you ever want linux to surpass windows in usage, you might consider a better approach.
) Servers are easy. Even on Windows it's harder to get a desktop system working with all hardware. In fact, Linux often does a better job at detecting hardware than Windows because on Windows you're expected to be able to go download a driver or two while most drivers on Linux come with the distribution. For example, an HP P1000 printer requires a 10MB download on Windows, but 'just works' with most Linux distros.
I think I stopped running linux when I found out there wasn't a driver even made for my wireless network card. In windows, it just works.
although you may have a valid example, there are more drivers built into windows than any linux distribution.
They are driven by profit only, not the pure need to make the software work. Evolution, or the possibility for it, is what makes GNU and Open Source a supreme development model in the long run.
they may be driven by profit, but closed source software helps innovation. When software is open source, there isn't any competition. Different projects will many times use the same source.
If you cannot see the sourcecode, programmers are forced to think of different ways to do things..on their own.
Software completion is also slowed down. Since many developers are not getting paid, projects are only worked on in spare time. This drastically reduces development time from 6 months (closed source) to a couple of years (open source). This is why programmers need to "carry the torch". Because programmers drop OSS projects when they don't feel like working on them or have found something else that is interesting. Many commerical apps cannot be dropped, because companies have money invested.
Good software is not coded, it's engineered.
Im not saying all Open source software is bad. I use mysql,php, and apache on a daily basis (I find it better than ASP or IIS). I just think that for it to truly become successful, something needs to change.
As for the marriage issue, I think a lot of people don't understand that marriage is far more than just an indication to society of two people being long term partners. There's a whole shedload of legal implications, such as ability to follow your partner to different places with a career change, or implications for what can be left in the event of your partner's death (especially from a taxation point of view), even implications for access to your partner under certain medical care situations. IANAL, so I can't fill you in on the details.. I'm also referring more to the situation in the UK, but I'm sure it's much the same in the US.
Anybody with more legal knowledge care to comment?
if gays are allowed to get married legally, do citizenship rules apply? Could a foreigner marry someone from the U.S and obtain citizenship?
Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.
can you please stop spitting out this hashed over liberal bullshit. I think I was sick of hearing this after michael moore said it....about 300 times.
I don't agree with this law being passed either..but one has nothing to do with the other.
I actually wished a kerry would have won. Then I could see how fucked up the U.S would be with a democrat in office (and point out that fact).
Well, I say, it's time to stop. Not just stop pirating mainstream movies, but stop watching them altogether. There's plenty of content to be found out there on the Web (AtomFilms and INetFilm come to mind)
easier said than done. The average person likes mainstream movies and music. I think the polished look of a studio produced film easily beat out any film at atomfilms or inetfilm. To me, most low budget films remind me of a soap opera or a porno.
Show the RIAA that we are not sheep. Show them that we don't need to see the latest Keanu Reeves travesty. Show them we're tired of their shit. Don't see their movies. Don't pirate their movies. Don't have anything to do with their movies. If enough of us shake off the yoke, it will make a difference
if the RIAA was gone, artists would soon be against p2p, mostly because they would be relying on CD sales for their revenue.
it really makes you think: if pop artists and popular music are so shitty and worthless, why are they pirated the most??
This is unfortunate as I see it, as it was easier in the earlier days before spammers took over the internet and all forms of advertising were acceptable and just known as part of the internet. I dont think the tools to block adverts are doing good either. sometime somewhere someone has to pay for the sites you visit. Not accepting their advertising banners and emails is a form of ripping people off I thnk.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's ripping people off.
All large scale sites (including slashdot) need some form of advertising or revenue stream. If these ads are blocked continuously and the revenue isn't there, sites will go away or will be forced to charge money.
I would rather have free sites with advertisements than for-pay sites.
Simply because it gives the user what the user wants, even though the user has to work more for it.
users don't want to work more for anything. They just want it to work. This is why linux is still not fully mainstreamed.
