Actually I think you're going to see a shift from the "Sacred Cow" to the "Well-regarded Gnu". What this means for Indian dietary restrictions is anyone's guess.
Since it only has 4 buttons instead of 6, a lot of games for the palm pilot are not going to work properly on this thing. Maybe you could play zap2000! by remapping the power button (!) to fire and neglecting key number 6, but at the very least it'll be a pain.
If this thing is for consumers, games are important.
So since I can't possibly understand these laws, i don't have to follow them right? I mean, since I wouldn't know the difference between following them and not following them anyway.
Whoever moderated this as a troll needs to read it again. I assure you I am not taking an adversarial position to provoke reaction from unsuspecting posters as a troll would. I think you have to interpret anything our interviewee says with a giant grain of salt to the extent that he is unlikely to jeopardize his chances of parole/early release/whatever, so you can expect him to be less than candid about his real feelings about idea ownership. Perhaps our dear moderator presumed that because I believe information sharing should not be illegal that I must be a troll, but I hope others will think a little harder before clicking 'moderate', because I think this is a very important point.
He has an obvious conflict of interest, namely that he will want to appear sincerely repentant when it comes time for parole hearings and what not. I think it's safe to assume that he doesn't really feel that way, and the only reason he's saying it is because he's being caged like a laboratory animal for sharing information.
This is some logically inconsistent FUD. Either there's nothing to worry about because no one wants to embrace/extend GPL code, and the paranoia is harmless, or evildoers actually do want to embrace/extend/steal it, and the so-called paranoia turns out to be well-justified anticipation of unethical/amoral business practices.
It's just that this time it's between Disney and Congress.
The fact that we have to expend so much time and effort just to get the legal system to recognize such an obvious injustice points back to the fact that the government is in need of fundamental reform. Get the money out of campaigns and the courts would never have to entertain such a travesty.
You don't have to install linux on all the desktops. When the representative from Microsoft or the BSA comes around next week, just make sure they see and hear about your linux trial run on 10% of your desktops with openoffice and evolution!
If you are backed into a corner, you need bargaining power. Even if it's not what your company needs, it's a powerful, low cost bluff, and your business associates should be able to understand that.
I suggest you call a meeting.
Oh, and do be sure and get feedback on your trial run anyway, even if it's just a ruse:)
Regarding TJ, yes, I oversimplified. However, as you know, today's patent office fails to recognize the distinction. And you did not speak at all to the claim that algorithms are more like ideas than implementations anyway.
Regarding the guarantee of profit, you are working from a very narrow mindset. I don't want to "find my own"..."implementation and patent it". Patents reduced the flexibility inventors have to make progress. Not only do I think I shouldn't, I don't think anyone should. It's like property rights over air or sunlight. If someone spends a lot of money developing a system to privatize the air in Pennsylvania so you couldn't breathe without a license, screw them- they spent their money on something that was going to mess with the commons, and far from being rewarded for their cash outlay they should be punished for attempting to steal our air. The fertile ground of the scientific exchange of ideas is not, admittedly, such an urgent every day need as air for most people, but the principle is the same. A patent robs people of 17 years worth of scientific advancement in the name of profit, and it's wrong.
If you want to use an algorithm developed by someone else, at great expense, you follow their rules.
Oh please.
That boils down to "If you want to develop your own algorithm, you'd better make sure it has nothing in common with a million others developed at "great expense" or else follow their rules," which is an amazing hindrance to innovation. Furthermore, algorithms are mathematical constructs and should not be owned any more than arithmetical constructions can be owned.
And you have to be a constitutional scholar to interpret the constitution?? What is this, a secret priesthood where the word of god is written on stone tablets that only the scribes can interpret? Constitutional theorists spend their lives thinking about fine points and hard cases, but this ain't one of 'em. The intention and spirit of the references to the LIMITED monopoly over ideas in the constitution is clear enough for any of us who are bound to follow it to understand.
What's hard to understand is how money could have so thoroughly corrupted such a well-intentioned process.
You seem overly concerned with making sure people who spend a lot of money make a profit, and not nearly concerned enough that the intellectual commons of our society is not plundered by teh interests of capital.
But what about the coffee shop coupons? I think you'd want to have a site that paid subscribers could visit to take advantage of the local-network deals.
Here's one last zinger- what if instead of internet access, you just got local network access? What if there were such networks everywhere, connecting to each other? How about a high-latency completlely rebuilt internet?
RedHat having their great "unified" desktop won't make Photoshop run on it,
Think about that for a minute. Part of the reason that software vendors are loath to enter the linux desktop market is because there is so little standardization and they don't want to have to support 50 different ways of launching a program. Standardization makes it easier to guarantee that the software you'd like to distribute will work. The LSB is moving towards making that possible at the developer level, but having the biggest commercial distro standardize on a desktop will help to make the user interface less of a moving target.
