Actually, a better one would be: what if none of the professors could be bothered to go get the paper themselves, so someone has to take it to them, and only I can do that because I'm the only one they trust. That's because I got them to trust me when the school first opened and anyone else who tries to be trusted I can sabotage with the trust I already have. So you have to give me your paper if you want to get any marks at all. But you don't just have to give it to me - you have to make me agree to take it. I'll take some of your marks for doing that, and I'll have the right to reuse it anytime. I'll also check it myself first, and it had better be written the way I like, because if it isn't it doesn't matter what the professor would think because I won't take it to him and he'll never see it...
> When you install a (note that, "a") copy of any > MS product then you are explicitly giving them > the right to audit you. > Yes, but does Microsoft have any proof that > you've accepted any EULA terms?
On this subject, doesn't this also backfire in the case of pirated copies?
Think about it. If you have a pirate copy, the EULA does not apply to you (because if it did, it would give you permission to use the software and it would be a legal copy!) Since it is a pirate copy it is still illegal, but you have NOT assented to MS searching your premises without a warrant.
Thus if MS want to search you for a piracy check, then either there are no pirate copies and there's no need, or there are pirate copies but MS don't have the right to search for those..
Re:Letting users do things that are otherwise ille
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GPL's Strength
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· Score: 1
According to www.copyright.gov (US law):
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or...
Re:Letting users do things that are otherwise ille
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GPL's Strength
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· Score: 1
Heck, it applies to ALL media, because a transient derivative work must exist in the electrochemical status of the brain during the understanding process, and it exists in your own memory afterwards..
Re:Anti-Slashdot effect
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· Score: 2, Interesting
> Copyright law doesn't prohibit decompilation
Yes it does; the decompiled source is a derivative work.
> The [GPL] does not require anyone to accept > it in order to acquire, install, use, inspect, > or even experimentally modify GPL'd software.
In the UK it does; you need to get permission to make a copy in memory, or an installed copy on the hard disk. Sounds stupid but it's there.
Re:Letting users do things that are otherwise ille
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· Score: 4, Interesting
There is an ongoing argument about this.
Basically, whenever you get something with a license, you have the option of not accepting the license. If you don't accept the license, then what rights do you get? Well, the logical answer seems to be that you get all the rights you normally would under copyright law and none others. And in US law these rights are all you need to install and use the software, because copyright law doesn't govern application and US copyright law exempts copies necessary for use. (UK law doesn't, though; the copy made into memory will infringe copyright if it's not licensed (this has been upheld), so EULAs AND the GPL are stronger here.) Statements saying 'if you don't accept the license you must return this software' are PART of the license and thus you can refuse to accept them too. (There is no law giving them the right to say that.)
In the case of software there is normally something that tries to stop you getting at the software without accepting the license (a click license in the installer or an 'if you open the box' rule). Some people have tried getting around this (by, for example, getting a young child to accept the license, which is meaningless as a child cannot enter into a legal agreement), but I'm not sure it's ever been tested in court.
The counter argument would be that it is the license, not the software, that is sold; since the software isn't yours the company can dictate what you can do with it. This is highly contoversial and I think is also still untested. (Amongst other things if tested it could lead to software stores being sued for trade descriptions for claiming that they are selling software. "Software Warehouse" would have to become "License Warehouse" etc...)
It is about withholding in some cases - withholding from those who could make the software non-free or sideline it. That's why the GPL is viral.
That said, free software patents would be somewhat controversial. The complaint with the present GPL - that it reduces the cost of software to zero and thus creates a fundamentally unstable model - is void since you still have the choice to develop without using GPLed code if you need money. A patent would not allow that choice.
If you argue that the cost will inevitably drop because the people you sell it to can give it away... well, no license guarantees that you'll successfully make money.
Remember also that Microsoft has used the same tactic. It gave IE away to drive the cost of web browsers to zero and thus shut down other commercial developments in the field. It can hardly complain.
> Anything that provides the opportunity for > escape or is mood-altering can become addictive
There is a difference, though. EQ-like games have different addiction properties.
