And you don't have personal bias falling into this?
I certainly do -- but I don't initiate threads with titles as inflamatory as 'Death of critical thinking on/.'.
I already said I might be wrong in my statements. But the possibility still exists that ZDNet screwed up in their reporting -- and the language used in those reports is enough to make me think it *was* screwed up. (Heck, I was a writer before I started coding for a living -- I've interviewed enough people myself in my time. In fact, it's things like these which is why I always tried to get my sources to read over the article before publication).
The point -- the purpose for my original post -- still stands. If you make a sweeping accusation of this nature, you better be damn sure that you are not guilty of what you accuse others of. In this particular case, your post itself showed lack of critical thinking that you seem to expect from/. readers.
Actually, it is much better to not make such sweeping generalizations at all -- but you are free to suit yourself.
The problem is that Open Source (as the term is used by 99% of the people on Slashdot) actually has multiple meanings -- there's the trademarked one, and there's the "Open Source == GPL" one, which is alas, completely and utterly *wrong* [Open Source is a superset of GPL].
Indeed. Now how does that show that the term 'Open Source' has multiple meanings? Unlike most words in natural languages, terms like this are NOT defined by usage. Just as 'binary tree' or 'MSCE' in certain context means exactly one thing -- in a similar manner, 'Open Source' in this context means one thing, and this meaning is not dependent on the term's common usage.
Problem 1: There's no actual quote from Muth on the "definition of Open Source" -- he's just stated as saying that "open source" has a variety of meanings -- now take it as a quote from someone who's not well versed on open source -- BSD and GPL are different "meanings" of Open Source. So, that's what he could be talking about.
Wrong. BSDL and GPL (and QPL and MPL and others) are examples of OS licenses -- just as both Tokyo and New York are examples of cities. All this means is that 'Open Source license' is a set rather than a primitive term, and specific licences are its members. There is only one -- rather rigid -- set of criteria for the membership in the set 'Open Source licenses'. No confusion or plurality of meanings here -- that one set of criteris is the meaning of 'Open Source license'.
Strike one...
Problem 2: The paragraph that starts out "Differing Definitions"... 'But its definition of "open source code licenses" means making the technology available to only a select group of computer scientists' -- this DEFINITELY looks like bad reporting to me. Look at the test that goes before it: "Microsoft says it has, for the past five years, been licensing some or all of the underlying programming...." -- sounds like the journo decided that this "licensing" must be what MS meant by open sourcing its stuff!
Note that the full sentence goes like this:
But its definition of "open source code licenses" means making the technology available to only a select group of computer scientists, researchers and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and engineering partners, who are offered the code under a set of restrictions that prohibit them from commercializing the technology in any way,
Muth said.
So, if we are to believe the letter of this, the reporter seems to merely be paraphrasing Muth's statement, rather than imposing his/her own interpretation of the state of affairs. You cannot get away with blaming the reporter's assumptions here -- the only way to ditch this paragraph, is to say that the reporter paraphrased incorrectly, rather than drew an invalid connection -- to say that the reporter misrepresented rather than misconstrued, to say that the reporter lied.
Strike two...
Solution? You all need to read/get hold of a transcript of the interview before blowing your stacks in future. Or at the very least, take what you read with a pinch of salt.
Actually, as I have shown, your attempt at analysis here is not quite up to par with the standards that you proclaimed in the message's title. The solution thus is to read the article more carefully, rather than to attempt such a badly-done (likely due to personal bias) deconstruction.
Strike three -- and yer out.
Dude, when you accuse others of lack of critical thinking, you better be damn sure that your own arguments are sound, and that your analyses are bulletproof. It's, like, obvious, dude!
The problem is that Open Source (as the term is used by 99% of the people on Slashdot) actually has multiple meanings -- there's the trademarked one, and there's the "Open Source == GPL" one, which is alas, completely and utterly *wrong* [Open Source is a superset of GPL].
I trust you are familiar with the notion of a 'set'?.. 'Open Source', as defined by OSI/SPI/etc, describes the rules by which one can test for the membership of a given license in the set 'open Source Licenses'. This means that GPL, BSD, MPL, etc. are examples of Open Source license.
However, let's go back to the context of the article: --
Why would anyone spend the time and money to create a "better" format? Can they patent it and make money? No. There is no reason to make a better one. And without a reason, nothing will change(i.e. MP3 will have total dominance as a digital music format)
Here is a better format for you: losslessly-compressed.WAV at very high sampling rate. Sure, it takes five to ten times the space of MP3 -- so what? A common HD two years ago was 3 or so MB; these days, it's 10 or 15 MB. In another couple of years, the one reason for using mp3 rather than other, uncompressed, formats -- size -- will become meaningless. If you can stuff 100 hours of CD-quality audio on your disk, why bother stuffing 1000 hrs of sub-CD quality audio?.. there is only so much you can listen to, only so many titles you can actually keep track of.
As I said before, increased storage and bandwdth will make the very reason for using mp3 instead of lossless formats -- size -- a thing of the past. Sure, you will keep your existing mp3 collection -- after all, you cannot restore the tracks to their original quality by converting mp3 back; however, there will be no reason to get the new pieces in mp3.
