bottom line: dont buy a digital SLR, unless you really need a SLR.
I think in part you're right.
You need an SLR camera if you want to:
1) Shoot in dimly lit conditions (i.e. f/1.2 ISO 1600) without a flash and use the results for anything serious.
2) Be able to get a nice, shallow depth of field (i.e. blurred background) with good bokeh (pleasing "blur") for portraits or graphic shots.
3) Shoot wildlife or other "field" shots involving long telephotos or extreme lighting or weather conditions with any kind of sincerity or usability.
4) Shoot action of any kind that might need the likes of continuous tracking focus, zero shutter lag, and the ability to fire off shots in sequence just as fast as you can hit the shutter.
You do not need an SLR camera to:
5) Shoot the kids' birthday parties.
6) Take pictures of your pets.
7) Take vacation snapshots.
BUT... with that said... If you know how to properly use an SLR camera, know something about photography, and you have quality lenses, your results in the case of #5, #6 or #7 will be much better with an SLR than with a point-and-shoot.
Do be aware of the quality lenses caveat, however. Far too many amateur SLR users, film and digital, see the camera body as the "real" investment. They drop $1000 on a camera body and then go to their local camera store and buy a plastic 24-300mm zoom for $80.00 and wonder why the pictures look like they were taken through a dirty window in a rainstorm.
So I suppose corollary to your "don't buy an SLR unless you need one" post is "and don't buy an SLR unless you can afford lenses that will do it justice because a camera body can only capture what the lens shows it."
If you can't afford to spend significantly more on your lenses than you did on your SLR body (whether film or digital), you will definitely get better photos with a Sony digicam.
The problem is not a condemnation of "Zealot" per se, but the definitions... who is a zealot and who is not?
In the current marketplace, almost any preference for Linux at all makes one a Linux Zealot, while raving anti-Linux maniacs are merely Windows Enthusiasts.
Linux user says "Sometimes I like to play Quake on Linux..." Most people (including the computing press) respond with "Gaming on Linux? Get real! Sane people would use the best tool for the job. Clearly you are a Linux Zealot."
Meanwhile, a Windows user says "There are no usable applications for Linux, you might get sued because the code was probably stolen by the teenage-hacker Linux coders, and anyway it's a pseudo-communist movement from socialist Europe!" To this, most people (including the computing press) respond "Yes, you're basically right. It will be interesting in coming years to see if Linux can overcome these 'hurdles.'"
It's not the diatribe against zealotry that annoys people, zealotry is universally understood to be irrational and generally a Bad Thing. It's the fact that if you use Linux for almost anything other than Web infrastructure, and certainly if you actually admit to liking it out loud, you are labeled a zealot-- unless you happen to be at a LUG meeting or in a computer science department...
...while at the same time, the phrase "Windows Zealots" is hardly ever heard, though there are probably many orders of magnitude more of them, and many of them (and the press) are much more anti-Linux than Linux users are anti-Windows.
Furthermore, until we know that a human is nothing more than it's physical brain and body, human life should be treated with more value than that.
You mean a developing embryo should be given the same rights as me until someone can conclusively disprove the existence of the god, afterlife, and "soul" in such a way as to be both scientific and also persuasive to everyone in society, including you.
Thanks for your help, don't call us, we'll call you.
Um... Your definition of "catch on" and mine must be different. I don't think something needs to be in every single PC in order to have caught on.
A product that has become indispensible and widely owned within its intended niche has "caught on" and MO certainly did that. Among digital archivists and many businesses with serious data integrity needs, MO has been the absolute standard for many years now. MO drives are in the wild all over the place and the disks (both 3.5" and 5.25", all generally backward compatible) are easy to order and available from multiple sources-- just not at retail, because naturally that's not the target market. But then try to get an 8mm data cartridge at retail. Or a DDS-4 cartridge.
It's not a consumer technology, and never was intended to be, as is evidenced by cost. It's too robust to be a consumer technology. For the average household, there's no need for a $100 disk with glass substrate and a rigid part-aluminum casing, as many of our MO disks have.
The same goes for MiniDisc... It's everywhere in some circles. In field research, I know a lot of people who use them for interviewing because they're convenient, easy to (digitally) label, CD-quality, and it's easy to shuffle tracks around, etc. A lot of studio guys also use it in cocert with (or in some cases even instead of!) DAT for audio recordings. And the bootleg crowd absolutely loves MiniDisc as well.
And MiniDisc CAN be bought at your local store. At least where I live... Just walk into a department store and check the electronics section... A few portable CD players and a few MiniDisc players. How is that a market failure?
Again, I think the only reason there isn't more consumer adoption is cost. A portable CD player costs the same as pizza delivery. A minidisc player costs the average guy half his paycheck.
In any case, I think it's very simplistic to suggest that if a technology doesn't become as widespread as TV, it's been a market failure... although technologies that were once successful in their niche can eventually fade if a competitor comes along. I think that's what's happening to MO now, largely thanks to DVD-RAM, which represents a kind of compromise between the high cost of MO and the cheaper but less reliable consumer optical formats. I know that we have switched to (and I have bought for myself) 9.6GB DVD-RAM units because the disks are still protected and random-access, but are considerably less expensive and require less physical storage space than 5.25" MO.