Example. Last week I found a copy of Uplink in a local store and was playing it madly all weekend. (This is a RPG, dammit. It is not a simulation.) However, although it was addicting and compulsive, I lost nothing by deciding I had played enough for the moment. I racked up some phat gateway kit but I knew that if I screwed up I'd lose it instantly (and in that game you really do - in Diablo terms it's permanently on Hardcore mode)
But that is not the case with EQ. EQ is all about levelling up. If you stop playing, you don't just lose the fun of playing - you lose all the time you've spent playing so far. (And, until you've levelled up a fair bit, there usually ISN'T that much fun in playing.) The game tends to come to you with an implicit deal that you can never lose the stuff you've gained ingame - unlimited resurrections etc - unlike most other games where you know it will be lost at some point (by either losing the game and losing the stuff because your character is out, or winning the game and effectively losing the stuff because there is nothing more to do with it). This means it is seen more as property rather than a means to an end of finishing the game. So with every game the addict plays, the percieved loss from giving up increases.
There are other causes as well, but the point is that there ARE genuine design decisions involved in the games which either a) are intended to create addiction or b) whose continued existance in games given that the game producers are aware of their effects demonstrates that addiction is considered a worthwhile tradeoff. It is not just the fault of the addicts.
> Copyleft!="Public Domain". To equate them is one > of the biggest deceptions of the Free Software > movement.
Copyright with DRM != copyright without DRM. To equate them is one of the biggest deceptions of the pro-DMCAish movement.
> Public Domain is uncopyrighted. You can > incorporate Public Domain material into other > works without restriction. Copyleft is > attempting to replace the Public Domain with > something else.
Copyright without DRM is uncontrolled. You can make fair use of it, and pass it between people as long as only one copy exists. DRM is attempting to replace copyright with something else.
Looks to me like, even if you believe these things, the FS community are only doing unto others...
> As for Free Software (see footnote) being > capitalist, that's just bunk. It threatens to > drive competition out of the market just like > MS did.
Under capitalism, ANY successful business drives competition out of the market by making it harder to compete in that sector.
This is the core PROBLEM with capitalism: after some point of time, the competition in a particular sector gets "won", and you then have a monopoly. Even if it isn't enforced by patents or laws or whatever, it still turns out that nobody can compete with the big guy - usually a) because the big guy has so much money they can maneuver to crush any competition, or b) because the big guy has such a reputation that consumers no longer actively consider buying anyone else's product. When this happens in all sectors (as it eventually must do) and when research has been sufficiently corporatized so that no new sectors will be available for public exploitation, free enterprise dies and the capitalism becomes a socialism with the sum total of the competition winners replacing the socialist government. This is why capitalists arguing about the evils of socialism is silly. (At least socialist governments stay within their own country, unlike multinationals.)
For a true capitalism, you'd have to at least ban all advertising. (The idea of capitalism is that the most useful and best products make money. Letting people spend money to get their products preferentially purchased, regardless of the quality of those products, breaks it completely.)
> The only difference is that when they have > achieved that goal they will turn to direct > government funding.
Uhhh.... why? Free Software authors don't have to have day jobs writing software.
> (footnote) by Free Software, I mean anything > that is "copylefted". Open Source that is not > copylefted, and can be turned back into Closed > Source is OK because it does not create a sink > for IP.
But how is a company that copyrights its own ideas any less of a "sink for IP"? If you want to use GPL IP in your commercial package, you can't. But by the same logic, if you want to use my closed IP in your commercial package you can't. I know companies like to complain that "if I read this in GPLd source, then the fact I've read it stops me from writing it elsewhere myself because I can't prove I didn't copy it", but nobody said you had to read it and you could not have read the closed IP. Bottom line: if the GPL is such a problem just treat all GPL software as if it was sold for zero under a standard commercial license. You won't break the GPL and nothing about it will bother you.
A company gets the rights to control its IP because it created the IP and deserves those rights. By the same logic a community that creates IP deserves and gets the rights to control it. The fact that you don't like the way they control it is neither here nor there; and their control is actually more generous than that of many companies.
> Licenses like the GPL were intentionally > created as IP sinks.
As were all commercial licenses. Your point?
