Something that's been on my mind for a while. Should a community have the explicit right to moderate their own information access? Now while the extreme example would be control-freak state like North Korea, I'm thinking of more subtle limits such as preserving cultural diversity and self-imposed norms. A parent has the right and responsibility for looking after a kid until they're 18 and part of this is the ability to influence their lifestyle while they learn to be responsible adults. Extrapolate this to a community and you can see where the inherent freedom of the net comes into conflict. While porn and terrorism are the bully-boys for the public stockades, I suspect that the freedom to choose also includes the freedom not to choose. Some thoughts...
<B>The right to choose... </B> OK, to bring this back to design, hypothetically, how would you construct a DNS that expands as a person grows older. Say from 12 where the parent has full control, to 18 when the person can access any site in the world.
<B>The right to improve... </B> How would you separate certain communities which depend on complete and free exchange of (information, scholars, crytoanalysists, reviewers, etc) from valid commercial markets (despite the angst, there are reasons for staggering film/DVD releases across different geographical regions due to differing schedules and levels of technology, etc).
<B>The right to exclude... </B> Give the ease of digital duplication, is there need to create quiet zones? Imagine going into deepest jungles of Papa New Guinea and then being hit by a coke ad in what you thought was untouched territory. We set aside untouched parklands for enjoyment, is there an internet equivalent (spam-free zone?). This is especially a big problem if the big companies bully/buyout the smaller independents through media saturation campaigns.
I keep thinking of the old Star Trek Prime Directive not to interfere. In our (OK some obnoxious greedy sods) rush to create new markets for new toys in the name of first-mover advantage, first-post bragging rights, etc... are we stomping on stuff that we might regret in later years. On example I recall is that a noted linguist pointed out that all the (interesting to him) variations of enlgish/slang around the world was rapidly disappearing due to the pervasive influence of CNN. What other memes will be lost?
... is to create a cult following. OK, perhaps not the normal negative stereotypes of drug-crazed messiatic hipsters but more along the lines of creating a long-lived mental franchise (think Mozart, think Lennon & Elvis). Big media studios don't make much (enough?) money from individual hits/movies, instead they're looking for the next long-lived brand series (e.g. Star Wars, Trek, DisneyWorld, etc) that they can flog merchandise, game-tickets, theme memorabilia, etc to the "adoring" (and prefereably mindless e.g. WWF) fan base. This is akin to the classic Catholic church business model of create a cult/philosophy, sell indulgences (no comments on religious flak please, it's just an illustrative example). Very profitable for the church but rather tortuous for the peasants (the inquisition was very much driven by the profit motive). Perhaps it's a rather cynical way of looking at the modern world but in this context, retaining copyright for 95 years (perhaps forever would be their preference) makes sense.
The problem is that while anti-trust laws guard against domination of the world of atoms, what protection is there in the world of ideas? The whole concept of branding is exactly that, to condition the consumer into a purchasing pattern that excludes competitors through natural exclusion. For the long run, would you want your grandkids and downstream generations to be dominated by the same cultural motifs of yesteryear? While having a common semiotic (symbol based) basis to communicate is good, the problem of cultural atrophy does spring to mind.
IMHO, there is a growing problem in that with digitalisation and permanent storage, any media (given enough care) can persist forever. Economists have always warned about cogestion effects, think of extending the mental traffic lanes to a century out. Given that we can access any book, any performance, any recordable event for the last 100 years, this creates an exponential explosion of information and experiences that will continue to saturate the consumer. In this situation, big dominates as flash and spin will crowd out slow and substance due to the speed of delivery and dominance of the attention span. The unintended side-effect is that the longer the copyright laws are enplaced, the lower the incentives studios have of developing NEW talent as it is easier and less risky to go with the current lineup of (fading?) stars rather than take a gamble on unknown. People have commented/complained previously of how the top 40 list is dominated by the same artists week after week. This is not a conincidence.
What can be done when you are competing with history (e.g Elvis, Lennon, etc) as well as the shadow of your own past? Selective amnesia is not a technological option. Weakening copyrights will bring howls of outrage from vested interests. Perhaps the only suggestion is that for enlightened self interest, new multimedia artists, especially for the new web media adopt a business approach of OpenContent or self-destruct after x years (where x < current 95 legal limit). Afterall, destruction can only lead to renewal of new ideas.
While putting a man in space may not be technically challenging (heck the west expects to have suborbital tourist flights in a decade or so), it does provide tangible symbols of a country's prowess. Sure it might bankrupt the rest of the country (Reagan came close with his Cold War buildup) but if it provides a focus (or more precisely a distraction if you don't have any Royal scandals handy) for a PR-challenged country, then it may revive confidence in the leadership (which I suspect is sorely needed). One can only look back in the past to see religious motifs, royal emblems, national monuments, etc to respect the power of imagery and associated national pride. Given that the all the grand poo-bahs have technological leadership as exemplified by gee-whiz space-craft and real-time CNN-friendly fire-and-forget missiles, how can China not participate in trying to be in the same tier? Given also the Year of the Dragon (remember the imperial symbol for China is the 5-clawed dragon) plus the start of the new millenium (the so-called Pacific century before the Asian crisis hit) and the rather negative recent political custard pies (Tibet lama escaping, etc) and you can probably see the incentives for the government to make a big splash (hopefully not with the returning capsule).
This is not to say it is a smart move, history is full of stupidities, whether east or west. Establishing a casino town in the middle of nowhere has got to be either the smartest (not letting people escape) or dumbest (how are they to get there in the first place) moves of all times. As one of the few missile producing countries in the world, there are few commercial outlets for such technology outside satellite launching and they'd probably want to get a leg up on the Koreans and Japanese in getting a man up, if only for bragging rights. As a serious threat, I suspect 40 year old technology is more likely to explode in their faces than to make their competitors shake in their boots. However, if it is for a purely symbolic role of beating the drum and waving the flag, there are worse ways of burning a few million dollars (wonder how much was spent on fireworks displays for the new millenium). Hopefully other countries like India or Europe won't take it seriously and restart their own space race as there is a lot more poverty in the world to be fixed first.
May you live in interesting times (old Chinese curse).
As ESR noted in Magic Cauldron, software is inherently a service, not a manufactured product. I would note that the power to create, also carriers with it the power to destroy. As a sovereign individual, one theoretically has the right to dispose of the fruits of one's labor any way you desire, even to the point of giving it away. It may not make economic sense but then nobody said that people are completely rational.
Given that the federal government has the guidelines that all tax-payer funded activities should be released to the public (a trade-off between economic security of the researchers in return for wide-spread public dissemination), it does raise some rather interesting questions about privatising the gains (through patents, etc) and publicising the risks (failures, prototypes, etc) with some claims that the cost of tertiary education is disproportunate to the value due to the inefficient commercialisation apparatus. However, public institutions do provide a valuable social role in fostering income mobility and providing career opportunities to the disadvantaged. In particular they can curb the role of excessive rent-seeking and monopolistic profits. For example, by releasing an open reference design or protocol, common standards can be established with companies motivated to sell additional value to demonstrate clear advantages (either direct, through support, ir indirect through warentees) over the the public version. In an economic sense, this is analogous to the Mum&Pop shop putting limits on the megastore as they can't afford to charge a big price differential while people have alternatives. Of course, if through anti-competitive measures they drive the Mum&Pop out of business, they can then go down the route of the corporate town (aka company store). In a similar way, public individual research & development (effectively what OpenSource is) can (given enough time and resources) replicate any private research (unless they're using some alien technology!).
As to the legality of it, it comes down to a combination of juristictions which is ultimately a codification of individual and social beliefs. The US has a comparative advantage in high tech which means the goverance structure prefers to enact laws (especially property rights) that preserve and protects these advantages. From other countries' perspectives it leads to "unfair" situations such as AIDS drugs being unaffordable to people in Africa due to the drug companies wishing to preserve their market in the US. Given that the US has the military and financial clout to convince... (OK bully)... other countries, you can guess the outcome.
What can one do? Depends on your belief system, if you want to go the Larry Wall approach and diffuse Perl, you can gain fame. If you want to go the Bill Gates approach you can have a chance of becoming rich (but also a good chance of being crushed by competitors, mauled by venture capitalists, and screwed by Wall Street). You cannot say that Perl and Windows can't coexist, they serve different needs. If you wish, you can establish a server in some countries which permits reverse-engineering for compatibility reasons (I believe Australia is one example) and then publicise it and let the world decide. You can publish it as a CD with source code under whatever copyright you wish. You can even forget about it and join the startup and try and make a living. Ultimately the choices one makes in life are individual and you can only act in concordance with your beliefs and values.
If other people believe otherwise, then that is only a concern if they attempt to impose their values on you. Now whether the patent system and the associated heavy-handed branding and trademark protection is worth believing in as a system to promote innovation and invention is a different question. All I can say is that with umpteen legal variations and juristictions around the world, there is no reason to shift your work to another location where it can be protected under different laws. Some countries (e.g. Taiwan I believe) even refuse to accept certain interpretations of IP laws. Note that IANAL and there would be serious complications on the interactions of various laws (e.g. the US insists on taxing citizens on world-wide income). Perhaps one day somebody would create a special juristiction to accomplish your desires (OpenNation?) but until then, if you believe strongly enough in the sharing of ideas (as compared with products or provision of related services), you can blaze your own path much as Linus did.
Given the rather frontier nature of this vapor-rush, the biggest problem is not so much the patent system, but the problem of convincing existing companies who benefit disporportionaly from the current framework to abide by a more enlightend system of protecting intellectual property. What are the problems?
Exclusitivity - the whole patent philosophy is based on the legal exclusion of parties from copying the idea without compensation. The problem is that ideas breed, the more you generate and intermix with others, the more valuable combinations emerge. So rather than trying to protect the ideas, a better solution is to just hire the people with good track record of new ideas directly.
Originality - when is an idea genuinely original and ground-breaking rather than variation on others? Also given the ease of combining software, patenting near-infinite combinations of functions in the hope of picking something that appeals disproportionately to the consumer is a matter of brute force, rather than careful design which should be encouraged... especially for wanna-be software architects. I think the general concensus is that the barrier is too low, perhaps it should be in proportion to the size/length of a company's existant so a start firm would only need to patent $1K ideas whereas 800 pound market gorillas would be charged $1M (to prevent illgal collusion and strip-mining of less well funded efforts and ensure that startups get a fair go.
Cybersquatting - claiming an idea and then sitting on it waiting for other people who've actually spent time to develop related ideas and then sinking them is a little reprehensive as society generally prefers that rewards be proportionate to effort. Perhaps a system where the initial patent is free, but you get charged an increasing amount each year to force people to use it or lose it would convince the horders and non-serious players to find someone else to rip off. In principle with general law, you should bust rent-seeking behaviour and try to award protection to those who have actually improved value
Period of control - 17 years is way to long for software. Perhaps valid in the old days when constructing factories took that long to pay for themselves but soft ideas get dated much more quickly. Perhaps have a system combined with other so that after 3 years of a challenge period, you get charged n * 10^(years/5) so that when the cost of protection becomes higher than the utility, the patent is released to public domain and avoid cluttering up the existing record. If ideas expand exponentially, think of how much junk you have to wade through in 2050!