But the same thing still holds true... DVD-RAM is becoming more and more widely deployed as an archive medium, and meanwhile generally any DVD-R/RW story on Slashdot is 25% full of posts making fun of DVD-RAM as though it were already a dead technology, just because people don't know any friends who have one in their gaming box.
This is absolutely correct. Code where the source is freely available has a value that approaches zero very quickly.
Nonsense. You are making the implicit assertion that the only value in the world with any sort of utility is monetary value, i.e. alienated labor value, value composed of autonomous capital.
TO ME, and I am of course much of what matters to me, the value of Linux and other free software is very great indeed, though I have never "paid" for any of it. Much of this value comes from the fact that Linux is at least to some extent a manifestation of unalienated labor; labor which is not stored in the form of capital but is instead given freely, in a kind of creative/generative process, to the rest of mankind. Linux is self-expression, economic utility, intellectual freedom and collective respect and solidarity all wrapped up in one helpful software package.
I would not pay for Linux because it would make me feel dirty. But at least in part because I do not pay for Linux, its value to me is almost inifinite, not zero, as you claim. Linux is one of a precious few things in our world that gives me hope.
Yes, Linux makes money for someone. But so did Ghandi for Hollywood. But in this case the money is in no way the essential value of the item; even when stripped of any indirect or tangential economic exchange, the value of Linux and many other things in the world that are not simply the collective of mankind's alienated ability, is still great.
So you would have your children living in a virtual police state? You want to monitor and modify their every move? Do you not trust your own parenting skills?
More to the point, do you not trust your children to grow into functioning adults without your iron hand?
Every child misbehaves. Every child is eventually exposed to potentially unsavory things, whether crime or drugs or porn. It's part of becoming socialized into the world in which we live.
If you somehow manage to keep your child in a virtual iron cage until the day they turn 18, they will be unable to cope with the world in which they have to live when they are finally exposed to these things. And they will have no experience with self-control or judgment because they've always been protected by the powers that be from everything their culture does on a daily basis. They will not, in short, know what to avoid or when to stop.
I'd rather see my 16 year old experiment with drugs, see some porn, commit some petty theft, and get in trouble and/or feel guilty about it now, while he/she is young, rather than having them get involved in these things at 21 as an adult with zero coping mechanisms and fewer emotional resources in the form of nearby family, school counseling, etc., not to mention full legal liability for anything that they do.
That doesn't explain anything about me, I'm not an environmentalist, don't vote green, don't have memberships in greenpeace or whatever... I simply find the statements to be pragmatically oriented. Debatable? I don't know, I'd have to do more research. But I definitely don't see them as some sort of abomination, and I still don't see exactly what they're supposed to prove about those who made them.
And realize that Forbes and all of these other interests (SCO, LinkSys, RIAA, MPAA) are NOT pro-IP. They are pro-profit.
Inasmuch as IP helps them to profit, they will gladly sue their own grandmother into the grave for infringement to help them line their pockets. Inasmuch as IP prevents their profiting, they will pretend it doesn't apply and seek to connive and quietly steal code into their products without being noticed, hoping to get away with it.
Business interests are not interested in legal issues in terms of right versus wrong, comply vs. not comply, break-the-law vs. follow it. They are interested in legal issues only in terms of cost-benefit to the bottom line.
The Free Software Foundation actually gives a damn about the principles upon which it is founded and about the labor of its contributors, and doesn't give a damn about profits per se. This is terrifying to most people in business, hence the (oft-repeated) "Linux is COMMUNISM" argument.
They're scared becase we in the free software community care more about labor than about money, "comrade."
With two exceptions (the first two), which seem a little callous, I see nothing wrong with these statements whatsoever. Are you making an argument here? What exactly is it?
Let's change the word immoral then, since it upsets you. 100% of all businesses are extremely avaricious. If they thought they could earn money for nothing simply by "quietly appropriating" the free software codebase, they would.
There. We've removed claims about morality from statements about big business. Make you feel any better?
But of course "free speech" is worthless if you believe that your speech may lead to your own, or someone else's, prison time.
That's the same sort of "free speech" that citizens it totalitarian states have. "Yes, you are 'free' to use your voicebox at any time. Then we are 'free' to nail you and/or your associates to the wall."
Do you really believe that was the spirit and intention of the U.S. Constitution? It seems that recent generations of American citizens have gone from believing that the U.S. Bill of Rights exists to protect the unpopular and the underrepresented, to believing that it exists to preserve the American 'right' to dominate the global discussion, the 'right' to make a profit and the 'right' to suppress dissenting views.
Journalists protect their sources. They, not the U.S. Government, are the true guardians of free speech.
Slashdot has no effect on average joes, but at least it gives a place for more informed readers to come and complain about SCO to each other. Small comfort, but better than having to read crap like the linked article.
I don't think it's so amazing. But many other people do. My point was not that a 386DX running X is just as fast as a P4+GF4 running X.
My point is that a 386DX running X with well-supported display hardware is no slower than a 386DX running Windows 3.1, and thus the thought that X is only recently viable thanks to the availability of P4+GF4 systems is probably not correct.
