The only reason XP/2003 stopped BSODing, is Microsoft made them automatically reboot instead. Once I turned off that "feature" I got my regular dose of BSODs.
In contrast, I've had exactly 1 Linux crash ever on the same hardware.
Instead of holding and looking at compasses and bluky-hand-held sonar devices, the divers can processes the information through their tongues, said Dr. Anil Raj, the project's lead scientist.
...a revolutionary technology already being referred to as Anilingus.
There's nothing new about the phenomenon, either. I remember research back in the 90s showing that Macintosh users were all familiar with Windows, but that Windows users were mostly completely ignorant of the Macintosh.
In other words: Mac users who said that Windows sucked, generally did so from a position of knowledge, whereas Windows users who said that Macs sucked, generally did so from a position of ignorance. I expect it's still the case today, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that statistically, it's also the case with Windows vs Linux in the enterprise.
The point is that copyright and royalties are clearly not the only business model for the creation of creative works, and that copyright is clearly not any kind of inherent right, which was my original point.
Whether people deserve rewards is a whole separate discussion.
So basically... I get paid well, but no copyright. Authors get copyright, but are incredibly badly paid. And you're arguing that copyright is the better system?
If you don't think software creation is creative, I suspect you're reading the wrong web site.
Frankly, I didn't find many pre-copyright literary examples simply because not much literature at all survives and remains well known from that era. Shakespeare, Chaucer, and that's about it. There simply aren't enough data points to conclude anything.
Besides, the point was that the idea that art only happens when people are well compensated, is crap. Even post copyright, most artists are not well compensated.
Given your logic, I'm sure we can make a case for your employer not paying you for your work.
But that's exactly the point. I create copyrightable works of value all the time at my job, yet I don't expect to get per-copy compensation. Millions of people are in the same situation, many of them posting to Slashdot, but I don't see anyone screaming about how unfair it is. Yet for some reason, when the copyright work is a movie or a pop record, suddenly people decide the creator deserves a perpetual revenue stream and the right to control copying.
If you really believe the principle you're pushing, you should favor some kind of law stating that all copyrightable works should result in royalties to their creators, right?
As a result, prior to the creation of copyright the vast majority of artists, authors and composers were the independently rich who no need to work for their living. As you can imagine, the lower classes were artistically underrepresented as a result.
That's simply nonsense. Folk music is an incredibly rich artistic tradition, historically almost entirely the work of the underclasses. Ditto Blues, Soul, Hip-Hop, all genres that started out without corporate lawyers and copyright to encourage them. The riches come after the art, if ever, and only a few got that lucky.
Even in electronic music with its expensive equipment, there are plenty of artists who came from working class backgrounds. Kraftwerk were power station workers, hence the name.
Literature and poetry haven't exactly been restricted to the rich either. Laurence Sterne was a military brat, as was George Orwell whose family couldn't afford to send him to university. Jane Austen was the daughter of a priest. Henry Miller lived in poverty, dependent on his friends. Don DeLillo started writing while working as a parking attendant. Hemingway worked as a reporter then joined the army, never made it to college. Harlan Ellison did almost everything to scrape a living--taxi driver, cook, truck driver, door-to-door salesman, he even joined a street gang.
John Betjeman was middle class, supported his poetry by working as a journalist. Ted Hughes' family ran a tobacconist's. Robert Frost was a factory worker. Edgar Allan Poe dropped out of college and joined the army to pay off his debts.
Not only does art thrive and grow from poor backgrounds, but the very system of copyright you seem to be arguing for has singularly failed to enrich many of our greatest artists. For every Stephen King who manages to claw his way out of poverty, there's a Philip K. Dick who dies poor.
Really, if you think that art and copyright are a good way to make a living, you're suffering from a major delusion. So the best argument that could be made is that copyright encourages art in the same way that lottery tickets give hope to the poor; and frankly, that doesn't seem like a good thing to me.
If I create a work of art, it's also not something that anyone else will be using or benefitting from, because it's on my property. So we go back to the original supposed purpose of copyright, to entice people to distribute works of art by offering them very limited exclusivity.
Your point about ease of copying is relevant, though. If people could copy my shed without impacting my property in any way, would I have some kind of right to stop them?
This is not just hypothetical, either. The way the law has been changed, it is now illegal for you to make a copy of my house. The shed example was intentionally chosen because it is applicable, even though it seems clear to many people that it shouldn't be.
I think it's only fair that everyone get necessary medical treatment and a healthy diet, not just rich people. However, is free medical treatment and free food a right?
Well, sure, if you disagree with the GPL, you're not going to like the current Qt/KDE licensing. But if you disagree with the GPL, why the hell are you using Linux anyway?
Should I have some inherent right to earn money as a result?