I can still run software written back in 1983 on my Windows NT machine. Not all of it, some of the stuff that uses funky Pharlap memory extensions and such does not always work well.
But even so, backwards compatibility is a design consideration that Linux has ignored.
You are missing the point. Assuming that the error you mentioned is not a result of stupid code, you should remember that, due to the different history, 'backwards compatibility' means different things in Windows and Unix world.
In Windows, where everything is a binary, the only backwards compatibility model is binary as well. This, of course, means layers upon layers of cruft, to preserve the binary-level backwards compatibility.
In Unix, where source code rules, the thing you usually need is source-level backwards compatibility. if your company had half-a-brain, they would have kept the source around; then, if the code was actually well-designed (i.e. without assuming that it MUST be Linux (*BSD and x86 Solaris can run Linux binaries, remember?), much less any specific version of Linux) -- in short, if the incompatibility issue was the OS's fault, all you would have to do is recompile, perhaps with some minor code changes.
\begin sarcasm Yes, spending 2 minutes recompiling your app is a heavy price to pay for clean, relatively cruft-free design... \end sarcasm --
I think Rob's comment was misleading. The article does prophecy the death of MP3, but for a very good reason. The author is not against compressed music format, or even a protection-free such format -- in fact, he sounds like he is all for the idea. What he is saying is that MP3 will die because it will be replaced by another format or similar nature but superior quality.
Think about it in these terms. The bandwidth grows very fast -- think about the discrepancy between the 300-baud modems and ADSL/cable modems. Storage devic capacity grows at astonishing speed as well, I am not even sure which one is growing faster.
What this all means is that we are already now approaching the wide availability of technology to use less space-saving, but higher quality, format, space-wise; we are very close to approaching this point network-bandwidth-wise. The whole reason for using MP3 format -- disk size and bandwidth -- is vanishing. I am merely a poor student, but I have enough free space on my HD to store 10 CDROMs (12GB disks are not that expensive these days); with ADSL and cable modems, and the rollout of InternetII, we are approaching the time when I will be able to download the abovementioned 10 CDs in minutes (another couple of years, tops, and we'll be at least at a point when I can download one CD in minutes).
The time is just about ripe for another, less lossy, format to become popular. MP3's death IS imminent -- simply because the limitations it was designed to overcome, are vanishing in front of our eyes. --
She is a religious freak without any original thoughts. All her speeches are scripted, and she never does anything spontaneous (like, um, answer audience questions...) I fear her as a president.
I would LOVE to see a female prez, but Liz Dole just ain't it. --
Maybe I just dont read enough O'Reilly books but I thought this article was excellent. Why shouldnt something slightly more philosophical be worthy of posting on/. ?
It should, IMO. I would love to see more philosophical (or at least partially so) pieces here, but this article gave an appearance of being deep without actually offering any substance. It's entire point was 'online world is formed by participants', but that was stated in the very beginning as the topic to be explored (and IMO it is a very interesting topic); however, the writer then simply spent all that time recombining one phrase over an over, just repeating the same idea, never actually examining anything deeper than the apparent surface meaning of it.
That article was the pseudo-philosophical version of 'fluff' that we see about technology in non-techie publications. Plus, I despised the apparently seriously intended reference to the 'remote viewing' (but that's just a minor point). --
Let's be a little more objective, shall we?
on
But To What Purpose?
·
· Score: 2
The article started well and had good intentions: to show us how this online world is our creation, both physically and perceptually.
Unfortunately, the author did not target his audience very well. Slashdot readers have little tolerance for verbose, flamboyant pseudoprose (to coin a term). We generally view it as a waste of time. Give me something concrete and meaningful!
Indeed. The consensual nature of online world is a very interesting topic, but the writer's style was terrible -- excessive use of unnecessarily complicated words and structures, compounded by lack of cohesion to the article. This is almost as hard to read as Kant, but at least Kant could write a coherent page without losing those persevering enough to actually follow his wording...
If an application is valuable to a large, disorganized user base, OTOH, then there is nobody among the users who can hire developers on behalf of all of them. What happens in this scenario?
If an application is valuable to 'the people', then let 'the people' form cooperatives to fund it. Well, such cooperatives have been formed -- the governments (which are supposed to represent 'the people'). This is at least how they are SUPPOSED to work.
And these are my rebuttals to those answers. I have nothing against Open Source and Free Software existing - but unless you can demonstrate a workable system that employs the same number of programmers as the present one for the same wages, I'm not going to abandon the proprietary model completely. I *do* need to eat.
You did not offer a rebuttal. At most, you have shown that there is an easy 'crutch' for the real problem; you did nothing to show that IP is not problemmatic. This would be a rebuttal -- showing that the original point is false.
This is no different from american 'affirmative action' or gay anti-discrimination laws -- they may be needed under the current circumstances, but they do not address the REAL problem, which is social inequality and prejudice. Those laws, just like current copyright and patent system, are crutches -- they treat the syptoms rather than the cause. I do not have a perfect economic model for IP-free world at hand, although FSF has come up with some pretty good stuff. Yes, there probably would be fewer programmers -- although not much fewer, because as I understand, most programmers are involved in developing internal software and providing services anyway, which things are basically not subject to the problems you mentioned. --
it's in Numbers, I think (it's actually in two different placed in Torah, but one is more clear than the other), something like 'and if a man lies with another man as if he were a woman, it is an abomination', and somewhere nearby it recounts how such 'abominations' should be stoned. If you really want the exact verse and chapter, I can look it up tonight.