But there's another point worth considering- the original source in many of these photography situations is *you* and/or your family- just like nike can't run a commercial with Michael Jordan without talking to (and no doubt paying) him first, you should own the rights to pictures of you by default, which is not to say that the photographer can't share those rights, only that she can't exclude you from them.
No no no, they're not cheating you, you're cheating them by scaling your fees according to something other than the actual cost of reproduction plus a reasonable markup. Instead, photographers should sell the scarce part (scene setup, high-res pictures, whatever) for what it's worth, and sell the reproduction services separately for what they are worth, which is almost certainly less.
Perhaps the issue is not that people want to screw such an "honest, hard working" individual as yourself. It's that the world is changing faster than your pricing plan can keep up with it.
As an aside, does it bother you when your eye doctor tries to keep your prescription so you can't buy glasses/contacts from anyone else? Is this any different?
As much as we live in a virtual world nowadays, humans still like shiny material things they can hold in their hands. Hard to see how a timelocked file can overcome that urge to "own".:^)
Which is especially funny when you consider that the newspeak for "purchase" in Hollywood is "Own it today!"
They aren't scared of copying, they're scared of people making their own stuff and not paying the industry taxes to get it made and distributed.
I actually don't believe this. But it sells *very* well. You've nicely encapsulated a way to describe a problem with the current copyright system without being forced to defend "piracy" (I share your reservations about that terminology).
I think closer to the truth is that the copyright industries truly are worried about copying as well as losing control, and that they're worried about the former more than the latter because it's the more immediate threat.
Anyway, althoguh I quibble about the details, I think your story is the rhetorical "goodcop" that the struggle for information freedom needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I think you're going to see a shift from the "Sacred Cow" to the "Well-regarded Gnu". What this means for Indian dietary restrictions is anyone's guess.
Since it only has 4 buttons instead of 6, a lot of games for the palm pilot are not going to work properly on this thing. Maybe you could play zap2000! by remapping the power button (!) to fire and neglecting key number 6, but at the very least it'll be a pain.
If this thing is for consumers, games are important.
Well, we tried, but his brother runs Florida. What's Canada's excuse? :)
The next step is obviously the world's first sexually transmitted computer virus.
So since I can't possibly understand these laws, i don't have to follow them right? I mean, since I wouldn't know the difference between following them and not following them anyway.
Whoever moderated this as a troll needs to read it again. I assure you I am not taking an adversarial position to provoke reaction from unsuspecting posters as a troll would. I think you have to interpret anything our interviewee says with a giant grain of salt to the extent that he is unlikely to jeopardize his chances of parole/early release/whatever, so you can expect him to be less than candid about his real feelings about idea ownership. Perhaps our dear moderator presumed that because I believe information sharing should not be illegal that I must be a troll, but I hope others will think a little harder before clicking 'moderate', because I think this is a very important point.
He has an obvious conflict of interest, namely that he will want to appear sincerely repentant when it comes time for parole hearings and what not. I think it's safe to assume that he doesn't really feel that way, and the only reason he's saying it is because he's being caged like a laboratory animal for sharing information.
paranoid legal force like the GPL
This is some logically inconsistent FUD. Either there's nothing to worry about because no one wants to embrace/extend GPL code, and the paranoia is harmless, or evildoers actually do want to embrace/extend/steal it, and the so-called paranoia turns out to be well-justified anticipation of unethical/amoral business practices.
It's just that this time it's between Disney and Congress.
The fact that we have to expend so much time and effort just to get the legal system to recognize such an obvious injustice points back to the fact that the government is in need of fundamental reform. Get the money out of campaigns and the courts would never have to entertain such a travesty.
Read my .sig please.
I think it's a sign that we need to go to war with a country with a more enlightened intellectual property policy.
And lose.
You don't have to install linux on all the desktops. When the representative from Microsoft or the BSA comes around next week, just make sure they see and hear about your linux trial run on 10% of your desktops with openoffice and evolution!
:)
If you are backed into a corner, you need bargaining power. Even if it's not what your company needs, it's a powerful, low cost bluff, and your business associates should be able to understand that.
I suggest you call a meeting.
Oh, and do be sure and get feedback on your trial run anyway, even if it's just a ruse
Regarding TJ, yes, I oversimplified. However, as you know, today's patent office fails to recognize the distinction. And you did not speak at all to the claim that algorithms are more like ideas than implementations anyway.