Everyone says that X is so bloated, yet I used to run X on a Sun 3/80 with 16MB memory and a 68030 (think Mac SE/30) processor. In its day it ran circles around PCs and Macs. A little later when I finally "gave in" and switched to PC hardware, I bought a 386DX/25 with 8MB memory and a massive 600MB ESDI hard drive, and ran Linux+X on that. I used FVWM as my window manager and often made use of applications like emacs and NCSA Mosaic. The hardware was much faster under Linux+X than under Windows 3.1. Yes, X on an 8MB, 25MHz PC.
Today X still compares favorably to Mac OS and Windows in terms of functionality and even in terms of things like 3D game frame rate. I don't think X has ever been slow and bloated compared to simultaneous "alternative" technologies like Mac OS or Windows.
I think the new rush of Linux users in the late '90s and early '00s just happened to get a bum driver or two thanks to the "newness" of X to commodity PC hardware and the longtime lack of manufacturer support for X on such hardware. No matter how many times I read it, I just don't buy the notion that X is slow and bloated in comparison to the alternatives.
Go to your local university and get the funding figures. Average the budgets, endowments, etc. etc. for Humanities and Social Sciences departments in one column and then the same for Sciences and Engineering departments in the other column. Chances are that one is definitely better funded, and it is not the Humanities/Social Sciences column that I'm speaking of.
Another way to check is to compare the stipends/scholarships/etc. given to graduate students in these respective divisions. Again you will typically find that the "hard sciences" are much better funded, much better respected, and even much better understood. Administration tends to favor the fusion project over the Durkhiem coloquium because they know what fusion is.
Note that this has little or no bearing on the public economy, which really favors business (including the business of entertainment) since business makes a point of connecting and communicating with the populace at large in the most user-friendly, attractive ways possible. You will never find a physicist who is as popular as a movie star simply because the physicist does not have a publicist, a career strategist, a hair guy, a make-up guy and a plastic surgeon. News agencies and talk shows do not go around looking under rocks for people to put on their shows, they rely on press releases and phone calls from publicists for the bulk of their stories and/or guests.
Any spare change the physicist encounters will usually go right back into his baby (a.k.a. current project), whatever that happens to be, rather than to making him famous and attractive.
"There's nothing wrong with a company picking up rights to a product with the intention of pursuing law suits related to that product."
I don't agree with this. "Buying the right to sue for millions" does not sit well with me. I can't point you to any specific instance in law-- obviously it's legal-- but I certainly feel that only parties who have been injured should have the right to sue for damages. The concept of a "law suit broker" who stocks litigatable IP and sells it off to investors and risk managers is disgusting to me.
Interestingly enough, I recently read an article on a major news site (CNN? BBC?) that mentioned that during the last year or two, immigration between US and Canada is favoring Canada, for the first time since Vietnam and that immigration from US to Canada is continuing to trend upward.
Unfortunately, I searched for the article and couldn't find it again. Anyone have a link?
there are many areas where proprietary products are still far superior
Yes, but considering the progress of OSS over the last decade, given time and continued success this will soon no longer be the case. It is only a matter of time before OSS dominates in 90% of market niches.
That's what Microsoft is afraid of: the democratization of computing. Everyone must have access to the law; that is what the corrupt fear. In the same way, everyone must have access to software and information; that is what the software companies and IP cartels fear.
Of course they can sue you. If the information matches and they have a financial interest, watch them sue you, and watch them bend over backward to prove that you did copy it, even if they know very well (behind closed doors) that you didn't.
People can sue you for almost anything, it's all just paperwork. Yes, it has happened to me. No, it doesn't mean they'll win in court, and yes, you will have a chance to present your own case and evidence, but nine times out of ten if they're bigger and richer than you, they'll win somehow. In the meantime, if the court doesn't have enough clarity in the law to throw it out immediately, the legal nonsense ruins your days, sucks your money, and creates uncertainty about your plans and future.
Even if they don't win in court and they're not bigger than you and you can prove that you didn't copy anything from anyone, the perception and/or assertion that "our database is covered by copyright" can be a big stick used against little players. See SCO case. Now imagine your own personal SCO case.
But assuming that you are a lawyer, you will of course benefit from all of this, so it is difficult for me to help you to understand just how problematic strategic legal action from larger financial interests can be for the little guy. I learned really quick when I became a writer that "letter of law" and "reality of law" are two very different things.
And why should big grabs of pre-existing data be protected?
I doubt the lobbies in favor of this sort of thing really believe that there is any sort of moral or ethical imperative to "protect" databases.
They're simply lobbying for this type of protection because they already have large databases and they think they might actually get it. If they do, they can pull an instant SCO and double or triple their revenue streams.
It's not about "this will be good for people", it's about "Heh... this is sort of slimy... but if we could pass it, our stock would double, so who cares!"
And for the politicians it's simply a matter of "This will piss off a few informed voters, but if the contributions are large enough, the $$$ will subsidize the buying of new voters to replace them with tons left over!"
The problem is that most databases are simply lists of facts. Give someone ownership of a database, and you have given them ownership of the facts; it's not at all like traditional copyrights over prose or over music, which are designed to protect expressive, artistic content.