BTW, I can't help thinking that I got more out of what I did read than you did.
Why -- because you only remember the 'nice' parts, and ignore the atrocities that god commands?.. or is it because you think that believing that horrible book makes you have gotten more out of it'..
So you'd have no trouble with me walking up to your 8-year-old son, telling him that cocaine was really just as as harmful as powdered sugar, and since it was extracted from plants, its just as good as green vegetables? All you do is snort it up your nose and you won't have to eat green beans tonight! Maybe I could give him a pamphlet with directions to the nearest crack dealer.
You can try -- and I will tell him that you are lying.
Or what about hard pornography? You'd have no problem with me setting a stack of hard gay porn in front of your child's elementary school then?
To be honest -- no, I would not like it (not because of what it is, but because of what you mean by it), but I do not think that you should be prevented by law from doing so. The Western aversion to sex is purely a cultural artifact, and sexual imagery in and of itself will do my child no harm -- he will probably simply ignore it for lack of understanding of matters involved.
Whether or not YOU think any form of parental censorship is evil or not is NOT THE ISSUE. You are no better than the people you're trying to insult. Where they are trying to "impose" *their* censorship beliefs on others, you are trying to do the same on them.
I am? How so, pray tell? There is a big difference between 'censorship' and 'lack of censorship'.
To censor or not to censor. You have no right dictating what other communities should and should not do and how they should interpret their local laws. It's up to the parents, the community and the schools to decide how to go about educating and parenting their children, not you.
No, I have no such right. What I DO have a right to, is expressing my opinion about censorship. Do you have a problem with that -- or are you not bright enough to know the difference between expressing one's views and imposing them on others? --
So, either you find a way of paying the programmers for their efforts, or else most of your code just doesn't get written.
This has been done to death. Programmers of course also have to eat, but:
1) programmers can be paid to program (which they usually are anyway), rather than for programs -- paid for the services they render, not code they create. The payers, of course, would be those interested in having code that does certain stuff, not the least of them being the government (a-la NSA research grants).
2) They can change money for services related to the code, not for code itself.
Fundamentally, these are answers to the ethical problem concerning ownership of information. The problem does exist, and simply ignoring it (and treating information no differently from other forms of property) is not an answer.
God did, supposedly (duh!), since Egyptian chariots were gaining on fleeing Israelites.
Now a counter-quiz:
Who send a bear to rend the 42 kinds who were taunting prophet Elija as 'baldhead'?.. How about the one who gave the command to kill all males who are old enough to piss standing and to take everyone else as slaves, or the commandment to kill all gays?..
And if I can't sell you some data under contract because I don't own it, then why should I give it to you? Let's say I wrote a piece of useful software. You are saying I don't own it. If so and providided I am not motivated by reputation considerations, well-being of mankind, etc. why in the world should I tell anybody I wrote it? If it is not my property, then I don't have control over it, and if I want control, I will attempt to hide it. What's my motivation to give information to you if I can't do it under contract?
First of all, if you wrote it for the purpose of making money, it probably would not be very good -- that's the whole point of all that psych research I mentioned.
Secondly -- no, you would not have motivation to give it away. You would not have had motivation to write it, either -- you would only have written it if you were motivated by something other than money (according to your own example).
The short of it is -- what if 2+2=5?.. I don't know, and it isn't, so I frankly don't particularly care, either. All I see is that, had IP been abolished, we probably would see less art/software/invention, but more GOOD art/software/invention.
As far as I can tell, those who engage in censorship (even parents, but that's a different story) are either cowards who fear the truth, or idiots who think that they can actually accomplish something useful by censorship (or more likely, they are both).
I don't remember who said it, but I love the phrase: 'I hate everything you say, but I will fight for your right to say it'. I despise xianity and bible, I think they are total mind rot -- but I believe nobody has any business telling others what to look at, or not to look at. Since the library is a public facility, they should not censor content for anyone -- the only people who have business censoring content for kids, are their parents (and even then it's ethically questionable)
That being said, bible IS one of the most offensive books I have ever read (yes, I read all of it).
The notion of property is based on the idea that you can prevent others from doing certain things. Either you claim that there can be no property on information at all (and what about your medical records?), or I as the owner can impose any conditions in the contract. If you don't like the contract, don't sign it!
You don't own your medical records, the access to them is restricted for other reasons (privacy, non-discrimination, etc.). As far as I am concerned, you can sell me (under contract) some data in the same way that you can sell me (under contract) the Brooklyn bridge -- which is to say, you can't, because you don't own either.
So researchers at Universities don't get paid in money? Hmmm, that's news to me.
Read what I wrote. They don't get money as a reward for their discoveries -- they get money in order to enable them to work. Of course, if they do good job, they are more likely to be given grants in the future, but the difference between this and industry research model is still the same, and just as cruicial: they get paid to work, not for work. They get paid for the services they provide (applying their minds to problems), not for the things their effort produces.
I am not suggesting it as a valid model for the whole economy, only for the sectors involved in producing ideas, technologies, arts, etc. -- stuff currently covered by IP laws.