Because it allows software to be free as in speech, but does not force it to be free as in price.
it might be free as in speech, but this does in fact force it to be free as in price. GNU software requires all source to be open. There is nothing stopping someone from 1) re-compiling the source code for free or 2) re-distributing the binaries for free. It's human nature (take p2p as an example): free will win over something that costs money.
right now, the reason people are starting to use open source is simply because it's free. Not free as in speech, but free as in money (or less than Microsoft).
It's kinda too bad actually. I go to a lot of scientific talks and I always enjoy watching Windows users tapping all sorts of keys, restarting, etc. just to get their presentation to show up on the projector screen.
too bad the reason many users' systems are slow isn't because of Microsoft. It's because of spyware. I have XP running on all of my computers and 2003 standard edition on my server. The 2003 machine has been running smooth for over a year now, I haven't even had to reboot it once. I have also used my XP machine (which is a laptop) for many presentations, and I have never had a problem.
rebooting and BSODs due to Microsoft issues are a thing of the past.
linux may not require reboots due to spyware, but that's only because it's not popular enough for the spyware companies to write software for it.
and stifle competition because having huge amounts of Intellectual property that no one else can ever touch is an unfair competitive advantage.
.... (and the list goes on).
if I created something you want, but can't have it because you don't know how it works is not an unfair competitive advantage. It's simply a competitive advantage. Competitive advantages are used in business all the time, which in turn creates more innnovation (companies strive to create something better than their competition, which leads to innovation happening at an extremly fast rate).
GNU software actually slows innovation. The same code is re-used over and over and new software ideas and products aren't created. I don't think I can even name a revolutionary innovative product that came out of the open source community. Linux was copied from the original unix, Gnome/KDE take ideas from microsoft windows, open/star office take ideas from microsoft office,
It seems, for now, the open source community seems to be good at mimicking closed source programs (and some..not so well).
Customers who use GPL are forced to be more creative....
how are customers forced to be more creative?
Consumers win because companies have to be more competitive
consumers win because they get free software. Programmers lose because it makes the job of "programmer" almost worthless. It's a lot easier to piece together bits of code that you didn't write than to actually write it yourself.
Microsoft can sit on their ass right now and say "You want an office package? Great, here's our package for $600 a person. What, you don't want to pay that price? Lick my ass n00b, you can't do shit without my software, we 0wnz j00r ass!"
you can't do anything...except use another software package. You are not forced to use microsoft products (example: open office/star office, linux). Microsoft might have a monopoly, but they started somewhere. Consumers bought and used their products in the beginning to give them that power.
Here's another way to look at it. Before the internet, most networks were proprietary. Closed off and not communicating with each other. Companies had their own networks, colleges has theirs, and some of them even tried to create VANs (value added networks) to perform EDI (electronic data interchange). Most of those attempts were novel but they sucked. When the internet came out, everyone was suddenly connected. Now EDI is easy, because as long as your computer is on the internet, I can build something that communicates with you seamlessly
and how did the Internet get this way? through big company support. Without profitability, the Internet would still be a small proprietary network.
Competition has been lacking in the last several decades, because people think it's okay for big companies to hold big power. The GPL is simply taking current overly controlling law and turning it against itself by guarenteeing that information released under it is free.
what the fuck are you talking about? Take a look at the billions of software and service companies on the Internet today (including a countless number of linux distributions) and then tell me if there is "no competition". Just because the world isn't using linux, does not mean there isn't any competition.
yup, software as a service is great, the software company get to line their pockets over and over again with subscriptions to the service, or pay per use. so we end up being fucked over even more by capitalist scum who don't give a shit about anyone else
blame it on software piracy. As a developer who would like to own his own business, this is the future and best choice. If you don't like it, you can go to another service. It's not like you don't have the freedom to do so.
The purpose of the GPL is to ensure freedom. If it wern't for the possibility that someone monopolist would take free code and use it to make obscene profits, while at the same time making that code incompatible with the free versions, most of the "open source" or "free software" work would probably have been Public Domain instead.