Imagine that you decide to make a database called "Names of Professional Writers of Manhattan and their Phone Numbers". You spend ten years of your life calling for and assembling submissions from writers and you finally make your list available for free on your Web site only to get sued the very next day by the company who makes the phone book... because your data is a subset of their copyrighted database of all Manhattan phone numbers, too large a subset to be covered by fair use.
You have to either pay them to publish the information that you found, or you have to take it offline.
1. I will not buy an album/symphony/jam I have not heard.
2. I will not buy an album/symphony/jam I have heard but not liked.
3. I will often buy an album/symphony/jam I have heard and liked.
Re #1: No radio, no MP3 downloads... no purchase.
Re #2: Tons of this crap on radio (i.e. hear it but don't like it) because radio isn't an open forum, it's bought and paid for and it's hard to find variety if you don't like what radio is doing right now. Okay, let's face it, there's a lot of crap in MP3-land too... but the barrier to entry in MP3-land is lower, so artists that can't get on radio or that haven't been played on radio for years can be found in MP3-land.
[And no shite I won't pay for what I don't like and don't ever plan to listen to again-- repeat listening is after all, the express purpose of recorded music.]
Re #3: Every now and then something I like is on radio (and then I buy it), but mainly I find it through downloading MP3s (and then I buy it). But the point is, if I like it, I buy it. Because I want to do my own, high-quality rips instead of the net-quality stuff. Because if the three tracks I've heard are good, the other four might be worth having as well. Because I want the artist to make more. Because I want to have media around in case my hard drive dies and I need to re-rip.
Discourse:
I've bought at least 75 albums over the last two years that I first heard as a download or when someone emailed me a 128k mp3 file and said "wow, listen to this." Before the MP3 "era" I bought maybe 5-10 discs a year and often was dissatisfied with those. After MP3 started to happen, my CD purchasing increased exponentially and so did my level of satisfaction with each purchase.
I have 60+ gigs of MP3s, and I can show you an original CD to back every single one of those tracks up. Happily, I can put all those damn CDs in boxes in storage rather than having them take up space in my living area thanks to MP3. And yes, sometimes I do email one to a friend and say "wow, listen to this!" and I know that I have generated a number of CD sales this way.
Here's the kicker that drives RIAA crazy: probably 50% of the CDs I've bought after listening to MP3s are indies. Often I have to write the band after tracking them down on the 'net just to buy a copy because they're not out there in marketing channels. I know for a fact I've sent people to live performances... More than once I've emailed a friend an MP3 track along with "Hey man, this artist is going to be at XYZ in your town." Friend listens to track, likes it and *boom* another ticket is sold to the performance (and the artist makes a buck)... and nine times out of ten, the friend also buys a CD at the performance-- *boom* another CD is sold also.
The problem isn't that MP3s hurt sales of all music. The problem is that MP3s drive only the sales of good music-- and with barriers to entry (ala radio and RIAA contracts) removed, artistic expression isn't something the RIAA can get any kind of government-sponsored monopoly on. That is of course in contrast to, say, marketing and distribution channels in a particular commodity (i.e. crap music).
Let me preface this by saying that I am a union member.
People who aren't members of a labor union (i.e. many people in relatively well-paid IT industries) don't understand organized labor at all.
Unions don't want members to break ranks because it destroys the entire concept of "collective" bargaining. It 10 workers out of 20 break ranks and work during a strike, it's much easier to fire the striking 10 and continue to operate using the 10 who broke ranks as a skeleton crew and as the trainers for the replacement 10. Thus, the 10 who actually stood up for themselves lose everything.
Make no mistake, workers do not take this lightly. Don't forget, many union members are in specialized positions and won't be able to replace their jobs for months or even years if they lose them. This is one of the reasons companies gamble against unions by underpying labor-- they believe that the employees are essentially hamstrung and can't go anywhere. They realize that the employees need the company and need the wage much more than management does. It's very, very tough decision for union members to make decisions about entering into collective action.
If management chooses to hire an inexperienced crew, make lousy operating decisions or even just close company doors and go home as the result of collective action, they're fine. Many of them have savings to burn and can afford to live unemployed for years, which is ironic because they're the ones much more likely to be able to quickly land a new job in management at another firm. But when the unionized crew is replaced rather than paid fairly, or when a company just shuts down a location, it may mean the end of life as these workers know it. They may lose their homes, their families may go hungry or have to rely on food banks, they may face years of unemployment with little or no savings in the bank and few assets, and may never find another job again.
Please don't underestimate the heroism of many labor workers in being willing to fight for the rights of other members of their field even though they have very little in the way of insurance or leverage and few weapons that can make management listen.
So why do they do it? Because Bob, the only qualified guy to do job X after 25 years' experience is still only earning 17k while the 24-year-old boss a room away with a 5-year BA+MBA, the guy who plays golf all day and is running the company into the ground because he has no experience, is earning 3.6M and his VP is earning 1.6M, together enough to double the salary or save the jobs of over 300 workers like Bob, who actually make the company what it is. And Bob knows that even though he may never see a pay increase in his working lifetime, if he keeps fighting, younger guys in the workforce coming up may see one; he also knows that if he doesn't fight for better wages, the younger guys coming up may eventually only earn 16k, in spite of inflation, while the MBA's wages go up, up, up, to 2M, 3M or even 4M.
