The GPL license should be adhered to from the start, not just when people call them on violating it. And now that they *have* posted the source code, people seem to think this somehow makes their VIOLATION of the GPL OK. It does NOT make it OK. Thousands of copies of the Morpheus program were downloaded without the source...this means that the people who downloaded it may be under the impression that its not GPL'ed, which creates all kinds of problems (such as them redistributing it in violation of the GPL, and eventually a company getting ahold of it and trying to claim its not GPL'ed so they can rape it).
To those of you who -- and I've read many of these comments -- say "calm down, calm down, give them a minute to post the source"...I say that its still a violation of the GPL. If a company got source code from MS or SGI on a confidential agreement, would they even DARE to, even for a few MINUTES, distribute that code on their web-site in violation of the confidentiality agreement? No, they wouldn't. The GPL should be adhered to just as strictly by corporations.
I seriously hope that FSF sues them. The problem with the GPL, though, is that suing after they start abiding by the GPL doesn't accomplish much (other than perhaps a public admittance of wrong-doing)...there should be a clause in the GPL that calls for fines if its violated by a company.
Tere are also some of you out there who say, "the GPL's never been taken to a court case," so it could mean anything, and the FSF's interpretation of it is meaningless. No, actually, that's not true. The FSF created the GPL, and they know exactly what it means. Furthermore, the GPL is written VERY clearly -- there's no doubt about exactly what it means. Corporations can hire the best lawyers in the world, but they'll never get a ruling that says "under the GPL, you don't have to distribute the source of something you bundle with a GPL'ed program". The GPL will not be invalidated -- it is in fact LESS strict than the EULA, which has (unconstitutionally) been held up in court.
About some of you who continue babbling about Morpheus as an "illegal product", no its not. It was not designed for any particular purpose, and can be used for sharing anything, not just music, movies, or software. You cannot say that it has no uses other than infringement.
If Morpheus -- or any other non-centralized file-sharing service -- is illegal, then so is the entire internet.
Why are they switching to GPL? To make their life easier. Under the GPL, you can't "sue anyone". Its distributed by everyone. And even if you somehow sue MusicCity and force them not to distribute, you can never stop the distribution of Morpheus now. It is a simple fact of life that no matter how hard the stupid judges stamp their feet, they can't stop the distribution of anything that's freely downloadable. Proof in point -- DeCSS. Its all over the place: both the source and the executable can be found by Googling.
As for some people's worries that GPL will be associated with piracy, warez, etc -- only in the minds of spin-meisters under the thumb of Jack Valentini and Hillary Rosen. The average person doesn't concern himself with these issues, and anyone smart enough to understand them knows how full of shit that idea is.
Aside from that, there's nothing wrong with warez, piracy, etc. Ghandi said we have an obligation to disobey immoral laws. How much more immoral can a law be than one which keeps information "secret" and in the hands of the rich few who can afford it?
So, basically, they wanted comments from the consumers, who the suit is supposed to protect, but they've ignored and dismissed all of the comments. They acknowledged no validity in any comment, nor attempted to seriously address any of their concerns, other than by saying, "that's not so". Being quite frank, the remedies in this proposal don't go far enough. The only way to ensure a competitive market which is beneficial to the consumer is to impose strict remedies -- preventing MS from imposing ANY restrictions on what OEM's do with the products they put on their machines, forcing MS to license at least some critical components of Win9x, NT, 2k, and XP to allow for competition with MS' "bundled" software and to allow alternate OS' to be able to use Windows software.
The ignorance of some stupid commentors is noted. "Would you rather be using anything else", and "there's nothing else easier to use" predominated among MS-supporters. Had MS not been a monopoly and had an unfair advantage with OEMs, BeOS would have superceded it by now and become the standard desktop OS.
The incompetence of the Justice Department is easily discernable through comments such as these:
174. A few commentors argue that, under Section III.C.2, Microsoft has control over what non-Microsoft products may be promoted by an OEM because Microsoft could define what "impair[s] the functionality of the user interface."(183) Section III.C.2 applies only to shortcuts, but it allows those shortcuts to be of any size and shape. Potentially, these shortcuts could be so large as to cover key portions of the Windows user interface (for example, the Start Menu). As the Court of Appeals found, Microsoft has an interest in preventing unjustified drastic alterations of its copyrighted work. Microsoft, 253 F.3d at 63. The limitation preventing shortcuts from impairing the functionality of the user interface was designed to respect this interest, while still giving OEMs considerable freedom to promote Non-Microsoft Middleware.
No, actually, its not possible to for shortcuts to "be so large as to cover key portions of the Windows user interface (for example, the Start Menu)". Even if it that would be MS' fault for design flaw. Furthermore, MS should only be allowed to sell OEM's its OS. The OEM's should have the freedom to modify it as they will. MS should not be allowed to HURT consuemrs by preventing their OEM's from tailoring their OS to their needs.
Granted, this proposal is better than nothing at all; but it doesn't go far enough to punish MS for past illegal deeds, rectify the monopolistic situation created, and prevent MS from future monopolistic deeds.
Implement the best features from each OS, and invent your own where applicable.
I'll list a few examples of great features from various OS' along with some features of my own, and why they should be implemented in the BlueOS or OpenBeOS projects, and any other projects which want to create a great, fast, reliable OS:
1. BeOS' "tab" window bar, which doesn't span the entire "length" of a window. Why should the window tab span the whole length of the window? That just takes up extra space. Have the close, the maximize, the minimize, and the "barrize" buttons in a tab. Have all these features automatically "display" when you move your mouse over the tab; otherwise, have the name of the app. and file displayed. Furthermore, make the "tab" movable accross the length of the window. This allows you to "semi-maximize" all your windows such that their titles display in tab form accross the screen. Should able to be pulled up by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
2. Apple's "universal menu". Why have a menu in every window? That just wastes space. The argument could be made that its inefficient to have to move your mouse WAY to the top of the screen for a small window, but you can always make it so users can "retrieve" the universal menu to their specific window, or send it back to the universal position, for each program. Furthermore, the universal menu should have the option of "auto-hiding" away, like Apple's "warf" or Win9x's "task bar". Should able to be pulled up by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
3. The desktop. This is a BIG DUH. Though task-bars and warfs are nice, having icons on the desktop is still a must; it should at least be an option. But the desktop shouldn't just be complacently left alone, it should be improved. People should be able to make desktop regions, so when they "auto-organize" icons on the desktop, some will stay on the bottom, or top, and others on the left/right side, rather than all being automatically placed on one side. Should able to be put focus on it by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
4. The warf. Another duh. Apple's or OpenStep's version is a great implementation. It should be scrollable, and should "hide away". Having icons or icon names "enlarge" or change color as you move over them should be an option. Should able to be pulled up by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
5. The taskbar. Not that its completely original, but it is a nice feature in Windows. Having all the application titles appear in boxes, and having a customizable start menu with lots of neat features is nice. Also, having an address bar in the task bar is nice. Of course, the management of displaying window names should be improved, and task bar should allow you to scroll left/right or up/down rather than "shrinking" down the boxes when many windows are open. Should be hide-away.
6. Apple's new "file browser", Cocoa or whatever its called. Of course, its not new, but just a pretty skin of NeXT or OpenStep's file-browser. But the new folders displaying to the left of the old one's and scrolling right is nice.
7. A throwback. F1-F12 as FILE MENU KEYS. Alt-F for "File" as is typical in Windows and Linux, or no key-control for file menu's as is typical in OSX is CRAP. The KB is quicker for accessing file menu's than the mouse, but why should we have to press TWO buttons to access the file menu's? Also, it means we always have to look at the "underlined" letter to see which letter we have to press in combo with Alt. It would be much easeir to just ALWAYWS have F1 representing the first menu. This standardizes it unilaterally.
8. Right-clicking (Win9x) and "hold-clicking" (OSX) to get the "options menu". Great features. Should be combined. On a two-mouse button with a "scroll button", there should be a function for a left click, one for a right click, one for a double left click, for a double right click, for a hold on a left click, and for a hold on a right click.
9. Space-saving by dissapearing buttons. One great idea which might actually belong to Windows, though probably not (just I first noticed it in a MS Windows program; note, I said !might!, so don't jump all over me). Anyways, the feature is in the Windows DVD player that is part of Windows Media Player (just go to Xteq, and click on "enable DVD functionality" under Windows media player, fyi). When you watch a DVD, the buttons for play/forward and all the others are initially visible, and look normal (though small). Then, after a period of inactivity by your mouse, they dissapear. A nice feature! When u move the mouse again, they reappaar. This saves space on your screen while still having all the functionality, and gives you more room for your actual work. I think people should explore implementing this strategy accross many different applications, from browsers to word processors to image editors.
10. The "between space". Most of you are probably in front of a graphical web browser now. It probably has buttons at the top of it, with forward, back, stop, home, search, favorite, and history functions. These buttons probably have a "grey space" between them which serves no purpose. Why have useless space between them? Why not make it transparent to the underlying content of the window, with the buttons as opaque layers on top of the content of the window? This can be combined with #9.
11. The UNIX power. Ok, this is broad. But what I mean by this is the vast vast vast vast array of command-line commands you see in UNIX-like OS' such as IRIX, *BSD, and *Linux. This is a feature all OS' should have.
12. The UNIX-stability/security. Again, obvious. But should be pretty self-explanatory. Unices have a reputation for being stable and secure.
13. The hardware/software support of Windows9x. This is something easier said than done. It basically happens over time. Linux is getting there, so is Apple. This would be a factor totally based off the quality of the OS, were not MS a monopoly. But, as it is, no good deed by companies competing with MS goes unpunished; no vile deed by MS unrewarded.
14. The ease of use of BeOS, Amiga, and Apple-OS. This is another general feature. But these OS' are widely reputed as being easy to use. I believe its because of the KISS (keep it simple stupid) philosophy. Of course, Apple has standards almost set in stone for GUI's. But as some simple guidelines, always consider what the function of your program is, and if extra features aid in that function? Does that neat-looking (self-promoting) logo in the corner really serve any useful function? Or is it just eye-candy, something to be shown off in screen-shots? Make sure every graphical feature, button, whatever, in your GUI/apps has a function, and aids in ease of use as much as possible. In short, critically evaluate everything.
15. Condensing functions. Condense the functions of several related buttons into one button. I.e., I created a nice, efficient, easy-to-use system for media-player buttons. Have a play/fast-forward/next-track/next-CD button, a reverse/rewind/previous-track/previous-CD button, and a pause/stop/eject/open button. In each case, the first function listed would be done by single left-clicking; the second function, by holding a single left-click; the third, by double left-clicking; and the fourth by right clicking. This allows you to compress what would be 9 buttons into 3 buttons. More efficient, easier to use (as less hand-motion, and more intuitively like an MP3-player), and less wasteful of space. This would be, of course, combined with #10 and #9.
16. Load-time, run-time, RAM, and hard-drive requirements. These are all the performance-related issues. I believe a few distinguished OS' represent excellence in these fields: IRIX, BeOS, Amiga-Classic, Amiga (the new Amiga), QNX, *BSD, and some Linux' (i.e., Slackware, Debian). The reason for such excellent performance offered by these OS' is a combination of factors: efficiency, minimalist philosophy, innovative architectures/ideas, etc. I won't go into details, but sufficed to say, developers should be considering factors such as HD-size, load-time (ESP LOAD TIME for most apps, nothing worse than waiting for ever), RAM (another biggie, don't want the OS taking up half of my RAM), and run-time (a biggie for apps which do any serious crunching, such as phylogeny apps, or DNA alignment apps). A comparison of various OS' in terms of tech-stats can be found here: http://maxlinux.hypermart.net/comp_chart.htm. It can be observed that IRIX wipes the floor with everything else in every category. 9 million terabytes as max file size?
