This was never proven. Not that I'd endorse it, it's just it annoys me to see this written again and again on slashdot. I know it's what they tell you in American schools, but it's probably not true. Here's my case:
Sure the USSR fell, but it took 70 years of western economic pressure to do it. And during that time, their resources were enormously strained by WWII, then by the debt they incurred winning it (the USSR made by far the biggest war effort of the Allied forces). And check out how far they came between 1917-1939! They turned a backwards peasant nation into a superpower. Not bad for a system that "doesn't work".
Now consider poorer countries. Compare the standard of living in Cuba (not starving), and the standard of living in a poor African capitalist country, say ethiopia (starving). Even though Ethiopia receives foriegn aid from the west and Cuba receives foriegn hostility.
The reason I bothered with that, was this: Music sharing would work fine in a socialist system, where the profit motive doesn't exist in the same way. Food for thought anyway.
How does a competitive advantage translate into stifling innovation?
First, why is the advantage "competitive"? Why not call it "uncompetitive" advantage. But to answer the question: Because it stops others building on your work. And if you define "your work" broadly enough, it stops others from doing anything in the whole field. Which stifles inovation.
Tipping for services seems to be a big American thing, but it is pretty rare here in Australia (make whatever judgements you want about that). It's definitely the exception, rather than the rule. Buskers are another matter though.
the program can't really create something novel that the programmer hadn't already thought of
This is a true statement, but deceptive. I've been doing a bit of hobbying with genetic algorithms recently, and I find it is much better to think of them as "genetic searches". A genetic search is simply a method to search a search space, just the same as a linear search is a method to search a search space. The idea is that it is a quick search technique for many problems, not that it "invents" things on its own.
Consider the evolution of life on earth. The search space is the set of all imaginable organisms, viable or not. If you start iterating this search space linearly, and testing each organism for viability, eventually you will come up with a human being, or something equally advanced. The "magic" of a genetic algorithm is that it searches complex, multi-dimensional search-space very quickly, by picking up "clues" from previous successes or failures. In one common form, it makes large leaps quickly by combining two or more previously "good" solutions (organisms), into even better solutions.
Anyway the point I wanted to make is that a genetic algorithm, evolutionary strategy, genetic search (or whatever), is just a search strategy, just like evolution was (is).
Right, Wrong, Copyright, Copyleft, Legal, Illegal. 'sall a matter of opinion. The only thing that matters is that Lars took Napster away. He's rich anyway, so he was obviously doing it just to be an asshole. You are a big bully Lars. Nothing more, nothing less.
1. A Robot must protect human beings from harm.
2. A Robot must obey the orders of a human being, except where they conflict with the first law.
3. A Robot must protect itself from harm, except when this conflicts with either of the first two laws.
Yeah, you understand _their_ case. The simple one. The complicated one goes a little bit more like this:
The greatest good for the greatest number.
The truth is nobody gives an fsck about copyright, copyleft, property rights, blah blah blah.... So if Napster lets us listen to music of our choice, thats a good thing. Same with mp3.com. Everybody gets happier. If my university give my thesis away for free, to help somebody elses work, that is also a good thing. However, if some opportunist comes along and sells the work of others, probably changing the market such that said work may no longer be available freely, that is a bad thing.
So the "brain-dead slashbots", aren't really as "brain-dead" as they seem, they are simply using their conscience. Brain-dead would be deciding on rules WHICH MUST BE APPLIED IN ANY SITUATION, before the situation even prevents itself.
But everybody knows you can stuff a unix system if you fool around with it too much. That's got fsck all to do with linux. And also, where I work, if a unix (solaris or linux) system stuffs up, everybody has ideas on what could be wrong and it gets fixed really fast. When windows stuffs up, everyone just sits around bitching about the sysadmins.
At least when unix breaks it's fun and community building:)
How many times have you bought something because of an ad you saw on TV. Just tink of how many movies you've seen because of the ads. Or, how many times you've eaten a food cause that ad made it look sooo good?
Yeah, I know what you mean, I fall for TV advertising all the time but I've never bought anything because of internet banners. But that's because of the kinds of stuff being advertised. For starters, it's almost always online stuff or computer hardware etc. When was the last time you say a coke banner? Or a banner for pizza hut telling you their latest price? Or any advertising for the same sort of products that get advertised on TV? When big non-online companies get into internet advertising in a big way, there will be heaps more advertising money around.