Yes, Bob also realizes that the company may simply ship all the jobs to Mexico, or India, or Malaysia. But if Bob is an American worker or an EU worker, after much soul-searching, he decides to take the risk. A non-living wage is a non-living wage. It does Bob no good to sigh and say "okay, pay me what you'd exploit those 3rd-world workers with" because a 3rd-world wage won't buy Bob food or goods in a 1st-world marketplace.
Slashdot Mirror
bottom line: dont buy a digital SLR, unless you really need a SLR.
I think in part you're right.
You need an SLR camera if you want to:
1) Shoot in dimly lit conditions (i.e. f/1.2 ISO 1600) without a flash and use the results for anything serious.
2) Be able to get a nice, shallow depth of field (i.e. blurred background) with good bokeh (pleasing "blur") for portraits or graphic shots.
3) Shoot wildlife or other "field" shots involving long telephotos or extreme lighting or weather conditions with any kind of sincerity or usability.
4) Shoot action of any kind that might need the likes of continuous tracking focus, zero shutter lag, and the ability to fire off shots in sequence just as fast as you can hit the shutter.
You do not need an SLR camera to:
5) Shoot the kids' birthday parties.
6) Take pictures of your pets.
7) Take vacation snapshots.
BUT... with that said... If you know how to properly use an SLR camera, know something about photography, and you have quality lenses, your results in the case of #5, #6 or #7 will be much better with an SLR than with a point-and-shoot.
Do be aware of the quality lenses caveat, however. Far too many amateur SLR users, film and digital, see the camera body as the "real" investment. They drop $1000 on a camera body and then go to their local camera store and buy a plastic 24-300mm zoom for $80.00 and wonder why the pictures look like they were taken through a dirty window in a rainstorm.
So I suppose corollary to your "don't buy an SLR unless you need one" post is "and don't buy an SLR unless you can afford lenses that will do it justice because a camera body can only capture what the lens shows it."
If you can't afford to spend significantly more on your lenses than you did on your SLR body (whether film or digital), you will definitely get better photos with a Sony digicam.
The problem is not a condemnation of "Zealot" per se, but the definitions... who is a zealot and who is not?
...while at the same time, the phrase "Windows Zealots" is hardly ever heard, though there are probably many orders of magnitude more of them, and many of them (and the press) are much more anti-Linux than Linux users are anti-Windows.
In the current marketplace, almost any preference for Linux at all makes one a Linux Zealot, while raving anti-Linux maniacs are merely Windows Enthusiasts.
Linux user says "Sometimes I like to play Quake on Linux..." Most people (including the computing press) respond with "Gaming on Linux? Get real! Sane people would use the best tool for the job. Clearly you are a Linux Zealot."
Meanwhile, a Windows user says "There are no usable applications for Linux, you might get sued because the code was probably stolen by the teenage-hacker Linux coders, and anyway it's a pseudo-communist movement from socialist Europe!" To this, most people (including the computing press) respond "Yes, you're basically right. It will be interesting in coming years to see if Linux can overcome these 'hurdles.'"
It's not the diatribe against zealotry that annoys people, zealotry is universally understood to be irrational and generally a Bad Thing. It's the fact that if you use Linux for almost anything other than Web infrastructure, and certainly if you actually admit to liking it out loud, you are labeled a zealot-- unless you happen to be at a LUG meeting or in a computer science department...
Exactly my point.
Furthermore, until we know that a human is nothing more than it's physical brain and body, human life should be treated with more value than that.
You mean a developing embryo should be given the same rights as me until someone can conclusively disprove the existence of the god, afterlife, and "soul" in such a way as to be both scientific and also persuasive to everyone in society, including you.
Thanks for your help, don't call us, we'll call you.
Um... Your definition of "catch on" and mine must be different. I don't think something needs to be in every single PC in order to have caught on.
A product that has become indispensible and widely owned within its intended niche has "caught on" and MO certainly did that. Among digital archivists and many businesses with serious data integrity needs, MO has been the absolute standard for many years now. MO drives are in the wild all over the place and the disks (both 3.5" and 5.25", all generally backward compatible) are easy to order and available from multiple sources-- just not at retail, because naturally that's not the target market. But then try to get an 8mm data cartridge at retail. Or a DDS-4 cartridge.
It's not a consumer technology, and never was intended to be, as is evidenced by cost. It's too robust to be a consumer technology. For the average household, there's no need for a $100 disk with glass substrate and a rigid part-aluminum casing, as many of our MO disks have.
The same goes for MiniDisc... It's everywhere in some circles. In field research, I know a lot of people who use them for interviewing because they're convenient, easy to (digitally) label, CD-quality, and it's easy to shuffle tracks around, etc. A lot of studio guys also use it in cocert with (or in some cases even instead of!) DAT for audio recordings. And the bootleg crowd absolutely loves MiniDisc as well.
And MiniDisc CAN be bought at your local store. At least where I live... Just walk into a department store and check the electronics section... A few portable CD players and a few MiniDisc players. How is that a market failure?