> is also important for people to realize that > the realm of copyleft is not the same as the > Public Domain. By promoting copyleft, some > people are attempting to usurp the Public > Domain
No they're not. They're trying to pump up the Public Domain in the same way that commercial IP users have pumped up Copyrighted Material. We now have Locked Copyrighted Material, which can't in practice be used even for fair use purposes; thus we also have a Locked Public Domain from which nothing can be removed.
> and effectively collectivize or unionize IP > and "knowledge workers".
Uh, why? If I write something and GPL it, I don't have to join a union.
> It does nothing but make things look insane. > You think people would stand for this? Where is > all the income going to come from this? Someone > is going to pay $12 to download 60MB of stuff? > Come on. $149 for a software license YEARLY? > Please.
Well, there is that point - that if you did have to spend as much as the Aardvark article suggests you would, you'd probably also be getting a higher salary.
> What are they going to do, format your hard > drive if you connect with an older version of > windows? of Linux?
No, just "standardise by circulation" a Web standard that's only compatible with the newer versions and is patented.
> Oh yeah, and of course IBM, Sun, HP, and all > those vendors with other OSes besides MS are > going to let them get a state mandated desktop > OS.
Their efforts to stop them could well be about as effective as their efforts to stop them getting a massive market majority now..
> The government would NEVER pass a low outlawing > development of software. That would be struck > down for anti-free speech rules easy.
Remember the DeCSS rulings? Software isn't speech because it has a functional component. But, yes, this part of the Aardvark article was pretty ridiculous. However, more likely is that MS could specify that all software to run on Windows would need to be registered with them, and then send free unlimited registration generators to all the software bigboys to quell their protests. Boom-bada-bing.
> Oh yeah, European Union? Canada? They're gonna > stand for it? Right. People emigrating from the > US so they can use a computer. Whee.
If MS incorporate it in their software, governments can do nothing.
> plus, every self respecting geek on the planet > would quit working on computers, and the whole > frickin internet would collpase in a day. > Paper MCSE's can't run the internet.
A lot of those 'self respecting geeks' would be working for the firms that would make most profit from this sort of system. There are geeks who work for Microsoft, and there are geeks who work for backbone providers.
"Rights" legally don't mean anything. "Rights" only mean that you can't be successfully sued or prosecuted for doing something.
A lot of the rights you propose do in some sense already exists. Copyright law already gives you the right to backup, and to fair use. But it *doesn't* mean that you have to be provided with the means of doing so, and it doesn't mean that it has to be legal for you to get those means. This is exactly why the DMCA has effectively killed these rights by stealth.
Rights under law are more or less useless in a world where achieving anything depends on the means and resources necessary being provided by others. The only cure would be a legality-pull law, such as the one I suggested previously here, that any device that manipulates media must make possible and actively facilitate all functions that are legal to perform with that media, and may not omit or block any functionality unless that function is illegal in all cases where it is blocked.
Yes, that bans the sale of pure players. Good. (The pricing will rebalance itself.) Yes, that cripples copy protection that can't distinguish fair use. Good. Innovate some more.
> So yes, I realize this is a problem now. I'm > glad the Gateway guy was willing to testify. > But really, if you consumers aren't going to do > something real about it, what difference does > it make? Microsoft used to be a rinky-dink > little firm that couldn't monopolize its way > out of a paper bag. In less than 25 years they > did this, how? Giving people the software they > asked for.
Umm, not quite.
Microsoft started getting big because they sold MS-DOS. There was no competition at that point; when the first PCs came out, there was no choice of operating systems, you got MS-DOS, and you got it because IBM had (apparantly randomly) asked Microsoft to write their OS for them.
And this was the start of the OS spiral: people wrote apps for MS-DOS because it was the only one available, so then people bought MS-DOS because it ran the apps, so then people wrote for MS-DOS because it had the users.
There were some competitors, like DR-DOS and similar, and they actually worked reasonably well. The only reason they weren't popular was that the majority of users did and do have an "I'm alright jack" attitude to their preinstalled OS.