I know this is an old one, but the idea that _they_ can own a "tabbed widget" is just silly.It may have been them who invented it, but it wasn't them who made it valuable. It was the users, investing the time and money to learn how to use the interface who added value to the idea. Therefore, the users should own it, not adobe. Just like QWERTY keyboards, if you could own the patent on them. A pretty below average idea to begin with, but the amount of time and money _users_ have poured into learning how to type has made the (hypothetical) royalties on QWERTY invaluable.
Adobe(and all the other companies doing the same thing) are hurting us, the users by usurping our property here. Bastards....
OK, firstly I agree with most posters: If you go to be arrested and you are, what's your problem? Personally, I happen to agree with the cause they were protesting, but that doesn't seem to be the point of this discussion. So instead I'll ask what the bit at the end with the acid in it was about. Did the cops use the excuse that "we heard he had drugs" to make the arrest? If so, it's worth noting that they could use that to arrest anyone at any time. Oh that's right, this happened in Amerika, they do.
One thing most posts on/. have agreed on is that they are gonna need a lot of people helping, and that's probly what they're trying to get. Build some community first. Open source doesn't work if you sit in your house and try and do it all yourself. It works if you get a lot of people in on it and break the work up into little chunks. *nix lends itself to that naturally, cos the kernel isn't all that big, but windows is different.
My opinion? This is an even bigger ask than that Mozilla thing, but maybe... Welcome to the brave new world.
>> "I read today that China limits the import of US made films to 10 a year.... I bet they feel misunderstood by the resultant criticism"
As I understand it, "communism" is primarily an economic system, and is pretty seperate from the style of government in place. I think we make a big mistake comparing "communism", with "democracy". I think we should be comparing "communism" with "capitalism", and "democracy" with "totalitarianism".
So maybe they have (had) a very valid reason for restricting the import of US films, for example that the centrally run economy can't afford it.
>> "It seems like a short step for governments to fall into believing that they know what is best for the people they "represent", and to start filtering what people have access to."
An excellent point. I guess that is why the two largest communist governments this century became totalitarian. A pity too, because they both started out with some pretty admirable goals. And as an aside, under a democratically run socialist economy, there would be free mp3's etc..:)
"Well, that would largely depend on the company's purpose for being which is to answer to shareholders, not the community. The directors may be personally very likeable people, and in fact sincerely nice people, but being nice is not their job."
And so we have the following situation: Company X commits an immoral activity. It is not the responsibility of the company directors because their obligation to the shareholder obliged them to approve the profit spinning yet immoral activity. It is not the responsibility of the shareholders because they "may not... know much about it outside financial statements..." and (b) didn't make the decision and (c) can be anonymous. So we have a system which obliges people to commit immoral and destructive activity for what reason? I'm starting to agree with Katz.:)
Well firstly they're doing the right thing, aren't they? So the question becomes, "why is this the exception, rather than the rule?" IMHO, the reason why "free-software-based" companies like Redhat will have to do the right thing is that their target market is perfectly willing to boycott (or support) them on the basis of their actions. If Redhat came out and supported Metallica (as a stupid example), how many users would they lose? Redhat are doing things the easy way, listening to the people so as to avoid negative consumer feedback. Hence they have a motive to "do the right thing", without having to be a moral agent. Which is important, as the community should decide moral issues, not corporations. More power to them!
Slashdot Mirror
When I just went to smokedot.org all there was was a banner for "crackaddict.com"? And when I went to crackaddict.com just the same thing. oh well..
This was never proven. Not that I'd endorse it, it's just it annoys me to see this written again and again on slashdot. I know it's what they tell you in American schools, but it's probably not true. Here's my case:
Sure the USSR fell, but it took 70 years of western economic pressure to do it. And during that time, their resources were enormously strained by WWII, then by the debt they incurred winning it (the USSR made by far the biggest war effort of the Allied forces). And check out how far they came between 1917-1939! They turned a backwards peasant nation into a superpower. Not bad for a system that "doesn't work".
Now consider poorer countries. Compare the standard of living in Cuba (not starving), and the standard of living in a poor African capitalist country, say ethiopia (starving). Even though Ethiopia receives foriegn aid from the west and Cuba receives foriegn hostility.
The reason I bothered with that, was this: Music sharing would work fine in a socialist system, where the profit motive doesn't exist in the same way. Food for thought anyway.
Oh, and a big hi to everyone reading at -1.
Daan
First, why is the advantage "competitive"? Why not call it "uncompetitive" advantage. But to answer the question: Because it stops others building on your work. And if you define "your work" broadly enough, it stops others from doing anything in the whole field. Which stifles inovation.
What is STL?
Like all microsoft promises, IsNotReal. In other news, mainsoft based in Israel.