But the time I have spent creating that source is gone, lost to me. Those minutes, hours, days and weeks spent designing, debugging, and coding the final item are the cost of that item - not the few cents needed to make a printed or electronic copy.
That time is gone no matter what you do -- restricting (or not restricting) others' access to the fruit of your labor will neither return that time to you, nor require more time and effort from you. However, once that time is spent, the benefit others can derive from it is great to them yet cost-free to you. Kinda like RMS's infamous infinite sandwich... --
(I think my first answer got lost due to me forgetting to click 'submit')
If people are allowed to freely copy paintings, music, software, etc. this has the potential to erode the economic incentive of artists to produce the works in the first place. This means fewer works, and this means a less successful economy, which is bad for society.
A substantial body of psychological research has shown that people involved in creative tasks (such as ones that produce in what currently falls under the abel of 'IP') actually do a much better job when offered non-material compensation -- lova, pride, respect, satisfaction, etc. -- rather than material ones like money. The obvious conclusion then is to set up a system which would allow such people to do what they do, but not to offer them this money as reward, instead offering them the intrinsic incentives.
Such a system already exists -- education research facilities work this way. Most inventions (as opposed to 'innovations' in the Gatesque sense) come out of such facilities.
BTW, you say that elimination of IP has a potential to erode our economy. My computer has a potential to spontaneously combust right now, yet it does not... Until someone can offer support for this erosion having a reasonably high chance of occuring, the above point has little, if any, value in this kind of argument.
Copyright protects an expression of ideas. It doesn't protect the ideas themselves. Why do you think it's perfectly legitimate for you to quote from a book without paying the author? Why do you think it's perfectly all right for you to appropriate the ideas expressed in a book as your own? Because copyright doesn't protect ideas. It protects expression: written words.
'Written words' are ideas, just of a more specific kind. All information is just 'ideas' of one sort or another. if you really think about it, there is no qualitive distinction between an abstract idea of a tragedy, a more specific ourline of a tragic love story between two hormone-crazed teenagers, a still more specific story of 'Romeo' and 'Juliet', a detailed scetch of that drama, and finally the specific text. All of these things differe from each other only in the amount of detail.
Copyright is legitimate. Patents are different because they restrict the use of ideas -- and I fully agree that this is silly. But copyright is a different story. Someone somewhere invested their energy in producing a tangible thing: their book/code/whatever. It is theirs, and they have a right to do with their property what they wish.
Do you think that it takes any less time to, say, invent a volfram-thread (sp?) light bulb (a perfectly patentable idea)?..
Finally, let me say that the premise of the article is incorrect. Private property is legitimate because God owns everything, and he extends to us the right to own things as stewards -- as his representatives. There is nothing whatever immoral about the idea of private property; people may do bad things with their stuff, but that's a separate question.
Now THIS is one of the most laughable explanations of the nature of property I have ever heard. Setting aside the very question of god's existence, let me ask you this -- how do you know that god gave you the right to that car? When have you last spoken with her? Well, I have spoken with god today, and she told me that she decided to now grant the 'stewardship' of that car to me. Fork it over, buddy!
I really hope this is not what the entire/. community thinks like. I always thought people shared thier ideas because they WANTED to not because they HAD to. There is a difference between VOLUNTARILY sharing ideas and being FORCED to share ideas. What a person thinks is his own, and no one elses.
You are missing the point. Nobody makes you share your ideas (except fot Apple and their ASPL license); the whole point here is that, once you tell that idea to someone, you cannot make themnot share it with anyone. Get the difference?.. You can keep your idea private, but you cannot impose restrictions on others' use of the same idea -- that's the whole anti-IP point. --
I hate it when people don't think before they speak...
Give me a freaking break!!! If I spend my free time developing a product, or idea, that others want, I should damn well be able to charge them a compensatory fee. Similarly, if I am the philanthropic type who wants to give away my product/idea, that should also be my right. But, the first time someone tries to TAKE something I have developed myself, WITHOUT my permission, that person will find themselves with a boot up their ass!
OK, so you spend months developing that PERFECT recipe for the super-duper banana cream pie, and then you can restrict others from using it... NOT! Or, you spend months coming up with this new mathematical formula, and then you can restrict others' use of it... NOT! (again)
Should artists be forced to give away their paintings? No. Should authors have to give you a copy of their books? No. Should a farmer have to give you his produce? No. These are all socialistic concepts. What's good for society as a whole is the rule, and if it hurts one person, so what.
the 'copyleft' idea would be for artists not to give out their paintings, but to allow others to make unlimited number of copies; similarly, an author would not give out books, but perhaps allow others unlimited access to the typeset or plaintext version of the book (electronically). Lastly, with farmer, there is no similarity at all. When a farmer gives out their crop, they can no longer use it -- material property is that way. if you give out source, YOUR copy of the source is still usable to you.
Some people just DON'T THINK. Sheesh!
(Just so you know, I'm NOT a fan of Bill Gates/Microsloth)
No, just a fan of the ridiculous (and illogical) property scheme that allows them to prosper.
Slashdot Mirror
And you don't have personal bias falling into this?
/.'.
/. readers.