Dispute mechanisms - this is somewhat related to tort reform because when you've got major players squabbling like kids over a favourite toy, it seems a little undignified. As technology moves in waves, how do you prevent another person half-way around the world to patent a similar idea when they're ignorant of your work? People looking back at say barbed wire might consider it rather minor nowadays but back when they first came out, there were major legal battles over who would get the profits from fencing in the west. Perhaps rather than fighting it out in court, they could go to a market drive system of rights (e.g. to distribute) sold at public auction
I don't have any real answers, but I would think the solution is more dependent on thinking through the economic incentives and redesigning the process to suppress negative behaviour while encouraging worthwhile endeavours. To sum it up - period of initial non-exclusivity so people can spot prior art - originality barriers in size to company - reward people for the improved value/implementation - vary the period of control by increasing the fee/year so to declutter the public record - look at public auction of derived rights (e.g. to distribute) to establish fair market values
It really is a thorny problem and IMHO the technology/speed of development has just made the concept of patents a dead-weight loss the way it is currently designed.
... made a distinct change from the rule of force that the rather nationalistic states of Europe early this century. While the UN and WTO are imperfect beasts, they have enabled countries to settle political, trade, and security issues in a more or less open forum. Violence and the abuse of private property has always lead to mass social disruptions. You can trace the emerging restraints through the British Empire (when the sacked the Summer Palace in China, the officials were amazed the barbarians would withdraw after signing a treaty (admittedly unfair take-overs of ports) unlike the usual stay and pillage) right through to today's (admittedly sometimes shakey and unenforceable) UN resolutions such as the US withholding physical invasion of Serbia when they fully expected another brutal repeat of WW2 (a la German invasion). While subtle and still easy to flout, the rule of law replaces arbitrary individual (and egoistic) decisions with principles and interpretive guidelines. One of the things that impress Chinese the most is that they are amazed that crimials have to be read their rights when arrested in US movies (not exactly a common occurance in their country). The increased communications and enforcement of legal contracts mean that quite sophisticated markets can develop (e.g. options trading) where people can be assured that counter-parties will undertake their role and be prepared to take massive losses on the chin from making awrong bet.
The legal framework is invisible, yet it gives everyone recognised rights from low to high (except maybe the president and his merry men) and a means to address grievances (though some people can sadly abuse the whole system). Why do we believe in GPL which are mere words? Because the hackers have belief in the principle of copyright that the creator of any innovative idea has the power to dispose of it as they wish, even to giving it away. And because of this common belief, the "law" reinforces our actions, ensuring a more stable and open livable society.
So beware of those that seek to corrupt the process and gain undue advantage for when laws are blindly dictated, it is up to each global citizen to understand and choose which laws are valid and thus worth obeying. The computer can be one of the harshest applications because once the creator imbrues the legal system into it (or one interpretation) and it spreads beyond the original juristiction, it will control all users forever afterwards in chains of ignorance for perpetuality.
What is software engineering? Any 10 year old can learn to program (and many probably have) but are we trying to define the job in too narrow a fashion. For example, if we had to use a real-world analogy, would an IT career be caompred with the construction industry, the medical industry or the creative arts industry?
Construction: Some companies design IP components (bricks), other integrators (builders) bang them together along with necessary hardware, and if your lucky, an inspector (QA) comes along and declares the edifice adequate to live in (guarenteed not to crash within 30 days or your money back:-) )
Medical: The consultant rolls along, eyeballs the requirements, then searches the black bag for the magic pill based on skill of diagnostics and brain-washing... err... training. If the problem is too complicated, iti s refered to a specialist and they can arrange for major surgery with this top notch indian team.
Creative Arts: A code scultor imagines this fantastic piece of language/world-builder which will do unimaginable things not possible through any other application. By enlisting the help of others and displaying it in public galleries, the work (though a bit fragile) eventually attracts a sponser who agrees to pay for the completion in return for the rights to make cheap knock-down copies in china.
While somewhat tounge in cheek, I suspect people need to think about what is really design. Essentially software is the codification and expression of human capabilities so it does have creative aspects but then once the general technique is mastered, it requires engineering discipline to propagate and train the next generation as well as the simple documentation so that DIY builders can assemble it at low cost.
There probably are a whole raft of specialisation that could exist, design, maintainer (sys-admin), inspector (auditor), etc... Perhaps over time, IT will become as big a career option as medicine and the allied health services sector. However, it would be nice to have professionalism recognised in some standardised official way to reassure customers/clients they're not getting done over with shoddy work.
It's not so much as killed as depressed. Basic economics indicate that given an informed market, prices tend towards their market clearing level but if the production structure is distorted when certain intermediate participants essentially price at cost (or below) then it drags the rest of the system with it. So a supermarket wholesale buyer would insist on getting the same (depressed) price as the Japanese exporter is nominally pricing which forces many marginal farmers to the wall, reducing diversity in the system as the only profitable source are ultra large agribusiness with the scale to insist on better treatment. While it's good for the shoppers (if the supermarket passes on the savings) it reduces the diversity in the rural base and thins out business activity through reduced spending. This has direct consequences and the stressed social fabric leads to increased mental health problems forcing greater demand on government services in a region where the population density is too low to be economically viable for commercial support. So rather than tackle the root causes, govrnments take the easy way out and directly subsidises the sector (the US lamb farming industry is a case in point) which persists the distortions leading to long-run uncompetitiveness, not to mention the lack of moral authority in the global scene on lobbying for reforms to world trade when you have a rather embarassing home counter-example of vested interests. Would a market system be better? Perhaps the farmers could export directly to Japan (analogous to the Finnish guy selling directly to US). Maybe in theory but in practice, there can be significant non-tarrif barriers (language, controlled distribution system, quarentine standards). So while the farmer would dearly love to sell directly to Japanese shoppers (capturing some of the distorted profit) the Japanese refuse access to their transportation/distribution chains, thus freezing out more efficient competitors. So the big screw over the small players yet again.
Now, if you want to bring this back to the music industry, the US has a comparative advantage in technology (1-2 years head start) and the incredible financial resources allow companies to rapidly penetrate the largest (and thus most profitable) market in the world. By capturing ALL the access points to the consumer, then can force the rest of the world to come knocking at their door instead of actually being using and going out to find, promote and foster talent. So all the profits flow into a small stable of (tightly controlled) stars while everyone else is left with the scraps (the European market is fragmented by language, the Asia market is probably seen as Sony's stomping ground, and the 3rd world can't afford to buy their next meal, much less music). Profitable... yes... equitable or sustainable? You think about what is best for the wider industry and the implications for supporting players (why hire outside independent production contractors when you can do it in-house and control the price and thus transfer the profits?). This is not something unique, but just how the world has shifted based on market and technological forces. As an aside, the really scary player is Sony as they hold everything from the production tools, to the consumer players and content and now they're buying their own bank. With a strong brand, high technical quality and the ability to control prices from the capital goods (production tools) down to distribution, they will be a major force.
The problems can be fixed as international trade is not a zero-sum game. By removing distortions/barriers and giving farmers fair market value, they can get the foreign currency to buy DVD players and Japanese can get cheaper shushi. Every producer and consumer wins except for the companies trying to play silly buggers. The universe runs on enlightend self-interest and its just a matter of waving the cluebat (plus lining up some off-scene heavy artillery as Napolean famously remarked that God is on the side with the biggest guns). It's going to be one nasty knock-down mud-slinging scrap in the next decade as the full implications of the IT change of economic force (massive minaturisation and connectivity) really flow through to the consumers.
If you want back up facts, just search for vertical integration on the web and trying to map that onto the distribution of bits instead of beef. And if you're still unconvinced, contact me further.
Vertical integration leads to some nasty second order effects. For example, the Japanese have integrated the beef industry from feedlot to shipping to wholesalers leaving minimal profits at earlier stages and consolidating all real profits in their home country. Guess what this does to developing countries? Maybe Finnish music or Spanish pop is not your thing but those guys would seriously love to get the same prices that the admittedly sometimes mediore talent that passes for mainstream.
The other problem is that it doesn't expose them to market forces (good form their point of view) but it means that their system can become rather stratified and slow to react to changes. Perhaps this is good in the long term in that really new talent could emerge somewhere but in the short term it denies airspace to new groups when media companies are interest in creating star-packed franchises (another Beatle) feeding frenzy so they can sell merchandising rights and future revenue from relicensing fees.
Is it good for a company to completely dominate the music tastes for generations? Economists have always noted the negative effect when an elite group holds on to all the productive assets, whether land or (in this case) mindshare/branding.
Think about it, the internet and I'm thinking of specifically wireless means that potentially any electronic thingy can be a distribution channel. You want a sunhat with radio, no problem, scuba mask with music, doable, electronic teddy bear that plays your favourite loony tunes, etc...
With the number of channels expanding exponentially, the normal retail constrictions lose their pricing power. Parallel imports, recirculating radio shows over the net, MP3 servers, mobile phone, whatever.
The only way to to become big enough that your catalog is comprehensive enough (what most e-commerce sites are mostly at this stage) that people will put up with some sort of rental (which could be hidden in the normal telecom/connection charges). I would estimate minimum 20% to the total market, and total includes all music back to the prehistoric-age beating on stones (with effectively inifite storage, anything and everything could be eventually digitised). So you'd probably end up with 3-5 major comprehensives and a raft of niche specialists. The infrastructure IMHO will be coming under incredible deflatory pressures because you will be able to fit a complete radio station into a briefcase. Take a look at Gilder's Inventing the Internet Again. Essentially you can replace local storage with bandwidth (think of the time/space the bits spend in the air as the memory) which means reduction in costs/weight of the receiver. Something like the Transmeta chip would be able to decipher software as it flows from the air, dragging the MP3 stream after it. Given another few years, you'd be able to set up a jukebox at home, then listen to your favourites all day. Implication, severe market erosion by any ad-based distribution network (like radio/e-commerce). Also once people discover that one internet radio station is much the same as another (not surprising when they are all owned/programmed by clones of the same marketing droids... can we say one-stop-shop for ads?) then they'd start looking for alternatives (ie fringe groups). That's is IMHO people are so scared of MP3 as it gives exposure to non-mainstream groups whom they can't control with company shop (ie artifically inflated to put people in debt) prices to produce/flog music. Given that the average joe can put together (admitted rather low quality) mix on a cheap home system, anyone and his dog will be able to composite stuff... expect new business model of give away the CD/MP3, sell the DVD/master. Technology is cheap enough such that it is not a differentiating factor (and music companies don't have a lock on the creative types that actually create the new wealth, except maybe some games shops).
There's a consumer revolution coming and people are rearranging chairs in a mad rush so they're not the ones left standing when the bullets start flying.
Well, fundamentally people get paid for their their time (# hours spent coding), task (# bugs found) or talent (finishing the damn thing). The software is merely the codified expression of that time/task/talent. Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with charging, after all you are paying a photographer for the opportunity costs of him mollycoddling another client. The photo is merely the product that results as his service.
Now code (as bits and bytes) are by themselves neutral. What is the difference between an amature passing around frat photos and a professional photographer? Usually some sort of quality control, standards and consistent conduct. The same thing should be true of code. You should be paying for the quality control testing, the guarenteed performance and functionality, and the reduction of risks as compared to say an amateur's effort. However, as most people have commented on the UNITA end-user license, the software industry seems a little relunctant to withstand the same scrutiny and peer review that scientists, doctors and lawyers go through. So far the public has been happy enough to play along but when they discover that they are foking out hundreds of dollars for a piece of silverised silicon and not the service they've been expecting, then heads will roll. Afterall, you expect a car to take you from A to B without stopping at C (much less act as an ornamental ego-booster... though with SUVs sometimes you wonder if pointly-haired CEOs are being overpaid). So in essense, there is nothing wrong with being paid, however, for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, you expect something of appropriate value. Automated catalog/calendar services just don't cut it any more.