Daan
This is a true statement, but deceptive. I've been doing a bit of hobbying with genetic algorithms recently, and I find it is much better to think of them as "genetic searches". A genetic search is simply a method to search a search space, just the same as a linear search is a method to search a search space. The idea is that it is a quick search technique for many problems, not that it "invents" things on its own.
Consider the evolution of life on earth. The search space is the set of all imaginable organisms, viable or not. If you start iterating this search space linearly, and testing each organism for viability, eventually you will come up with a human being, or something equally advanced. The "magic" of a genetic algorithm is that it searches complex, multi-dimensional search-space very quickly, by picking up "clues" from previous successes or failures. In one common form, it makes large leaps quickly by combining two or more previously "good" solutions (organisms), into even better solutions.
Anyway the point I wanted to make is that a genetic algorithm, evolutionary strategy, genetic search (or whatever), is just a search strategy, just like evolution was (is).
Daan
Daan
2. A Robot must obey the orders of a human being, except where they conflict with the first law.
3. A Robot must protect itself from harm, except when this conflicts with either of the first two laws.
or whatever...
The greatest good for the greatest number.
The truth is nobody gives an fsck about copyright, copyleft, property rights, blah blah blah.... So if Napster lets us listen to music of our choice, thats a good thing. Same with mp3.com. Everybody gets happier. If my university give my thesis away for free, to help somebody elses work, that is also a good thing. However, if some opportunist comes along and sells the work of others, probably changing the market such that said work may no longer be available freely, that is a bad thing.
So the "brain-dead slashbots", aren't really as "brain-dead" as they seem, they are simply using their conscience. Brain-dead would be deciding on rules WHICH MUST BE APPLIED IN ANY SITUATION, before the situation even prevents itself.
But I could be wrong
Daan
PS: I'll sell anyone the same thesis, rights and all, for $20 Australian (which is about $2.50 Amerikan).Thats heaps cheaper than "contentville".
At least when unix breaks it's fun and community building :)
Daan
Yeah, I know what you mean, I fall for TV advertising all the time but I've never bought anything because of internet banners. But that's because of the kinds of stuff being advertised. For starters, it's almost always online stuff or computer hardware etc. When was the last time you say a coke banner? Or a banner for pizza hut telling you their latest price? Or any advertising for the same sort of products that get advertised on TV? When big non-online companies get into internet advertising in a big way, there will be heaps more advertising money around.
Adobe(and all the other companies doing the same thing) are hurting us, the users by usurping our property here. Bastards....
Daan
My opinion? This is an even bigger ask than that Mozilla thing, but maybe... Welcome to the brave new world.
Dan
So how about a rule which says one domain name per-person or incorporated entity? What happens then?
daani
>> "I read today that China limits the import of US made films to 10 a year.... I bet they feel misunderstood by the resultant criticism"
:)
As I understand it, "communism" is primarily an economic system, and is pretty seperate from the style of government in place. I think we make a big mistake comparing "communism", with "democracy". I think we should be comparing "communism" with "capitalism", and "democracy" with "totalitarianism".
So maybe they have (had) a very valid reason for restricting the import of US films, for example that the centrally run economy can't afford it.
>> "It seems like a short step for governments to fall into believing that they know what is best for the people they "represent", and to start filtering what people have access to."
An excellent point. I guess that is why the two largest communist governments this century became totalitarian. A pity too, because they both started out with some pretty admirable goals. And as an aside, under a democratically run socialist economy, there would be free mp3's etc..
"Well, that would largely depend on the company's purpose for being which is to answer to shareholders, not the community. The directors may be personally very likeable people, and in fact sincerely nice people, but being nice is not their job."
:)
And so we have the following situation: Company X commits an immoral activity. It is not the responsibility of the company directors because their obligation to the shareholder obliged them to approve the profit spinning yet immoral activity. It is not the responsibility of the shareholders because they "may not... know much about it outside financial statements..." and (b) didn't make the decision and (c) can be anonymous. So we have a system which obliges people to commit immoral and destructive activity for what reason? I'm starting to agree with Katz.
Well firstly they're doing the right thing, aren't they? So the question becomes, "why is this the exception, rather than the rule?" IMHO, the reason why "free-software-based" companies like Redhat will have to do the right thing is that their target market is perfectly willing to boycott (or support) them on the basis of their actions. If Redhat came out and supported Metallica (as a stupid example), how many users would they lose? Redhat are doing things the easy way, listening to the people so as to avoid negative consumer feedback. Hence they have a motive to "do the right thing", without having to be a moral agent. Which is important, as the community should decide moral issues, not corporations. More power to them!