> Since when are these OEM contracts the > taxpayers' (and therefore the government's) > problem? If these OEMs couldn't figure out what > they were risking by giving favor to a single > vendor, tough on them--
There was never really a choice. Just like Windows, you *had* to have MS-DOS, and that wasn't because it was best, it was because MS were the people who got send the prototype by IBM.
> Anyway don't most people love Microsoft > software, even in the face of good alternatives > like Mac OS and Linux (and previously stuff > like OS/2-Warp/AmigaOS/BeOS/etc)?
The users want apps; the app coders want users. This has already been debated in the courts.
> If people don't want such Linux systems, then I > guess the OEMs are stuck.
People *do* want these Linux systems, but not *so many* people want them. Yes, the majority want Windows, but that's no reason why the minority who want Linux shouldn't get it, and especially no reason why the OEMs who want to cater for that minority should be allowed to.
And it's not exactly something Microsoft is quiet about either. They even refer to this - "embrace and extend" - as their corporate philosophy. (A better description would be, "copy [the existing standard], change [it somehow], copyright [the changes], circulate [to create a new "standard"], control").
What can be done about it really isn't clear. Perhaps we need some kind of 'documentation GPL' that these standards could be releated based on.
Ultimately the only law that could be passed that would really hurt Microsoft is a law banning the sale of any software that runs only under Windows ('conspiracy to commit monopoly' or some such charge). Of course, it would also devastate the PC software industry, which would kinda stink. Oh well.
Another one is the "fake shareware" that came out a few years back.
Basically, several companies boxed up what were effectively *demos* of their software (the original Diablo was one, so was the original Descent) and sold them for UKP5 with the box labelled "Shareware version".
Result: lots of consumers learnt that "Shareware" means "crap cut-down version of something I can buy in a store". The firms again pulled off the ever-popular trick of telling customers "No, there's no need to search for products yourself - just go to the store and see what there is"; which is a great competition strategy, because it insulates you from new firms who probably can't get shelf space.
If you trust some reports, Shareware actually grew out of interprogrammer commons - essentially micro-versions of the Open Source movement, where programmers would trade programs (and possibly source) with each other.
Eventually this became impractical, because they wanted to be able to get their apps to end users who didn't have any programs of their own to chip in, so they decided to ask the end-users for money instead.
It would be *far* too easy for them to abuse this by making the package depend on items installed by the proprietary installer.
It would also undermine a lot of the community. The idea is to create a software commons, which isn't really what you're creating when one guy in the commons can shout louder than everyone else for his particular flavour of the code.
Most programmers *can't* "just sell software like all the rest of the shrink-wrapped crap out there".
Even if it was the best app in the world, they have no way of getting it distributed. Nobody is interested in shifting unknown products around, and your product can never become known as long as nobody shifts it. And it's a rare person indeed who will buy software sight-unseen over the Internet.
If you want people to pay, you have to give them something for their money.
Taking away a nag screen *isn't* giving them something for their money. It's removing something that was a pest in the first place.
Likewise, "unlocking" functionality already existant doesn't *feel* like giving them something for their money, and the "teasing" is considered a pest.
Make the registered program a seperate package with extra features. Then put your key-gen/registration in that.
> Manufacturers selling crippled hardware is not > a problem. The problem is if another > manufacturer is not allowed to sell non- > crippled hardware.
It need not be as simple as "not allowed", though. Suppose the stream in question is encrypted. The licensor of the algorithm could license the decryptor for $10 a unit and the encryptor for $10000 a unit. ALL manufacturers will have to bear these costs, and this will guarantee that the versions allowing editing and creation will remain out of reach of most consumers.
It is also worth noting that it's not quite compete. Leaving a record button off the VCR would be noticed, but things like allowing fair use probably AREN'T noticed or cared about by many consumers.
On the other hand, if you bar the sale of pure playback devices, then all hardware sold will need to contain the encryptor and decryptor. If the algorithm licensors jack up the price, the public won't be able to buy the machines and thus won't be able to play the media and thus the media companies won't sell any.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, a better one would be: what if none of the professors could be bothered to go get the paper themselves, so someone has to take it to them, and only I can do that because I'm the only one they trust. That's because I got them to trust me when the school first opened and anyone else who tries to be trusted I can sabotage with the trust I already have. So you have to give me your paper if you want to get any marks at all. But you don't just have to give it to me - you have to make me agree to take it. I'll take some of your marks for doing that, and I'll have the right to reuse it anytime. I'll also check it myself first, and it had better be written the way I like, because if it isn't it doesn't matter what the professor would think because I won't take it to him and he'll never see it...
