More and more as I read these articles I'm struck by the similarities of the actions of the RIAA and MPAA to that of a large empire on the decline.
They first try to discredit the new technologies, then, once they are accepted, fight them tooth and nail, all the way to the bitter end.
For a modern example, consider how french culture actively defends its language, both in France and Quebec. They realize the threat is real, and are trying the only measures that might preserve the culture in the way (key point here) _they_ want it to be preserved.
The major companies and labels have been sitting on a multi-million (billion?) dollar industry for a long time now. Its not surprising to see them reacting this way to try to preserve it. Hopefully the judge will see this too, and not allow them to trample over legitimate rights and uses of the "unelite".
First off, I'll say i use turbolinux at home for my mudserver. It's a nice distro, with no problems once i put a 3com ethernet card in. I haven't tried or worked with the clustering product.
Forget for a moment that this is a linux/open source company. What they are doing makes perfect sense and is sound business strategy. The stock market is in a very precarious position, having fallen quite a bit and still poised to test the bottoms. This is a company that still needs venture capital support and cannot afford to suffer major losses, even short term.
By taking a proactive approach to this, they leave themselves in a position to rebuild those departments if the situation reverses. Without the cuts, they leave themselves open to serious damage if the market turns seriously sour.
Another variable in this is the MS vs. DOJ case. Truthfully, no one knows what the results of that will be, or how soon they will be felt. They are trying to put themselves in as stable a position as they can, to take advantage of whatever course occurs.
This seems to be a nice melding of talented suits and geeks in the same company. A mix you don't see all that often. (a young microsoft comes to mind as another... then they got big and bought whatever they needed).
This will be an interesting case to see if an open source (mainly) company can thrive as a business model, especially during a bear market. That no one has seen or knows the answer to yet.
I'd like to think it can. And I think TurboLinux is showing the way how.
The article mentions this, but not strongly enough. Without "legitimate" applications for technology, they will be viewed as simply tools for pirating or other illegal use. FTP, as an example, could be used for those purposes, but the mainstream uses came first. We need to develop as many mainstream uses for mp3 and gnutella as can be done, so the focus of the technology critics can be drawn away from the music/copyright questions, on to the other uses. As of now, they can claim that other uses are simply "vaporware". Sure, they're possible, but no one is actually doing anything with them. Once the applications come, the technology will gain the acceptance it deserves.
Since object oriented programming seems to be the major direction in programming and e-commerce, why not start them off with java?
Its no more difficult than any other language to learn (remember, kids have nothing to unlearn), except for the grasping the object concept. And that may actually be easier for them to start with, since it models the real world.
Its also reasonably platform independant (just stay away from j++ *cringes in terror*)
I hope this post doesn't get lost at the bottom of the pile, but it took quite a while for me to sort through the ramblings to understand what he was actually saying. I think his main point is that the creator of a work should control how it is distributed. Isn't this the same point of the GPL? Otherwise just release open source into the public domain. The band (or a programmer) created a song (or an app) and wants to decide how it should be distibuted. I don't think that sounds unreasonable. Just because the internet is a relatively new medium doesn't mean that all laws and ethics should not apply to it. Would it be ok if I linked up my server to the internet to freely distribute all my MSDN and MCSP apps to the world (I know, who would want them... but you get the point). They may not have done the best PR job in the world on this, but I think they are working from a valid position, and taking reasonable steps to protect their works.
I work in a large firm with a support staff of over a hundred for my domain. As such we have plenty of management as well as techie types. I have come to the conclusion that all truth can be found in the mystical tomes of Illiad and Scott Adams.
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More and more as I read these articles I'm struck by the similarities of the actions of the RIAA and MPAA to that of a large empire on the decline.
They first try to discredit the new technologies, then, once they are accepted, fight them tooth and nail, all the way to the bitter end.
For a modern example, consider how french culture actively defends its language, both in France and Quebec. They realize the threat is real, and are trying the only measures that might preserve the culture in the way (key point here) _they_ want it to be preserved.
The major companies and labels have been sitting on a multi-million (billion?) dollar industry for a long time now. Its not surprising to see them reacting this way to try to preserve it. Hopefully the judge will see this too, and not allow them to trample over legitimate rights and uses of the "unelite".
First off, I'll say i use turbolinux at home for my mudserver. It's a nice distro, with no problems once i put a 3com ethernet card in. I haven't tried or worked with the clustering product.
Forget for a moment that this is a linux/open source company. What they are doing makes perfect sense and is sound business strategy. The stock market is in a very precarious position, having fallen quite a bit and still poised to test the bottoms. This is a company that still needs venture capital support and cannot afford to suffer major losses, even short term.
By taking a proactive approach to this, they leave themselves in a position to rebuild those departments if the situation reverses. Without the cuts, they leave themselves open to serious damage if the market turns seriously sour.
Another variable in this is the MS vs. DOJ case. Truthfully, no one knows what the results of that will be, or how soon they will be felt. They are trying to put themselves in as stable a position as they can, to take advantage of whatever course occurs.
This seems to be a nice melding of talented suits and geeks in the same company. A mix you don't see all that often. (a young microsoft comes to mind as another... then they got big and bought whatever they needed).
This will be an interesting case to see if an open source (mainly) company can thrive as a business model, especially during a bear market. That no one has seen or knows the answer to yet.
I'd like to think it can. And I think TurboLinux is showing the way how.
The article mentions this, but not strongly enough. Without "legitimate" applications for technology, they will be viewed as simply tools for pirating or other illegal use. FTP, as an example, could be used for those purposes, but the mainstream uses came first. We need to develop as many mainstream uses for mp3 and gnutella as can be done, so the focus of the technology critics can be drawn away from the music/copyright questions, on to the other uses. As of now, they can claim that other uses are simply "vaporware". Sure, they're possible, but no one is actually doing anything with them. Once the applications come, the technology will gain the acceptance it deserves.
Since object oriented programming seems to be the major direction in programming and e-commerce, why not start them off with java?
Its no more difficult than any other language to learn (remember, kids have nothing to unlearn), except for the grasping the object concept. And that may actually be easier for them to start with, since it models the real world.
Its also reasonably platform independant (just stay away from j++ *cringes in terror*)
I hope this post doesn't get lost at the bottom of the pile, but it took quite a while for me to sort through the ramblings to understand what he was actually saying. I think his main point is that the creator of a work should control how it is distributed. Isn't this the same point of the GPL? Otherwise just release open source into the public domain. The band (or a programmer) created a song (or an app) and wants to decide how it should be distibuted. I don't think that sounds unreasonable. Just because the internet is a relatively new medium doesn't mean that all laws and ethics should not apply to it. Would it be ok if I linked up my server to the internet to freely distribute all my MSDN and MCSP apps to the world (I know, who would want them... but you get the point). They may not have done the best PR job in the world on this, but I think they are working from a valid position, and taking reasonable steps to protect their works.
I work in a large firm with a support staff of over a hundred for my domain. As such we have plenty of management as well as techie types. I have come to the conclusion that all truth can be found in the mystical tomes of Illiad and Scott Adams.