Again, I think the only reason there isn't more consumer adoption is cost. A portable CD player costs the same as pizza delivery. A minidisc player costs the average guy half his paycheck.
In any case, I think it's very simplistic to suggest that if a technology doesn't become as widespread as TV, it's been a market failure... although technologies that were once successful in their niche can eventually fade if a competitor comes along. I think that's what's happening to MO now, largely thanks to DVD-RAM, which represents a kind of compromise between the high cost of MO and the cheaper but less reliable consumer optical formats. I know that we have switched to (and I have bought for myself) 9.6GB DVD-RAM units because the disks are still protected and random-access, but are considerably less expensive and require less physical storage space than 5.25" MO.
But the same thing still holds true... DVD-RAM is becoming more and more widely deployed as an archive medium, and meanwhile generally any DVD-R/RW story on Slashdot is 25% full of posts making fun of DVD-RAM as though it were already a dead technology, just because people don't know any friends who have one in their gaming box.
This is absolutely correct. Code where the source is freely available has a value that approaches zero very quickly.
Nonsense. You are making the implicit assertion that the only value in the world with any sort of utility is monetary value, i.e. alienated labor value, value composed of autonomous capital.
TO ME, and I am of course much of what matters to me, the value of Linux and other free software is very great indeed, though I have never "paid" for any of it. Much of this value comes from the fact that Linux is at least to some extent a manifestation of unalienated labor; labor which is not stored in the form of capital but is instead given freely, in a kind of creative/generative process, to the rest of mankind. Linux is self-expression, economic utility, intellectual freedom and collective respect and solidarity all wrapped up in one helpful software package.
I would not pay for Linux because it would make me feel dirty. But at least in part because I do not pay for Linux, its value to me is almost inifinite, not zero, as you claim. Linux is one of a precious few things in our world that gives me hope.
Yes, Linux makes money for someone. But so did Ghandi for Hollywood. But in this case the money is in no way the essential value of the item; even when stripped of any indirect or tangential economic exchange, the value of Linux and many other things in the world that are not simply the collective of mankind's alienated ability, is still great.
So you would have your children living in a virtual police state? You want to monitor and modify their every move? Do you not trust your own parenting skills?
More to the point, do you not trust your children to grow into functioning adults without your iron hand?
Every child misbehaves. Every child is eventually exposed to potentially unsavory things, whether crime or drugs or porn. It's part of becoming socialized into the world in which we live.
If you somehow manage to keep your child in a virtual iron cage until the day they turn 18, they will be unable to cope with the world in which they have to live when they are finally exposed to these things. And they will have no experience with self-control or judgment because they've always been protected by the powers that be from everything their culture does on a daily basis. They will not, in short, know what to avoid or when to stop.
I'd rather see my 16 year old experiment with drugs, see some porn, commit some petty theft, and get in trouble and/or feel guilty about it now, while he/she is young, rather than having them get involved in these things at 21 as an adult with zero coping mechanisms and fewer emotional resources in the form of nearby family, school counseling, etc., not to mention full legal liability for anything that they do.
That doesn't explain anything about me, I'm not an environmentalist, don't vote green, don't have memberships in greenpeace or whatever... I simply find the statements to be pragmatically oriented. Debatable? I don't know, I'd have to do more research. But I definitely don't see them as some sort of abomination, and I still don't see exactly what they're supposed to prove about those who made them.
Note the last line in the article.
And realize that Forbes and all of these other interests (SCO, LinkSys, RIAA, MPAA) are NOT pro-IP. They are pro-profit.
Inasmuch as IP helps them to profit, they will gladly sue their own grandmother into the grave for infringement to help them line their pockets. Inasmuch as IP prevents their profiting, they will pretend it doesn't apply and seek to connive and quietly steal code into their products without being noticed, hoping to get away with it.
Business interests are not interested in legal issues in terms of right versus wrong, comply vs. not comply, break-the-law vs. follow it. They are interested in legal issues only in terms of cost-benefit to the bottom line.
The Free Software Foundation actually gives a damn about the principles upon which it is founded and about the labor of its contributors, and doesn't give a damn about profits per se. This is terrifying to most people in business, hence the (oft-repeated) "Linux is COMMUNISM" argument.
They're scared becase we in the free software community care more about labor than about money, "comrade."
With two exceptions (the first two), which seem a little callous, I see nothing wrong with these statements whatsoever. Are you making an argument here? What exactly is it?
Let's change the word immoral then, since it upsets you. 100% of all businesses are extremely avaricious. If they thought they could earn money for nothing simply by "quietly appropriating" the free software codebase, they would.
There. We've removed claims about morality from statements about big business. Make you feel any better?
But of course "free speech" is worthless if you believe that your speech may lead to your own, or someone else's, prison time.
That's the same sort of "free speech" that citizens it totalitarian states have. "Yes, you are 'free' to use your voicebox at any time. Then we are 'free' to nail you and/or your associates to the wall."
Do you really believe that was the spirit and intention of the U.S. Constitution? It seems that recent generations of American citizens have gone from believing that the U.S. Bill of Rights exists to protect the unpopular and the underrepresented, to believing that it exists to preserve the American 'right' to dominate the global discussion, the 'right' to make a profit and the 'right' to suppress dissenting views.