The only problem with that example is that many students DO allow others to copy their papers AND to claim that the copies are original.
> When you install a (note that, "a") copy of any
> MS product then you are explicitly giving them
> the right to audit you.
> Yes, but does Microsoft have any proof that
> you've accepted any EULA terms?
On this subject, doesn't this also backfire in the case of pirated copies?
Think about it. If you have a pirate copy, the EULA does not apply to you (because if it did, it would give you permission to use the software and it would be a legal copy!) Since it is a pirate copy it is still illegal, but you have NOT assented to MS searching your premises without a warrant.
Thus if MS want to search you for a piracy check, then either there are no pirate copies and there's no need, or there are pirate copies but MS don't have the right to search for those..
According to www.copyright.gov (US law):
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or...
Heck, it applies to ALL media, because a transient derivative work must exist in the electrochemical status of the brain during the understanding process, and it exists in your own memory afterwards..
> Copyright law doesn't prohibit decompilation
Yes it does; the decompiled source is a derivative work.
> The [GPL] does not require anyone to accept
> it in order to acquire, install, use, inspect,
> or even experimentally modify GPL'd software.
In the UK it does; you need to get permission to make a copy in memory, or an installed copy on the hard disk. Sounds stupid but it's there.
There is an ongoing argument about this.
Basically, whenever you get something with a license, you have the option of not accepting the license. If you don't accept the license, then what rights do you get? Well, the logical answer seems to be that you get all the rights you normally would under copyright law and none others. And in US law these rights are all you need to install and use the software, because copyright law doesn't govern application and US copyright law exempts copies necessary for use. (UK law doesn't, though; the copy made into memory will infringe copyright if it's not licensed (this has been upheld), so EULAs AND the GPL are stronger here.) Statements saying 'if you don't accept the license you must return this software' are PART of the license and thus you can refuse to accept them too. (There is no law giving them the right to say that.)
In the case of software there is normally something that tries to stop you getting at the software without accepting the license (a click license in the installer or an 'if you open the box' rule). Some people have tried getting around this (by, for example, getting a young child to accept the license, which is meaningless as a child cannot enter into a legal agreement), but I'm not sure it's ever been tested in court.
The counter argument would be that it is the license, not the software, that is sold; since the software isn't yours the company can dictate what you can do with it. This is highly contoversial and I think is also still untested. (Amongst other things if tested it could lead to software stores being sued for trade descriptions for claiming that they are selling software. "Software Warehouse" would have to become "License Warehouse" etc...)
It is about withholding in some cases - withholding from those who could make the software non-free or sideline it. That's why the GPL is viral.
That said, free software patents would be somewhat controversial. The complaint with the present GPL - that it reduces the cost of software to zero and thus creates a fundamentally unstable model - is void since you still have the choice to develop without using GPLed code if you need money. A patent would not allow that choice.
I'm surprised you mentioned that. You CAN burn CD's at some HMV branches in the UK.
Nothing in the GPL says you can't sell software.
If you argue that the cost will inevitably drop because the people you sell it to can give it away... well, no license guarantees that you'll successfully make money.
Remember also that Microsoft has used the same tactic. It gave IE away to drive the cost of web browsers to zero and thus shut down other commercial developments in the field. It can hardly complain.
> Anything that provides the opportunity for
> escape or is mood-altering can become addictive
There is a difference, though. EQ-like games have different addiction properties.