I would like to ensure freedom..of the programmer. Which is why I choose to use the BSD license.
The reason RMS devised the GPL was as a great way to subvert the system to force freedom
hmm..forcing freedom...sounds like an oxymoron to me.
The RIAA on the other hand is an immoral, corrupt organization that keeps artists poor, charges obscene prices for music, while using those profits to lobby congress to get themselves infinite copyright against the intent in the US constitution, and stamp out any competing form of music distribution. I don't see any moral comparison at all.
while they do have shady practices (and I don't agree with some of the things that they are doing), I don't think they keep artists poor. Artists have the freedom to accept or not accept a recording contract with a major label.
Most artists choose the major label. They do this because they only have to focus on one thing: playing music. It's similar to the difference between having a steady job (being signed) (less responsibility, more of a regular income) and being self-employed (being independent) (a lot more responsiblity and less of a chance of making a profit).
After all, you aren't complaining about programmers getting screwed out of money when they build a program while working for a large company and get paid their regular hourly salary (as opposed to the actual profit on the software).
Sharing music on the Internet does not help in the defeat if the RIAA, it only helps to make them stronger. In the beginning, Independent artists make most of their money off of CD sales and T-shirts). Most small venues only pay a small amount of money which is not enough for a typical band to live off of. If CD sales are out of the picture due to sharing, an artist will be more likely to accept an offer from a major label. if there is a demand there will be a supply.
You should follow the GPL because its purpose is to ensure freedom. Your freedom even. The GPL is to ensure YOUR freedom to use and study the code
Unless there is a law against it, there will always be proprietary code. Even if there were no copyright laws, companies would most likely convert software to services and charge for the access (this is actually a good idea....no need to worry about copyright infringement). Some companies are doing this already (turbo tax comes to mind)..even though they have an actual software counter-part.
Namely, if there's GPL code out there, you have access to the source code. Then someone takes your code, makes some modifications and does not release it GPL. Everyone has lost rights in this situation, as no one is now able to get the source code
This isn't true. The original GPLd code is still GPLd, you just don't get the changes.
1. The player uses lots of Flash trickery that doesn't work well, as far as I can tell- the ticker that tells you what song you are listening to is frequently wrong.
XM just changed the interface. It's less flashy (I don't think it's even using flash anymore).
as for the low quality. I believe the high-quality feed is now at 128K.
As a musician I believe that music ought to be free. I can't bear the thought of my work only going to horrible radio stations that are going to try to make the kids buy things they don't want.
But I'm powerless to stop it.
how are you powerless? Powerless to stop OTHER artists from releasing their music on the radio to "make the kids buy things they don't want", maybe.
It takes some major effort to get your music played on the radio. A radio station isn't going to just start playing your music, without your permission.
If you enjoy radio, then I suggest you listen to Triple J - available from the ABC website www.abc.net.au
you are basically trying to "sell things to the kids" on a different medium.
http://shop.abc.net.au/.
earning thousands of dollars in a single night (of lip-synching).
someone sounds bitter. Some artists lip-sync, and some do not. If you never sign with a recording company, don't expect to make very much money.
1) I bet it ain't GPL.
2) It isn't exactly one of their core revenue products
well, I don't think any company that releases their product under #1 has that same product as #2. Even the linux distro companies make most of their money in support..not that actual software.
think about the uses to which you can put that underlying code, which is now all open source. now imagine what will happen when someone takes this open source code and perverts it into a complete ID theft tool. what will the M$ press release look like then?
it will will be just one more reason not to use/release Open Source. If there was no sourcecode available, there wouldn't be a complete ID theft tool. Only a child-porn busting tool.
They are suspecting the wrong people. Do you have Internet at home? Do you make a connection to a web page via a browser? Can you download a file? You have just used p2p. So guess what, you're a suspect. Have fun
I think you're going a little overboard with this one. People going to websites and accessing the Internet from home are not suspects. People using p2p and sharing copyrighted materials are.