I certainly do -- but I don't initiate threads with titles as inflamatory as 'Death of critical thinking on
I already said I might be wrong in my statements. But the possibility still exists that ZDNet screwed up in their reporting -- and the language used in those reports is enough to make me think it *was* screwed up. (Heck, I was a writer before I started coding for a living -- I've interviewed enough people myself in my time. In fact, it's things like these which is why I always tried to get my sources to read over the article before publication).
The point -- the purpose for my original post -- still stands. If you make a sweeping accusation of this nature, you better be damn sure that you are not guilty of what you accuse others of. In this particular case, your post itself showed lack of critical thinking that you seem to expect from
Actually, it is much better to not make such sweeping generalizations at all -- but you are free to suit yourself.
--
Sorry accidentally pressed the 'Submit' button too early.
--
The problem is that Open Source (as the term is used by 99% of the people on Slashdot) actually has multiple meanings -- there's the trademarked one, and there's the "Open Source == GPL" one, which is alas, completely and utterly *wrong* [Open Source is a superset of GPL].
Indeed. Now how does that show that the term 'Open Source' has multiple meanings? Unlike most words in natural languages, terms like this are NOT defined by usage. Just as 'binary tree' or 'MSCE' in certain context means exactly one thing -- in a similar manner, 'Open Source' in this context means one thing, and this meaning is not dependent on the term's common usage.
Problem 1: There's no actual quote from Muth on the "definition of Open Source" -- he's just stated as saying that "open source" has a variety of meanings -- now take it as a quote from someone who's not well versed on open source -- BSD and GPL are different "meanings" of Open Source. So, that's what he could be talking about.
Wrong. BSDL and GPL (and QPL and MPL and others) are examples of OS licenses -- just as both Tokyo and New York are examples of cities. All this means is that 'Open Source license' is a set rather than a primitive term, and specific licences are its members. There is only one -- rather rigid -- set of criteria for the membership in the set 'Open Source licenses'. No confusion or plurality of meanings here -- that one set of criteris is the meaning of 'Open Source license'.
Strike one...
Problem 2: The paragraph that starts out "Differing Definitions"... 'But its definition of "open source code licenses" means making the technology available to only a select group of computer scientists' -- this DEFINITELY looks like bad reporting to me. Look at the test that goes before it: "Microsoft says it has, for the past five years, been licensing some or all of the underlying programming...." -- sounds like the journo decided that this "licensing" must be what MS meant by open sourcing its stuff!
Note that the full sentence goes like this:
So, if we are to believe the letter of this, the reporter seems to merely be paraphrasing Muth's statement, rather than imposing his/her own interpretation of the state of affairs. You cannot get away with blaming the reporter's assumptions here -- the only way to ditch this paragraph, is to say that the reporter paraphrased incorrectly, rather than drew an invalid connection -- to say that the reporter misrepresented rather than misconstrued, to say that the reporter lied.
Strike two...
Solution? You all need to read/get hold of a transcript of the interview before blowing your stacks in future. Or at the very least, take what you read with a pinch of salt.
Actually, as I have shown, your attempt at analysis here is not quite up to par with the standards that you proclaimed in the message's title. The solution thus is to read the article more carefully, rather than to attempt such a badly-done (likely due to personal bias) deconstruction.
Strike three -- and yer out.
Dude, when you accuse others of lack of critical thinking, you better be damn sure that your own arguments are sound, and that your analyses are bulletproof. It's, like, obvious, dude!
--
OK, let's apply critical thinking here...
The problem is that Open Source (as the term is used by 99% of the people on Slashdot) actually has multiple meanings -- there's the trademarked one, and there's the "Open Source == GPL" one, which is alas, completely and utterly *wrong* [Open Source is a superset of GPL].
I trust you are familiar with the notion of a 'set'?.. 'Open Source', as defined by OSI/SPI/etc, describes the rules by which one can test for the membership of a given license in the set 'open Source Licenses'. This means that GPL, BSD, MPL, etc. are examples of Open Source license.
However, let's go back to the context of the article:
--
Why would anyone spend the time and money to create a "better" format? Can they patent it and make money? No. There is no reason to make a better one. And without a reason, nothing will change(i.e. MP3 will have total dominance as a digital music format)
.WAV at very high sampling rate. Sure, it takes five to ten times the space of MP3 -- so what? A common HD two years ago was 3 or so MB; these days, it's 10 or 15 MB. In another couple of years, the one reason for using mp3 rather than other, uncompressed, formats -- size -- will become meaningless. If you can stuff 100 hours of CD-quality audio on your disk, why bother stuffing 1000 hrs of sub-CD quality audio?.. there is only so much you can listen to, only so many titles you can actually keep track of.
Here is a better format for you: losslessly-compressed
As I said before, increased storage and bandwdth will make the very reason for using mp3 instead of lossless formats -- size -- a thing of the past. Sure, you will keep your existing mp3 collection -- after all, you cannot restore the tracks to their original quality by converting mp3 back; however, there will be no reason to get the new pieces in mp3.
Think in perspective, dude.
--
I can still run software written back in 1983 on my Windows NT machine. Not all of it, some of the stuff that uses funky Pharlap memory extensions and such does not always work well.
But even so, backwards compatibility is a design consideration that Linux has ignored.