No, but you have the inherent right to stop other people using your shed, or to charge them for using your shed.
Ah, but I don't have the right to stop them looking at it, photographing it, or building a shed exactly like it.
Just because something takes time and effort, doesn't necessarily mean you have a right to earn money from doing it, or even a chance to earn money from it.
So... we'll motivate people to create easily copyable material by... declaring how great music/movies/books are, and we'd like to see some?
Maybe. Or maybe we'll go back to patronage. Or pledge drives. Or fundraisers.
I'm not saying that lack of copyright will necessarily result in more art. I'm just taking issue with the argument that people have a right to earn money from art.
Copyright has its right to exist. When someone creates something, he puts time and money behind it, develops it and he should have a chance to earn money that way.
Why?
If I build a shed in my garden, I put a lot of time and money behind it. Should I have some inherent right to earn money as a result?
Just because something takes time and effort, doesn't necessarily mean you have a right to earn money from doing it, or even a chance to earn money from it.
Once upon a time there was one major desktop environment for Linux, KDE.
Some people didn't like the licensing of the Qt toolkit KDE was built on, so they started work on GNOME, which was to be the truly free alternative.
The licensing of the Qt toolkit was changed. However, out of ego the GNOME developers continued, and so we ended up with two major desktop environments.
Maybe. His review of "Equilibrium" was pretty wide of the mark, though. What a stinker that was, and from the review I have my doubts that he even watched the movie.
The company requires me to put a big ugly disclaimer in the motd. So, immediately afterwards I add the output of `fortune disclaimer`, which was my first contribution to Debian.
The problem is that the Smalltalk language in its initial incarnation (Smalltalk-80) was closely integrated with a graphical user interface, and it predates the Macintosh. It's closer to the Xerox Star interface.
While Squeak has made some moves towards a more conventional interface, it still doesn't support native widgets for any platform. It's a shame, really--a Cocoa Smalltalk would be awesome.
We already have rating systems that are in use and allow for self-rating. If there was demand for a search engine that only returned rated pages, I'm sure Google or someone would have set one up.
In fact, why don't the government simply pay someone to set up a search engine that only returns filtered pages? Sure, it's a waste of tax dollars, but if they're so sure it's needed, better that than some ill thought out piece of unnecessary legislation.
Slashdot Mirror
You could consider the GP2X.
If the game's good enough, it'll sell the system.
Yeah, and I have personal experience across a variety of machines (20+) that it does, and lots of people would back me up too.
Now you blame device drivers and anti-virus software, go on.
The only reason XP/2003 stopped BSODing, is Microsoft made them automatically reboot instead. Once I turned off that "feature" I got my regular dose of BSODs.
In contrast, I've had exactly 1 Linux crash ever on the same hardware.
...a revolutionary technology already being referred to as Anilingus.
I just hope that the PS3 with hard drive isn't going to allow game developers to skip QA the way they do with PC games.
There's nothing new about the phenomenon, either. I remember research back in the 90s showing that Macintosh users were all familiar with Windows, but that Windows users were mostly completely ignorant of the Macintosh.
In other words: Mac users who said that Windows sucked, generally did so from a position of knowledge, whereas Windows users who said that Macs sucked, generally did so from a position of ignorance. I expect it's still the case today, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that statistically, it's also the case with Windows vs Linux in the enterprise.
The point is that copyright and royalties are clearly not the only business model for the creation of creative works, and that copyright is clearly not any kind of inherent right, which was my original point.
Whether people deserve rewards is a whole separate discussion.
So basically... I get paid well, but no copyright. Authors get copyright, but are incredibly badly paid. And you're arguing that copyright is the better system?
If you don't think software creation is creative, I suspect you're reading the wrong web site.
So look at the non-literary examples.
Frankly, I didn't find many pre-copyright literary examples simply because not much literature at all survives and remains well known from that era. Shakespeare, Chaucer, and that's about it. There simply aren't enough data points to conclude anything.
Besides, the point was that the idea that art only happens when people are well compensated, is crap. Even post copyright, most artists are not well compensated.
Date GNOME project started: August 1997.
Date Qt licensing changed to open source: November 1998.
First GNOME release: March 1999.
Date Qt licensing changed to GPL: September 2000.
But anyhow, they could have just put their efforts behind Harmony. But no, they had to reinvent the wheel.
But that's exactly the point. I create copyrightable works of value all the time at my job, yet I don't expect to get per-copy compensation. Millions of people are in the same situation, many of them posting to Slashdot, but I don't see anyone screaming about how unfair it is. Yet for some reason, when the copyright work is a movie or a pop record, suddenly people decide the creator deserves a perpetual revenue stream and the right to control copying.
If you really believe the principle you're pushing, you should favor some kind of law stating that all copyrightable works should result in royalties to their creators, right?