In any industry, there's something calle the marginally utility in that once you've saturated a market, people refuse to buy the product as the perceived value is negative comared with the utility they expect to gain. That is one reason why pyramid scams ultimately come to a rather nasty end as they run out of gullible fools (their target market). Now you may ask, doex next month's red-hot Zithanium (or whatever) make any significant difference compared to last month's Zithantium-1? They (marketeers) would like people to think so but buying a computer/software is not the same as buying a razor blade. People expect (at those kind of prices) something like a durable good (though I wonder about the deliberate time to warrentee expiry on products nowadays). If companies want to make software a subscribable service, thne they should just bundlle it with an internet bundle with clear terms of service/performace and let the ISP purchase the distribution rights based on their knowledge of the real implementation costs instead of trying to flog it onto every back country redneck and his dog to the nth degree. (nothing wrong with rednecks so don't go pointing any guns).
It must be nice having rent-seeking profits sitting pretty while everyone is losing money pushing a saturated market.
I wonder if the change in the pace of society over the decades might be a contributing factor. If one visits less developed countries, one can't help but notice the more phlegmatic philosophy of agarian workers, compared with the more frenetic pace of say day-traders. I would be very interested to find out if there have been any studies done on the neurophysiological effects of being exposed to increasing information sources. One can't help but notice the increasing demand for mental health services (admitted it may be because science has been so successful in treating normal diseases) and the levels of stress related phenomena (lower fertility rates, etc). Are there links between higher/faster/creative brain activity (which mastering complex systems requires) and impulsive, almost neurotic behaviour. Perhaps the claim that genius is the other coin of madness has some truth in the higher degrees of eccentricity and egoism (heck it takes some balls and belief in yourself to aspire to be CEO of multibillion companies). Uh. oh, time to drug the water supply again:-).
On the other hand it could be no more than improper socialisation. Historically there has been vertical social accretion through multiple generations of families living together with grandparents infusing values to younger kin and horizontal socialisation through civic functions (community, school, neighbourhood interaction). With increasing mobility, especially in the IT industry and greater fragmentation of the social fabric, these influences are being reduced, requiring a need for self identity which consumerism and brands claim to offer. While we haven't got to the stage of a Nike athelete or a Revon lady, the recent publicity of the success of the IT industry and glorification of the "hacker" stereotype might convince some to adopt the superficial behaviours without really examining the mores. One can see similar reactions between shift from niche inside group to mass marketing fad. E.g. professional cyclists look upon newbies who buy top-line sepcialised equipment as "all the gear but no idea" as they don't really have the training to properly utilise the stuff. Similar with gentrification when a low-cost region with "hip" and "cool" characters are invaded by yuppies who want to experience the bohemien lifestyle but their high-priced entry drives the exodus leaving commodification of a cultural shell without the diversity and vibrancy the drives culture. Witness the increasing difficulty of independent film-makers and Hollywood have noticed the profits of indie films and have absorbed their financial benefits into mainstream by buying out the successfull chains/distributors. This is only big problem with a mass medium (objoke medium cause it's neither rare nor well done). As others have pointed out, now that IT is mainstream (and profitable like law and medicine) with well-established practices, perhaps the real hacker mentality (the joy of being in an exciting area where everything is new) will shift to another sphere.
So where is the mystery when 15-year olds know about kernel hacking, the challenge when you can book ascents to Mt. Everest, or cultural exploration when you can tune in to the fantasy channel (sanitised of course) of your desire du jour? When we are so set in our ways that we assume that everything should follow a preset mould. When religion has shifted from the choice of your church to the sign on your shoe or the OS on your computer. Isn't it like arguing that red is better than blue? The world is big enough to accomodate everyone's preferences without turning it into the personal reflection of your moral stance whatever -ism that catches your fancy. or imposing your lifestyle choices on others as a validation of self-esteem (pack identity). I think humans still have a lot of learning in adapting ingrained biological imperatives and seeing ourselves of a member of a subgroup (family, clan, club, state, nation, multinational or whatever) to a society that encompasses 6 billion people.
"HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother - in - law at the bank, then execute a debt / equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the fung shui is bad."
Hmmm... what's with all this Linux-related bovine jokes anyway, CultoftheDeadCow, freshmeat, etc... I don't have any beef with it but its behoofs me to point out that it could easily lead to the horn of a dilema if people stretch it too far.
andyr wrote I expect better from a RISC machine that hopes to challenge intel. I believe they choose the MIPS chip because it ran cooler and didn't need a fan, thus reducing the cost and space. Given that the bottleneck is mainly in the bandwidth, the CPU is probably less of a concern than the disk-memory subsystem and the cache tuning parameters. It all comes down to getting smart technicans, I suspect that an old Unix expert could probably (given enough time) get more performance out of an out-dated box than a wet-behind-the-ears compsci grad with the latest gear. If we were to use a car analogy, the MHz would correspond to the revs/sec, the #functional units to the cylinders, and the memory the size of the gas tank. If someone merely bought over-sexed fan on wheels instead of a medium rev, high torque truck (not that I'm claiming the cobalt is a direct analogy) then it obviously won't pull its weight. To some engineers, a lot of excess heat usually indicates a high degree of inefficiency in the system so the lack of a fan may be a good indirect indication. Given that Cobalt doesn't seem to be worried about the hardware (I notice they're offering Intel components for their latest RaQ 3i) perhaps it is the precompiled software and management tools that is the compelling difference?
If Cobalt were smart, they'd be offering component upgrades to their existing customers.
Back in the days when personal security safes were still new, the manufacturers would stage publicity stunts to discredit the competitors and promote their "superior" solution. So someone (e.g. Chubb) would go through a line of opposition safes, look through the keyhole, file a wooden subsitute for the key, then unlock it in front of newspaper media (with the added bonus of cutting a notch off the wooden key then locking it so that the original key wouldn't work). As you could expect, the media hype and claims/counter-claims would rival anything happening in today's world of e-commerce and security scares. I just thank the gods that so far, it is still a tiny fraction of the world's economy and no really serious commercial system is exposed. Can you imagine the panic if somebody revealed they created and flogged/forged transfers of synthetic treasury bonds or currency exchanges? It is unfortunate that the customer bears the brute of untried systems and the cost of replacement and if history is any evidence, will take some time for technology to stablise and trust to develop.
... as it shifts the economic value from a presenter (probably chosen for the trusting character) to the creative developers. For a big name media company, this is good as it eliminates a high variable cost with risk of the star leaving your show to a fixed known quantity. Also the digital character can be infinitely customisable ranging from cool barbie characters to wise elders. I'd be very interested in their pricing structure (fixed cost / year? per appearance? per character?) as that will determine what segments of the industry that it has a chance to dominate.
Basically, the future is not going to be nice, you can expect low-end white and pink (service) collar jobs to disappear under the influence of increasing computerisation as until the personality AIs catch up (has anyone invented a computer chat-back which implements humor?), there will be no unions, no strikes and no temper tantrums. So the smart hackers/engineers/managers get a shitload of money and everyone else is reduced to serving burgers/help-desk/sales-droid. It will be an interesting century as more economic disjunctions from increasing computerisation and technology shifts occurs.
Ahhh... the eternal question of life, how much is an endeavour worth. Because that is the fundamental valuation behind a share (fraction of a business). Let's start withe the basics.
A commercial enterprise is a legal structure combining various resources (natural, human, financial) to produce a stream of profits through sale of goods (widgets), services (time/talent) or risks (more complex financial/information derivatives)
A company can be funded through debt (savings or historical under-consumption) or equity (claim to future profits capitalised through a public share market)
Think of the market as a massive parallel machine evaluating the likely returns (time-discounted future cashflow) from allocating capital
From this you can see that a share price is the equilibrium between willing/informed buyers and sellers in an open forum (assuming you are not momentum buying
Options are a way of adjusting the risks (volatility) and forms part of a repetoire for the market as price discovery and liquidity mechanisms
The sophisticated players have complex systems like derivatives to work out the comparative advantages of various financial instruments such as bonds, equity indexes, etc based on economic indicators
Thus the share price is a measure of the assets (intellectual in the case of high-tech) and the stream of suckers... err.... customers:-) willing to pay to access that embedded expertise
The option (from the point of the board of directors) is thus a proxy measure of the economic value added (due to the time delay of vesting) and is commonly used as an incentive scheme to reward employee behaviour that helps the company's mission (though it can be easily abused) and thus grow the enterprise's profitability
However, the market evalutes this compared with many other financial instruments, in particular the risk-free interest from government bonds and (assuming efficient market operation... a big academic debate by itself) increases the capitalisation of companies that perform above average and conversely punishes (ie removes funds or reduces willingness to purchase) those that don't meet their (admittedly amoral) criteria of capital growth/formation
Now some tech companies (the proverbial 800 pound gorilla) use this pricing information as signals to decide when to purchase others in an effort to either thin out opposition (rationalisation), fill product lineups (synergies), or protect an existing customer base
Hence an IPO and resulting buzz can be viewed as a cheap way of advertising your capabilities to potential suitors as a trade sale and a way of pricing your product better than any patent office
The speculative market (ie NOT long-term investors) has picked up on this and is willing (for the moment) to give a take-over premium to likely blue-sky candidates in the expectation that a rich (but stupid) competitor is willing to fork over real cash to overcome any time disadvantage in the technology arms-race
The short of it is that options can be viewed along a spectrum ranging from a benign form of aligning employee interests with the owners (making money) through long-term organic growth, to a bribe to accelerate work effort (those 80 hour weeks) in order to ambush an unsuspecting target. Is it worth the pain/risk? In one sense, it comes back to the individual in evaluating what type of career and lifestyle they want, whether they are willing to sacrifice the present for the future. The monetary gains can be quite high from creating products/services that others think they want but ultimately it comes down to individual values (for example, a study indicated that people valued a happy marriage and family as being worth $150K/year). In pricing options, you have to be realistic in understanding your job and the business the company is in as to the long-term prospects. Remember that public shares are capitalised expectations and growth of future profits so unless you're in a sustainable business, things could get sticky when the growth slows (despite the wild expectations of some businesses, biologists call unlimited growth cancers).
Successful (note not necessarily equivalent to good or moral) businesses have a decent model (e.g. Microsoft = controlling a platform to flog their building blocks) and anyone relying on accounting tricks (like the pooling of interests to hide deprecation of goodwill) or using overinflated script as currency to eliminate competitors is in the brand-name stripping business and not IT (ie guess who gets made redundent when a merger is announced, the programmer or the manager?). If the company provides you with its financial record, then you can probably made a guess as to the future and likely profitability to see whether your efforts (and thus options) are fairly rewarded and whether you can trust the managers to achieve their role (creating a need for the product/service). One good trick is to ask yourself, if you are a bank manager, would you lend money for this business? Some basic financial literacy goes a long way to avoid being ripped off.
I'd really like to know what competitive salary and benefits the Air/SpaceForce (who I believe have wrestled the prize of tech-defense from the others) will offer to attract talented people from industry. Given that the insurance and big 5 accounting firms are snatching up people with half a clue about network security would the military be competitive? Perhaps they would appeal to old fashioned patriotism (which excludes all the imported talent from India/China/etc) but essentially they are trying to convince the defense firms (who do most of the balls-busting code on real-time systems) to give up their engineers. I've heard a rumor that the national labs are chock a block full of talented programmers but its hard to see them giving up 6 figure incomes and a cushy academic style job to babysit the defense system. Better still for their talents to go into a good robust design.
Fundamentally I would ask the fundamental question to what extent is a heavy-hardware offensive-oriented force necessary. While it's nice to had some muscle to back up world posturing, there are many other demands for public funds (education, health, legal aid, etc). The point about computers is that it reduces transaction costs and according to transaction economic theory, the key factors are price, opportunity and safeguards. With improved information (which includes laws, social habits, conventions, etc), safeguards can be reduced thus decreasing the price/cost for everyone. If CNN can identify potential conflicts and make world opinion unplatable for tin-pot dictators, perhaps there is less need for the iron fist and more for velvet diplomacy (not that I'm accusing the US of being particularly talented in this area either).