Example. Last week I found a copy of Uplink in a local store and was playing it madly all weekend. (This is a RPG, dammit. It is not a simulation.) However, although it was addicting and compulsive, I lost nothing by deciding I had played enough for the moment. I racked up some phat gateway kit but I knew that if I screwed up I'd lose it instantly (and in that game you really do - in Diablo terms it's permanently on Hardcore mode)
But that is not the case with EQ. EQ is all about levelling up. If you stop playing, you don't just lose the fun of playing - you lose all the time you've spent playing so far. (And, until you've levelled up a fair bit, there usually ISN'T that much fun in playing.) The game tends to come to you with an implicit deal that you can never lose the stuff you've gained ingame - unlimited resurrections etc - unlike most other games where you know it will be lost at some point (by either losing the game and losing the stuff because your character is out, or winning the game and effectively losing the stuff because there is nothing more to do with it). This means it is seen more as property rather than a means to an end of finishing the game. So with every game the addict plays, the percieved loss from giving up increases.
There are other causes as well, but the point is that there ARE genuine design decisions involved in the games which either a) are intended to create addiction or b) whose continued existance in games given that the game producers are aware of their effects demonstrates that addiction is considered a worthwhile tradeoff. It is not just the fault of the addicts.
> Copyleft!="Public Domain". To equate them is one
> of the biggest deceptions of the Free Software
> movement.
Copyright with DRM != copyright without DRM. To equate them is one of the biggest deceptions of the pro-DMCAish movement.
> Public Domain is uncopyrighted. You can
> incorporate Public Domain material into other
> works without restriction. Copyleft is
> attempting to replace the Public Domain with
> something else.
Copyright without DRM is uncontrolled. You can make fair use of it, and pass it between people as long as only one copy exists. DRM is attempting to replace copyright with something else.
Looks to me like, even if you believe these things, the FS community are only doing unto others...
> As for Free Software (see footnote) being
> capitalist, that's just bunk. It threatens to
> drive competition out of the market just like
> MS did.
Under capitalism, ANY successful business drives competition out of the market by making it harder to compete in that sector.
This is the core PROBLEM with capitalism: after some point of time, the competition in a particular sector gets "won", and you then have a monopoly. Even if it isn't enforced by patents or laws or whatever, it still turns out that nobody can compete with the big guy - usually a) because the big guy has so much money they can maneuver to crush any competition, or b) because the big guy has such a reputation that consumers no longer actively consider buying anyone else's product. When this happens in all sectors (as it eventually must do) and when research has been sufficiently corporatized so that no new sectors will be available for public exploitation, free enterprise dies and the capitalism becomes a socialism with the sum total of the competition winners replacing the socialist government. This is why capitalists arguing about the evils of socialism is silly. (At least socialist governments stay within their own country, unlike multinationals.)
For a true capitalism, you'd have to at least ban all advertising. (The idea of capitalism is that the most useful and best products make money. Letting people spend money to get their products preferentially purchased, regardless of the quality of those products, breaks it completely.)
> The only difference is that when they have
> achieved that goal they will turn to direct
> government funding.
Uhhh.... why? Free Software authors don't have to have day jobs writing software.
> (footnote) by Free Software, I mean anything
> that is "copylefted". Open Source that is not
> copylefted, and can be turned back into Closed > Source is OK because it does not create a sink > for IP.
But how is a company that copyrights its own ideas any less of a "sink for IP"? If you want to use GPL IP in your commercial package, you can't. But by the same logic, if you want to use my closed IP in your commercial package you can't. I know companies like to complain that "if I read this in GPLd source, then the fact I've read it stops me from writing it elsewhere myself because I can't prove I didn't copy it", but nobody said you had to read it and you could not have read the closed IP. Bottom line: if the GPL is such a problem just treat all GPL software as if it was sold for zero under a standard commercial license. You won't break the GPL and nothing about it will bother you.
A company gets the rights to control its IP because it created the IP and deserves those rights. By the same logic a community that creates IP deserves and gets the rights to control it. The fact that you don't like the way they control it is neither here nor there; and their control is actually more generous than that of many companies.
> Licenses like the GPL were intentionally
> created as IP sinks.
As were all commercial licenses. Your point?
> is also important for people to realize that
> the realm of copyleft is not the same as the
> Public Domain. By promoting copyleft, some
> people are attempting to usurp the Public
> Domain
No they're not. They're trying to pump up the Public Domain in the same way that commercial IP users have pumped up Copyrighted Material. We now have Locked Copyrighted Material, which can't in practice be used even for fair use purposes; thus we also have a Locked Public Domain from which nothing can be removed.
