Most people (Slashdot readers being a small minority of most people) do not use Napster, much less DeCSS, so they don't feel particularly threatened by the RIAA/MPAA attacks on intellectual property pioneers.
But who in their lives in the USA has *not* used a library?
It's like seeing a fight in the parking lot- most people just watch and root for a favorite- until someone shoves my little brother. Then it gets PERSONAL.
I welcome the APA's attacks on libraries. Pat Schroeder will do for the media industries what Jerry Falwell's attacks on Tinky-Winky did for the Religious Right.
Obviously, I anticipated your response, and I think you've misanalyzed mine.
I'm not saying that Apple's actions are on a par *scale-wise* with slavery, but just that a theory of moral responsibility has to assign blame properly, and if you let Apple of the hook in this case, you let slaveowners off the hook in others. Perhaps an argument could be made about the ways in which severity of moral wrong lower the bar for culpability, but in my universe it goes the other way- if you commit a tiny wrong with only minimal culpability you are still wrong, it just doesn't matter much.
Furthermore, you assert in high dudgeon that when people can't / won't make things for themselves, they should pay. But this is the core of the IP struggle we are facing: If we can create artificial scarcity to preserve rent for market-players by applying IP restrictions, then eventually we will be slaves. Slaves of a different sort, but slaves nonetheless.
No, we're not there yet.
Thank goodness.
bryguy
=====
What is wrong is that we have invented the
technology to eliminate
scarcity, but we are deliberately throwing it away
to benefit those who
profit from scarcity.
If you don't like this behavior (I can't say that I do), the problem is with the laws, not with the people trying to follow them.
So, southern slaveowners who couldn't compete without owning slaves were not morally culpable, it was the fact that it was legal to own slaves that was at fault?
You're probably thinking "well this isn't slavery". Well, when corporations finally own enough of the ideas that we can't have an idea that isn't derivative of a patent or copyright, we will be slaves once again.
I know it's not a video game, but I always cite it in discussions like this. It's totally cooperative; everyone playing wants to help everyone else who is playing keep the sack in the air. If there is an opponent, it's the floor- and once beaten, the game simply begins again. This is a positive-sum game.
Leaving aside your pop economics, the "Scabs will replace you" argument is only true of unskilled labor. In tech, getting up to speed on coding projects takes time and effort, and usually is accomplished best by the sort of informal training that happens when you interact with experienced coworkers. Scabs will have a hard time adjusting. Hence, employers will find it cheaper to negotiate than to fight, not to mention better PR. Go preach your management propoganda elsewhere.
Money is power. Employers have it, you don't. Unless you're an employer.
Power doesn't like to compromise. Of course employers don't want Unions, it compromises their authority. "You don't need a union, we have a direct dialogue that we value". Fucking whatever. Let me translate for the dense:
You don't need a union. Unions increase your negotiating power which makes wages rise and firing people more difficult. We like to pay what we feel like paying and fire who we feel like firing.
Employers who respect their employers would encourage their employees to form Unions. Employees who work for employers who share their interests have no motivation to join a Union.
If money is power and businesses are not democracies, where does the power in our society lie? Wake the fuck up!
Trains and Automobiles put Pony Express out of business. Why do we worry about this?
Technology is eliminating the middleman, not the musician. If musicians don't get paid, they won't make good music. The market will solve the problem on its own if we let it work rather than trying to find a way to make the square peg solutions forced on us by old technologies fit into the the round hole of post-internet intellectual property.
They're porting it because the most technically talented people prefer to work on the operating system of their choice, and it's not windows. Not coincidentally, these are the same folks they expect to make new dungeons and maps with the game. No, not a coincedence at all. They want to get as many programmers as humanly possible to buy this game.
"TG: Could your skills make you a champion in the ferocious world of 64-bit systems?
Who knows," he responded. "Actually, I don't dislike the new systems, but I like the simplicity of the older games much better. The new consoles have too many buttons, taking too much time to learn,
plus many of the games require many, many hours to play
.
This guy is saying the *new* games take too long to play? Earth to irony...
The last line of the movie was taken DIRECTLY from the book- Jessica making the point that although she and Chani were destined to be only concubines, history would remember them as wives. I thought that was a wonderful ending to the book, and I also thought it an appropriate ending to the movie.