Anyway, if people are interested in outside opinions, take a look at Cato's policy analysis, or foreign studies to broaden your views on defense matters.
It seems a bit of a shame that the law enforcement agencies are focusing on capabilities rather than intent. Given the rate of technological progress, it seems to be a bit of a losing game. Are they going to ban all blue-tooth chips because they can be used to transmit "private" information between people? "Can" is a long way away from "might" much less "will". Perhaps it might be worthwhile looking again at the legal system. Already there are enough federal legislation, state regulations and local by-laws to drive battalions of lawyers crazy, not to mention normal citizens.
I don't know how technology will alter things but perhaps some thought should go into how to encourage people to adopt good practices and just friendly warnings rather than coming down hard based on suspicion. For example, I can think of situations of when you've been convicted of your third misdemenour, you get a public survainlance camera attached in order to inpose social restrictions on the few rather than imposing an indirect cost on the whole of society. Alternatively reward public officials who have been shown to consistently act for community benefit, ie people working for the public should be seen to be working for the public.
Hmmmm, I think I'm rambling here but I'd just like to point out that social conventions and subtle peer pressure (old honor system) can probably do more to safeguard society than passing draconian laws which are not well communicated. Unless there's enlightened self-interest in identifying and educating people (hitting with a cluebat) that breaking the system has detrimental side effects, it looks like more prisons (and taxpayer-funded lifestyles) are only going to increase.
People might be interested in reading George Gilder's "The Coming of the FibreSphere". Basically he calims that you can substitute mass cheap bandwidth for switches (which being electronic only add latency) creating a design of dark fibre with all the intelligence at the peripheral. Now while this may appeal to customers, certain telcos suddenly find themselves in the commodity bandwidth business with nothing to support their big expensive time-based, distance-function bills. Guess what their natural response is? How can they justify the $n per megabyte when they can't control the marginal costs and thus segment the market by imposing deliberate latencies or constraints. Remember that in the IT industry, the value migrates to the complex and difficult areas (e.g. CPU, complex software) so with companies investing in voice-activated smart phones, they lose control unless they can corner any new markets and introduce delaying tactics. Why bother with switching when you can tune to 1 of thousands of fibre frequencies, especially when you can't use more than a few hundred home shopping categories anyway. Anyway, the hope is that by giving the smart universities some taste of what is possible, they will develop bandwidth-hungry applications that will drive consumer demand and thus make large-scale cost effective infrastructure investment. Life will be interesting.
It is rather interesting that the base human desires seem to dominate new technology. I've heard an urban ledgend that the vibrator was the third patented invention that used the new minature electric motors (after sewing machine and something else I can't recall at the moment), the porn industry is leading with DVD and the porn sites (and gambling) are one of the few profitable internet enterprises. Not sure whether this is a commentary on applied technology or human nature though:-).
Vagary wrote the major concern of for-profit database owners is not that they won't be able to make money off the database (even if it's just ad revenues) but that someone will be able to grab all their information and resell it better than they can
But isn't this the point of entrepreneurship in providing a better service/product than existing providers? Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas... supposing I came up with a neat way of categorising say/. karma points so that people could identify consistently good posters on specific topics. In essense I am improving on the product that Andover provides through my own efforts and ingenuity, creating additional value add but without infringing on/.'s content or resources. Now to what extent does the original database developer can claim ownership of higher level products. Is it like a laser diode producer claiming ownership of all CD-rom readers? Or like eBay hassling that multi-search aution site? Is it OK so long as it points back to the original site (encouraging people to post more and create more karma)? The point being in the digital, there are no firm boundaries so it is difficult to claim any exclusive property rights, especially when ideas breed and multiply upon themselves. Should the right to porting and additional development be automatically denied? Or is it enlightened self-interest to encourage as much use of the underlying platform as possible (e.g. Microsoft being a little lax in chasing piracy in China as they want to encourage its adoption).
What are good compromises that balance the interests of all the parties involved?
... is precisely why OpenSource (as a pure information stream) works. The biggest issue with learning is not technical skills, but having enough savings to create "leisure time" to spend exploring the hacker culture. I find it interesting that as we evolve from Agarian, to Industrial to Service, to Knowledge economies, the age at which one becomes marginally employable increases. Thus while a 12 year old can herd cows, you need quite advanced knowledge (usually only available in unis) to do stuff like bioinformatics. Because of its low cost of acquisition, anyone can learn, thus avoid the caste effect of private or Ivy League Schools. What mankind needs is to help identify the next Einstein, the next Leonardo da Vinci, and (dear I say it) the next Messiah (or appropriate moral/philosophical teacher). Linux won't solve everything but at least it gives people with an open mind and a will to learn a chance to prove themselves rather than staring at the idiot box all day.
Corrinne Yu wrote I am trying to swear of/. for good, and you have to interview Woz, who is *only* one of the people I look up to the most and have the greatest (though remote) influences in my life.
It's a pity we don't have any real way of honoring all the quiet garage-shop hackers who have paved the way for today's progress. Sure the general public is somewhat aware of Moore's Law and Metcalf's Law but what about all the people who make significant advances but shunn the celebrity limelight (note the distinction between fame and celebrity). Scientists had one advantage in that they can name stellar or planetary features after famous scientists. What do hackers do to honor the quiet heros (e.g. Postel) who have contributed so such, yet are unknown outside their specialty? Perhaps autographed designer chips/cases might become collectable memorabilia in a few decades time:-). Without heros (and I'm not talking about Time's money-churning poster boys/gals here) how do we inspire upcoming hackers to follow in the footsteps of the real pioneers?
To end on a philosophical note, a great society can be measured by how well it treats the least of its members, not by the self-awarded laurels of the elite. Respect the source of knowledge and cite their inspirations for one day, others too may stand on your shoulders to reach for heights unimaginable.
LL
Efficiency vs Effectiveness
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The Timekeeper
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Corporations have grown because they have proven more efficient at marshalling resources (natural, human, intellectual, etc) at accomplishing specific tasks. However, one should not confuse efficiency with their corporate mission. If you look at the Salvation Army, by corporate standards it is very efficient at raising funds (solicitating from financial stakeholders) and providing social services to the needy. In spite of the flak oil companies get in the environmental domain, they have managed to get the cost of gas cheaper than equivalent volume of bottled water (in some places). Technology is a key enabler, at least the persuit of the holy dollar forbids the practice of killing off your customer (though the cigarette companies had a good go at this) unlike the Statism/Nationalistic movements of previous centuries which essentially applied technology for imperalistic motives.
What technology is good for is that economic efficiency leads to a growing leisure class. Back in the middle ages, only the theocracy retained wealth (selling indulgences to a captive audience has got to be the ultimate business plan) which led to serious abuses and thus Reformation and resulting separation of church and state. However, instead of independently wealthy merchants indulging their star-gazing hobby, now you have amateur astromony and radio clubs everywhere open to any member of hte pulbic with time and interest. In the Renaisance, only the wealty offspring of nobles could travel, now anyone can hop on a plane and pick up new exotic diseases:-). Electric lights used to be status symbol, now we think nothing of burning kilowatts keeping PCs on 24 hours a day.
While the technological tangibles can be somewhat predicted (if not the timing), social movements and beliefs are entirely unpredictable as these heralds permanent shifts of power. Our concept of humaness has continually expanded over the centuries. From colonial times where signs like "no dogs or chinese allowed" proliferated, to slavery was considered "normal" because the bible gave dominion of beasts and subhumans to forthright Christians, to granting women the vote and equal rights, to today's soul searching to restore native rights (e.g. dispute of Terra Nullus in Australia leading to the legal system granting aboringinal preownership although the resulting land rights and associated wealth is still contested). Thus good SF story-tellers have an eye for detail (George Lucas and Star Wars based on Vietnam era, Gulliver Travels, Dibert, 1984, etc) and amplify these social traits as a means of warning about potential consequences.
Will nano-, bio-, info-, change anything? Possibily but it is predicated on having an equitable educational system that encourages talent to success regardless of the originating class. Here corporatism is not well-suited because ultimately a profit-oriented institution plays only a peripheral role in creating a civil society (except as bully-boy target). Ultimately it comes down to a sense of identity. Who are you? Are you an American (national), Hacker (profession), Trekkie (fandom) Nikie (pop culture) or Mr Average Joe Blogg? Here is where branding does make a perceptable difference as nobody wants to be Mr/Miss Joe/Jane Blogg and megacorporations offer ready-made lifestyles to go, irregardless of the underlying reality. Americana (ie all the gung-ho patrotism/mythology) is now replaced with so many subgroups that the media companies have given up on the concept of mass communications and just caters towards them all, whether it is paganism or gun-tottering 15 minutes of infamy. You want your own genuine Star Trek phaser (set to stun of course), then sooner or later someone will combine the right intellectual knowhow (combination of laser + sonics?), ally with the production studio and make appropriate merchandising agreements. Why go to the effort of figuring out what the consumer wants when you can define a cultural ikon/universe and associated salable do-dackys whether it is Nike Air Jordans or the magical Walt Disney MickeyLand theme. While individual artists struggle for attention and are lost once they retire, a corporation is brutally efficient at sustaining an idea forever, perhaps beyond the point of relevance. However, if an individual can step outside the hustle-and-bustle, they can realise they can make an informed-choice and consciously alter their habits (pruchasing, behaviour, voting, etc) to reinforce their values. Individual free will and ideas cannot be contained by government or corporations forever unless it is so oppressive (theough legal red-tape or simply attention congestion) that it has other negative backlashes.
So what is the point, I suppose - technology leads to economic efficiency - average lifetime leisure options increases - give more time to indulge in social reflection - while tech is an enabler, creating the necessary creative chaos for change, it is still up to individual actions (e.g. Tim Berners-Lee vs Bill Gates) to follow their belief system and perhaps illuminate a previously unknown choice for others to follow.
OpenSource and/. are just one player in the game of determining how business and social interaction is conducted in the future, whether technology scares away the general public (Frankenfood) or whether it can be made acceptable (e.g. Japanese titanium golf clubs, I believe they were the first to use it outside warplanes). Will it prove better or worse than existing corporatism? Only time and the passion of individuals (e.g. RMS, Linux clubs, DVD court appearance) can determine this. Everything comes back down to the individual and whether they are willing to follow a course of actions consistent with their values and beliefs.
Growing the food isn't so much the problem, but as once recent economics Nobel laureate pointed out, but the distribution (or lack thereof) that causes famines. The reason why the US has chock-a-block wall-to-wall hypermarkets is because of its (generously federally funded of course) network of roads. Now compare this in comparative energy poor countries with bad communications patterns (disrupted by wars or corruption) and you can understand why people starve when it costs too much to find and deliver the appropriate amount of calories to them. One of the great advances this century has been in food preservation, from the chisel tin cans of Civil Revolution, to todays modern hygenic plastics-based heat treated, air-chilled (with Ethylene ripening gases removed) vacuum sealed wonders. If you're interested in history, look up at see how much modern warfare has improved (or gotten worse from your point of view) due to superior logistics. From the casual prehistoric raiding parties in between harvests, to modern airlift and survive 60 days total war, heck not even that, just press a button and bast them with stand-off missiles. We have seen the salt carrying Roman soldier (hence salary from sal, ie salt), bacoun (salted dried meat) of bucaneering days, to preserved bottling glass jars of Napolean, tin cans of Civil War, to field kitchens of WW1, to air-lifted cooking facilities (heck just take a look at the modern outdoor BBQ cum open-garden-kitchen), our reach has jumped in leaps and bounds. Biotech might not improve yields that much, but it can certainly extend shelf-life, reduce wastage (you might be surprised at how much gets spoilt before it reaches the consumer) and add interesting flavors to fool the buyers as to freshness.