Regarding the guarantee of profit, you are working from a very narrow mindset. I don't want to "find my own"..."implementation and patent it". Patents reduced the flexibility inventors have to make progress. Not only do I think I shouldn't, I don't think anyone should. It's like property rights over air or sunlight. If someone spends a lot of money developing a system to privatize the air in Pennsylvania so you couldn't breathe without a license, screw them- they spent their money on something that was going to mess with the commons, and far from being rewarded for their cash outlay they should be punished for attempting to steal our air. The fertile ground of the scientific exchange of ideas is not, admittedly, such an urgent every day need as air for most people, but the principle is the same. A patent robs people of 17 years worth of scientific advancement in the name of profit, and it's wrong.
If you want to use an algorithm developed by someone else, at great expense, you follow their rules.
Oh please.
That boils down to "If you want to develop your own algorithm, you'd better make sure it has nothing in common with a million others developed at "great expense" or else follow their rules," which is an amazing hindrance to innovation. Furthermore, algorithms are mathematical constructs and should not be owned any more than arithmetical constructions can be owned.
And you have to be a constitutional scholar to interpret the constitution?? What is this, a secret priesthood where the word of god is written on stone tablets that only the scribes can interpret? Constitutional theorists spend their lives thinking about fine points and hard cases, but this ain't one of 'em. The intention and spirit of the references to the LIMITED monopoly over ideas in the constitution is clear enough for any of us who are bound to follow it to understand.
What's hard to understand is how money could have so thoroughly corrupted such a well-intentioned process.
You seem overly concerned with making sure people who spend a lot of money make a profit, and not nearly concerned enough that the intellectual commons of our society is not plundered by teh interests of capital.
That's a *fantastic* idea.
But what about the coffee shop coupons? I think you'd want to have a site that paid subscribers could visit to take advantage of the local-network deals.
Here's one last zinger- what if instead of internet access, you just got local network access? What if there were such networks everywhere, connecting to each other? How about a high-latency completlely rebuilt internet?
RedHat having their great "unified" desktop won't make Photoshop run on it,
Think about that for a minute. Part of the reason that software vendors are loath to enter the linux desktop market is because there is so little standardization and they don't want to have to support 50 different ways of launching a program. Standardization makes it easier to guarantee that the software you'd like to distribute will work. The LSB is moving towards making that possible at the developer level, but having the biggest commercial distro standardize on a desktop will help to make the user interface less of a moving target.
Actually, it's an awful lot like giving the sound technician who records your album all the rights to your original songs.
"Sorry, I can't release your music on CD Mr. Springstein, someone might copy it."
Ew.
the work for hire point is good
But there's another point worth considering- the original source in many of these photography situations is *you* and/or your family- just like nike can't run a commercial with Michael Jordan without talking to (and no doubt paying) him first, you should own the rights to pictures of you by default, which is not to say that the photographer can't share those rights, only that she can't exclude you from them.
No no no, they're not cheating you, you're cheating them by scaling your fees according to something other than the actual cost of reproduction plus a reasonable markup. Instead, photographers should sell the scarce part (scene setup, high-res pictures, whatever) for what it's worth, and sell the reproduction services separately for what they are worth, which is almost certainly less.
Perhaps the issue is not that people want to screw such an "honest, hard working" individual as yourself. It's that the world is changing faster than your pricing plan can keep up with it.
As an aside, does it bother you when your eye doctor tries to keep your prescription so you can't buy glasses/contacts from anyone else? Is this any different?
Can the script be in perl?
As much as we live in a virtual world nowadays, humans still like shiny material things they can hold in their hands. Hard to see how a timelocked file can overcome that urge to "own".
Which is especially funny when you consider that the newspeak for "purchase" in Hollywood is "Own it today!"
You've already hit the mod cap so I can't reward you anymore, but that was damned clever.
Thanks for the laugh.
They aren't scared of copying, they're scared of people making their own stuff and not paying the industry taxes to get it made and distributed.
I actually don't believe this. But it sells *very* well. You've nicely encapsulated a way to describe a problem with the current copyright system without being forced to defend "piracy" (I share your reservations about that terminology).
I think closer to the truth is that the copyright industries truly are worried about copying as well as losing control, and that they're worried about the former more than the latter because it's the more immediate threat.
Anyway, althoguh I quibble about the details, I think your story is the rhetorical "goodcop" that the struggle for information freedom needs.
Bryguy
I love this site, but man there sure do seem to be a lot of reposts lately.
Perhaps a flag could be added to stories once they are identified as reposts, and logged-in users given the option to hide such confirmed reposts?
Just a thought.
There are known, mathematical ways to test audio quality.
.wma file?"
For instance, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does this sound like a