Yes, someone using a pirated copy who 'wouldn't have purchased it otherwise' is a definite DILUTION OF THE VALUE OF THE PRODUCT which is an offense to the people who created it and their investors. The supply/demand economics of private IP is largely based on EXCLUSION of some people (those who don't pay, just like I can ask the police to remove you from my premises because it is my private property, not a public park).
No.
See? I can make unsubtantiated assertions just like you.
But how about this? Had I not been able to pirate your s/w product Foo, I would not have it to to use, and you would not have my cash. But, if use a "stolen" copy, I may, in the future, decide it is valuable enough to purchase. I will likely speak about your product to friends, who may decide to buy it. And then you'll make some money.
The issue for anyine selling s/w is not so much whther I do or don't copy it, it's whether I (or anyone else) can or cannot copy it. That's what creates the illusion of scarcity. Sadly for IP selllers, copy prevention is damn hard, and chosing to base a business model on a now next-to-impossible condition is a Bad Idea.
Comparisons between IP and physical property fail because the notion of exclusive use and scarcity is not a natural condition for IP.
The supply/demand economics of private IP is largely based on providing value for your money; if you have to rely on artifical exclusion then you're willingly assuming a big risk.
Why? Is it a de facto standard, because of its wide-spread use, or because some consider the W3C a standards body? Or something esle?
The Java lanuage itself is a standard
Agan, why? It's not IETF or ECMA or whatever certified; there is no stnadards org overseeing it; Sun has last-word, bottom-line, complete control, regardless of what the JCP says or does. Is it right to call it a standard? Does that make VB a standard, too?
W3C....well, unfortunately, I don't consider them standards body
But you say XML is a standard. Not looking to poke holes or troll; I think this sort of confusion is exploited by vendors trying to foist technolgy on companies by waving the standards flag whenever possible, regardless of what sort of "standard" is involved.
We're the first major standards organization that sets the explicit goal of producing only standards that can be implemented without paying patent royalties.
I could have sworn that, for some time, the W3C used to specificaly state that it did not produce standards, only reccomendations. That, apparently has changed, and I'm wondering just when that happened.
Along these lines, just how does a vendor consortium such as the W3C become a standards body? Is it simply a matter of judging public acceptance and then declaring oneself to be a standards body? (I think that's basically what OASIS did.)
. Also, with the way that Java is developed, through the Java Community Process, any potential buyer would find it difficult to exert full control over the the technology. For a closed product, Java is pretty open.
Why? The owner of the Java(tm) trademark can restrict the use of the term and demand ridiculous fees.
Sun *owns* Java(tm), and controls it as it sees fit. Don't kid yourself. They give away stuff to sell high-end servers.
I'd had CGI under my belt for ages... but never really got into the other languages and way of writing dynamic code.
So I read the entire book, cover to cover, in one night without the chance to actually try out the code. Nonetheless, I learned so much just from reading it without even typing a line of code that I totally smoked the interview. The interview was very technical, asking differences between the languages and pros/cons, as well as having me write code off the top of my head to do things in the different languages.
It's scary to think that somebody could get a web developer job without ever having actually written any relevant code.
When asked to write code in different languages, did you crib what code you recalled from the book?
As one of the first posters with +5 comment score points out, you will run into the wall when doing big projects with a scripting language. And despite all the nice OO-like features that have been thrown in to PHP, it still is essentially a script language.
I didn't see any previous comment explaining how using a scripting lanaguage causes one to "run into the wall when doing big projects."
This is an old wive's tale, that scripting langauges just don't scale. It's nonsense; while some languages (perhaps PHP) are not well-designed for large projects, others, such as Ruby, do quite nicely.
Ruby has a a far better OO model than PHP (or Java, for that matter); that one can label it as a scripting lanagauge does not diminish its beauty or power. Give it a shot before dismissing whole categories of tools. Check outthesearticles
I'd be very interested in knowing where those quotes form Matz come from, because the impression I get, from following the Ruby mailing lists, is that internationalization and Unicode support is a major concern, and will be addressed.
Conservatives tend to think you are where you are because you deserved it.
Maybe. Most of the conservatives I know tend to believe people are where they are because of choices people make, and would rather those choices (whether they be good or bad) be made by the individual rather than the government.
True. But who has final, legal say? If there is a disagreement between the JCP and Sun Inc, who wins?
Basically, Sun gets to pick people's brains, and see what major vendors are willing to support. But Sun gets the final say. Notice how all the copyright and trademark notices for Java(tm) refer to Sun, not the JCP or some other independant organization.
Sun is quite good at this sort of bullshit wordplay (though far from being the only ones). They really like to throw around the woprd "standard", conflating quite different meanings of the word to suggest that what they offer is not proprietary. For example, J2EE is "standards based", but only in the sense that a sole company (Sun) can define the standard.
They refer to the use of some XML syntax as using a standard, but as the W3C is not a true standards body ( as, say ISO is), XML is only a standard by general consensus.
Sometimes they refer to a something that's actually defined by a standards body. But that's rare.
Slashdot Mirror
No.
See? I can make unsubtantiated assertions just like you.
But how about this? Had I not been able to pirate your s/w product Foo, I would not have it to to use, and you would not have my cash. But, if use a "stolen" copy, I may, in the future, decide it is valuable enough to purchase. I will likely speak about your product to friends, who may decide to buy it. And then you'll make some money.
The issue for anyine selling s/w is not so much whther I do or don't copy it, it's whether I (or anyone else) can or cannot copy it. That's what creates the illusion of scarcity. Sadly for IP selllers, copy prevention is damn hard, and chosing to base a business model on a now next-to-impossible condition is a Bad Idea.
Comparisons between IP and physical property fail because the notion of exclusive use and scarcity is not a natural condition for IP.