> and effectively collectivize or unionize IP
> and "knowledge workers".
Uh, why? If I write something and GPL it, I don't have to join a union.
> It does nothing but make things look insane.
> You think people would stand for this? Where is
> all the income going to come from this? Someone
> is going to pay $12 to download 60MB of stuff?
> Come on. $149 for a software license YEARLY?
> Please.
Well, there is that point - that if you did have to spend as much as the Aardvark article suggests you would, you'd probably also be getting a higher salary.
> What are they going to do, format your hard
> drive if you connect with an older version of
> windows? of Linux?
No, just "standardise by circulation" a Web standard that's only compatible with the newer versions and is patented.
> Oh yeah, and of course IBM, Sun, HP, and all
> those vendors with other OSes besides MS are
> going to let them get a state mandated desktop
> OS.
Their efforts to stop them could well be about as effective as their efforts to stop them getting a massive market majority now..
> The government would NEVER pass a low outlawing
> development of software. That would be struck
> down for anti-free speech rules easy.
Remember the DeCSS rulings? Software isn't speech because it has a functional component. But, yes, this part of the Aardvark article was pretty ridiculous. However, more likely is that MS could specify that all software to run on Windows would need to be registered with them, and then send free unlimited registration generators to all the software bigboys to quell their protests. Boom-bada-bing.
> Oh yeah, European Union? Canada? They're gonna
> stand for it? Right. People emigrating from the
> US so they can use a computer. Whee.
If MS incorporate it in their software, governments can do nothing.
> plus, every self respecting geek on the planet
> would quit working on computers, and the whole
> frickin internet would collpase in a day.
> Paper MCSE's can't run the internet.
A lot of those 'self respecting geeks' would be working for the firms that would make most profit from this sort of system. There are geeks who work for Microsoft, and there are geeks who work for backbone providers.
Entertainment is BECOMING essential. Why? Because it's what people talk about in social settings, and socialisation IS essential.
And none of it means anything.
"Rights" legally don't mean anything. "Rights" only mean that you can't be successfully sued or prosecuted for doing something.
A lot of the rights you propose do in some sense already exists. Copyright law already gives you the right to backup, and to fair use. But it *doesn't* mean that you have to be provided with the means of doing so, and it doesn't mean that it has to be legal for you to get those means. This is exactly why the DMCA has effectively killed these rights by stealth.
Rights under law are more or less useless in a world where achieving anything depends on the means and resources necessary being provided by others. The only cure would be a legality-pull law, such as the one I suggested previously here, that any device that manipulates media must make possible and actively facilitate all functions that are legal to perform with that media, and may not omit or block any functionality unless that function is illegal in all cases where it is blocked.
Yes, that bans the sale of pure players. Good. (The pricing will rebalance itself.) Yes, that cripples copy protection that can't distinguish fair use. Good. Innovate some more.
> So yes, I realize this is a problem now. I'm
> glad the Gateway guy was willing to testify.
> But really, if you consumers aren't going to do
> something real about it, what difference does
> it make? Microsoft used to be a rinky-dink
> little firm that couldn't monopolize its way
> out of a paper bag. In less than 25 years they
> did this, how? Giving people the software they
> asked for.
Umm, not quite.
Microsoft started getting big because they sold MS-DOS. There was no competition at that point; when the first PCs came out, there was no choice of operating systems, you got MS-DOS, and you got it because IBM had (apparantly randomly) asked Microsoft to write their OS for them.
And this was the start of the OS spiral: people wrote apps for MS-DOS because it was the only one available, so then people bought MS-DOS because it ran the apps, so then people wrote for MS-DOS because it had the users.
There were some competitors, like DR-DOS and similar, and they actually worked reasonably well. The only reason they weren't popular was that the majority of users did and do have an "I'm alright jack" attitude to their preinstalled OS.