17. Transparent features. This one's a bit touchy. It shouldn't be over-used. You need to be *very* selctive when using this feature...but it can be great for certain apps, like terminals or word-processors (Office products, Vi, Emacs), and for certain parts of apps (like configuration boxes, occasionally). Obviously, its idiotic to make the material of a web-browser or image-editor (semi)-transparent.
18. Aqua/glassy/smooth/gradiated stuff. Obviously, MacOSX has a great-looking GUI. It isn't just eye candy -- it really helps you easily distinguish features from one-another. Lets not give Apple too much credit here. They just "heard" what the consumers wanted. Everyone likes gradiated stuff, which is smooth. There was gradiation and shinyness long before OSX's Aqua theme.
19. Now, an annoying, but *sometimes* useful feature. "Animation" effects on menus or windows. I.e., a menu "scrolling" into place, or window fading away when minimized, rather than doing so instantaneously. All such effects should be quick, should be such as to indicate what's happening, and should be configurable and deactivatable.
20. Plug & play, automatic hardware recognition. Another DUH. Windows and Apple have accomplished this to near perfection by sheer brute force. QNX has a more clever method, which involved some kind of "detection algorithm" to detect hardware and optimize the OS to it. I think this is the way to go. I.e., have the OS "search" for say a graphics, CD, CD-RW, CD-DVD, DVD-R, printer, speaker, sound-card, networking, etc hardware. Then when it finds the (say) graphics card, let it explore various values of that card in a conservative way (starting from very low values that won't mess up any hardware) and gradually working up, using some benchmarking and stability tests to find the optimal settings.
21. Cross-platform compatability. Amiga has achieved this by using VP Assembly; thus, their OS can run on virtually any hardware. You need to bite the bullet on this one. The initial "performance" decrease may be compensated for by less overhang because the stuff your loading from the HD is smaller...furthermore, just improving ONE part -- the virtual machine -- increases performance of everything everywhere. Also, the "performance" u might initially lose is moret han made up for by the additional efficiency you can put into it by having more time to work on better algorithms/smoother interfaces, b/c u don't have to port.
What one group of researchers say doesn't make something the truth. On the other hands, just because we want to believe that the T-rex is the fast-moving creature featured in Jurassic Park doesn't make it true either.
I however, tend to believe that the T-Rex was a fast-moving creature. Perhaps not as fast as portrayed in Jurassic Park, but certainly fast enough to make a bald lawyer crap his pants and run to the bathroom, allowing his pants to fall down.
At least one piece of evidence suggests T-Rex was a very active animal -- at least amongst themselves. Bones of one discovered T-rex had large masks on them, the marks indicative of another T-rex's tooth.
But hey, two big slow creatures could bite eachother as well -- don't need to be fast for that.
1. Download the songs you want. Don't buy them. Try LimeWire, FastTrack (i.e., Morpheus, Grokster, KaZaa), WinMX, whatever. And don't whine about the "spyware" in LimeWire, you have the option not to install it; and if ur really concerned, go to the LimeWire directory and delete the **** u don't want. Btw, since LimeWire is open-sourced, u can modify it to your needs.
2. If you can't find the songs you want, go out and buy the CD. Make sure to check on the return policy. Preferrably, you want one of the new copy-protected CD's which they have to accept returns on. So, open up the CD try to play it on your computer. If it works on your computer, rip the music. If it doesn't work on your computer, play it on a CD-player, connect the output jack to your computers input, and rip it. In either case, after ripping it, return the CD to the store and say it didn't work. That way, you get it for free.
3. But what about the artists, oh the artists the artists? Well, when you buy a 15 dollar CD by Britney Spears, how much of that do you think goes to her? Maybe 5 dollars? Probably less. But lets be optimistic and say 5 dollars. So get the music for free via step 1 or step 2. If you get all 10 songs on her latest CD, that's 5 dollars that would have gone to her. So send her the money; hell, maybe even send her 10 dollars. You still spend less on the music than you would've, and she gets more. It eliminates the middle man. Then the RIAA can't whine about "how the musicians are getting screwed." No, now it would be only the companies that were getting screwed.
The settlement in my opinion clearly isn't strict enough. There's nothing that really prevents MS from continuing to abuse its powers.
Furthermore, the adaptations proposed by the states are very reasonable, if only minimal requirments, to prevent further abuse. MS should be forced to sell OEM's a stripped-down version of Windows, and OEM's should have the right to remove any features they so desire. Furthermore, competitors -- including competing operating systems -- should be given the code to MS Windows so that they can ensure compliance and compatability with Windows. In other words, people making competing products to MS' IE, file-browser, e-mail prog, messenger prog, should have the ability to integrate and mesh those with Windows just as well and easily as MS can/does.
Additionally, restrictions should be placed on MS' use and development of the boot-loader.
Furthermore, provisions should be put into place to ensure that alternate OS' are represented at OEM stores -- such as *Linux, *BSD, BeOS, AmigaSDK, GNUstep, Hurd, etc -- so that the makers of other OS' have the ability to compete. The real reason MS dominates the market is because THEIR OS is installed in MOST OEM PC's, and OEM's WON'T install other OS'. If users had the option to have the OS of their choice installed, MS' dominance would be reduced. So MS should be forced to pay a fee to OEM's to allow them to display alternate OS' on systems in their stores.
Of course, the main thing is that they should force MS to open up the source code for all versions of Windows. That is, if they aren't going to break MS up, which would ALSO solve the problem.
PS -- I posted this message before, but mistakenly under the wrong topic. Some idiot who obviously doesn't pay any attention to the headliners in/. decided to mod it down there...oh well, guess it was my fault for mistakenly posting under wrong article...but I could swear, that more than once/. directs me to the wrong article when I click on a link -- as if the links are cross-linked.
The settlement in my opinion clearly isn't strict enough. There's nothing that really prevents MS from continuing to abuse its powers.
Furthermore, the adaptations proposed by the states are very reasonable, if only minimal requirments, to prevent further abuse. MS should be forced to sell OEM's a stripped-down version of Windows, and OEM's should have the right to remove any features they so desire. Furthermore, competitors -- including competing operating systems -- should be given the code to MS Windows so that they can ensure compliance and compatability with Windows. In other words, people making competing products to MS' IE, file-browser, e-mail prog, messenger prog, should have the ability to integrate and mesh those with Windows just as well and easily as MS can/does.
Additionally, restrictions should be placed on MS' use and development of the boot-loader.
Furthermore, provisions should be put into place to ensure that alternate OS' are represented at OEM stores -- such as *Linux, *BSD, BeOS, AmigaSDK, GNUstep, Hurd, etc -- so that the makers of other OS' have the ability to compete. The real reason MS dominates the market is because THEIR OS is installed in MOST OEM PC's, and OEM's WON'T install other OS'. If users had the option to have the OS of their choice installed, MS' dominance would be reduced. So MS should be forced to pay a fee to OEM's to allow them to display alternate OS' on systems in their stores.
Of course, the main thing is that they should force MS to open up the source code for all versions of Windows. That is, if they aren't going to break MS up, which would ALSO solve the problem.
PS -- I'd like to think I have the honor of being the first person to actually post an intelligent comment on this story, other than "First post here" or "Second post here". Some people really need to get a life.
A poorly worded argument by a person who more than likely has unclear thoughts on the matter.
Your examples are trivial and largely irrelevant. Pointing to a few examples where software, books, movies, whatever, isn't either obsolete or a non-seller (that is, sells in trivial quantities) after 5-20 years doesn't negate the fact that most are. Sure, UNIX has been at the heart of computing for the past several decades...but its not the same UNIX that was originally released from Bell Labs. That UNIX is long dead, and there's no reason why the code from that shouldn't be public domain. Same thing with Linux -- the Linux kernel available today differs significantly from that 5 years ago. MS Windows? Win95 and WinME were separated by 5 years, and have considerable differences beyond the GUI. No reason why Win95 shouldn't be public domain now.
Sure, there are some books which sell for decades, even hundreds, of years after their release in significant numbers. But MOST DON'T. And even for those that do, an author and (after he's dead) his family shouldn't be able to profit for a hundred+ years on somewthing which only took a few years to create. No significant extra incentive is provided to authors by promising them life +75 years profit -- certainly not enough to offset the loss the public suffers from these works being controlled and unavailable to everyone.
Your arguments that the "family" deserve to profit off of an artists work is ridiculous. Holding IP is like a title, a position. If I'm a professor at a university, I have the right to that position, but not the right to pass it onto my son -- who doesn't deserve it and didn't work for it -- after I'm dead. An author's "family" did not create his work, thus they don't deserve to hold the work's IP rights. America is, aside from a democracy, largely a meritocracy.
As for "registration" for copyrights, patents, etc, who said it has to be expensive? The costs of registration could be paid for by the state. Registration IS necessary for copyrights, because copyrights are intended to cover ORIGINAL work. Under the current system, everything you say or write is automatically copyrigthed...that's obsurd. I shouldn't be able to say some quick catchy phrase like, "We are all slowly, but surely, dying," copyright it and then sue someone else who says or writes that. The idea of registration is to prevent people from trying to fraudulently copyright things which aren't original works, or which are trivial/insignificant.
As for your talk of "living off 2cents a copy from your works," you misunderstand my argument. I never said any such thing. What I said is that artists should be able to profit -- for the alotted time -- off of their works, but not to control how their works are used. Compensation without control. Authors, for example, would be compensated for people who obtained their books, or read their books on TV, but would not have the right to prevent anyone from using their work in any way, so long as they were compensated.
You should also note that while having works transfer to the public domain quicker, while not allowing artists to capture the full market value of their works, also alleviates them from expenditures they would have to make themselves. True, they wouldn't be able to profit off of books for more than 15-20 years; but they would also have free access to any book of such age. The cost to them is more than made up for by the fact that they'd have less restricted, free access to much more information. But from your arguments, it seems like you think that artists and their families "deserve" to be compensated for an infinite period of time (practically speaking, from the authors pov, as he dies) for a work which took a finite amount of time and effort to create. This is clearly nonsense. If a woodsman carves a fine chest, which is artful and beatiful, that took a finite period of time to make; like in the case of a writer, it also took some creative license. The woodsman does not get to profit off of the chair forever; he gets to sell it once and that's it. There's no reason to elevate artists above working society such that they get paid the rest of their lives for work which took perhaps a year to create.
For your clarification, let me post my suggestions for IP-protection terms for inventions, books, music, movies, and software.
1. Software. Copyright should last 5 years. This allows the developer plenty of time to make a significant profit off of his program, and also puts the program in the public domain at a time in which it still has relevance and is not an artifact useful only for "educational purposes".
2. Music. Copyright should last 10 years. This allows the muscician plenty of time to make a significant profit off of his music, and also puts the music in the public domain at a time when most people can still easily relate to it.
3. Movies. Copyright protection should last 10 years. This allows the movie-producers plenty of time to make a significant profit off of their movie, and also puts the movie in the public domain at a time when it will still be culturally relevant.