Now over-indulgance (50% of Americans are considered obsese) is another problem for which the health/fitness/diet industry is eternally grateful. On the other hand, it's rather curious that in places like Singapore you get weight-gain pills. As for the poor countries, especially Africa with its endemic wars and droughts, the best thing we can do for them is still giving gratuitous advice or inappropriate technology but to reduce our tarrifs/subsidies (no matter how painful it may be in the short-term) and let an agricultural market driven export economy develop that can utilise their comparative advantages (e.g. palm oil in Malaysia, rice in Thailand, coffee in Timor/Brazil, etc).
Slashdot Mirror
Something that's been on my mind for a while. Should a community have the explicit right to moderate their own information access? Now while the extreme example would be control-freak state like North Korea, I'm thinking of more subtle limits such as preserving cultural diversity and self-imposed norms. A parent has the right and responsibility for looking after a kid until they're 18 and part of this is the ability to influence their lifestyle while they learn to be responsible adults. Extrapolate this to a community and you can see where the inherent freedom of the net comes into conflict. While porn and terrorism are the bully-boys for the public stockades, I suspect that the freedom to choose also includes the freedom not to choose. Some thoughts ...
... </B> OK, to bring this back to design, hypothetically, how would you construct a DNS that expands as a person grows older. Say from 12 where the parent has full control, to 18 when the person can access any site in the world.
... </B> How would you separate certain communities which depend on complete and free exchange of (information, scholars, crytoanalysists, reviewers, etc) from valid commercial markets (despite the angst, there are reasons for staggering film/DVD releases across different geographical regions due to differing schedules and levels of technology, etc).
... </B> Give the ease of digital duplication, is there need to create quiet zones? Imagine going into deepest jungles of Papa New Guinea and then being hit by a coke ad in what you thought was untouched territory. We set aside untouched parklands for enjoyment, is there an internet equivalent (spam-free zone?). This is especially a big problem if the big companies bully/buyout the smaller independents through media saturation campaigns.
... are we stomping on stuff that we might regret in later years. On example I recall is that a noted linguist pointed out that all the (interesting to him) variations of enlgish/slang around the world was rapidly disappearing due to the pervasive influence of CNN. What other memes will be lost?
<B>The right to choose
<B>The right to improve
<B>The right to exclude
I keep thinking of the old Star Trek Prime Directive not to interfere. In our (OK some obnoxious greedy sods) rush to create new markets for new toys in the name of first-mover advantage, first-post bragging rights, etc
LL
... is to create a cult following. OK, perhaps not the normal negative stereotypes of drug-crazed messiatic hipsters but more along the lines of creating a long-lived mental franchise (think Mozart, think Lennon & Elvis). Big media studios don't make much (enough?) money from individual hits/movies, instead they're looking for the next long-lived brand series (e.g. Star Wars, Trek, DisneyWorld, etc) that they can flog merchandise, game-tickets, theme memorabilia, etc to the "adoring" (and prefereably mindless e.g. WWF) fan base. This is akin to the classic Catholic church business model of create a cult/philosophy, sell indulgences (no comments on religious flak please, it's just an illustrative example). Very profitable for the church but rather tortuous for the peasants (the inquisition was very much driven by the profit motive). Perhaps it's a rather cynical way of looking at the modern world but in this context, retaining copyright for 95 years (perhaps forever would be their preference) makes sense.
The problem is that while anti-trust laws guard against domination of the world of atoms, what protection is there in the world of ideas? The whole concept of branding is exactly that, to condition the consumer into a purchasing pattern that excludes competitors through natural exclusion. For the long run, would you want your grandkids and downstream generations to be dominated by the same cultural motifs of yesteryear? While having a common semiotic (symbol based) basis to communicate is good, the problem of cultural atrophy does spring to mind.
IMHO, there is a growing problem in that with digitalisation and permanent storage, any media (given enough care) can persist forever. Economists have always warned about cogestion effects, think of extending the mental traffic lanes to a century out. Given that we can access any book, any performance, any recordable event for the last 100 years, this creates an exponential explosion of information and experiences that will continue to saturate the consumer. In this situation, big dominates as flash and spin will crowd out slow and substance due to the speed of delivery and dominance of the attention span. The unintended side-effect is that the longer the copyright laws are enplaced, the lower the incentives studios have of developing NEW talent as it is easier and less risky to go with the current lineup of (fading?) stars rather than take a gamble on unknown. People have commented/complained previously of how the top 40 list is dominated by the same artists week after week. This is not a conincidence.
What can be done when you are competing with history (e.g Elvis, Lennon, etc) as well as the shadow of your own past? Selective amnesia is not a technological option. Weakening copyrights will bring howls of outrage from vested interests. Perhaps the only suggestion is that for enlightened self interest, new multimedia artists, especially for the new web media adopt a business approach of OpenContent or self-destruct after x years (where x < current 95 legal limit). Afterall, destruction can only lead to renewal of new ideas.
LL
While putting a man in space may not be technically challenging (heck the west expects to have suborbital tourist flights in a decade or so), it does provide tangible symbols of a country's prowess. Sure it might bankrupt the rest of the country (Reagan came close with his Cold War buildup) but if it provides a focus (or more precisely a distraction if you don't have any Royal scandals handy) for a PR-challenged country, then it may revive confidence in the leadership (which I suspect is sorely needed). One can only look back in the past to see religious motifs, royal emblems, national monuments, etc to respect the power of imagery and associated national pride. Given that the all the grand poo-bahs have technological leadership as exemplified by gee-whiz space-craft and real-time CNN-friendly fire-and-forget missiles, how can China not participate in trying to be in the same tier? Given also the Year of the Dragon (remember the imperial symbol for China is the 5-clawed dragon) plus the start of the new millenium (the so-called Pacific century before the Asian crisis hit) and the rather negative recent political custard pies (Tibet lama escaping, etc) and you can probably see the incentives for the government to make a big splash (hopefully not with the returning capsule).
This is not to say it is a smart move, history is full of stupidities, whether east or west. Establishing a casino town in the middle of nowhere has got to be either the smartest (not letting people escape) or dumbest (how are they to get there in the first place) moves of all times. As one of the few missile producing countries in the world, there are few commercial outlets for such technology outside satellite launching and they'd probably want to get a leg up on the Koreans and Japanese in getting a man up, if only for bragging rights. As a serious threat, I suspect 40 year old technology is more likely to explode in their faces than to make their competitors shake in their boots. However, if it is for a purely symbolic role of beating the drum and waving the flag, there are worse ways of burning a few million dollars (wonder how much was spent on fireworks displays for the new millenium). Hopefully other countries like India or Europe won't take it seriously and restart their own space race as there is a lot more poverty in the world to be fixed first.
May you live in interesting times (old Chinese curse).
LL
As ESR noted in Magic Cauldron, software is inherently a service, not a manufactured product. I would note that the power to create, also carriers with it the power to destroy. As a sovereign individual, one theoretically has the right to dispose of the fruits of one's labor any way you desire, even to the point of giving it away. It may not make economic sense but then nobody said that people are completely rational.
... (OK bully) ... other countries, you can guess the outcome.
Given that the federal government has the guidelines that all tax-payer funded activities should be released to the public (a trade-off between economic security of the researchers in return for wide-spread public dissemination), it does raise some rather interesting questions about privatising the gains (through patents, etc) and publicising the risks (failures, prototypes, etc) with some claims that the cost of tertiary education is disproportunate to the value due to the inefficient commercialisation apparatus. However, public institutions do provide a valuable social role in fostering income mobility and providing career opportunities to the disadvantaged. In particular they can curb the role of excessive rent-seeking and monopolistic profits. For example, by releasing an open reference design or protocol, common standards can be established with companies motivated to sell additional value to demonstrate clear advantages (either direct, through support, ir indirect through warentees) over the the public version. In an economic sense, this is analogous to the Mum&Pop shop putting limits on the megastore as they can't afford to charge a big price differential while people have alternatives. Of course, if through anti-competitive measures they drive the Mum&Pop out of business, they can then go down the route of the corporate town (aka company store). In a similar way, public individual research & development (effectively what OpenSource is) can (given enough time and resources) replicate any private research (unless they're using some alien technology!).
As to the legality of it, it comes down to a combination of juristictions which is ultimately a codification of individual and social beliefs. The US has a comparative advantage in high tech which means the goverance structure prefers to enact laws (especially property rights) that preserve and protects these advantages. From other countries' perspectives it leads to "unfair" situations such as AIDS drugs being unaffordable to people in Africa due to the drug companies wishing to preserve their market in the US. Given that the US has the military and financial clout to convince
What can one do? Depends on your belief system, if you want to go the Larry Wall approach and diffuse Perl, you can gain fame. If you want to go the Bill Gates approach you can have a chance of becoming rich (but also a good chance of being crushed by competitors, mauled by venture capitalists, and screwed by Wall Street). You cannot say that Perl and Windows can't coexist, they serve different needs. If you wish, you can establish a server in some countries which permits reverse-engineering for compatibility reasons (I believe Australia is one example) and then publicise it and let the world decide. You can publish it as a CD with source code under whatever copyright you wish. You can even forget about it and join the startup and try and make a living. Ultimately the choices one makes in life are individual and you can only act in concordance with your beliefs and values.
If other people believe otherwise, then that is only a concern if they attempt to impose their values on you. Now whether the patent system and the associated heavy-handed branding and trademark protection is worth believing in as a system to promote innovation and invention is a different question. All I can say is that with umpteen legal variations and juristictions around the world, there is no reason to shift your work to another location where it can be protected under different laws. Some countries (e.g. Taiwan I believe) even refuse to accept certain interpretations of IP laws. Note that IANAL and there would be serious complications on the interactions of various laws (e.g. the US insists on taxing citizens on world-wide income). Perhaps one day somebody would create a special juristiction to accomplish your desires (OpenNation?) but until then, if you believe strongly enough in the sharing of ideas (as compared with products or provision of related services), you can blaze your own path much as Linus did.
LL
Given the rather frontier nature of this vapor-rush, the biggest problem is not so much the patent system, but the problem of convincing existing companies who benefit disporportionaly from the current framework to abide by a more enlightend system of protecting intellectual property. What are the problems?
... especially for wanna-be software architects. I think the general concensus is that the barrier is too low, perhaps it should be in proportion to the size/length of a company's existant so a start firm would only need to patent $1K ideas whereas 800 pound market gorillas would be charged $1M (to prevent illgal collusion and strip-mining of less well funded efforts and ensure that startups get a fair go.
Exclusitivity - the whole patent philosophy is based on the legal exclusion of parties from copying the idea without compensation. The problem is that ideas breed, the more you generate and intermix with others, the more valuable combinations emerge. So rather than trying to protect the ideas, a better solution is to just hire the people with good track record of new ideas directly.