Im not worried because I don't share copyrighted materials with thousands of other people, but if I did, it would be the same if I used OSS in a closed source application, I would be worried.
Reality: OSS has the support of mouth advertisement. The cheapest and most effective. Smaller businesses are much more likely to adopt than large ones. But that is history. Right now we are observing IBM and Novell to see where it all leads
cheapest? yes. Most effective? no. If this were the case, businesses would not spend millions of dollars per year on advertising.
IBM and Novell using open source is the equivalent of a recording company picking up an independent artist.
They haven't, they tried to is what I said. Off the top of my head, SCO. Manipulating law does not exclude your assumption of someone passing a law, but there are many ways to manipulate one. Such a law will never pass (heh...) because of it's inherent incapability to make sense.
im not saying I agree with what SCO is saying about copyright infringement and the linux kernel, but they are not trying to destroy open source or make it illegal.
They are doing the exact same thing the FSF is doing, exept they have an advantage: they can see all of the code of the possible infringers.
GNU and the FSF: going after people or companies using OSS in closed-source applications.
SCO: going after people/compaines using closed source in an OSS application.
I could just as easily say that the FSF is attempting to destroy closed-source applications.
Of course I can't state that as a fact, it is a mere speculation. Over the cource of its existance, OSS has been met with hostility from closed source vendors. Some of the major ones went as far as spreading propaganda against use of such software. They have tried to manipulate the law so that it would become impossible to develop OSS. They have marketed their inferior, clumsy (you may disagree at your discression) down so many people's throats so that now no one without a geek friend knows about OSS. And to add to the cake, closed source means you can never verify anything if they don't want you to.
how have they manipulated the law to make it impossible to make open source applications? If you want to make an application and release its source under a license under your choosing there is no law against it (and I don't seem to recall a law trying to get passed that would prevent it).
marketing is the difference between someone using OSS and someone using a closed source application. In the past, most companies have sold and marketed closed source applications and open source applications were released into the public by the developer that created them (with little or no marketing).
I can perfectly see why every OSS developer who understands the implications of the GPL will not trust these companies. These companies don't know when to stop sometimes. So yes, there is suspicion, but it is quite probable that it's well rooted, and a much more honest suspicion than what we have seen from the other side so far.
I can also see why closed source application developers are suspicious. Looking at the amount of p2p applicatons out there and the number of applications shared tells me they have a good reason.
Perhaps it was a poor choice of words, but "must play fair" is not the same as "I'm watching you". The difference in the position is that OSS is already quite more liberal than closed source. Also, you don't necessarily get the feeling of someone always suspecting you of something
literally, they are different. But what about suspecting closed source companies of using OSS in a proprietary application? In the past few weeks there have been many accusations made against developers for using OSS in their closed source apps.
this sure seems like they are being watched and suspected of doing something to me.
Does it actually make sense to you to concider any type of software based on its price tag alone? Big or small, it has nothing to do with the motivation behind the project when it comes to OSS. Once again, I will reiterate my opinion of how M$ relates to what you can/can't do with OSS: it doesn't. It has nothing to do with how OSS is. OSS will do fine with or without M$. It only depends on the availability of cheap hardware. If it was so profitable to take up the OSS project and out compete on rebundling and service, why hasn't this happened? Why are the good projects thriving just fine? Is there an actual example of this that you know of and care to share?
im talking about businesses. Sometimes, the pricetag is usually a big consideration in whether a piece of software is used.
I really doubt that this happens when people's minds are in the right place. OSS takes the position of "I don't care, but you must play fair, cause if not, then I will", whatever's closed is "I'm watching you, god forbid you do something *I* don't agree with, and also, would that be cash or credit?". Under this light, who are you to judge mentality.
"must play fair" is the same as "im watching you, god forbid you do something *I* don't agree with".
Examples of this can be seen in the many companies examined recently for not complying with the GNU license. It all comes down to IP usage, and in this respect, open source software is just as bad as closed source.