4. Books. Copyright protection should last 20 years. This allows the author plenty of time to make a significant profit off of his book, and also puts the book in public domain at a time when it will still be culturally relevant to most people.
5. Inventions. Patent protection should be afforded to individuals who actually invent something; there should not be patents on "life forms". Nor should corporate raiders in the US be able to patent something that was pioneered by indigenous peoples, but which the corporations contributed nothing to. Limited patent protection should last 15 years, and should be strict in its granting. Every trivial invention that comes along does not deserve a patent. Business methods do not deserve patents. Furthermore, patents should account for alternate and independant invention. Patents should not be awarded which give an inventor the rights over any invention whihc accomplishes a specific ends, only over his particular implementation. Patents should also recognize the rights of "second comers". Many people may be working on a particular way to do something; just because one person comes up with a solution a day before the other 9 doesn't mean the other 9 should be locked out.
6. Combination works. Any work somehow combining any combination of the aforementioned should be protected piecemiel.
7. The year by year exention plank, up to a maximum of 50% more time. If the owner of an IP work can show that they still make significant profits off of their work (i.e., perhaps 10% of the selling volume from the first year released), then they can get a yearly renewable exention.
Remember, in the beginning, intellectual property protection as established by the Founding Fathers only last 14 years. There's nothing wrong with short protection terms; nor do they decrease innovation. Rather, they increase it by reducing the cost of entry...artists/inventors have a larger public-domain pool to draw from in making their work when shorter terms exist. Furthermore, short terms force creators to create more. One-time-wonders can't make money the rest of their lives off of one book, song, whatever; they have to continue producing things, continue working for most of their lives, just like the average person does.
Typical ignorant response from someone brainwashed by the IP system.
In response to "Software isn't obsolete in 5 years"
Of course it is. Windows 95? Garbage. Same with Windows 98. Tombraider? May still be fun, but obsolete and not a seller. Descent 3, one of the best game ever? Obsolete, not a seller anymore. As for UNIX, its original IDEA is still in USE today. The original UNIX has long been dead. Btw, had anyone tried to patent UNIX back then, like they would today, the vast vast innovation done on UNIX through IRIX, AIX, HP-TRU, OSX, BSD, Linux, etc etc, would NOT have occured. My argument isn't that "no one buys it" after 5 years -- just that the sales are drastically reduced; your examples are meaningless. Thus, its the right time to have IP wear off. Furthermore, having it wear off after 5 years allows the software in public domain to contribute to modern projects in some useful way. Remember, IP is a system designed with the PUBLIC INTEREST in mind -- to promote maximum progress, and to GIVE BACK to the public in exchange for them protecting author's IP with THEIR tax dollars.
As for your example of classic books, again, same thing. Yes, they're great books -- but not sellers. Besides, the goal of IP is NOT to allow authors (or their relatives) to profit off of ONE work indefinately, but to provide an incentive for authors to create. I suggest a 10-20 year protection on books, as they lose selling power slower than other IP...this gives the authors plenty of time to recover the cost of investment, and obtain some profit. After that time, it then falls into the public domain, and the PUBLIC is repaid for their TAX dollars being used to protect an authors Intellectual Property PRIVILEDGES. Furthermore, the fact that the book enters the public domain soon after released, means it is still very much clearly culturally relevant: in other words, of maximal utility.
Remember, original "intellectual property rights" last 14 years. Not life + 75 years. Remember, the SOLE purpose of IP is to promote progress. Progress means that the public needs to get free access to ideas after a brief and reasonable period of time.
What rubbish, especially the part about how fixed rate royalties is communism. You might as well argue in favor of information-fascism.
Your fulla shit. Clearly, you don't understand the intellectual property system. An individual has no more "right" to intellectual property than (s)he would to welfare -- its a *priviledge*, alotted to people for the purposes of furthering societal progress.
Society agrees to ensure that creators get paid for the use of their creation for a *limited time*; in return, it is EXPECTED by society, which is paying taxes to support IP, that certain fair-use rights will be preserved while that protection ensues, and that after a limited time the work will transfer to the public domain.
Congress continually retroactively and proactively extending IP-terms violates this agreement.
Furthermore, the author being able to prevent certain people from using their work violates that agreement. A more resaonable system would be where the author/creator/programmer has no right to control whether or not people can use his software nor how they use it but is entitled licensing or royalty fees. This is what Lessig proposes.
Again, let me correct you in your deluded attempt to assert that people should have IP-rights in the same sense they have property-rigths. IP is NOT physical property. If I say something to my friend, I have no right to prevent him from repeating it to everyone else. Once an idea/invention/whatever leaves your mouth, you have no right to control whether or not people repeat/distribute it -- that's a violation of their free speech rights. But for a limited time [i.e., 5 years for software (as software is obsolete after that time), 10 years for music (as no one buys 10 year old music), 10 years for movies, 10-15 years for books, and 10-15 years for patents (NO patents on "business models", btw)] authors should be able to get royalties off of the use of their work, but not be allowed to control its use. The royalties should be fixed rate.
(1) Most importantly, the advertisements are still unobtrusive, text-based, clearly marked as advertisements. In google, unlike other search engines and "free services", most of the bandwidth you use to download the page is used for downloading useful information, not ads. No banner-ads, no ads which make the page colossal and unwieldly to download even for a broadband user.
(2) Ads are still positioned strategically. If you type in "Mercedes Benz", you get text-based ads which are relevant to Mercedes Benz, not some little porno-ad or something else unrelated to what your looking for. The unified, integrated browsing experience is preserved.
However, on the down-side, their ads still more "get your attention" ads than informative ones. For example, the Mercedes Benz ad is:
"MERCEDES BENZ - Get FREE Price Quotes on New & Used Cars - Click HERE!"
Right away, the capital letters make it difficult to read and seem like a cheap spam-scam e-mail you get. This isn't really google's fault, but that of the people who pay them to put their text-based ads there. So it fall on us, and google, to educate them.
While these flashy things may work on the stupid user, most people on the Internet aren't stupid. Lets qualify that -- most people don't stay stupid. Everyone starts out stupid. Most people reading this probably followed through on a few of the too-good-to-be-true SPAM e-mails which promised free-mojo or whatever. But after a few times of being duped on the internet, people realize that anything on the internet which talks of getting anything "FREE" is usually: (1) an outright lie; (2) a scam; (3) qualified in some way...(i.e., the "free" adult sites which want you to submit your credit card number, when you don't want to do that). There are a few exceptions, such as "Free" software. But most users can eventualloy tell a real "free" deal from a scam. Usually, the difference is that people who are really giving something away for free -- whether it be free porn, free books, free music, or fee software -- don't flaunt it.
Furthermore, even if these ads fool people into clicking on them, that's as far as it goes; once people realize there is no free deal, they leave.
Now, of course advertisements have to have the effect of drawing your attention to them. But they also have to have the effect of saying something meaningful about the product, which can be interpretted by the user. HINT: saying "GREAT DEAL ON NEW COMPUTER" doesn't tell me a thing, except that its probably NOT a great deal. Something like, "Gateway 2GHz computer for $1000" does tell me something. Also, quit it with the $999.99 thing.
In short, advertisers have to stop treating us like we're dumb. Because while most people who start out on the internet are dumb, they wise up quick. Now, to illustrate, let me create 3 advertising examples and critique them.
1: The typical "we-the-advertisers-think-your-fucking-dumb" ad.
"GREAT BUY! GREAT DEAL ON GATEWAY COMPUTER! MUST CLICK !NOW! TO GET IT!!"
Note, the fact that the ad tells us almost nothing about the product they want us to buy, except that its a computer and we supposedly get a good deal on it. This ad is clearly aimed towards stupid people. And whether or you do get a great deal, the impression I get from this type of ad is that its not a great deal and they're trying to fuck me up the ass. Also notice the use of ALL CAPS and !EXCLAMATION POINTS! in this ad. Two more indicators of a useless ad.
2: The ad that tries to inform the novice user.
"Get a Gateway computer with a color-printer, CD-writer, DVD-player, and scanner for $1000"
This ad doesn't list any real specifics -- just stuff that's usually standard. But it does tell you the price, and some of the accessories you get. This is something that might be valuable for a novice, who's probably looking for a "well-rounded" system, and can't really comprehend fine details like MHz, RAM, rpm, etc. Those type of details would simply confuse the novice.
3: The ad aimed at the knowledgeable user.
"Gateway computer with 2GHz CPU, 512MB DDR RAM, 2x40GB 10,000rpm SCSI hard drives, 128MB Quadro-4 GPU, and standard accessories for $1000"
Now, this ad clearly tells the intelligent user something: namely, alot of details which really tell you how good of a system it is. This type of ad is very useful to knowledgeable browser. Of course, its useless to someone who doesn't know what a GHz is, or what rpm is. Its also useless to someone who doesn't know what is good for these types of values. Even advanced users have difficulty comparing the "speeds" of different computers in MHz'. For example, if you want the best CPU, do you get a MIPS CPU used by SGI which runs at 600MHz, or an AMD 1.9GHz MP CPU? Well, most of us probably know that the MIPS is better, but that's just out of experience or hear-say. We can't really quantify it.
Summarizing it all, in short, the best types of ads are #2 and #3, the worst #1. It is reasonable that ads should combine #2 and #3.
"What if I didn't want you to use an image that I created or paid to have created for your purposes?"
That's the way the net is. People use other people's images all the time. To prohibit them from doing so would destroy the net as we know it, destroy and hinder its usefulness.
"What if I especially didn't want my bandwidth ate up serving the image to people for your purpose?"
But I use your bandwidth when I visit your website anyways. And by allowing ppl just to get the relevant image they want, I'm actually saving you bandwidth, b/c your server doesn't have to upload the whole web-page, just one image.
"Do you complain about being required to cite your references when you take information from other people?"
No, I don't. And I do cite references. The net does this automatically. If I use an image from your page on my site, linking specifically to that image, then right clicking on it and going to properties or whatever will tell you the source of the image, hence where it came from.
And if the government enforces such contracts which prohibit me from saying something, or force me to say something, then the government is telling me what I can or cannot say.
Yes, but imo there's something shady about NDA contracts.
They mean the company doesn't want the public to know something.
Perhaps their product is dangerous, or minimally viable; perhaps their business practices are questionable.
But in the specific case mentioned, McAfee trying to prohibit its users from posting reviews about its products...this is dangerous. They're clearly trying to hide critical info from the public: obviously, their product doesn't work.
No, you don't grasp the scope of the idea. Its not just about minor display issues, like bold or italics.
Its about general page layout.
Under my system, TITLE would tell the browser something is a title, and provide tagger information for that title. Then, based on my preferences, the browser would decide where to place the title, what size to make it, what color, whether or not to outline it, and if it wanted to put a background behind it.
As an example, when typing this comment, I notice that above it there is a line which says, "Post Comment" in white, and then has a brown bar extending to near the right end of the page. Under my system, the code would say, (in effect), "Section header "Post Comment" with background bar"...and then my browser, based on my pref., would choose what color/size/font to make "Post Comment" and what color to make the background bar, or if to rescale a repeatable image horizontally to make the bar.
as a supplementary to my remarks on controlling web-page layout through user-preference, another possible way to achieve this would be to allow each user visiting a website to create a completely customized website, by creating a "user preferences" profile w/c would be stored on the site's server.
However, this is suboptimal for several reasons.
(1) It allows possibilities of privacy violations.