The supply/demand economics of private IP is largely based on providing value for your money; if you have to rely on artifical exclusion then you're willingly assuming a big risk.
Well, look on the bright side: repeating history will be forbidden unless you own the copyright on it.
Shhhh! Somebody might hear you!
Why? Is it a de facto standard, because of its wide-spread use, or because some consider the W3C a standards body? Or something esle?
The Java lanuage itself is a standardAgan, why? It's not IETF or ECMA or whatever certified; there is no stnadards org overseeing it; Sun has last-word, bottom-line, complete control, regardless of what the JCP says or does. Is it right to call it a standard? Does that make VB a standard, too?
W3CBut you say XML is a standard. Not looking to poke holes or troll; I think this sort of confusion is exploited by vendors trying to foist technolgy on companies by waving the standards flag whenever possible, regardless of what sort of "standard" is involved.
I don't mean to be snarky, but can somebody tell me what the word "standard" means in this discussion, plus tell me what is or isn't a standards body?
For example, is XML a standard? Java? CORBA?
Is the W3C a standards body? The JCP folks? ECMA?
I used to poke fun at WaSP, the Web Standards Project, because:
But I see now the W3C has started to believe the hype.
I liked it better when the W3C just said, "We think these things are good enough to go try out in Real Life. Let us know how they work."
I could have sworn that, for some time, the W3C used to specificaly state that it did not produce standards, only reccomendations. That, apparently has changed, and I'm wondering just when that happened.
Along these lines, just how does a vendor consortium such as the W3C become a standards body? Is it simply a matter of judging public acceptance and then declaring oneself to be a standards body? (I think that's basically what OASIS did.)
Well put.
Basically:
Sun steals, I mean learns, from the past: Good
Microsoft steals, I mean learns, from the past: Evil
I gather from this that the reviewer is not informed and skilled with .Net, but nonetheless feels confident in dismissing it as crap.
If lack of personal knowledge does not disuade the reviewer from voicing an opinion, why should I give a rat's ass what he thinks?
Why? The owner of the Java(tm) trademark can restrict the use of the term and demand ridiculous fees.
Sun *owns* Java(tm), and controls it as it sees fit. Don't kid yourself. They give away stuff to sell high-end servers.
Make a point of trying it out; you won't be sorry. http://www.ruby-lang.org
So I read the entire book, cover to cover, in one night without the chance to actually try out the code. Nonetheless, I learned so much just from reading it without even typing a line of code that I totally smoked the interview. The interview was very technical, asking differences between the languages and pros/cons, as well as having me write code off the top of my head to do things in the different languages.
It's scary to think that somebody could get a web developer job without ever having actually written any relevant code.
When asked to write code in different languages, did you crib what code you recalled from the book?
Java(tm) is a proprietary language. That other JVMs exist is due the good graces of Sun. Such good grace may be withdrawn at any time.
The People? Are these the same ones always gettin' shafted by The Man(tm)?
I didn't see any previous comment explaining how using a scripting lanaguage causes one to "run into the wall when doing big projects."
This is an old wive's tale, that scripting langauges just don't scale. It's nonsense; while some languages (perhaps PHP) are not well-designed for large projects, others, such as Ruby, do quite nicely.
Ruby has a a far better OO model than PHP (or Java, for that matter); that one can label it as a scripting lanagauge does not diminish its beauty or power. Give it a shot before dismissing whole categories of tools. Check out these articles
.I just drove cross-country, and wanted some sort of Net access. I bit the bullet and installed AOL from one of those "1K free hours" CDs.
So kill me.
The result was that, at all but one hotel, I had free local calls and I could relax on the Net whilst sitting in my underwear watching CNN.
Yeah, it was slow, but not the end of the world. I could read E-mail, check somw sites, update my blog with travel news, and snarf porn.
Six days later, end of trip, call to AOl, cancel account.
I'd be very interested in knowing where those quotes form Matz come from, because the impression I get, from following the Ruby mailing lists, is that internationalization and Unicode support is a major concern, and will be addressed.
Maybe. Most of the conservatives I know tend to believe people are where they are because of choices people make, and would rather those choices (whether they be good or bad) be made by the individual rather than the government.
Well, unless it concerns drugs or porn.
True. But who has final, legal say? If there is a disagreement between the JCP and Sun Inc, who wins?
Basically, Sun gets to pick people's brains, and see what major vendors are willing to support. But Sun gets the final say. Notice how all the copyright and trademark notices for Java(tm) refer to Sun, not the JCP or some other independant organization.
Sun is quite good at this sort of bullshit wordplay (though far from being the only ones). They really like to throw around the woprd "standard", conflating quite different meanings of the word to suggest that what they offer is not proprietary. For example, J2EE is "standards based", but only in the sense that a sole company (Sun) can define the standard.
They refer to the use of some XML syntax as using a standard, but as the W3C is not a true standards body ( as, say ISO is), XML is only a standard by general consensus.
Sometimes they refer to a something that's actually defined by a standards body. But that's rare.
Maybe it was one of those "dream jobs", where you get paid to dream about working.
So, to wrap this up - Sure, $41/hour is a lot of money, but at what cost to the person earning it?
Well, this is still a relatively free country. Don't like the arrangements? Quit. Find an employer who better appreciates you.
It's a two-way street, and nobody owes you anything.
I wouldn't hold out for Sun to switch from Java to Python either but I really wish they would.
Or, better yet, go to full-blown OO, with ultra-ease of development, and switch to Ruby.
it's arguably the fastest language when it comes to development time.
Um, no. Try Ruby. Cleaner OO, too.
I looked around the GNU site, but was unable to find a link where I could download a copy of the book for free. Is it available for free download?