You are missing the point. Assuming that the error you mentioned is not a result of stupid code, you should remember that, due to the different history, 'backwards compatibility' means different things in Windows and Unix world.
In Windows, where everything is a binary, the only backwards compatibility model is binary as well. This, of course, means layers upon layers of cruft, to preserve the binary-level backwards compatibility.
In Unix, where source code rules, the thing you usually need is source-level backwards compatibility. if your company had half-a-brain, they would have kept the source around; then, if the code was actually well-designed (i.e. without assuming that it MUST be Linux (*BSD and x86 Solaris can run Linux binaries, remember?), much less any specific version of Linux) -- in short, if the incompatibility issue was the OS's fault, all you would have to do is recompile, perhaps with some minor code changes.
\begin sarcasm
Yes, spending 2 minutes recompiling your app is a heavy price to pay for clean, relatively cruft-free design...
\end sarcasm
--
I think Rob's comment was misleading. The article does prophecy the death of MP3, but for a very good reason. The author is not against compressed music format, or even a protection-free such format -- in fact, he sounds like he is all for the idea. What he is saying is that MP3 will die because it will be replaced by another format or similar nature but superior quality.
Think about it in these terms. The bandwidth grows very fast -- think about the discrepancy between the 300-baud modems and ADSL/cable modems. Storage devic capacity grows at astonishing speed as well, I am not even sure which one is growing faster.
What this all means is that we are already now approaching the wide availability of technology to use less space-saving, but higher quality, format, space-wise; we are very close to approaching this point network-bandwidth-wise. The whole reason for using MP3 format -- disk size and bandwidth -- is vanishing. I am merely a poor student, but I have enough free space on my HD to store 10 CDROMs (12GB disks are not that expensive these days); with ADSL and cable modems, and the rollout of InternetII, we are approaching the time when I will be able to download the abovementioned 10 CDs in minutes (another couple of years, tops, and we'll be at least at a point when I can download one CD in minutes).
The time is just about ripe for another, less lossy, format to become popular. MP3's death IS imminent -- simply because the limitations it was designed to overcome, are vanishing in front of our eyes.
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Er... what's wrong with Elizabeth?
She is a religious freak without any original thoughts. All her speeches are scripted, and she never does anything spontaneous (like, um, answer audience questions...) I fear her as a president.
I would LOVE to see a female prez, but Liz Dole just ain't it.
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(snip)...
If you have answered yes to most of these questions you're probably a hacker.
I once had a sexual fantasy (in the shower, no less) about proving that P=NP. Does that count?..
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Maybe I just dont read enough O'Reilly books but I thought this article was excellent. Why shouldnt something slightly more philosophical be worthy of posting on /. ?
It should, IMO. I would love to see more philosophical (or at least partially so) pieces here, but this article gave an appearance of being deep without actually offering any substance. It's entire point was 'online world is formed by participants', but that was stated in the very beginning as the topic to be explored (and IMO it is a very interesting topic); however, the writer then simply spent all that time recombining one phrase over an over, just repeating the same idea, never actually examining anything deeper than the apparent surface meaning of it.
That article was the pseudo-philosophical version of 'fluff' that we see about technology in non-techie publications. Plus, I despised the apparently seriously intended reference to the 'remote viewing' (but that's just a minor point).
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The article started well and had good intentions: to show us how this online world is our creation, both physically and perceptually.
Unfortunately, the author did not target his audience very well. Slashdot readers have little tolerance for verbose, flamboyant pseudoprose (to coin a term). We generally view it as a waste of time. Give me something concrete and meaningful!
Indeed. The consensual nature of online world is a very interesting topic, but the writer's style was terrible -- excessive use of unnecessarily complicated words and structures, compounded by lack of cohesion to the article. This is almost as hard to read as Kant, but at least Kant could write a coherent page without losing those persevering enough to actually follow his wording...
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If an application is valuable to a large, disorganized user base, OTOH, then there is nobody among the users who can hire developers on behalf of all of them. What happens in this scenario?
If an application is valuable to 'the people', then let 'the people' form cooperatives to fund it. Well, such cooperatives have been formed -- the governments (which are supposed to represent 'the people'). This is at least how they are SUPPOSED to work.
And these are my rebuttals to those answers. I have nothing against Open Source and Free Software existing - but unless you can demonstrate a workable system that employs the same number of programmers as the present one for the same wages, I'm not going to abandon the proprietary model completely. I *do* need to eat.
You did not offer a rebuttal. At most, you have shown that there is an easy 'crutch' for the real problem; you did nothing to show that IP is not problemmatic. This would be a rebuttal -- showing that the original point is false.
This is no different from american 'affirmative action' or gay anti-discrimination laws -- they may be needed under the current circumstances, but they do not address the REAL problem, which is social inequality and prejudice. Those laws, just like current copyright and patent system, are crutches -- they treat the syptoms rather than the cause. I do not have a perfect economic model for IP-free world at hand, although FSF has come up with some pretty good stuff. Yes, there probably would be fewer programmers -- although not much fewer, because as I understand, most programmers are involved in developing internal software and providing services anyway, which things are basically not subject to the problems you mentioned.
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or the commandment to kill all gays?