That's simply nonsense. Folk music is an incredibly rich artistic tradition, historically almost entirely the work of the underclasses. Ditto Blues, Soul, Hip-Hop, all genres that started out without corporate lawyers and copyright to encourage them. The riches come after the art, if ever, and only a few got that lucky.
Even in electronic music with its expensive equipment, there are plenty of artists who came from working class backgrounds. Kraftwerk were power station workers, hence the name.
Literature and poetry haven't exactly been restricted to the rich either. Laurence Sterne was a military brat, as was George Orwell whose family couldn't afford to send him to university. Jane Austen was the daughter of a priest. Henry Miller lived in poverty, dependent on his friends. Don DeLillo started writing while working as a parking attendant. Hemingway worked as a reporter then joined the army, never made it to college. Harlan Ellison did almost everything to scrape a living--taxi driver, cook, truck driver, door-to-door salesman, he even joined a street gang.
John Betjeman was middle class, supported his poetry by working as a journalist. Ted Hughes' family ran a tobacconist's. Robert Frost was a factory worker. Edgar Allan Poe dropped out of college and joined the army to pay off his debts.
Not only does art thrive and grow from poor backgrounds, but the very system of copyright you seem to be arguing for has singularly failed to enrich many of our greatest artists. For every Stephen King who manages to claw his way out of poverty, there's a Philip K. Dick who dies poor.
Really, if you think that art and copyright are a good way to make a living, you're suffering from a major delusion. So the best argument that could be made is that copyright encourages art in the same way that lottery tickets give hope to the poor; and frankly, that doesn't seem like a good thing to me.
If I create a work of art, it's also not something that anyone else will be using or benefitting from, because it's on my property. So we go back to the original supposed purpose of copyright, to entice people to distribute works of art by offering them very limited exclusivity.
Your point about ease of copying is relevant, though. If people could copy my shed without impacting my property in any way, would I have some kind of right to stop them?
This is not just hypothetical, either. The way the law has been changed, it is now illegal for you to make a copy of my house. The shed example was intentionally chosen because it is applicable, even though it seems clear to many people that it shouldn't be.
It may be fair; I just don't see it as a right.
I think it's only fair that everyone get necessary medical treatment and a healthy diet, not just rich people. However, is free medical treatment and free food a right?
Substitute house with land, and people do in fact argue exactly that.
And of course, your using my house has non-zero impact (in non-economic terms), whereas my copying something digital has no impact on the original.
If you want to argue that you should have a right to make a precise copy of my house and use it without paying me, then I'd say sure, go ahead.
Well, sure, if you disagree with the GPL, you're not going to like the current Qt/KDE licensing. But if you disagree with the GPL, why the hell are you using Linux anyway?
Ah, but I don't have the right to stop them looking at it, photographing it, or building a shed exactly like it.
Maybe. Or maybe we'll go back to patronage. Or pledge drives. Or fundraisers.
I'm not saying that lack of copyright will necessarily result in more art. I'm just taking issue with the argument that people have a right to earn money from art.
Chinese consumers can buy the legal cheap DVDs and sell them for a profit on eBay.
Why?
If I build a shed in my garden, I put a lot of time and money behind it. Should I have some inherent right to earn money as a result?
Just because something takes time and effort, doesn't necessarily mean you have a right to earn money from doing it, or even a chance to earn money from it.
Art existed before copyright.
Once upon a time there was one major desktop environment for Linux, KDE.
Some people didn't like the licensing of the Qt toolkit KDE was built on, so they started work on GNOME, which was to be the truly free alternative.
The licensing of the Qt toolkit was changed. However, out of ego the GNOME developers continued, and so we ended up with two major desktop environments.
Maybe. His review of "Equilibrium" was pretty wide of the mark, though. What a stinker that was, and from the review I have my doubts that he even watched the movie.
It's not just that they're NIMBYs, they're BANANAs.
Not In My Back Yard is one thing, but the attitude of some people is Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
The company requires me to put a big ugly disclaimer in the motd. So, immediately afterwards I add the output of `fortune disclaimer`, which was my first contribution to Debian.
The problem is that the Smalltalk language in its initial incarnation (Smalltalk-80) was closely integrated with a graphical user interface, and it predates the Macintosh. It's closer to the Xerox Star interface.
While Squeak has made some moves towards a more conventional interface, it still doesn't support native widgets for any platform. It's a shame, really--a Cocoa Smalltalk would be awesome.
We already have rating systems that are in use and allow for self-rating. If there was demand for a search engine that only returned rated pages, I'm sure Google or someone would have set one up.
In fact, why don't the government simply pay someone to set up a search engine that only returns filtered pages? Sure, it's a waste of tax dollars, but if they're so sure it's needed, better that than some ill thought out piece of unnecessary legislation.