Journalists protect their sources. They, not the U.S. Government, are the true guardians of free speech.
Hell, if slashdot didn't have 4 SCO stories a day, average shmucks like me wouldn't know or care! Quit elevating them to a position of importance!
Average joes have no idea what Slashdot is. But many of them have heard of SCO and Canopy group through the mainstream press and articles like this one.
Slashdot has no effect on average joes, but at least it gives a place for more informed readers to come and complain about SCO to each other. Small comfort, but better than having to read crap like the linked article.
I don't think it's so amazing. But many other people do. My point was not that a 386DX running X is just as fast as a P4+GF4 running X.
My point is that a 386DX running X with well-supported display hardware is no slower than a 386DX running Windows 3.1, and thus the thought that X is only recently viable thanks to the availability of P4+GF4 systems is probably not correct.
Everyone says that X is so bloated, yet I used to run X on a Sun 3/80 with 16MB memory and a 68030 (think Mac SE/30) processor. In its day it ran circles around PCs and Macs. A little later when I finally "gave in" and switched to PC hardware, I bought a 386DX/25 with 8MB memory and a massive 600MB ESDI hard drive, and ran Linux+X on that. I used FVWM as my window manager and often made use of applications like emacs and NCSA Mosaic. The hardware was much faster under Linux+X than under Windows 3.1. Yes, X on an 8MB, 25MHz PC.
Today X still compares favorably to Mac OS and Windows in terms of functionality and even in terms of things like 3D game frame rate. I don't think X has ever been slow and bloated compared to simultaneous "alternative" technologies like Mac OS or Windows.
I think the new rush of Linux users in the late '90s and early '00s just happened to get a bum driver or two thanks to the "newness" of X to commodity PC hardware and the longtime lack of manufacturer support for X on such hardware. No matter how many times I read it, I just don't buy the notion that X is slow and bloated in comparison to the alternatives.
If I remember correctly, X is the successor to W, so Y as the successor to X is perfectly in keeping with tradition.
See the original announcement a little down the page at this link.
Go to your local university and get the funding figures. Average the budgets, endowments, etc. etc. for Humanities and Social Sciences departments in one column and then the same for Sciences and Engineering departments in the other column. Chances are that one is definitely better funded, and it is not the Humanities/Social Sciences column that I'm speaking of.
Another way to check is to compare the stipends/scholarships/etc. given to graduate students in these respective divisions. Again you will typically find that the "hard sciences" are much better funded, much better respected, and even much better understood. Administration tends to favor the fusion project over the Durkhiem coloquium because they know what fusion is.
Note that this has little or no bearing on the public economy, which really favors business (including the business of entertainment) since business makes a point of connecting and communicating with the populace at large in the most user-friendly, attractive ways possible. You will never find a physicist who is as popular as a movie star simply because the physicist does not have a publicist, a career strategist, a hair guy, a make-up guy and a plastic surgeon. News agencies and talk shows do not go around looking under rocks for people to put on their shows, they rely on press releases and phone calls from publicists for the bulk of their stories and/or guests.
Any spare change the physicist encounters will usually go right back into his baby (a.k.a. current project), whatever that happens to be, rather than to making him famous and attractive.
"There's nothing wrong with a company picking up rights to a product with the intention of pursuing law suits related to that product."
I don't agree with this. "Buying the right to sue for millions" does not sit well with me. I can't point you to any specific instance in law-- obviously it's legal-- but I certainly feel that only parties who have been injured should have the right to sue for damages. The concept of a "law suit broker" who stocks litigatable IP and sells it off to investors and risk managers is disgusting to me.
Interestingly enough, I recently read an article on a major news site (CNN? BBC?) that mentioned that during the last year or two, immigration between US and Canada is favoring Canada, for the first time since Vietnam and that immigration from US to Canada is continuing to trend upward.
Unfortunately, I searched for the article and couldn't find it again. Anyone have a link?
there are many areas where proprietary products are still far superior
Yes, but considering the progress of OSS over the last decade, given time and continued success this will soon no longer be the case. It is only a matter of time before OSS dominates in 90% of market niches.
That's what Microsoft is afraid of: the democratization of computing. Everyone must have access to the law; that is what the corrupt fear. In the same way, everyone must have access to software and information; that is what the software companies and IP cartels fear.
Of course they can sue you. If the information matches and they have a financial interest, watch them sue you, and watch them bend over backward to prove that you did copy it, even if they know very well (behind closed doors) that you didn't.
People can sue you for almost anything, it's all just paperwork. Yes, it has happened to me. No, it doesn't mean they'll win in court, and yes, you will have a chance to present your own case and evidence, but nine times out of ten if they're bigger and richer than you, they'll win somehow. In the meantime, if the court doesn't have enough clarity in the law to throw it out immediately, the legal nonsense ruins your days, sucks your money, and creates uncertainty about your plans and future.
Even if they don't win in court and they're not bigger than you and you can prove that you didn't copy anything from anyone, the perception and/or assertion that "our database is covered by copyright" can be a big stick used against little players. See SCO case. Now imagine your own personal SCO case.