I never heard about that one.
it's in Numbers, I think (it's actually in two different placed in Torah, but one is more clear than the other), something like 'and if a man lies with another man as if he were a woman, it is an abomination', and somewhere nearby it recounts how such 'abominations' should be stoned. If you really want the exact verse and chapter, I can look it up tonight.
BTW, I can't help thinking that I got more out of what I did read than you did.
Why -- because you only remember the 'nice' parts, and ignore the atrocities that god commands?.. or is it because you think that believing that horrible book makes you have gotten more out of it'..
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So you'd have no trouble with me walking up to your 8-year-old son, telling him that cocaine was really just as as harmful as powdered sugar, and since it was extracted from plants, its just as good as green vegetables? All you do is snort it up your nose and you won't have to eat green beans tonight! Maybe I could give him a pamphlet with directions to the nearest crack dealer.
You can try -- and I will tell him that you are lying.
Or what about hard pornography? You'd have no problem with me setting a stack of hard gay porn in front of your child's elementary school then?
To be honest -- no, I would not like it (not because of what it is, but because of what you mean by it), but I do not think that you should be prevented by law from doing so. The Western aversion to sex is purely a cultural artifact, and sexual imagery in and of itself will do my child no harm -- he will probably simply ignore it for lack of understanding of matters involved.
Whether or not YOU think any form of parental censorship is evil or not is NOT THE ISSUE. You are no better than the people you're trying to insult. Where they are trying to "impose" *their* censorship beliefs on others, you are trying to do the same on them.
I am? How so, pray tell? There is a big difference between 'censorship' and 'lack of censorship'.
To censor or not to censor. You have no right dictating what other communities should and should not do and how they should interpret their local laws. It's up to the parents, the community and the schools to decide how to go about educating and parenting their children, not you.
No, I have no such right. What I DO have a right to, is expressing my opinion about censorship. Do you have a problem with that -- or are you not bright enough to know the difference between expressing one's views and imposing them on others?
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So, either you find a way of paying the programmers for their efforts, or else most of your code just doesn't get written.
This has been done to death. Programmers of course also have to eat, but:
1) programmers can be paid to program (which they usually are anyway), rather than for programs -- paid for the services they render, not code they create. The payers, of course, would be those interested in having code that does certain stuff, not the least of them being the government (a-la NSA research grants).
2) They can change money for services related to the code, not for code itself.
Fundamentally, these are answers to the ethical problem concerning ownership of information. The problem does exist, and simply ignoring it (and treating information no differently from other forms of property) is not an answer.
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God did, supposedly (duh!), since Egyptian chariots were gaining on fleeing Israelites.
Now a counter-quiz:
Who send a bear to rend the 42 kinds who were taunting prophet Elija as 'baldhead'?.. How about the one who gave the command to kill all males who are old enough to piss standing and to take everyone else as slaves, or the commandment to kill all gays?..
Need more examples, or are we done with quizzing?
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And if I can't sell you some data under contract because I don't own it, then why should I give it to you? Let's say I wrote a piece of useful software. You are saying I don't own it. If so and providided I am not motivated by reputation considerations, well-being of mankind, etc. why in the world should I tell anybody I wrote it? If it is not my property, then I don't have control over it, and if I want control, I will attempt to hide it. What's my motivation to give information to you if I can't do it under contract?
First of all, if you wrote it for the purpose of making money, it probably would not be very good -- that's the whole point of all that psych research I mentioned.
Secondly -- no, you would not have motivation to give it away. You would not have had motivation to write it, either -- you would only have written it if you were motivated by something other than money (according to your own example).
The short of it is -- what if 2+2=5?.. I don't know, and it isn't, so I frankly don't particularly care, either. All I see is that, had IP been abolished, we probably would see less art/software/invention, but more GOOD art/software/invention.
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As far as I can tell, those who engage in censorship (even parents, but that's a different story) are either cowards who fear the truth, or idiots who think that they can actually accomplish something useful by censorship (or more likely, they are both).
I don't remember who said it, but I love the phrase: 'I hate everything you say, but I will fight for your right to say it'. I despise xianity and bible, I think they are total mind rot -- but I believe nobody has any business telling others what to look at, or not to look at. Since the library is a public facility, they should not censor content for anyone -- the only people who have business censoring content for kids, are their parents (and even then it's ethically questionable)
That being said, bible IS one of the most offensive books I have ever read (yes, I read all of it).
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The notion of property is based on the idea that you can prevent others from doing certain things. Either you claim that there can be no property on information at all (and what about your medical records?), or I as the owner can impose any conditions in the contract. If you don't like the contract, don't sign it!
You don't own your medical records, the access to them is restricted for other reasons (privacy, non-discrimination, etc.). As far as I am concerned, you can sell me (under contract) some data in the same way that you can sell me (under contract) the Brooklyn bridge -- which is to say, you can't, because you don't own either.
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So researchers at Universities don't get paid in money? Hmmm, that's news to me.
Read what I wrote. They don't get money as a reward for their discoveries -- they get money in order to enable them to work. Of course, if they do good job, they are more likely to be given grants in the future, but the difference between this and industry research model is still the same, and just as cruicial: they get paid to work, not for work. They get paid for the services they provide (applying their minds to problems), not for the things their effort produces.