Originality - when is an idea genuinely original and ground-breaking rather than variation on others? Also given the ease of combining software, patenting near-infinite combinations of functions in the hope of picking something that appeals disproportionately to the consumer is a matter of brute force, rather than careful design which should be encouraged
Cybersquatting - claiming an idea and then sitting on it waiting for other people who've actually spent time to develop related ideas and then sinking them is a little reprehensive as society generally prefers that rewards be proportionate to effort. Perhaps a system where the initial patent is free, but you get charged an increasing amount each year to force people to use it or lose it would convince the horders and non-serious players to find someone else to rip off. In principle with general law, you should bust rent-seeking behaviour and try to award protection to those who have actually improved value
Period of control - 17 years is way to long for software. Perhaps valid in the old days when constructing factories took that long to pay for themselves but soft ideas get dated much more quickly. Perhaps have a system combined with other so that after 3 years of a challenge period, you get charged n * 10^(years/5) so that when the cost of protection becomes higher than the utility, the patent is released to public domain and avoid cluttering up the existing record. If ideas expand exponentially, think of how much junk you have to wade through in 2050!
Dispute mechanisms - this is somewhat related to tort reform because when you've got major players squabbling like kids over a favourite toy, it seems a little undignified. As technology moves in waves, how do you prevent another person half-way around the world to patent a similar idea when they're ignorant of your work? People looking back at say barbed wire might consider it rather minor nowadays but back when they first came out, there were major legal battles over who would get the profits from fencing in the west. Perhaps rather than fighting it out in court, they could go to a market drive system of rights (e.g. to distribute) sold at public auction
I don't have any real answers, but I would think the solution is more dependent on thinking through the economic incentives and redesigning the process to suppress negative behaviour while encouraging worthwhile endeavours. To sum it up
- period of initial non-exclusivity so people can spot prior art
- originality barriers in size to company
- reward people for the improved value/implementation
- vary the period of control by increasing the fee/year so to declutter the public record
- look at public auction of derived rights (e.g. to distribute) to establish fair market values
It really is a thorny problem and IMHO the technology/speed of development has just made the concept of patents a dead-weight loss the way it is currently designed.
LL
... made a distinct change from the rule of force that the rather nationalistic states of Europe early this century. While the UN and WTO are imperfect beasts, they have enabled countries to settle political, trade, and security issues in a more or less open forum. Violence and the abuse of private property has always lead to mass social disruptions. You can trace the emerging restraints through the British Empire (when the sacked the Summer Palace in China, the officials were amazed the barbarians would withdraw after signing a treaty (admittedly unfair take-overs of ports) unlike the usual stay and pillage) right through to today's (admittedly sometimes shakey and unenforceable) UN resolutions such as the US withholding physical invasion of Serbia when they fully expected another brutal repeat of WW2 (a la German invasion). While subtle and still easy to flout, the rule of law replaces arbitrary individual (and egoistic) decisions with principles and interpretive guidelines. One of the things that impress Chinese the most is that they are amazed that crimials have to be read their rights when arrested in US movies (not exactly a common occurance in their country). The increased communications and enforcement of legal contracts mean that quite sophisticated markets can develop (e.g. options trading) where people can be assured that counter-parties will undertake their role and be prepared to take massive losses on the chin from making awrong bet.
The legal framework is invisible, yet it gives everyone recognised rights from low to high (except maybe the president and his merry men) and a means to address grievances (though some people can sadly abuse the whole system). Why do we believe in GPL which are mere words? Because the hackers have belief in the principle of copyright that the creator of any innovative idea has the power to dispose of it as they wish, even to giving it away. And because of this common belief, the "law" reinforces our actions, ensuring a more stable and open livable society.
So beware of those that seek to corrupt the process and gain undue advantage for when laws are blindly dictated, it is up to each global citizen to understand and choose which laws are valid and thus worth obeying. The computer can be one of the harshest applications because once the creator imbrues the legal system into it (or one interpretation) and it spreads beyond the original juristiction, it will control all users forever afterwards in chains of ignorance for perpetuality.
LL
What is software engineering? Any 10 year old can learn to program (and many probably have) but are we trying to define the job in too narrow a fashion. For example, if we had to use a real-world analogy, would an IT career be caompred with the construction industry, the medical industry or the creative arts industry?
:-) )
... err ... training. If the problem is too complicated, iti s refered to a specialist and they can arrange for major surgery with this top notch indian team.
... Perhaps over time, IT will become as big a career option as medicine and the allied health services sector. However, it would be nice to have professionalism recognised in some standardised official way to reassure customers/clients they're not getting done over with shoddy work.
Construction:
Some companies design IP components (bricks), other integrators (builders) bang them together along with necessary hardware, and if your lucky, an inspector (QA) comes along and declares the edifice adequate to live in (guarenteed not to crash within 30 days or your money back
Medical:
The consultant rolls along, eyeballs the requirements, then searches the black bag for the magic pill based on skill of diagnostics and brain-washing
Creative Arts:
A code scultor imagines this fantastic piece of language/world-builder which will do unimaginable things not possible through any other application. By enlisting the help of others and displaying it in public galleries, the work (though a bit fragile) eventually attracts a sponser who agrees to pay for the completion in return for the rights to make cheap knock-down copies in china.
While somewhat tounge in cheek, I suspect people need to think about what is really design. Essentially software is the codification and expression of human capabilities so it does have creative aspects but then once the general technique is mastered, it requires engineering discipline to propagate and train the next generation as well as the simple documentation so that DIY builders can assemble it at low cost.
There probably are a whole raft of specialisation that could exist, design, maintainer (sys-admin), inspector (auditor), etc
LL
It's not so much as killed as depressed. Basic economics indicate that given an informed market, prices tend towards their market clearing level but if the production structure is distorted when certain intermediate participants essentially price at cost (or below) then it drags the rest of the system with it. So a supermarket wholesale buyer would insist on getting the same (depressed) price as the Japanese exporter is nominally pricing which forces many marginal farmers to the wall, reducing diversity in the system as the only profitable source are ultra large agribusiness with the scale to insist on better treatment. While it's good for the shoppers (if the supermarket passes on the savings) it reduces the diversity in the rural base and thins out business activity through reduced spending. This has direct consequences and the stressed social fabric leads to increased mental health problems forcing greater demand on government services in a region where the population density is too low to be economically viable for commercial support. So rather than tackle the root causes, govrnments take the easy way out and directly subsidises the sector (the US lamb farming industry is a case in point) which persists the distortions leading to long-run uncompetitiveness, not to mention the lack of moral authority in the global scene on lobbying for reforms to world trade when you have a rather embarassing home counter-example of vested interests. Would a market system be better? Perhaps the farmers could export directly to Japan (analogous to the Finnish guy selling directly to US). Maybe in theory but in practice, there can be significant non-tarrif barriers (language, controlled distribution system, quarentine standards). So while the farmer would dearly love to sell directly to Japanese shoppers (capturing some of the distorted profit) the Japanese refuse access to their transportation/distribution chains, thus freezing out more efficient competitors. So the big screw over the small players yet again.
... yes ... equitable or sustainable? You think about what is best for the wider industry and the implications for supporting players (why hire outside independent production contractors when you can do it in-house and control the price and thus transfer the profits?). This is not something unique, but just how the world has shifted based on market and technological forces. As an aside, the really scary player is Sony as they hold everything from the production tools, to the consumer players and content and now they're buying their own bank. With a strong brand, high technical quality and the ability to control prices from the capital goods (production tools) down to distribution, they will be a major force.
Now, if you want to bring this back to the music industry, the US has a comparative advantage in technology (1-2 years head start) and the incredible financial resources allow companies to rapidly penetrate the largest (and thus most profitable) market in the world. By capturing ALL the access points to the consumer, then can force the rest of the world to come knocking at their door instead of actually being using and going out to find, promote and foster talent. So all the profits flow into a small stable of (tightly controlled) stars while everyone else is left with the scraps (the European market is fragmented by language, the Asia market is probably seen as Sony's stomping ground, and the 3rd world can't afford to buy their next meal, much less music). Profitable
The problems can be fixed as international trade is not a zero-sum game. By removing distortions/barriers and giving farmers fair market value, they can get the foreign currency to buy DVD players and Japanese can get cheaper shushi. Every producer and consumer wins except for the companies trying to play silly buggers. The universe runs on enlightend self-interest and its just a matter of waving the cluebat (plus lining up some off-scene heavy artillery as Napolean famously remarked that God is on the side with the biggest guns). It's going to be one nasty knock-down mud-slinging scrap in the next decade as the full implications of the IT change of economic force (massive minaturisation and connectivity) really flow through to the consumers.
If you want back up facts, just search for vertical integration on the web and trying to map that onto the distribution of bits instead of beef. And if you're still unconvinced, contact me further.
LL
Vertical integration leads to some nasty second order effects. For example, the Japanese have integrated the beef industry from feedlot to shipping to wholesalers leaving minimal profits at earlier stages and consolidating all real profits in their home country. Guess what this does to developing countries? Maybe Finnish music or Spanish pop is not your thing but those guys would seriously love to get the same prices that the admittedly sometimes mediore talent that passes for mainstream.
The other problem is that it doesn't expose them to market forces (good form their point of view) but it means that their system can become rather stratified and slow to react to changes. Perhaps this is good in the long term in that really new talent could emerge somewhere but in the short term it denies airspace to new groups when media companies are interest in creating star-packed franchises (another Beatle) feeding frenzy so they can sell merchandising rights and future revenue from relicensing fees.
Is it good for a company to completely dominate the music tastes for generations? Economists have always noted the negative effect when an elite group holds on to all the productive assets, whether land or (in this case) mindshare/branding.
LL
Think about it, the internet and I'm thinking of specifically wireless means that potentially any electronic thingy can be a distribution channel. You want a sunhat with radio, no problem, scuba mask with music, doable, electronic teddy bear that plays your favourite loony tunes, etc ...
... can we say one-stop-shop for ads?) then they'd start looking for alternatives (ie fringe groups). That's is IMHO people are so scared of MP3 as it gives exposure to non-mainstream groups whom they can't control with company shop (ie artifically inflated to put people in debt) prices to produce/flog music. Given that the average joe can put together (admitted rather low quality) mix on a cheap home system, anyone and his dog will be able to composite stuff ... expect new business model of give away the CD/MP3, sell the DVD/master. Technology is cheap enough such that it is not a differentiating factor (and music companies don't have a lock on the creative types that actually create the new wealth, except maybe some games shops).
With the number of channels expanding exponentially, the normal retail constrictions lose their pricing power. Parallel imports, recirculating radio shows over the net, MP3 servers, mobile phone, whatever.
The only way to to become big enough that your catalog is comprehensive enough (what most e-commerce sites are mostly at this stage) that people will put up with some sort of rental (which could be hidden in the normal telecom/connection charges). I would estimate minimum 20% to the total market, and total includes all music back to the prehistoric-age beating on stones (with effectively inifite storage, anything and everything could be eventually digitised). So you'd probably end up with 3-5 major comprehensives and a raft of niche specialists. The infrastructure IMHO will be coming under incredible deflatory pressures because you will be able to fit a complete radio station into a briefcase. Take a look at Gilder's Inventing the Internet Again. Essentially you can replace local storage with bandwidth (think of the time/space the bits spend in the air as the memory) which means reduction in costs/weight of the receiver. Something like the Transmeta chip would be able to decipher software as it flows from the air, dragging the MP3 stream after it. Given another few years, you'd be able to set up a jukebox at home, then listen to your favourites all day. Implication, severe market erosion by any ad-based distribution network (like radio/e-commerce). Also once people discover that one internet radio station is much the same as another (not surprising when they are all owned/programmed by clones of the same marketing droids
There's a consumer revolution coming and people are rearranging chairs in a mad rush so they're not the ones left standing when the bullets start flying.
LL
Well, fundamentally people get paid for their their time (# hours spent coding), task (# bugs found) or talent (finishing the damn thing). The software is merely the codified expression of that time/task/talent. Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with charging, after all you are paying a photographer for the opportunity costs of him mollycoddling another client. The photo is merely the product that results as his service.