(2) It violates the principle of end-to-end. Control and intelligence would be centralized in networks, rather than at the ends. This is precisely the type of thing which the internet's early "creators" did well to avoid, because avoiding such allowed vast flexibility.
So, according to this case, if I provide a link from my website to a relevant image from your website, but without the content around it (i.e., a link to just a certain image from your stie), that's a violation?
If my users need a specific image from your site, why should they have to download the image, which they need, and all that surrounds it, which they don't? The net shouldn't be slowed down by such nonsense. Also, your server bandwidth is wasted because your server has to upload the image which they want, along w/ alotta stuff they don't.
What about Google.com's image searcher, which allows images from sites displayed in-frame? What if I want to include an image from your website in my site, but just that image, and in a specific place? Why should the efficiency of the net be hindered by having the same information stored in different places, when need not be? (Of course, some would argue this is a virtue, as redundancy reduces vulnerability to data-loss).
The simple fact is, the internet should not be allowed to be harmed by IP laws. Such rulings diminish and reduce the usefulness of the internet, its functionality, even its it ideology.
This brings me to a suggestion I was thinking of for quite some time regarding the net. Why should web-publishers dictate to users HOW they view information? Why should they have to bother? What I propose is a system whereby information is transmitted in groups, packeted, its layout not completely controlled. For example, take slashot. Under my system, the web-publisher would write something like (in pseudocode)
TITLE: "XYZ".
SUBJECT #,type,date,#character,size-of-all-responses,#resp onses: "XYZ". Where # indicates the articles # in the typical order in the site; type is the type of article, such as Your Rights Online; #character, the number of characters in the portion of the thing displayed on the main page; size-of-all-responses indicates the net amount of words of all the responses added together; and #responses indicates the # of responses to the article.
Etc.
You guys get the point. Instead of dictating to users the exact layout of sites, sites would give them information about the sections of the sites, and individual's browsers would CHOOSE how to display them, based on the user's preferences. I haven't attempted to explain this idea to its limits, but the possibilities are endless. Its representative of the true nature of the internet: minimal control.
For computerize life, virus protection IS life or death.
Furthermore, in corporations, or even privately, information may be worth thousands of dollars, or countless hours of time. If its destroyed by a virus, that is very serious.
As serious as life or death? No. But its a question of magnitude, not type. This issue is simply a scaled down issue of those. If its wrong in those cases, scaling down shows its wrong in this case, because its different in scale (magnitude), not type.
Imagine if this was a drug, and the company line was, "You can't post critical comments about our drug, even if it almost kills you"?
Or an automobile, and you can't post critical comments about it, even if the airbag doesn't work?
Or a fire-alarm, and you can't post critical comments about it even if it doesn't alarm when there's a fire and causes your hosue to burn down?
This is plainly ludicrous. The public has the right to know if a product works, as well as both its pro's and con's.
Software -- *especially* McAfee's anti-virus software -- should be no different. We have the right to know if it actually protects us from viruses, and how well.
The fact that McAfee doesn't want to allow people to post revies of their product begs the question. What's wrong with this product? If its good, worth its salt, why don't they want people posting reviews of it?
The obvious answer is it doesn't work. I haven't used it, but its a safe bet that it doesn't work. In some critical way, its flawed.
And they don't want the public to find out about that.
No, McAfee does not have the right to prevent the public from finding about the flaws of their product. No, individual's can't sell away their free-speech right by a click-through EULA.
(1) Companies should be warned of an audit ahead of time.
(2) Should a "raid" be conducted on a company, the BSA should not be present. The BSA is not the government and has no business on official law business.
(3) The closeness of the BSA to federal law agencies is troubling. It seems like they say "Check them out" and the Feds check them out. A money-gribing organization shouldn't have that much influence on federal law enforcement.
(4) Companies shouldn't have to prove anything. They shouldn't have to prove they have legit software. The BSA should have to prove -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- that the companies don't have legit software. The principle of beyond a reasonable doubt shouldn't be disconsidered just because its a civil suit and not a criminal case. The reason we assume innocence until proven otherwise in a crminal case is because the state has vastly more resources than the individual, and its difficult to "prove" your innocent. The same should be true in lawsuits (where the filing party has vastly more resources, at least).
(5) Companies found to have pirated software should only have to pay the cost of the software, OR should have the option of forfeiting the software (that is, removing it from their system). Lets face it, in hard money, no software company loses ANYTHING when a someone pirates their software if they weren't going to buy it otherwise.
(6) I'm not a fan of intellectual property anyways. I think all current types of IP should be scaled back to five years, and their scope should be drastically reduced; but that's another story.
Observations - Conclusion: Next Net Revolution
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The next big internet revolution....will be when everyone acts as their own server. People have complained alot about how the free nature of the net has been corrupted, and how you can only get widely distributed/heard if your affiliated.
But the day is coming where everyone will be able to use their own computer to act as a server.
These are my observations:
(1) Broadband is only getting broader. Despite the fact that the people at Global Crossings are greedy bastards who should be shot for selling out their shareholds by declaring bankruptcy, they did layout a global fiber-optics network. As more and more fiber-optics networks are built, the net will only get faster.
(2) CPU's are only getting faster. Moores law still holds, a doubling of computer speed every 18 months, or a 1.5x increase every year. Currently, the fastest desktop computers run at about 2GHz...applying Moore's Law, in 10 years, computers will operate at 2 * (1.5^10) = 115GHz. That is, 57 times faster than the fastest today. Now, unless software developers like MS really drop the Ball on software, software shouldn't be 57 times slower in ten years (running on todays machines). OS' are basically already as graphically complex as they need be: Apple's OS X, BeOS' GUI, some of Linux's GUI's (i.e., Nautilis), and even Windows are already as graphically adequate as they need be...all that's needed is some fine tuning.
(3) Hard drives and RAM technology is only getting faster, as well. Not at quite the rate of CPU's, but still getting faster. Not to mention, getting larger.
(4) For the same performance, all of these technologies are getting cheaper.
(5) Information isn't getting larger. Movies are still usually 3hrs max; music, normally 10min max, perhaps 1hr if its a symphony; books, usually under 2,000 pages; scientific papers or review articles, usually under 100 pages; the typical graphic, usually 200 Kb. Granted, some type of supplemental information ARE getting "larger"; as technology develops, scientists, for example, may start including not only "Figures" in their papers on Journals, but also links to entire videos, perhaps of them explaining something, perhaps of a process observed under a microscope, perhaps of their entire experiments; similarly, games are getting "larger". But on average, the size of information is either not growing at all, or not growing rapidly. Most importantly, the rate at which the size the average type of information grows over time is not as large as the rate at which computer technology gets faster and larger.
(6) All OS' are getting better in (almost) all categories. Some are getting better at an extraordinary pace (like Linux). Some are already great and are simply fine-tuning in their respective areas of excellence (*BSD, BeOS, AmigaSDK). Some are good and are getting better in their GUI's at a medium pace (i.e., MacOS). One is pretty bad, though it has a huge software and hardware base, and is getting better in technical areas (though worse at choice/privacy issues, which may yet be corrected by the governhment) at a snail's pace: MS Windows. This is, of course, a generalization. OS's tend to get bettter in that they have more features, are easier to use, are more stable, and are more secure. Of coruse, they invariably get worse in performance and bloat. By getting worse in performance, I mean that considering the performance:features ratio, they're worse. By bloat, I also refer to that, and that they include *unnecessary* features (such as Windows "Guide" M&M's or whatever those round things are with faces that your supposed to ask questions to when u have problems). The problem of bloat and performance can of course be solved by applying pressure to developers : Namely, we don't want more useless features, we want you to correct the problems that exist and make it faster/smaller.
These are my conclusions:
(1) Many people will start using their own computers as servers from which to supply their own information to the world. No large fees will be required to do this, no corporate affiliation. This will be the major revolution. People will be able to publish content without censoreship from parent sites. Eventually, with a little bit of help from the government, people will be able to act as their own ISP's, should the government open up the cable lines.
Of course, as Lawrence Lessig pointed out, there are some problems with this. Cable service providers, likely a large part of the future of ISPs, don't have open cable-lines. They effectively have monopolies and no competition; its the opposite situation of the telephone lines, which have to be open. The Cable lines should be forced to be opened, just like the telephone lines were.
(2) The cost of getting space from official servers will be cheaper.
The next net-revolution will be a wave of personal publication from one's own computers, self-servicing in regards to getting on the net, which will (however) take longer. For the self-servicing part, people would be allowed to buy a certain portion of the bandwidth from a company for a certain price/year, without any regulation from the company, because you wouldn't be offering your info from their servers, but from your own "server".
Some trends disturbing, some not
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First, let me say that alot of what Mr. Katz says is true.
1. The worst part. Corporations have bastardized the current net, making it largely a medium through which they can continue ****ing their consumers up the a**.
2. The somewhat troublesome part. Filtering/blocking/etc. I see the point he's making, that increased filtering technologies allows us to close of all viewpoints except those that we agree with. That is one potential use. Another potential use is simply to block out the junk: the scam-advertisements you see on every page, the SPAM-scam e-mails you get, website popups that always ask you, "Do you want Flash 5.0" (NO! FU very much. Flash bites and is nothing more than a fancy way for them to shove their pornographic scam ads in my face!). I think that most people don't use filtering technology to block out views they disagree with, but rather to block out stuff that's pure nonsense. On the other hand, moderation technology IS used to block out views you don't agree with. How many of you here have moderated someone down because they supported intellectual property? This could be solved by making moderation more complex: i.e., a questionare about ea. comment: (1) Well written? (2) Concise? (3) Elegant? (4) Funny? (5) Regarding authoritarian/libertarian, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the most Libertarian, 10 being the most authoritarian, how would you rate it? (6) Regarding conservative/liberal, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the most Liberal, 10 the most Conservative, how would you rate it? (7) etc etc. No questions aside from well-written/concise/elegant/funny, would directly mod up or down. Ideological questions would mark messages with different color codes or symbols for different ideologies; some user settings would have it such that those were modded up or down.
3. The part that doesn't trouble me much. Pornography. Well, some kinds of it. There are two types of pornography: (1) Free pornography, largely done by amateurs, or posted on news-groups. This usually includes minimal advertisements or popups, and doesn't ask for your credit card. (2) Commercialized pornography. This usually gives you fifteen zillion pop-ups, lots of ads, and asks for your credit card number. Also, most of these are frauds; you give them your credit card number, they take your money, and then your left with either no pictures, or crappy ones. Type (1) pornography is ok. Type (2) pornography is not ok -- it decreases the utility of the net, and makes the entire net slower. Of course, there's also the "brands" of porn (i.e., SM, lesbian, hard-core, soft-core, artsy, child). Some of these may be objectionable, but the only one's for which objection is seriously warranted (smut, rape, child, where it actually came from such an incidence) are cases where the damage has already been done.
There are others, but I won't go into them.
Regarding the first and worst, the corporatization of the net. I believe there are ways to maintain the net's functionality while still allowing corporations to communicate info about their products. Google espouts one of thsoe ways -- specialized text-based ads that show up when certain searches are done. The thing that isn't compatable is banner ads, which probably account for most of what you d/l when you go to a page, as well as clogging up the net.