I am not suggesting it as a valid model for the whole economy, only for the sectors involved in producing ideas, technologies, arts, etc. -- stuff currently covered by IP laws.
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But the time I have spent creating that source is gone, lost to me. Those minutes, hours, days and weeks spent designing, debugging, and coding the final item are the cost of that item - not the few cents needed to make a printed or electronic copy.
That time is gone no matter what you do -- restricting (or not restricting) others' access to the fruit of your labor will neither return that time to you, nor require more time and effort from you. However, once that time is spent, the benefit others can derive from it is great to them yet cost-free to you. Kinda like RMS's infamous infinite sandwich...
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(I think my first answer got lost due to me forgetting to click 'submit')
If people are allowed to freely copy paintings, music, software, etc. this has the potential to erode the economic incentive of artists to produce the works in the first place. This means fewer works, and this means a less successful economy, which is bad for society.
A substantial body of psychological research has shown that people involved in creative tasks (such as ones that produce in what currently falls under the abel of 'IP') actually do a much better job when offered non-material compensation -- lova, pride, respect, satisfaction, etc. -- rather than material ones like money. The obvious conclusion then is to set up a system which would allow such people to do what they do, but not to offer them this money as reward, instead offering them the intrinsic incentives.
Such a system already exists -- education research facilities work this way. Most inventions (as opposed to 'innovations' in the Gatesque sense) come out of such facilities.
BTW, you say that elimination of IP has a potential to erode our economy. My computer has a potential to spontaneously combust right now, yet it does not... Until someone can offer support for this erosion having a reasonably high chance of occuring, the above point has little, if any, value in this kind of argument.
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Copyright protects an expression of ideas. It doesn't protect the ideas themselves. Why do you think it's perfectly legitimate for you to quote from a book without paying the author? Why do you think it's perfectly all right for you to appropriate the ideas expressed in a book as your own? Because copyright doesn't protect ideas. It protects expression: written words.
'Written words' are ideas, just of a more specific kind. All information is just 'ideas' of one sort or another. if you really think about it, there is no qualitive distinction between an abstract idea of a tragedy, a more specific ourline of a tragic love story between two hormone-crazed teenagers, a still more specific story of 'Romeo' and 'Juliet', a detailed scetch of that drama, and finally the specific text. All of these things differe from each other only in the amount of detail.
Copyright is legitimate. Patents are different because they restrict the use of ideas -- and I fully agree that this is silly. But copyright is a different story. Someone somewhere invested their energy in producing a tangible thing: their book/code/whatever. It is theirs, and they have a right to do with their property what they wish.
Do you think that it takes any less time to, say, invent a volfram-thread (sp?) light bulb (a perfectly patentable idea)?..
Finally, let me say that the premise of the article is incorrect. Private property is legitimate because God owns everything, and he extends to us the right to own things as stewards -- as his representatives. There is nothing whatever immoral about the idea of private property; people may do bad things with their stuff, but that's a separate question.
Now THIS is one of the most laughable explanations of the nature of property I have ever heard. Setting aside the very question of god's existence, let me ask you this -- how do you know that god gave you the right to that car? When have you last spoken with her? Well, I have spoken with god today, and she told me that she decided to now grant the 'stewardship' of that car to me. Fork it over, buddy!
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I really hope this is not what the entire /. community thinks like. I always thought people shared thier ideas because they WANTED to not because they HAD to. There is a difference between VOLUNTARILY sharing ideas and being FORCED to share ideas. What a person thinks is his own, and no one elses.
You are missing the point. Nobody makes you share your ideas (except fot Apple and their ASPL license); the whole point here is that, once you tell that idea to someone, you cannot make them not share it with anyone. Get the difference?.. You can keep your idea private, but you cannot impose restrictions on others' use of the same idea -- that's the whole anti-IP point.
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I hate it when people don't think before they speak...
Give me a freaking break!!! If I spend my free time developing a product, or idea, that others want, I should damn well be able to charge them a compensatory fee. Similarly, if I am the philanthropic type who wants to give away my product/idea, that should also be my right. But, the first time someone tries to TAKE something I have developed myself, WITHOUT my permission, that person will find themselves with a boot up their ass!
OK, so you spend months developing that PERFECT recipe for the super-duper banana cream pie, and then you can restrict others from using it... NOT!
Or, you spend months coming up with this new mathematical formula, and then you can restrict others' use of it... NOT! (again)
Should artists be forced to give away their paintings? No. Should authors have to give you a copy of their books? No. Should a farmer have to give you his produce? No. These are all socialistic concepts. What's good for society as a whole is the rule, and if it hurts one person, so what.
the 'copyleft' idea would be for artists not to give out their paintings, but to allow others to make unlimited number of copies; similarly, an author would not give out books, but perhaps allow others unlimited access to the typeset or plaintext version of the book (electronically). Lastly, with farmer, there is no similarity at all. When a farmer gives out their crop, they can no longer use it -- material property is that way. if you give out source, YOUR copy of the source is still usable to you.
Some people just DON'T THINK. Sheesh!
(Just so you know, I'm NOT a fan of Bill Gates/Microsloth)
No, just a fan of the ridiculous (and illogical) property scheme that allows them to prosper.
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