... though with SUVs sometimes you wonder if pointly-haired CEOs are being overpaid). So in essense, there is nothing wrong with being paid, however, for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, you expect something of appropriate value. Automated catalog/calendar services just don't cut it any more.
Now code (as bits and bytes) are by themselves neutral. What is the difference between an amature passing around frat photos and a professional photographer? Usually some sort of quality control, standards and consistent conduct. The same thing should be true of code. You should be paying for the quality control testing, the guarenteed performance and functionality, and the reduction of risks as compared to say an amateur's effort. However, as most people have commented on the UNITA end-user license, the software industry seems a little relunctant to withstand the same scrutiny and peer review that scientists, doctors and lawyers go through. So far the public has been happy enough to play along but when they discover that they are foking out hundreds of dollars for a piece of silverised silicon and not the service they've been expecting, then heads will roll. Afterall, you expect a car to take you from A to B without stopping at C (much less act as an ornamental ego-booster
In any industry, there's something calle the marginally utility in that once you've saturated a market, people refuse to buy the product as the perceived value is negative comared with the utility they expect to gain. That is one reason why pyramid scams ultimately come to a rather nasty end as they run out of gullible fools (their target market). Now you may ask, doex next month's red-hot Zithanium (or whatever) make any significant difference compared to last month's Zithantium-1? They (marketeers) would like people to think so but buying a computer/software is not the same as buying a razor blade. People expect (at those kind of prices) something like a durable good (though I wonder about the deliberate time to warrentee expiry on products nowadays). If companies want to make software a subscribable service, thne they should just bundlle it with an internet bundle with clear terms of service/performace and let the ISP purchase the distribution rights based on their knowledge of the real implementation costs instead of trying to flog it onto every back country redneck and his dog to the nth degree. (nothing wrong with rednecks so don't go pointing any guns).
It must be nice having rent-seeking profits sitting pretty while everyone is losing money pushing a saturated market.
LL
I wonder if the change in the pace of society over the decades might be a contributing factor. If one visits less developed countries, one can't help but notice the more phlegmatic philosophy of agarian workers, compared with the more frenetic pace of say day-traders. I would be very interested to find out if there have been any studies done on the neurophysiological effects of being exposed to increasing information sources. One can't help but notice the increasing demand for mental health services (admitted it may be because science has been so successful in treating normal diseases) and the levels of stress related phenomena (lower fertility rates, etc). Are there links between higher/faster/creative brain activity (which mastering complex systems requires) and impulsive, almost neurotic behaviour. Perhaps the claim that genius is the other coin of madness has some truth in the higher degrees of eccentricity and egoism (heck it takes some balls and belief in yourself to aspire to be CEO of multibillion companies). Uh. oh, time to drug the water supply again :-).
On the other hand it could be no more than improper socialisation. Historically there has been vertical social accretion through multiple generations of families living together with grandparents infusing values to younger kin and horizontal socialisation through civic functions (community, school, neighbourhood interaction). With increasing mobility, especially in the IT industry and greater fragmentation of the social fabric, these influences are being reduced, requiring a need for self identity which consumerism and brands claim to offer. While we haven't got to the stage of a Nike athelete or a Revon lady, the recent publicity of the success of the IT industry and glorification of the "hacker" stereotype might convince some to adopt the superficial behaviours without really examining the mores. One can see similar reactions between shift from niche inside group to mass marketing fad. E.g. professional cyclists look upon newbies who buy top-line sepcialised equipment as "all the gear but no idea" as they don't really have the training to properly utilise the stuff. Similar with gentrification when a low-cost region with "hip" and "cool" characters are invaded by yuppies who want to experience the bohemien lifestyle but their high-priced entry drives the exodus leaving commodification of a cultural shell without the diversity and vibrancy the drives culture. Witness the increasing difficulty of independent film-makers and Hollywood have noticed the profits of indie films and have absorbed their financial benefits into mainstream by buying out the successfull chains/distributors. This is only big problem with a mass medium (objoke medium cause it's neither rare nor well done). As others have pointed out, now that IT is mainstream (and profitable like law and medicine) with well-established practices, perhaps the real hacker mentality (the joy of being in an exciting area where everything is new) will shift to another sphere.
So where is the mystery when 15-year olds know about kernel hacking, the challenge when you can book ascents to Mt. Everest, or cultural exploration when you can tune in to the fantasy channel (sanitised of course) of your desire du jour? When we are so set in our ways that we assume that everything should follow a preset mould. When religion has shifted from the choice of your church to the sign on your shoe or the OS on your computer. Isn't it like arguing that red is better than blue? The world is big enough to accomodate everyone's preferences without turning it into the personal reflection of your moral stance whatever -ism that catches your fancy. or imposing your lifestyle choices on others as a validation of self-esteem (pack identity). I think humans still have a lot of learning in adapting ingrained biological imperatives and seeing ourselves of a member of a subgroup (family, clan, club, state, nation, multinational or whatever) to a society that encompasses 6 billion people.
LL
Comes from the classic cowism
... what's with all this Linux-related bovine jokes anyway, CultoftheDeadCow, freshmeat, etc ... I don't have any beef with it but its behoofs me to point out that it could easily lead to the horn of a dilema if people stretch it too far.
... shooting myself
"HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother - in - law at the bank, then execute a debt / equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the fung shui is bad."
Check out one source for others.
Hmmm
Arrrgghhh
LL
andyr wrote
I expect better from a RISC machine that hopes to challenge intel.
I believe they choose the MIPS chip because it ran cooler and didn't need a fan, thus reducing the cost and space. Given that the bottleneck is mainly in the bandwidth, the CPU is probably less of a concern than the disk-memory subsystem and the cache tuning parameters. It all comes down to getting smart technicans, I suspect that an old Unix expert could probably (given enough time) get more performance out of an out-dated box than a wet-behind-the-ears compsci grad with the latest gear. If we were to use a car analogy, the MHz would correspond to the revs/sec, the #functional units to the cylinders, and the memory the size of the gas tank. If someone merely bought over-sexed fan on wheels instead of a medium rev, high torque truck (not that I'm claiming the cobalt is a direct analogy) then it obviously won't pull its weight. To some engineers, a lot of excess heat usually indicates a high degree of inefficiency in the system so the lack of a fan may be a good indirect indication. Given that Cobalt doesn't seem to be worried about the hardware (I notice they're offering Intel components for their latest RaQ 3i) perhaps it is the precompiled software and management tools that is the compelling difference?
If Cobalt were smart, they'd be offering component upgrades to their existing customers.
LL
Back in the days when personal security safes were still new, the manufacturers would stage publicity stunts to discredit the competitors and promote their "superior" solution. So someone (e.g. Chubb) would go through a line of opposition safes, look through the keyhole, file a wooden subsitute for the key, then unlock it in front of newspaper media (with the added bonus of cutting a notch off the wooden key then locking it so that the original key wouldn't work). As you could expect, the media hype and claims/counter-claims would rival anything happening in today's world of e-commerce and security scares. I just thank the gods that so far, it is still a tiny fraction of the world's economy and no really serious commercial system is exposed. Can you imagine the panic if somebody revealed they created and flogged/forged transfers of synthetic treasury bonds or currency exchanges? It is unfortunate that the customer bears the brute of untried systems and the cost of replacement and if history is any evidence, will take some time for technology to stablise and trust to develop.
LL
... as it shifts the economic value from a presenter (probably chosen for the trusting character) to the creative developers. For a big name media company, this is good as it eliminates a high variable cost with risk of the star leaving your show to a fixed known quantity. Also the digital character can be infinitely customisable ranging from cool barbie characters to wise elders. I'd be very interested in their pricing structure (fixed cost / year? per appearance? per character?) as that will determine what segments of the industry that it has a chance to dominate.
Basically, the future is not going to be nice, you can expect low-end white and pink (service) collar jobs to disappear under the influence of increasing computerisation as until the personality AIs catch up (has anyone invented a computer chat-back which implements humor?), there will be no unions, no strikes and no temper tantrums. So the smart hackers/engineers/managers get a shitload of money and everyone else is reduced to serving burgers/help-desk/sales-droid. It will be an interesting century as more economic disjunctions from increasing computerisation and technology shifts occurs.
LL
The short of it is that options can be viewed along a spectrum ranging from a benign form of aligning employee interests with the owners (making money) through long-term organic growth, to a bribe to accelerate work effort (those 80 hour weeks) in order to ambush an unsuspecting target. Is it worth the pain/risk? In one sense, it comes back to the individual in evaluating what type of career and lifestyle they want, whether they are willing to sacrifice the present for the future. The monetary gains can be quite high from creating products/services that others think they want but ultimately it comes down to individual values (for example, a study indicated that people valued a happy marriage and family as being worth $150K/year). In pricing options, you have to be realistic in understanding your job and the business the company is in as to the long-term prospects. Remember that public shares are capitalised expectations and growth of future profits so unless you're in a sustainable business, things could get sticky when the growth slows (despite the wild expectations of some businesses, biologists call unlimited growth cancers).
Successful (note not necessarily equivalent to good or moral) businesses have a decent model (e.g. Microsoft = controlling a platform to flog their building blocks) and anyone relying on accounting tricks (like the pooling of interests to hide deprecation of goodwill) or using overinflated script as currency to eliminate competitors is in the brand-name stripping business and not IT (ie guess who gets made redundent when a merger is announced, the programmer or the manager?). If the company provides you with its financial record, then you can probably made a guess as to the future and likely profitability to see whether your efforts (and thus options) are fairly rewarded and whether you can trust the managers to achieve their role (creating a need for the product/service). One good trick is to ask yourself, if you are a bank manager, would you lend money for this business? Some basic financial literacy goes a long way to avoid being ripped off.
Best of luck in your wealth creation efforts.
LL
I'd really like to know what competitive salary and benefits the Air/SpaceForce (who I believe have wrestled the prize of tech-defense from the others) will offer to attract talented people from industry. Given that the insurance and big 5 accounting firms are snatching up people with half a clue about network security would the military be competitive? Perhaps they would appeal to old fashioned patriotism (which excludes all the imported talent from India/China/etc) but essentially they are trying to convince the defense firms (who do most of the balls-busting code on real-time systems) to give up their engineers. I've heard a rumor that the national labs are chock a block full of talented programmers but its hard to see them giving up 6 figure incomes and a cushy academic style job to babysit the defense system. Better still for their talents to go into a good robust design.
Fundamentally I would ask the fundamental question to what extent is a heavy-hardware offensive-oriented force necessary. While it's nice to had some muscle to back up world posturing, there are many other demands for public funds (education, health, legal aid, etc). The point about computers is that it reduces transaction costs and according to transaction economic theory, the key factors are price, opportunity and safeguards. With improved information (which includes laws, social habits, conventions, etc), safeguards can be reduced thus decreasing the price/cost for everyone. If CNN can identify potential conflicts and make world opinion unplatable for tin-pot dictators, perhaps there is less need for the iron fist and more for velvet diplomacy (not that I'm accusing the US of being particularly talented in this area either).
Anyway, if people are interested in outside opinions, take a look at Cato's policy analysis, or foreign studies to broaden your views on defense matters.
LL
It seems a bit of a shame that the law enforcement agencies are focusing on capabilities rather than intent. Given the rate of technological progress, it seems to be a bit of a losing game. Are they going to ban all blue-tooth chips because they can be used to transmit "private" information between people? "Can" is a long way away from "might" much less "will". Perhaps it might be worthwhile looking again at the legal system. Already there are enough federal legislation, state regulations and local by-laws to drive battalions of lawyers crazy, not to mention normal citizens.