Slashdot Mirror
The GPL license should be adhered to from the start, not just when people call them on violating it. And now that they *have* posted the source code, people seem to think this somehow makes their VIOLATION of the GPL OK. It does NOT make it OK. Thousands of copies of the Morpheus program were downloaded without the source...this means that the people who downloaded it may be under the impression that its not GPL'ed, which creates all kinds of problems (such as them redistributing it in violation of the GPL, and eventually a company getting ahold of it and trying to claim its not GPL'ed so they can rape it).
To those of you who -- and I've read many of these comments -- say "calm down, calm down, give them a minute to post the source"...I say that its still a violation of the GPL. If a company got source code from MS or SGI on a confidential agreement, would they even DARE to, even for a few MINUTES, distribute that code on their web-site in violation of the confidentiality agreement? No, they wouldn't. The GPL should be adhered to just as strictly by corporations.
I seriously hope that FSF sues them. The problem with the GPL, though, is that suing after they start abiding by the GPL doesn't accomplish much (other than perhaps a public admittance of wrong-doing)...there should be a clause in the GPL that calls for fines if its violated by a company.
Tere are also some of you out there who say, "the GPL's never been taken to a court case," so it could mean anything, and the FSF's interpretation of it is meaningless. No, actually, that's not true. The FSF created the GPL, and they know exactly what it means. Furthermore, the GPL is written VERY clearly -- there's no doubt about exactly what it means. Corporations can hire the best lawyers in the world, but they'll never get a ruling that says "under the GPL, you don't have to distribute the source of something you bundle with a GPL'ed program". The GPL will not be invalidated -- it is in fact LESS strict than the EULA, which has (unconstitutionally) been held up in court.
About some of you who continue babbling about Morpheus as an "illegal product", no its not. It was not designed for any particular purpose, and can be used for sharing anything, not just music, movies, or software. You cannot say that it has no uses other than infringement.
If Morpheus -- or any other non-centralized file-sharing service -- is illegal, then so is the entire internet.
Why are they switching to GPL? To make their life easier. Under the GPL, you can't "sue anyone". Its distributed by everyone. And even if you somehow sue MusicCity and force them not to distribute, you can never stop the distribution of Morpheus now. It is a simple fact of life that no matter how hard the stupid judges stamp their feet, they can't stop the distribution of anything that's freely downloadable. Proof in point -- DeCSS. Its all over the place: both the source and the executable can be found by Googling.
As for some people's worries that GPL will be associated with piracy, warez, etc -- only in the minds of spin-meisters under the thumb of Jack Valentini and Hillary Rosen. The average person doesn't concern himself with these issues, and anyone smart enough to understand them knows how full of shit that idea is.
Aside from that, there's nothing wrong with warez, piracy, etc. Ghandi said we have an obligation to disobey immoral laws. How much more immoral can a law be than one which keeps information "secret" and in the hands of the rich few who can afford it?
Only b/c of MS' monopoly, w/c means companies only have to be software and hardware compliant w/ MS Windows.
So, basically, they wanted comments from the consumers, who the suit is supposed to protect, but they've ignored and dismissed all of the comments. They acknowledged no validity in any comment, nor attempted to seriously address any of their concerns, other than by saying, "that's not so". Being quite frank, the remedies in this proposal don't go far enough. The only way to ensure a competitive market which is beneficial to the consumer is to impose strict remedies -- preventing MS from imposing ANY restrictions on what OEM's do with the products they put on their machines, forcing MS to license at least some critical components of Win9x, NT, 2k, and XP to allow for competition with MS' "bundled" software and to allow alternate OS' to be able to use Windows software.
The ignorance of some stupid commentors is noted. "Would you rather be using anything else", and "there's nothing else easier to use" predominated among MS-supporters. Had MS not been a monopoly and had an unfair advantage with OEMs, BeOS would have superceded it by now and become the standard desktop OS.
The incompetence of the Justice Department is easily discernable through comments such as these:
174. A few commentors argue that, under Section III.C.2, Microsoft has control over what non-Microsoft products may be promoted by an OEM because Microsoft could define what "impair[s] the functionality of the user interface."(183) Section III.C.2 applies only to shortcuts, but it allows those shortcuts to be of any size and shape. Potentially, these shortcuts could be so large as to cover key portions of the Windows user interface (for example, the Start Menu). As the Court of Appeals found, Microsoft has an interest in preventing unjustified drastic alterations of its copyrighted work. Microsoft, 253 F.3d at 63. The limitation preventing shortcuts from impairing the functionality of the user interface was designed to respect this interest, while still giving OEMs considerable freedom to promote Non-Microsoft Middleware.
No, actually, its not possible to for shortcuts to "be so large as to cover key portions of the Windows user interface (for example, the Start Menu)". Even if it that would be MS' fault for design flaw. Furthermore, MS should only be allowed to sell OEM's its OS. The OEM's should have the freedom to modify it as they will. MS should not be allowed to HURT consuemrs by preventing their OEM's from tailoring their OS to their needs.
Granted, this proposal is better than nothing at all; but it doesn't go far enough to punish MS for past illegal deeds, rectify the monopolistic situation created, and prevent MS from future monopolistic deeds.
Implement the best features from each OS, and invent your own where applicable.
I'll list a few examples of great features from various OS' along with some features of my own, and why they should be implemented in the BlueOS or OpenBeOS projects, and any other projects which want to create a great, fast, reliable OS:
1. BeOS' "tab" window bar, which doesn't span the entire "length" of a window. Why should the window tab span the whole length of the window? That just takes up extra space. Have the close, the maximize, the minimize, and the "barrize" buttons in a tab. Have all these features automatically "display" when you move your mouse over the tab; otherwise, have the name of the app. and file displayed. Furthermore, make the "tab" movable accross the length of the window. This allows you to "semi-maximize" all your windows such that their titles display in tab form accross the screen. Should able to be pulled up by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
2. Apple's "universal menu". Why have a menu in every window? That just wastes space. The argument could be made that its inefficient to have to move your mouse WAY to the top of the screen for a small window, but you can always make it so users can "retrieve" the universal menu to their specific window, or send it back to the universal position, for each program. Furthermore, the universal menu should have the option of "auto-hiding" away, like Apple's "warf" or Win9x's "task bar". Should able to be pulled up by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
3. The desktop. This is a BIG DUH. Though task-bars and warfs are nice, having icons on the desktop is still a must; it should at least be an option. But the desktop shouldn't just be complacently left alone, it should be improved. People should be able to make desktop regions, so when they "auto-organize" icons on the desktop, some will stay on the bottom, or top, and others on the left/right side, rather than all being automatically placed on one side. Should able to be put focus on it by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
4. The warf. Another duh. Apple's or OpenStep's version is a great implementation. It should be scrollable, and should "hide away". Having icons or icon names "enlarge" or change color as you move over them should be an option. Should able to be pulled up by keyboard commands, and navigated by keyboard, as well as mouse.
5. The taskbar. Not that its completely original, but it is a nice feature in Windows. Having all the application titles appear in boxes, and having a customizable start menu with lots of neat features is nice. Also, having an address bar in the task bar is nice. Of course, the management of displaying window names should be improved, and task bar should allow you to scroll left/right or up/down rather than "shrinking" down the boxes when many windows are open. Should be hide-away.
6. Apple's new "file browser", Cocoa or whatever its called. Of course, its not new, but just a pretty skin of NeXT or OpenStep's file-browser. But the new folders displaying to the left of the old one's and scrolling right is nice.
7. A throwback. F1-F12 as FILE MENU KEYS. Alt-F for "File" as is typical in Windows and Linux, or no key-control for file menu's as is typical in OSX is CRAP. The KB is quicker for accessing file menu's than the mouse, but why should we have to press TWO buttons to access the file menu's? Also, it means we always have to look at the "underlined" letter to see which letter we have to press in combo with Alt. It would be much easeir to just ALWAYWS have F1 representing the first menu. This standardizes it unilaterally.
8. Right-clicking (Win9x) and "hold-clicking" (OSX) to get the "options menu". Great features. Should be combined. On a two-mouse button with a "scroll button", there should be a function for a left click, one for a right click, one for a double left click, for a double right click, for a hold on a left click, and for a hold on a right click.
9. Space-saving by dissapearing buttons. One great idea which might actually belong to Windows, though probably not (just I first noticed it in a MS Windows program; note, I said !might!, so don't jump all over me). Anyways, the feature is in the Windows DVD player that is part of Windows Media Player (just go to Xteq, and click on "enable DVD functionality" under Windows media player, fyi). When you watch a DVD, the buttons for play/forward and all the others are initially visible, and look normal (though small). Then, after a period of inactivity by your mouse, they dissapear. A nice feature! When u move the mouse again, they reappaar. This saves space on your screen while still having all the functionality, and gives you more room for your actual work. I think people should explore implementing this strategy accross many different applications, from browsers to word processors to image editors.
10. The "between space". Most of you are probably in front of a graphical web browser now. It probably has buttons at the top of it, with forward, back, stop, home, search, favorite, and history functions. These buttons probably have a "grey space" between them which serves no purpose. Why have useless space between them? Why not make it transparent to the underlying content of the window, with the buttons as opaque layers on top of the content of the window? This can be combined with #9.
11. The UNIX power. Ok, this is broad. But what I mean by this is the vast vast vast vast array of command-line commands you see in UNIX-like OS' such as IRIX, *BSD, and *Linux. This is a feature all OS' should have.
12. The UNIX-stability/security. Again, obvious. But should be pretty self-explanatory. Unices have a reputation for being stable and secure.
13. The hardware/software support of Windows9x. This is something easier said than done. It basically happens over time. Linux is getting there, so is Apple. This would be a factor totally based off the quality of the OS, were not MS a monopoly. But, as it is, no good deed by companies competing with MS goes unpunished; no vile deed by MS unrewarded.
14. The ease of use of BeOS, Amiga, and Apple-OS. This is another general feature. But these OS' are widely reputed as being easy to use. I believe its because of the KISS (keep it simple stupid) philosophy. Of course, Apple has standards almost set in stone for GUI's. But as some simple guidelines, always consider what the function of your program is, and if extra features aid in that function? Does that neat-looking (self-promoting) logo in the corner really serve any useful function? Or is it just eye-candy, something to be shown off in screen-shots? Make sure every graphical feature, button, whatever, in your GUI/apps has a function, and aids in ease of use as much as possible. In short, critically evaluate everything.
15. Condensing functions. Condense the functions of several related buttons into one button. I.e., I created a nice, efficient, easy-to-use system for media-player buttons. Have a play/fast-forward/next-track/next-CD button, a reverse/rewind/previous-track/previous-CD button, and a pause/stop/eject/open button. In each case, the first function listed would be done by single left-clicking; the second function, by holding a single left-click; the third, by double left-clicking; and the fourth by right clicking. This allows you to compress what would be 9 buttons into 3 buttons. More efficient, easier to use (as less hand-motion, and more intuitively like an MP3-player), and less wasteful of space. This would be, of course, combined with #10 and #9.
16. Load-time, run-time, RAM, and hard-drive requirements. These are all the performance-related issues. I believe a few distinguished OS' represent excellence in these fields: IRIX, BeOS, Amiga-Classic, Amiga (the new Amiga), QNX, *BSD, and some Linux' (i.e., Slackware, Debian). The reason for such excellent performance offered by these OS' is a combination of factors: efficiency, minimalist philosophy, innovative architectures/ideas, etc. I won't go into details, but sufficed to say, developers should be considering factors such as HD-size, load-time (ESP LOAD TIME for most apps, nothing worse than waiting for ever), RAM (another biggie, don't want the OS taking up half of my RAM), and run-time (a biggie for apps which do any serious crunching, such as phylogeny apps, or DNA alignment apps). A comparison of various OS' in terms of tech-stats can be found here: http://maxlinux.hypermart.net/comp_chart.htm. It can be observed that IRIX wipes the floor with everything else in every category. 9 million terabytes as max file size?