Is that corporations are allowed to own ideas. If copyright were left solely to authors, whose lifespan is limited by nature, this wouldn't be nearly the sort of problem it is today.
You tell those bastards they can shove their licensing schemes up their ass. Educational institutions used to have a mission which included enriching the public domain, it's high time we demanded that these institutions return to that mission.
IT staff is 6 braincells short of
pulling triggers from overwork? Go and make their lives more pleasant. Yes, it'll even boost productivity. Happy workers are productive
workers.
I agree with most of what you say, but the law of diminishing returns unfortunately throws a wrench in this assertion.
That doesn't matter though- Workers should demand the right to live their lives no matter what it does to productivity! If productivity falls at the expense of union leverage, corporate salaries will decrease to increase the number of programmers hired.
Unions don't just make your work experience better, they make it lesser.
What I mean is, organized labor can demand a work week of 40 hours/week averaged over 7 weeks if the management demands seventy hour work weeks. Individuals can complain and be quietly fired, but an organized group can demand and expect results.
I'm not saying a union should run your job, I'm saying that the goals of programmers and management are sufficiently at odds with each other that smart techies will organize.
If you live to work for someone else, then your right, I'm interfering with your life, but most of us work so that we can live our OWN lives.
From a business point of view, long hours by programmers are a key to profitability. A programmer probably needs to spend 25 hours per week getting
coordinated with other programmers and comprehending the structures of the systems being extended. Thus a programmer who works 55 hours per week is
twice as productive as one who works 40 hours per week. In The Mythical Man-Month, the only great book ever written on software engineering, Fred Brooks
concludes that no software product should be designed by more than two people. He argues that a program designed by more than two people might be more
complete but it will never be easy to understand because it will not be as consistent as something designed by fewer people. This means that if you want to
follow the best practices of the industry in terms of design and architecture, the only way to improve speed to market is to have the same people working longer
hours. Finally there is the common sense notion that the smaller the team the less management overhead. A product is going to get out the door much faster if it
is built by 4 people working 70-hour weeks (180 productive programmer-hours per week, after subtracting for 25 hours of coordination and structure
comprehension time) than if by 12 people working 40-hour weeks (the same net of 180 hours per week). The 12-person team will inevitably require additional
managers and all-day meetings to stay coordinated.
This is clearly from a management perspective, and while this advice will be useful for managers, it underscores the need for unionization among technical professionals. An industry norm of 70 hours a week would be devastating to the lives of most human beings without some other sort of compensation, like 3 out of every 7 weeks off.
I think this whole story was just an excuse to plug tuxracer again. I think if they're going to plug tuxracer they ought to just do an outright story about tuxracer, rather than beating around the bush, regardless of how good a game tuxracer may be.
Slashdot Mirror
But who in their lives in the USA has *not* used a library?
It's like seeing a fight in the parking lot- most people just watch and root for a favorite- until someone shoves my little brother. Then it gets PERSONAL.
I welcome the APA's attacks on libraries. Pat Schroeder will do for the media industries what Jerry Falwell's attacks on Tinky-Winky did for the Religious Right.
Bryguy
Will my doctor be a 1337 RX0R?
Once the art is made, it's made.
There are (and in an ip-free world there would continue to be) scarcities in other areas as you describe.
It is the EXTRA scarcity created by copy restrictions to which Gilmore was referring.
If you're good, the market will value your services even if others are allowed to copy your work.
Bryguy
I'm not saying that Apple's actions are on a par *scale-wise* with slavery, but just that a theory of moral responsibility has to assign blame properly, and if you let Apple of the hook in this case, you let slaveowners off the hook in others. Perhaps an argument could be made about the ways in which severity of moral wrong lower the bar for culpability, but in my universe it goes the other way- if you commit a tiny wrong with only minimal culpability you are still wrong, it just doesn't matter much.
Furthermore, you assert in high dudgeon that when people can't / won't make things for themselves, they should pay. But this is the core of the IP struggle we are facing: If we can create artificial scarcity to preserve rent for market-players by applying IP restrictions, then eventually we will be slaves. Slaves of a different sort, but slaves nonetheless.