I don't know how technology will alter things but perhaps some thought should go into how to encourage people to adopt good practices and just friendly warnings rather than coming down hard based on suspicion. For example, I can think of situations of when you've been convicted of your third misdemenour, you get a public survainlance camera attached in order to inpose social restrictions on the few rather than imposing an indirect cost on the whole of society. Alternatively reward public officials who have been shown to consistently act for community benefit, ie people working for the public should be seen to be working for the public.
Hmmmm, I think I'm rambling here but I'd just like to point out that social conventions and subtle peer pressure (old honor system) can probably do more to safeguard society than passing draconian laws which are not well communicated. Unless there's enlightened self-interest in identifying and educating people (hitting with a cluebat) that breaking the system has detrimental side effects, it looks like more prisons (and taxpayer-funded lifestyles) are only going to increase.
LL
People might be interested in reading George Gilder's "The Coming of the FibreSphere". Basically he calims that you can substitute mass cheap bandwidth for switches (which being electronic only add latency) creating a design of dark fibre with all the intelligence at the peripheral. Now while this may appeal to customers, certain telcos suddenly find themselves in the commodity bandwidth business with nothing to support their big expensive time-based, distance-function bills. Guess what their natural response is? How can they justify the $n per megabyte when they can't control the marginal costs and thus segment the market by imposing deliberate latencies or constraints. Remember that in the IT industry, the value migrates to the complex and difficult areas (e.g. CPU, complex software) so with companies investing in voice-activated smart phones, they lose control unless they can corner any new markets and introduce delaying tactics. Why bother with switching when you can tune to 1 of thousands of fibre frequencies, especially when you can't use more than a few hundred home shopping categories anyway. Anyway, the hope is that by giving the smart universities some taste of what is possible, they will develop bandwidth-hungry applications that will drive consumer demand and thus make large-scale cost effective infrastructure investment. Life will be interesting.
:-).
It is rather interesting that the base human desires seem to dominate new technology. I've heard an urban ledgend that the vibrator was the third patented invention that used the new minature electric motors (after sewing machine and something else I can't recall at the moment), the porn industry is leading with DVD and the porn sites (and gambling) are one of the few profitable internet enterprises. Not sure whether this is a commentary on applied technology or human nature though
LL
Vagary wrote
... supposing I came up with a neat way of categorising say /. karma points so that people could identify consistently good posters on specific topics. In essense I am improving on the product that Andover provides through my own efforts and ingenuity, creating additional value add but without infringing on /.'s content or resources. Now to what extent does the original database developer can claim ownership of higher level products. Is it like a laser diode producer claiming ownership of all CD-rom readers? Or like eBay hassling that multi-search aution site? Is it OK so long as it points back to the original site (encouraging people to post more and create more karma)? The point being in the digital, there are no firm boundaries so it is difficult to claim any exclusive property rights, especially when ideas breed and multiply upon themselves. Should the right to porting and additional development be automatically denied? Or is it enlightened self-interest to encourage as much use of the underlying platform as possible (e.g. Microsoft being a little lax in chasing piracy in China as they want to encourage its adoption).
the major concern of for-profit database owners is not that they won't be able to make money off the database (even if it's just ad revenues) but that someone will be able to grab all their information and resell it better than they can
But isn't this the point of entrepreneurship in providing a better service/product than existing providers? Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas
What are good compromises that balance the interests of all the parties involved?
LL
... is precisely why OpenSource (as a pure information stream) works. The biggest issue with learning is not technical skills, but having enough savings to create "leisure time" to spend exploring the hacker culture. I find it interesting that as we evolve from Agarian, to Industrial to Service, to Knowledge economies, the age at which one becomes marginally employable increases. Thus while a 12 year old can herd cows, you need quite advanced knowledge (usually only available in unis) to do stuff like bioinformatics. Because of its low cost of acquisition, anyone can learn, thus avoid the caste effect of private or Ivy League Schools. What mankind needs is to help identify the next Einstein, the next Leonardo da Vinci, and (dear I say it) the next Messiah (or appropriate moral/philosophical teacher). Linux won't solve everything but at least it gives people with an open mind and a will to learn a chance to prove themselves rather than staring at the idiot box all day.
LL
Corrinne Yu wrote /. for good, and you have to interview Woz, who is *only* one of the people I look up to the most and have the greatest (though remote) influences in my life.
:-). Without heros (and I'm not talking about Time's money-churning poster boys/gals here) how do we inspire upcoming hackers to follow in the footsteps of the real pioneers?
I am trying to swear of
It's a pity we don't have any real way of honoring all the quiet garage-shop hackers who have paved the way for today's progress. Sure the general public is somewhat aware of Moore's Law and Metcalf's Law but what about all the people who make significant advances but shunn the celebrity limelight (note the distinction between fame and celebrity). Scientists had one advantage in that they can name stellar or planetary features after famous scientists. What do hackers do to honor the quiet heros (e.g. Postel) who have contributed so such, yet are unknown outside their specialty? Perhaps autographed designer chips/cases might become collectable memorabilia in a few decades time
To end on a philosophical note, a great society can be measured by how well it treats the least of its members, not by the self-awarded laurels of the elite. Respect the source of knowledge and cite their inspirations for one day, others too may stand on your shoulders to reach for heights unimaginable.
LL
Corporations have grown because they have proven more efficient at marshalling resources (natural, human, intellectual, etc) at accomplishing specific tasks. However, one should not confuse efficiency with their corporate mission. If you look at the Salvation Army, by corporate standards it is very efficient at raising funds (solicitating from financial stakeholders) and providing social services to the needy. In spite of the flak oil companies get in the environmental domain, they have managed to get the cost of gas cheaper than equivalent volume of bottled water (in some places). Technology is a key enabler, at least the persuit of the holy dollar forbids the practice of killing off your customer (though the cigarette companies had a good go at this) unlike the Statism/Nationalistic movements of previous centuries which essentially applied technology for imperalistic motives.
:-). Electric lights used to be status symbol, now we think nothing of burning kilowatts keeping PCs on 24 hours a day.
/. are just one player in the game of determining how business and social interaction is conducted in the future, whether technology scares away the general public (Frankenfood) or whether it can be made acceptable (e.g. Japanese titanium golf clubs, I believe they were the first to use it outside warplanes). Will it prove better or worse than existing corporatism? Only time and the passion of individuals (e.g. RMS, Linux clubs, DVD court appearance) can determine this. Everything comes back down to the individual and whether they are willing to follow a course of actions consistent with their values and beliefs.
What technology is good for is that economic efficiency leads to a growing leisure class. Back in the middle ages, only the theocracy retained wealth (selling indulgences to a captive audience has got to be the ultimate business plan) which led to serious abuses and thus Reformation and resulting separation of church and state. However, instead of independently wealthy merchants indulging their star-gazing hobby, now you have amateur astromony and radio clubs everywhere open to any member of hte pulbic with time and interest. In the Renaisance, only the wealty offspring of nobles could travel, now anyone can hop on a plane and pick up new exotic diseases
While the technological tangibles can be somewhat predicted (if not the timing), social movements and beliefs are entirely unpredictable as these heralds permanent shifts of power. Our concept of humaness has continually expanded over the centuries. From colonial times where signs like "no dogs or chinese allowed" proliferated, to slavery was considered "normal" because the bible gave dominion of beasts and subhumans to forthright Christians, to granting women the vote and equal rights, to today's soul searching to restore native rights (e.g. dispute of Terra Nullus in Australia leading to the legal system granting aboringinal preownership although the resulting land rights and associated wealth is still contested). Thus good SF story-tellers have an eye for detail (George Lucas and Star Wars based on Vietnam era, Gulliver Travels, Dibert, 1984, etc) and amplify these social traits as a means of warning about potential consequences.
Will nano-, bio-, info-, change anything? Possibily but it is predicated on having an equitable educational system that encourages talent to success regardless of the originating class. Here corporatism is not well-suited because ultimately a profit-oriented institution plays only a peripheral role in creating a civil society (except as bully-boy target). Ultimately it comes down to a sense of identity. Who are you? Are you an American (national), Hacker (profession), Trekkie (fandom) Nikie (pop culture) or Mr Average Joe Blogg? Here is where branding does make a perceptable difference as nobody wants to be Mr/Miss Joe/Jane Blogg and megacorporations offer ready-made lifestyles to go, irregardless of the underlying reality. Americana (ie all the gung-ho patrotism/mythology) is now replaced with so many subgroups that the media companies have given up on the concept of mass communications and just caters towards them all, whether it is paganism or gun-tottering 15 minutes of infamy. You want your own genuine Star Trek phaser (set to stun of course), then sooner or later someone will combine the right intellectual knowhow (combination of laser + sonics?), ally with the production studio and make appropriate merchandising agreements. Why go to the effort of figuring out what the consumer wants when you can define a cultural ikon/universe and associated salable do-dackys whether it is Nike Air Jordans or the magical Walt Disney MickeyLand theme. While individual artists struggle for attention and are lost once they retire, a corporation is brutally efficient at sustaining an idea forever, perhaps beyond the point of relevance. However, if an individual can step outside the hustle-and-bustle, they can realise they can make an informed-choice and consciously alter their habits (pruchasing, behaviour, voting, etc) to reinforce their values. Individual free will and ideas cannot be contained by government or corporations forever unless it is so oppressive (theough legal red-tape or simply attention congestion) that it has other negative backlashes.
So what is the point, I suppose
- technology leads to economic efficiency
- average lifetime leisure options increases
- give more time to indulge in social reflection
- while tech is an enabler, creating the necessary creative chaos for change, it is still up to individual actions (e.g. Tim Berners-Lee vs Bill Gates) to follow their belief system and perhaps illuminate a previously unknown choice for others to follow.
OpenSource and
LL
Growing the food isn't so much the problem, but as once recent economics Nobel laureate pointed out, but the distribution (or lack thereof) that causes famines. The reason why the US has chock-a-block wall-to-wall hypermarkets is because of its (generously federally funded of course) network of roads. Now compare this in comparative energy poor countries with bad communications patterns (disrupted by wars or corruption) and you can understand why people starve when it costs too much to find and deliver the appropriate amount of calories to them. One of the great advances this century has been in food preservation, from the chisel tin cans of Civil Revolution, to todays modern hygenic plastics-based heat treated, air-chilled (with Ethylene ripening gases removed) vacuum sealed wonders. If you're interested in history, look up at see how much modern warfare has improved (or gotten worse from your point of view) due to superior logistics. From the casual prehistoric raiding parties in between harvests, to modern airlift and survive 60 days total war, heck not even that, just press a button and bast them with stand-off missiles. We have seen the salt carrying Roman soldier (hence salary from sal, ie salt), bacoun (salted dried meat) of bucaneering days, to preserved bottling glass jars of Napolean, tin cans of Civil War, to field kitchens of WW1, to air-lifted cooking facilities (heck just take a look at the modern outdoor BBQ cum open-garden-kitchen), our reach has jumped in leaps and bounds. Biotech might not improve yields that much, but it can certainly extend shelf-life, reduce wastage (you might be surprised at how much gets spoilt before it reaches the consumer) and add interesting flavors to fool the buyers as to freshness.
Now over-indulgance (50% of Americans are considered obsese) is another problem for which the health/fitness/diet industry is eternally grateful. On the other hand, it's rather curious that in places like Singapore you get weight-gain pills. As for the poor countries, especially Africa with its endemic wars and droughts, the best thing we can do for them is still giving gratuitous advice or inappropriate technology but to reduce our tarrifs/subsidies (no matter how painful it may be in the short-term) and let an agricultural market driven export economy develop that can utilise their comparative advantages (e.g. palm oil in Malaysia, rice in Thailand, coffee in Timor/Brazil, etc).
LL