> Since when are these OEM contracts the
> taxpayers' (and therefore the government's)
> problem? If these OEMs couldn't figure out what
> they were risking by giving favor to a single
> vendor, tough on them--
There was never really a choice. Just like Windows, you *had* to have MS-DOS, and that wasn't because it was best, it was because MS were the people who got send the prototype by IBM.
> Anyway don't most people love Microsoft
> software, even in the face of good alternatives
> like Mac OS and Linux (and previously stuff
> like OS/2-Warp/AmigaOS/BeOS/etc)?
The users want apps; the app coders want users. This has already been debated in the courts.
> If people don't want such Linux systems, then I
> guess the OEMs are stuck.
People *do* want these Linux systems, but not *so many* people want them. Yes, the majority want Windows, but that's no reason why the minority who want Linux shouldn't get it, and especially no reason why the OEMs who want to cater for that minority should be allowed to.
And it's not exactly something Microsoft is quiet about either. They even refer to this - "embrace and extend" - as their corporate philosophy. (A better description would be, "copy [the existing standard], change [it somehow], copyright [the changes], circulate [to create a new "standard"], control").
What can be done about it really isn't clear. Perhaps we need some kind of 'documentation GPL' that these standards could be releated based on.
Ultimately the only law that could be passed that would really hurt Microsoft is a law banning the sale of any software that runs only under Windows ('conspiracy to commit monopoly' or some such charge). Of course, it would also devastate the PC software industry, which would kinda stink. Oh well.
PC firms won't go for it because they already try and write games to run on all PCs.
Console firms won't go for it because it's to their advantage to make games platform dependant.
Games developers won't go for it because console firms won't go for it.
Sorry.
Another one is the "fake shareware" that came out a few years back.
Basically, several companies boxed up what were effectively *demos* of their software (the original Diablo was one, so was the original Descent) and sold them for UKP5 with the box labelled "Shareware version".
Result: lots of consumers learnt that "Shareware" means "crap cut-down version of something I can buy in a store". The firms again pulled off the ever-popular trick of telling customers "No, there's no need to search for products yourself - just go to the store and see what there is"; which is a great competition strategy, because it insulates you from new firms who probably can't get shelf space.
If you trust some reports, Shareware actually grew out of interprogrammer commons - essentially micro-versions of the Open Source movement, where programmers would trade programs (and possibly source) with each other.
Eventually this became impractical, because they wanted to be able to get their apps to end users who didn't have any programs of their own to chip in, so they decided to ask the end-users for money instead.
It would be *far* too easy for them to abuse this by making the package depend on items installed by the proprietary installer.
It would also undermine a lot of the community. The idea is to create a software commons, which isn't really what you're creating when one guy in the commons can shout louder than everyone else for his particular flavour of the code.
Most programmers *can't* "just sell software like all the rest of the shrink-wrapped crap out there".
Even if it was the best app in the world, they have no way of getting it distributed. Nobody is interested in shifting unknown products around, and your product can never become known as long as nobody shifts it. And it's a rare person indeed who will buy software sight-unseen over the Internet.
I don't agree.
If you want people to pay, you have to give them something for their money.
Taking away a nag screen *isn't* giving them something for their money. It's removing something that was a pest in the first place.
Likewise, "unlocking" functionality already existant doesn't *feel* like giving them something for their money, and the "teasing" is considered a pest.
Make the registered program a seperate package with extra features. Then put your key-gen/registration in that.
> Manufacturers selling crippled hardware is not
> a problem. The problem is if another
> manufacturer is not allowed to sell non-
> crippled hardware.
It need not be as simple as "not allowed", though. Suppose the stream in question is encrypted. The licensor of the algorithm could license the decryptor for $10 a unit and the encryptor for $10000 a unit. ALL manufacturers will have to bear these costs, and this will guarantee that the versions allowing editing and creation will remain out of reach of most consumers.
It is also worth noting that it's not quite compete. Leaving a record button off the VCR would be noticed, but things like allowing fair use probably AREN'T noticed or cared about by many consumers.
On the other hand, if you bar the sale of pure playback devices, then all hardware sold will need to contain the encryptor and decryptor. If the algorithm licensors jack up the price, the public won't be able to buy the machines and thus won't be able to play the media and thus the media companies won't sell any.