17. Transparent features. This one's a bit touchy. It shouldn't be over-used. You need to be *very* selctive when using this feature...but it can be great for certain apps, like terminals or word-processors (Office products, Vi, Emacs), and for certain parts of apps (like configuration boxes, occasionally). Obviously, its idiotic to make the material of a web-browser or image-editor (semi)-transparent.
18. Aqua/glassy/smooth/gradiated stuff. Obviously, MacOSX has a great-looking GUI. It isn't just eye candy -- it really helps you easily distinguish features from one-another. Lets not give Apple too much credit here. They just "heard" what the consumers wanted. Everyone likes gradiated stuff, which is smooth. There was gradiation and shinyness long before OSX's Aqua theme.
19. Now, an annoying, but *sometimes* useful feature. "Animation" effects on menus or windows. I.e., a menu "scrolling" into place, or window fading away when minimized, rather than doing so instantaneously. All such effects should be quick, should be such as to indicate what's happening, and should be configurable and deactivatable.
20. Plug & play, automatic hardware recognition. Another DUH. Windows and Apple have accomplished this to near perfection by sheer brute force. QNX has a more clever method, which involved some kind of "detection algorithm" to detect hardware and optimize the OS to it. I think this is the way to go. I.e., have the OS "search" for say a graphics, CD, CD-RW, CD-DVD, DVD-R, printer, speaker, sound-card, networking, etc hardware. Then when it finds the (say) graphics card, let it explore various values of that card in a conservative way (starting from very low values that won't mess up any hardware) and gradually working up, using some benchmarking and stability tests to find the optimal settings.
21. Cross-platform compatability. Amiga has achieved this by using VP Assembly; thus, their OS can run on virtually any hardware. You need to bite the bullet on this one. The initial "performance" decrease may be compensated for by less overhang because the stuff your loading from the HD is smaller...furthermore, just improving ONE part -- the virtual machine -- increases performance of everything everywhere. Also, the "performance" u might initially lose is moret han made up for by the additional efficiency you can put into it by having more time to work on better algorithms/smoother interfaces, b/c u don't have to port.
What one group of researchers say doesn't make something the truth. On the other hands, just because we want to believe that the T-rex is the fast-moving creature featured in Jurassic Park doesn't make it true either.
I however, tend to believe that the T-Rex was a fast-moving creature. Perhaps not as fast as portrayed in Jurassic Park, but certainly fast enough to make a bald lawyer crap his pants and run to the bathroom, allowing his pants to fall down.
At least one piece of evidence suggests T-Rex was a very active animal -- at least amongst themselves. Bones of one discovered T-rex had large masks on them, the marks indicative of another T-rex's tooth.
But hey, two big slow creatures could bite eachother as well -- don't need to be fast for that.
Here's my basic plan:
1. Download the songs you want. Don't buy them. Try LimeWire, FastTrack (i.e., Morpheus, Grokster, KaZaa), WinMX, whatever. And don't whine about the "spyware" in LimeWire, you have the option not to install it; and if ur really concerned, go to the LimeWire directory and delete the **** u don't want. Btw, since LimeWire is open-sourced, u can modify it to your needs.
2. If you can't find the songs you want, go out and buy the CD. Make sure to check on the return policy. Preferrably, you want one of the new copy-protected CD's which they have to accept returns on. So, open up the CD try to play it on your computer. If it works on your computer, rip the music. If it doesn't work on your computer, play it on a CD-player, connect the output jack to your computers input, and rip it. In either case, after ripping it, return the CD to the store and say it didn't work. That way, you get it for free.
3. But what about the artists, oh the artists the artists? Well, when you buy a 15 dollar CD by Britney Spears, how much of that do you think goes to her? Maybe 5 dollars? Probably less. But lets be optimistic and say 5 dollars. So get the music for free via step 1 or step 2. If you get all 10 songs on her latest CD, that's 5 dollars that would have gone to her. So send her the money; hell, maybe even send her 10 dollars. You still spend less on the music than you would've, and she gets more. It eliminates the middle man. Then the RIAA can't whine about "how the musicians are getting screwed." No, now it would be only the companies that were getting screwed.
The settlement in my opinion clearly isn't strict enough. There's nothing that really prevents MS from continuing to abuse its powers.
/. decided to mod it down there...oh well, guess it was my fault for mistakenly posting under wrong article...but I could swear, that more than once /. directs me to the wrong article when I click on a link -- as if the links are cross-linked.
Furthermore, the adaptations proposed by the states are very reasonable, if only minimal requirments, to prevent further abuse. MS should be forced to sell OEM's a stripped-down version of Windows, and OEM's should have the right to remove any features they so desire. Furthermore, competitors -- including competing operating systems -- should be given the code to MS Windows so that they can ensure compliance and compatability with Windows. In other words, people making competing products to MS' IE, file-browser, e-mail prog, messenger prog, should have the ability to integrate and mesh those with Windows just as well and easily as MS can/does.
Additionally, restrictions should be placed on MS' use and development of the boot-loader.
Furthermore, provisions should be put into place to ensure that alternate OS' are represented at OEM stores -- such as *Linux, *BSD, BeOS, AmigaSDK, GNUstep, Hurd, etc -- so that the makers of other OS' have the ability to compete. The real reason MS dominates the market is because THEIR OS is installed in MOST OEM PC's, and OEM's WON'T install other OS'. If users had the option to have the OS of their choice installed, MS' dominance would be reduced. So MS should be forced to pay a fee to OEM's to allow them to display alternate OS' on systems in their stores.
Of course, the main thing is that they should force MS to open up the source code for all versions of Windows. That is, if they aren't going to break MS up, which would ALSO solve the problem.
PS -- I posted this message before, but mistakenly under the wrong topic. Some idiot who obviously doesn't pay any attention to the headliners in
The settlement in my opinion clearly isn't strict enough. There's nothing that really prevents MS from continuing to abuse its powers.
Furthermore, the adaptations proposed by the states are very reasonable, if only minimal requirments, to prevent further abuse. MS should be forced to sell OEM's a stripped-down version of Windows, and OEM's should have the right to remove any features they so desire. Furthermore, competitors -- including competing operating systems -- should be given the code to MS Windows so that they can ensure compliance and compatability with Windows. In other words, people making competing products to MS' IE, file-browser, e-mail prog, messenger prog, should have the ability to integrate and mesh those with Windows just as well and easily as MS can/does.
Additionally, restrictions should be placed on MS' use and development of the boot-loader.
Furthermore, provisions should be put into place to ensure that alternate OS' are represented at OEM stores -- such as *Linux, *BSD, BeOS, AmigaSDK, GNUstep, Hurd, etc -- so that the makers of other OS' have the ability to compete. The real reason MS dominates the market is because THEIR OS is installed in MOST OEM PC's, and OEM's WON'T install other OS'. If users had the option to have the OS of their choice installed, MS' dominance would be reduced. So MS should be forced to pay a fee to OEM's to allow them to display alternate OS' on systems in their stores.
Of course, the main thing is that they should force MS to open up the source code for all versions of Windows. That is, if they aren't going to break MS up, which would ALSO solve the problem.
PS -- I'd like to think I have the honor of being the first person to actually post an intelligent comment on this story, other than "First post here" or "Second post here". Some people really need to get a life.
A poorly worded argument by a person who more than likely has unclear thoughts on the matter.
Your examples are trivial and largely irrelevant. Pointing to a few examples where software, books, movies, whatever, isn't either obsolete or a non-seller (that is, sells in trivial quantities) after 5-20 years doesn't negate the fact that most are. Sure, UNIX has been at the heart of computing for the past several decades...but its not the same UNIX that was originally released from Bell Labs. That UNIX is long dead, and there's no reason why the code from that shouldn't be public domain. Same thing with Linux -- the Linux kernel available today differs significantly from that 5 years ago. MS Windows? Win95 and WinME were separated by 5 years, and have considerable differences beyond the GUI. No reason why Win95 shouldn't be public domain now.
Sure, there are some books which sell for decades, even hundreds, of years after their release in significant numbers. But MOST DON'T. And even for those that do, an author and (after he's dead) his family shouldn't be able to profit for a hundred+ years on somewthing which only took a few years to create. No significant extra incentive is provided to authors by promising them life +75 years profit -- certainly not enough to offset the loss the public suffers from these works being controlled and unavailable to everyone.
Your arguments that the "family" deserve to profit off of an artists work is ridiculous. Holding IP is like a title, a position. If I'm a professor at a university, I have the right to that position, but not the right to pass it onto my son -- who doesn't deserve it and didn't work for it -- after I'm dead. An author's "family" did not create his work, thus they don't deserve to hold the work's IP rights. America is, aside from a democracy, largely a meritocracy.
As for "registration" for copyrights, patents, etc, who said it has to be expensive? The costs of registration could be paid for by the state. Registration IS necessary for copyrights, because copyrights are intended to cover ORIGINAL work. Under the current system, everything you say or write is automatically copyrigthed...that's obsurd. I shouldn't be able to say some quick catchy phrase like, "We are all slowly, but surely, dying," copyright it and then sue someone else who says or writes that. The idea of registration is to prevent people from trying to fraudulently copyright things which aren't original works, or which are trivial/insignificant.
As for your talk of "living off 2cents a copy from your works," you misunderstand my argument. I never said any such thing. What I said is that artists should be able to profit -- for the alotted time -- off of their works, but not to control how their works are used. Compensation without control. Authors, for example, would be compensated for people who obtained their books, or read their books on TV, but would not have the right to prevent anyone from using their work in any way, so long as they were compensated.
You should also note that while having works transfer to the public domain quicker, while not allowing artists to capture the full market value of their works, also alleviates them from expenditures they would have to make themselves. True, they wouldn't be able to profit off of books for more than 15-20 years; but they would also have free access to any book of such age. The cost to them is more than made up for by the fact that they'd have less restricted, free access to much more information. But from your arguments, it seems like you think that artists and their families "deserve" to be compensated for an infinite period of time (practically speaking, from the authors pov, as he dies) for a work which took a finite amount of time and effort to create. This is clearly nonsense. If a woodsman carves a fine chest, which is artful and beatiful, that took a finite period of time to make; like in the case of a writer, it also took some creative license. The woodsman does not get to profit off of the chair forever; he gets to sell it once and that's it. There's no reason to elevate artists above working society such that they get paid the rest of their lives for work which took perhaps a year to create.
For your clarification, let me post my suggestions for IP-protection terms for inventions, books, music, movies, and software.
1. Software. Copyright should last 5 years. This allows the developer plenty of time to make a significant profit off of his program, and also puts the program in the public domain at a time in which it still has relevance and is not an artifact useful only for "educational purposes".
2. Music. Copyright should last 10 years. This allows the muscician plenty of time to make a significant profit off of his music, and also puts the music in the public domain at a time when most people can still easily relate to it.
3. Movies. Copyright protection should last 10 years. This allows the movie-producers plenty of time to make a significant profit off of their movie, and also puts the movie in the public domain at a time when it will still be culturally relevant.