No, we're not there yet.
Thank goodness.
bryguy
=====
What is wrong is that we have invented the technology to eliminate scarcity, but we are deliberately throwing it away to benefit those who profit from scarcity.
-John Gilmore http://cryptome.org/jg-wwwcp.htm
So, southern slaveowners who couldn't compete without owning slaves were not morally culpable, it was the fact that it was legal to own slaves that was at fault?
You're probably thinking "well this isn't slavery". Well, when corporations finally own enough of the ideas that we can't have an idea that isn't derivative of a patent or copyright, we will be slaves once again.
Legal != Right. Learn it, live it.
Bryguy
Bryguy
That's what they used to say to rape victims.
Leaving aside your pop economics, the "Scabs will replace you" argument is only true of unskilled labor. In tech, getting up to speed on coding projects takes time and effort, and usually is accomplished best by the sort of informal training that happens when you interact with experienced coworkers. Scabs will have a hard time adjusting. Hence, employers will find it cheaper to negotiate than to fight, not to mention better PR. Go preach your management propoganda elsewhere.
Money is power. Employers have it, you don't. Unless you're an employer.
Power doesn't like to compromise. Of course employers don't want Unions, it compromises their authority. "You don't need a union, we have a direct dialogue that we value". Fucking whatever. Let me translate for the dense:
You don't need a union. Unions increase your negotiating power which makes wages rise and firing people more difficult. We like to pay what we feel like paying and fire who we feel like firing.
Employers who respect their employers would encourage their employees to form Unions. Employees who work for employers who share their interests have no motivation to join a Union.
If money is power and businesses are not democracies, where does the power in our society lie? Wake the fuck up!
Bryguy
5PM or your conscience, whichever intervenes first.
Bryguy
Trains and Automobiles put Pony Express out of business. Why do we worry about this?
Technology is eliminating the middleman, not the musician. If musicians don't get paid, they won't make good music. The market will solve the problem on its own if we let it work rather than trying to find a way to make the square peg solutions forced on us by old technologies fit into the the round hole of post-internet intellectual property.
Bryguy
They're porting it because the most technically talented people prefer to work on the operating system of their choice, and it's not windows. Not coincidentally, these are the same folks they expect to make new dungeons and maps with the game. No, not a coincedence at all. They want to get as many programmers as humanly possible to buy this game.
Go NWN people!
Bryguy
- plus many of the games require many, many hours to play
.This guy is saying the *new* games take too long to play? Earth to irony...
bryguy
Someone should put the Celera Genome Sequence on Freenet.
Ahhh, synergy.
The last line of the movie was taken DIRECTLY from the book- Jessica making the point that although she and Chani were destined to be only concubines, history would remember them as wives. I thought that was a wonderful ending to the book, and I also thought it an appropriate ending to the movie.
The best thing about those felons who voted?
One of them was convicted of drunk driving.
Please, dude!
1. Many of these voters wouldn't be out voting at all if not for Nader- many voted for democrats for congress.
2. The 67,503, you may note, does not make up the difference.
I agree with most of what you say, but the law of diminishing returns unfortunately throws a wrench in this assertion.
That doesn't matter though- Workers should demand the right to live their lives no matter what it does to productivity! If productivity falls at the expense of union leverage, corporate salaries will decrease to increase the number of programmers hired.
Unions don't just make your work experience better, they make it lesser.
What I mean is, organized labor can demand a work week of 40 hours/week averaged over 7 weeks if the management demands seventy hour work weeks. Individuals can complain and be quietly fired, but an organized group can demand and expect results.
I'm not saying a union should run your job, I'm saying that the goals of programmers and management are sufficiently at odds with each other that smart techies will organize.
If you live to work for someone else, then your right, I'm interfering with your life, but most of us work so that we can live our OWN lives.
This is clearly from a management perspective, and while this advice will be useful for managers, it underscores the need for unionization among technical professionals. An industry norm of 70 hours a week would be devastating to the lives of most human beings without some other sort of compensation, like 3 out of every 7 weeks off.
Tuxracer. Kinda like the sound of that. Tuxracer. Tuxracer.