4. Books. Copyright protection should last 20 years. This allows the author plenty of time to make a significant profit off of his book, and also puts the book in public domain at a time when it will still be culturally relevant to most people.
5. Inventions. Patent protection should be afforded to individuals who actually invent something; there should not be patents on "life forms". Nor should corporate raiders in the US be able to patent something that was pioneered by indigenous peoples, but which the corporations contributed nothing to. Limited patent protection should last 15 years, and should be strict in its granting. Every trivial invention that comes along does not deserve a patent. Business methods do not deserve patents. Furthermore, patents should account for alternate and independant invention. Patents should not be awarded which give an inventor the rights over any invention whihc accomplishes a specific ends, only over his particular implementation. Patents should also recognize the rights of "second comers". Many people may be working on a particular way to do something; just because one person comes up with a solution a day before the other 9 doesn't mean the other 9 should be locked out.
6. Combination works. Any work somehow combining any combination of the aforementioned should be protected piecemiel.
7. The year by year exention plank, up to a maximum of 50% more time. If the owner of an IP work can show that they still make significant profits off of their work (i.e., perhaps 10% of the selling volume from the first year released), then they can get a yearly renewable exention.
Remember, in the beginning, intellectual property protection as established by the Founding Fathers only last 14 years. There's nothing wrong with short protection terms; nor do they decrease innovation. Rather, they increase it by reducing the cost of entry...artists/inventors have a larger public-domain pool to draw from in making their work when shorter terms exist. Furthermore, short terms force creators to create more. One-time-wonders can't make money the rest of their lives off of one book, song, whatever; they have to continue producing things, continue working for most of their lives, just like the average person does.
Typical ignorant response from someone brainwashed by the IP system.
In response to "Software isn't obsolete in 5 years"
Of course it is. Windows 95? Garbage. Same with Windows 98. Tombraider? May still be fun, but obsolete and not a seller. Descent 3, one of the best game ever? Obsolete, not a seller anymore. As for UNIX, its original IDEA is still in USE today. The original UNIX has long been dead. Btw, had anyone tried to patent UNIX back then, like they would today, the vast vast innovation done on UNIX through IRIX, AIX, HP-TRU, OSX, BSD, Linux, etc etc, would NOT have occured. My argument isn't that "no one buys it" after 5 years -- just that the sales are drastically reduced; your examples are meaningless. Thus, its the right time to have IP wear off. Furthermore, having it wear off after 5 years allows the software in public domain to contribute to modern projects in some useful way. Remember, IP is a system designed with the PUBLIC INTEREST in mind -- to promote maximum progress, and to GIVE BACK to the public in exchange for them protecting author's IP with THEIR tax dollars.
As for your example of classic books, again, same thing. Yes, they're great books -- but not sellers. Besides, the goal of IP is NOT to allow authors (or their relatives) to profit off of ONE work indefinately, but to provide an incentive for authors to create. I suggest a 10-20 year protection on books, as they lose selling power slower than other IP...this gives the authors plenty of time to recover the cost of investment, and obtain some profit. After that time, it then falls into the public domain, and the PUBLIC is repaid for their TAX dollars being used to protect an authors Intellectual Property PRIVILEDGES. Furthermore, the fact that the book enters the public domain soon after released, means it is still very much clearly culturally relevant: in other words, of maximal utility.
Remember, original "intellectual property rights" last 14 years. Not life + 75 years. Remember, the SOLE purpose of IP is to promote progress. Progress means that the public needs to get free access to ideas after a brief and reasonable period of time.
What rubbish, especially the part about how fixed rate royalties is communism. You might as well argue in favor of information-fascism.
Your fulla shit. Clearly, you don't understand the intellectual property system. An individual has no more "right" to intellectual property than (s)he would to welfare -- its a *priviledge*, alotted to people for the purposes of furthering societal progress.
Society agrees to ensure that creators get paid for the use of their creation for a *limited time*; in return, it is EXPECTED by society, which is paying taxes to support IP, that certain fair-use rights will be preserved while that protection ensues, and that after a limited time the work will transfer to the public domain.
Congress continually retroactively and proactively extending IP-terms violates this agreement.
Furthermore, the author being able to prevent certain people from using their work violates that agreement. A more resaonable system would be where the author/creator/programmer has no right to control whether or not people can use his software nor how they use it but is entitled licensing or royalty fees. This is what Lessig proposes.
Again, let me correct you in your deluded attempt to assert that people should have IP-rights in the same sense they have property-rigths. IP is NOT physical property. If I say something to my friend, I have no right to prevent him from repeating it to everyone else. Once an idea/invention/whatever leaves your mouth, you have no right to control whether or not people repeat/distribute it -- that's a violation of their free speech rights. But for a limited time [i.e., 5 years for software (as software is obsolete after that time), 10 years for music (as no one buys 10 year old music), 10 years for movies, 10-15 years for books, and 10-15 years for patents (NO patents on "business models", btw)] authors should be able to get royalties off of the use of their work, but not be allowed to control its use. The royalties should be fixed rate.
(1) Most importantly, the advertisements are still unobtrusive, text-based, clearly marked as advertisements. In google, unlike other search engines and "free services", most of the bandwidth you use to download the page is used for downloading useful information, not ads. No banner-ads, no ads which make the page colossal and unwieldly to download even for a broadband user.
(2) Ads are still positioned strategically. If you type in "Mercedes Benz", you get text-based ads which are relevant to Mercedes Benz, not some little porno-ad or something else unrelated to what your looking for. The unified, integrated browsing experience is preserved.
However, on the down-side, their ads still more "get your attention" ads than informative ones. For example, the Mercedes Benz ad is:
"MERCEDES BENZ - Get FREE Price Quotes on New & Used Cars - Click HERE!"
Right away, the capital letters make it difficult to read and seem like a cheap spam-scam e-mail you get. This isn't really google's fault, but that of the people who pay them to put their text-based ads there. So it fall on us, and google, to educate them.
While these flashy things may work on the stupid user, most people on the Internet aren't stupid. Lets qualify that -- most people don't stay stupid. Everyone starts out stupid. Most people reading this probably followed through on a few of the too-good-to-be-true SPAM e-mails which promised free-mojo or whatever. But after a few times of being duped on the internet, people realize that anything on the internet which talks of getting anything "FREE" is usually: (1) an outright lie; (2) a scam; (3) qualified in some way...(i.e., the "free" adult sites which want you to submit your credit card number, when you don't want to do that). There are a few exceptions, such as "Free" software. But most users can eventualloy tell a real "free" deal from a scam. Usually, the difference is that people who are really giving something away for free -- whether it be free porn, free books, free music, or fee software -- don't flaunt it.
Furthermore, even if these ads fool people into clicking on them, that's as far as it goes; once people realize there is no free deal, they leave.
Now, of course advertisements have to have the effect of drawing your attention to them. But they also have to have the effect of saying something meaningful about the product, which can be interpretted by the user. HINT: saying "GREAT DEAL ON NEW COMPUTER" doesn't tell me a thing, except that its probably NOT a great deal. Something like, "Gateway 2GHz computer for $1000" does tell me something. Also, quit it with the $999.99 thing.
In short, advertisers have to stop treating us like we're dumb. Because while most people who start out on the internet are dumb, they wise up quick. Now, to illustrate, let me create 3 advertising examples and critique them.
1: The typical "we-the-advertisers-think-your-fucking-dumb" ad.
"GREAT BUY! GREAT DEAL ON GATEWAY COMPUTER! MUST CLICK !NOW! TO GET IT!!"
Note, the fact that the ad tells us almost nothing about the product they want us to buy, except that its a computer and we supposedly get a good deal on it. This ad is clearly aimed towards stupid people. And whether or you do get a great deal, the impression I get from this type of ad is that its not a great deal and they're trying to fuck me up the ass. Also notice the use of ALL CAPS and !EXCLAMATION POINTS! in this ad. Two more indicators of a useless ad.
2: The ad that tries to inform the novice user.
"Get a Gateway computer with a color-printer, CD-writer, DVD-player, and scanner for $1000"
This ad doesn't list any real specifics -- just stuff that's usually standard. But it does tell you the price, and some of the accessories you get. This is something that might be valuable for a novice, who's probably looking for a "well-rounded" system, and can't really comprehend fine details like MHz, RAM, rpm, etc. Those type of details would simply confuse the novice.
3: The ad aimed at the knowledgeable user.
"Gateway computer with 2GHz CPU, 512MB DDR RAM, 2x40GB 10,000rpm SCSI hard drives, 128MB Quadro-4 GPU, and standard accessories for $1000"
Now, this ad clearly tells the intelligent user something: namely, alot of details which really tell you how good of a system it is. This type of ad is very useful to knowledgeable browser. Of course, its useless to someone who doesn't know what a GHz is, or what rpm is. Its also useless to someone who doesn't know what is good for these types of values. Even advanced users have difficulty comparing the "speeds" of different computers in MHz'. For example, if you want the best CPU, do you get a MIPS CPU used by SGI which runs at 600MHz, or an AMD 1.9GHz MP CPU? Well, most of us probably know that the MIPS is better, but that's just out of experience or hear-say. We can't really quantify it.
Summarizing it all, in short, the best types of ads are #2 and #3, the worst #1. It is reasonable that ads should combine #2 and #3.
In response to:
"What if I didn't want you to use an image that I created or paid to have created for your purposes?"
That's the way the net is. People use other people's images all the time. To prohibit them from doing so would destroy the net as we know it, destroy and hinder its usefulness.
"What if I especially didn't want my bandwidth ate up serving the image to people for your purpose?"
But I use your bandwidth when I visit your website anyways. And by allowing ppl just to get the relevant image they want, I'm actually saving you bandwidth, b/c your server doesn't have to upload the whole web-page, just one image.
"Do you complain about being required to cite your references when you take information from other people?"
No, I don't. And I do cite references. The net does this automatically. If I use an image from your page on my site, linking specifically to that image, then right clicking on it and going to properties or whatever will tell you the source of the image, hence where it came from.
And if the government enforces such contracts which prohibit me from saying something, or force me to say something, then the government is telling me what I can or cannot say.
Yes, but imo there's something shady about NDA contracts.
They mean the company doesn't want the public to know something.
Perhaps their product is dangerous, or minimally viable; perhaps their business practices are questionable.
But in the specific case mentioned, McAfee trying to prohibit its users from posting reviews about its products...this is dangerous. They're clearly trying to hide critical info from the public: obviously, their product doesn't work.
No, you don't grasp the scope of the idea. Its not just about minor display issues, like bold or italics.
Its about general page layout.
Under my system, TITLE would tell the browser something is a title, and provide tagger information for that title. Then, based on my preferences, the browser would decide where to place the title, what size to make it, what color, whether or not to outline it, and if it wanted to put a background behind it.
As an example, when typing this comment, I notice that above it there is a line which says, "Post Comment" in white, and then has a brown bar extending to near the right end of the page. Under my system, the code would say, (in effect), "Section header "Post Comment" with background bar"...and then my browser, based on my pref., would choose what color/size/font to make "Post Comment" and what color to make the background bar, or if to rescale a repeatable image horizontally to make the bar.
as a supplementary to my remarks on controlling web-page layout through user-preference, another possible way to achieve this would be to allow each user visiting a website to create a completely customized website, by creating a "user preferences" profile w/c would be stored on the site's server.
However, this is suboptimal for several reasons.
(1) It allows possibilities of privacy violations.
(2) It violates the principle of end-to-end. Control and intelligence would be centralized in networks, rather than at the ends. This is precisely the type of thing which the internet's early "creators" did well to avoid, because avoiding such allowed vast flexibility.
So, according to this case, if I provide a link from my website to a relevant image from your website, but without the content around it (i.e., a link to just a certain image from your stie), that's a violation?
p onses: "XYZ". Where # indicates the articles # in the typical order in the site; type is the type of article, such as Your Rights Online; #character, the number of characters in the portion of the thing displayed on the main page; size-of-all-responses indicates the net amount of words of all the responses added together; and #responses indicates the # of responses to the article.
If my users need a specific image from your site, why should they have to download the image, which they need, and all that surrounds it, which they don't? The net shouldn't be slowed down by such nonsense. Also, your server bandwidth is wasted because your server has to upload the image which they want, along w/ alotta stuff they don't.
What about Google.com's image searcher, which allows images from sites displayed in-frame? What if I want to include an image from your website in my site, but just that image, and in a specific place? Why should the efficiency of the net be hindered by having the same information stored in different places, when need not be? (Of course, some would argue this is a virtue, as redundancy reduces vulnerability to data-loss).
The simple fact is, the internet should not be allowed to be harmed by IP laws. Such rulings diminish and reduce the usefulness of the internet, its functionality, even its it ideology.
This brings me to a suggestion I was thinking of for quite some time regarding the net. Why should web-publishers dictate to users HOW they view information? Why should they have to bother? What I propose is a system whereby information is transmitted in groups, packeted, its layout not completely controlled. For example, take slashot. Under my system, the web-publisher would write something like (in pseudocode)
TITLE: "XYZ".
SUBJECT #,type,date,#character,size-of-all-responses,#res
Etc.
You guys get the point. Instead of dictating to users the exact layout of sites, sites would give them information about the sections of the sites, and individual's browsers would CHOOSE how to display them, based on the user's preferences. I haven't attempted to explain this idea to its limits, but the possibilities are endless. Its representative of the true nature of the internet: minimal control.
In response to:
"What do you think an NDA is?"
In a word: Unconstitutional.
McCafee software protects users against virus'.
For computerize life, virus protection IS life or death.
Furthermore, in corporations, or even privately, information may be worth thousands of dollars, or countless hours of time. If its destroyed by a virus, that is very serious.
As serious as life or death? No. But its a question of magnitude, not type. This issue is simply a scaled down issue of those. If its wrong in those cases, scaling down shows its wrong in this case, because its different in scale (magnitude), not type.
Imagine if this was a drug, and the company line was, "You can't post critical comments about our drug, even if it almost kills you"?
Or an automobile, and you can't post critical comments about it, even if the airbag doesn't work?
Or a fire-alarm, and you can't post critical comments about it even if it doesn't alarm when there's a fire and causes your hosue to burn down?
This is plainly ludicrous. The public has the right to know if a product works, as well as both its pro's and con's.
Software -- *especially* McAfee's anti-virus software -- should be no different. We have the right to know if it actually protects us from viruses, and how well.
The fact that McAfee doesn't want to allow people to post revies of their product begs the question. What's wrong with this product? If its good, worth its salt, why don't they want people posting reviews of it?
The obvious answer is it doesn't work. I haven't used it, but its a safe bet that it doesn't work. In some critical way, its flawed.
And they don't want the public to find out about that.
No, McAfee does not have the right to prevent the public from finding about the flaws of their product. No, individual's can't sell away their free-speech right by a click-through EULA.
You clearly know not what your saying.
An individual can't sign away his/her rights in a contract.
Just like I can't sign myself into slavery by a contract, I can't sign away my free-speech rights by a contract.
(1) Companies should be warned of an audit ahead of time.
(2) Should a "raid" be conducted on a company, the BSA should not be present. The BSA is not the government and has no business on official law business.
(3) The closeness of the BSA to federal law agencies is troubling. It seems like they say "Check them out" and the Feds check them out. A money-gribing organization shouldn't have that much influence on federal law enforcement.
(4) Companies shouldn't have to prove anything. They shouldn't have to prove they have legit software. The BSA should have to prove -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- that the companies don't have legit software. The principle of beyond a reasonable doubt shouldn't be disconsidered just because its a civil suit and not a criminal case. The reason we assume innocence until proven otherwise in a crminal case is because the state has vastly more resources than the individual, and its difficult to "prove" your innocent. The same should be true in lawsuits (where the filing party has vastly more resources, at least).
(5) Companies found to have pirated software should only have to pay the cost of the software, OR should have the option of forfeiting the software (that is, removing it from their system). Lets face it, in hard money, no software company loses ANYTHING when a someone pirates their software if they weren't going to buy it otherwise.
(6) I'm not a fan of intellectual property anyways. I think all current types of IP should be scaled back to five years, and their scope should be drastically reduced; but that's another story.
The next big internet revolution....will be when everyone acts as their own server. People have complained alot about how the free nature of the net has been corrupted, and how you can only get widely distributed/heard if your affiliated.
But the day is coming where everyone will be able to use their own computer to act as a server.
These are my observations:
(1) Broadband is only getting broader. Despite the fact that the people at Global Crossings are greedy bastards who should be shot for selling out their shareholds by declaring bankruptcy, they did layout a global fiber-optics network. As more and more fiber-optics networks are built, the net will only get faster.
(2) CPU's are only getting faster. Moores law still holds, a doubling of computer speed every 18 months, or a 1.5x increase every year. Currently, the fastest desktop computers run at about 2GHz...applying Moore's Law, in 10 years, computers will operate at 2 * (1.5^10) = 115GHz. That is, 57 times faster than the fastest today. Now, unless software developers like MS really drop the Ball on software, software shouldn't be 57 times slower in ten years (running on todays machines). OS' are basically already as graphically complex as they need be: Apple's OS X, BeOS' GUI, some of Linux's GUI's (i.e., Nautilis), and even Windows are already as graphically adequate as they need be...all that's needed is some fine tuning.
(3) Hard drives and RAM technology is only getting faster, as well. Not at quite the rate of CPU's, but still getting faster. Not to mention, getting larger.
(4) For the same performance, all of these technologies are getting cheaper.
(5) Information isn't getting larger. Movies are still usually 3hrs max; music, normally 10min max, perhaps 1hr if its a symphony; books, usually under 2,000 pages; scientific papers or review articles, usually under 100 pages; the typical graphic, usually 200 Kb. Granted, some type of supplemental information ARE getting "larger"; as technology develops, scientists, for example, may start including not only "Figures" in their papers on Journals, but also links to entire videos, perhaps of them explaining something, perhaps of a process observed under a microscope, perhaps of their entire experiments; similarly, games are getting "larger". But on average, the size of information is either not growing at all, or not growing rapidly. Most importantly, the rate at which the size the average type of information grows over time is not as large as the rate at which computer technology gets faster and larger.
(6) All OS' are getting better in (almost) all categories. Some are getting better at an extraordinary pace (like Linux). Some are already great and are simply fine-tuning in their respective areas of excellence (*BSD, BeOS, AmigaSDK). Some are good and are getting better in their GUI's at a medium pace (i.e., MacOS). One is pretty bad, though it has a huge software and hardware base, and is getting better in technical areas (though worse at choice/privacy issues, which may yet be corrected by the governhment) at a snail's pace: MS Windows. This is, of course, a generalization. OS's tend to get bettter in that they have more features, are easier to use, are more stable, and are more secure. Of coruse, they invariably get worse in performance and bloat. By getting worse in performance, I mean that considering the performance:features ratio, they're worse. By bloat, I also refer to that, and that they include *unnecessary* features (such as Windows "Guide" M&M's or whatever those round things are with faces that your supposed to ask questions to when u have problems). The problem of bloat and performance can of course be solved by applying pressure to developers : Namely, we don't want more useless features, we want you to correct the problems that exist and make it faster/smaller.
These are my conclusions:
(1) Many people will start using their own computers as servers from which to supply their own information to the world. No large fees will be required to do this, no corporate affiliation. This will be the major revolution. People will be able to publish content without censoreship from parent sites. Eventually, with a little bit of help from the government, people will be able to act as their own ISP's, should the government open up the cable lines.
Of course, as Lawrence Lessig pointed out, there are some problems with this. Cable service providers, likely a large part of the future of ISPs, don't have open cable-lines. They effectively have monopolies and no competition; its the opposite situation of the telephone lines, which have to be open. The Cable lines should be forced to be opened, just like the telephone lines were.
(2) The cost of getting space from official servers will be cheaper.
The next net-revolution will be a wave of personal publication from one's own computers, self-servicing in regards to getting on the net, which will (however) take longer. For the self-servicing part, people would be allowed to buy a certain portion of the bandwidth from a company for a certain price/year, without any regulation from the company, because you wouldn't be offering your info from their servers, but from your own "server".
First, let me say that alot of what Mr. Katz says is true.
1. The worst part. Corporations have bastardized the current net, making it largely a medium through which they can continue ****ing their consumers up the a**.
2. The somewhat troublesome part. Filtering/blocking/etc. I see the point he's making, that increased filtering technologies allows us to close of all viewpoints except those that we agree with. That is one potential use. Another potential use is simply to block out the junk: the scam-advertisements you see on every page, the SPAM-scam e-mails you get, website popups that always ask you, "Do you want Flash 5.0" (NO! FU very much. Flash bites and is nothing more than a fancy way for them to shove their pornographic scam ads in my face!). I think that most people don't use filtering technology to block out views they disagree with, but rather to block out stuff that's pure nonsense. On the other hand, moderation technology IS used to block out views you don't agree with. How many of you here have moderated someone down because they supported intellectual property? This could be solved by making moderation more complex: i.e., a questionare about ea. comment: (1) Well written? (2) Concise? (3) Elegant? (4) Funny? (5) Regarding authoritarian/libertarian, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the most Libertarian, 10 being the most authoritarian, how would you rate it? (6) Regarding conservative/liberal, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the most Liberal, 10 the most Conservative, how would you rate it? (7) etc etc. No questions aside from well-written/concise/elegant/funny, would directly mod up or down. Ideological questions would mark messages with different color codes or symbols for different ideologies; some user settings would have it such that those were modded up or down.
3. The part that doesn't trouble me much. Pornography. Well, some kinds of it. There are two types of pornography: (1) Free pornography, largely done by amateurs, or posted on news-groups. This usually includes minimal advertisements or popups, and doesn't ask for your credit card. (2) Commercialized pornography. This usually gives you fifteen zillion pop-ups, lots of ads, and asks for your credit card number. Also, most of these are frauds; you give them your credit card number, they take your money, and then your left with either no pictures, or crappy ones. Type (1) pornography is ok. Type (2) pornography is not ok -- it decreases the utility of the net, and makes the entire net slower. Of course, there's also the "brands" of porn (i.e., SM, lesbian, hard-core, soft-core, artsy, child). Some of these may be objectionable, but the only one's for which objection is seriously warranted (smut, rape, child, where it actually came from such an incidence) are cases where the damage has already been done.
There are others, but I won't go into them.
Regarding the first and worst, the corporatization of the net. I believe there are ways to maintain the net's functionality while still allowing corporations to communicate info about their products. Google espouts one of thsoe ways -- specialized text-based ads that show up when certain searches are done. The thing that isn't compatable is banner ads, which probably account for most of what you d/l when you go to a page, as well as clogging up the net.