But assuming that you are a lawyer, you will of course benefit from all of this, so it is difficult for me to help you to understand just how problematic strategic legal action from larger financial interests can be for the little guy. I learned really quick when I became a writer that "letter of law" and "reality of law" are two very different things.
And why should big grabs of pre-existing data be protected?
I doubt the lobbies in favor of this sort of thing really believe that there is any sort of moral or ethical imperative to "protect" databases.
They're simply lobbying for this type of protection because they already have large databases and they think they might actually get it. If they do, they can pull an instant SCO and double or triple their revenue streams.
It's not about "this will be good for people", it's about "Heh... this is sort of slimy... but if we could pass it, our stock would double, so who cares!"
And for the politicians it's simply a matter of "This will piss off a few informed voters, but if the contributions are large enough, the $$$ will subsidize the buying of new voters to replace them with tons left over!"
The problem is that most databases are simply lists of facts. Give someone ownership of a database, and you have given them ownership of the facts; it's not at all like traditional copyrights over prose or over music, which are designed to protect expressive, artistic content.
Imagine that you decide to make a database called "Names of Professional Writers of Manhattan and their Phone Numbers". You spend ten years of your life calling for and assembling submissions from writers and you finally make your list available for free on your Web site only to get sued the very next day by the company who makes the phone book... because your data is a subset of their copyrighted database of all Manhattan phone numbers, too large a subset to be covered by fair use.
You have to either pay them to publish the information that you found, or you have to take it offline.
Re #1: No radio, no MP3 downloads... no purchase.
Re #2: Tons of this crap on radio (i.e. hear it but don't like it) because radio isn't an open forum, it's bought and paid for and it's hard to find variety if you don't like what radio is doing right now. Okay, let's face it, there's a lot of crap in MP3-land too... but the barrier to entry in MP3-land is lower, so artists that can't get on radio or that haven't been played on radio for years can be found in MP3-land.
[And no shite I won't pay for what I don't like and don't ever plan to listen to again-- repeat listening is after all, the express purpose of recorded music.]
Re #3: Every now and then something I like is on radio (and then I buy it), but mainly I find it through downloading MP3s (and then I buy it). But the point is, if I like it, I buy it. Because I want to do my own, high-quality rips instead of the net-quality stuff. Because if the three tracks I've heard are good, the other four might be worth having as well. Because I want the artist to make more. Because I want to have media around in case my hard drive dies and I need to re-rip.
Discourse:
I've bought at least 75 albums over the last two years that I first heard as a download or when someone emailed me a 128k mp3 file and said "wow, listen to this." Before the MP3 "era" I bought maybe 5-10 discs a year and often was dissatisfied with those. After MP3 started to happen, my CD purchasing increased exponentially and so did my level of satisfaction with each purchase.
I have 60+ gigs of MP3s, and I can show you an original CD to back every single one of those tracks up. Happily, I can put all those damn CDs in boxes in storage rather than having them take up space in my living area thanks to MP3. And yes, sometimes I do email one to a friend and say "wow, listen to this!" and I know that I have generated a number of CD sales this way.
Here's the kicker that drives RIAA crazy: probably 50% of the CDs I've bought after listening to MP3s are indies. Often I have to write the band after tracking them down on the 'net just to buy a copy because they're not out there in marketing channels. I know for a fact I've sent people to live performances... More than once I've emailed a friend an MP3 track along with "Hey man, this artist is going to be at XYZ in your town." Friend listens to track, likes it and *boom* another ticket is sold to the performance (and the artist makes a buck)... and nine times out of ten, the friend also buys a CD at the performance-- *boom* another CD is sold also.
The problem isn't that MP3s hurt sales of all music. The problem is that MP3s drive only the sales of good music-- and with barriers to entry (ala radio and RIAA contracts) removed, artistic expression isn't something the RIAA can get any kind of government-sponsored monopoly on. That is of course in contrast to, say, marketing and distribution channels in a particular commodity (i.e. crap music).
P.S. Please do not respond with an Ogg post.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a union member.
People who aren't members of a labor union (i.e. many people in relatively well-paid IT industries) don't understand organized labor at all.
Unions don't want members to break ranks because it destroys the entire concept of "collective" bargaining. It 10 workers out of 20 break ranks and work during a strike, it's much easier to fire the striking 10 and continue to operate using the 10 who broke ranks as a skeleton crew and as the trainers for the replacement 10. Thus, the 10 who actually stood up for themselves lose everything.
Make no mistake, workers do not take this lightly. Don't forget, many union members are in specialized positions and won't be able to replace their jobs for months or even years if they lose them. This is one of the reasons companies gamble against unions by underpying labor-- they believe that the employees are essentially hamstrung and can't go anywhere. They realize that the employees need the company and need the wage much more than management does. It's very, very tough decision for union members to make decisions about entering into collective action.
If management chooses to hire an inexperienced crew, make lousy operating decisions or even just close company doors and go home as the result of collective action, they're fine. Many of them have savings to burn and can afford to live unemployed for years, which is ironic because they're the ones much more likely to be able to quickly land a new job in management at another firm. But when the unionized crew is replaced rather than paid fairly, or when a company just shuts down a location, it may mean the end of life as these workers know it. They may lose their homes, their families may go hungry or have to rely on food banks, they may face years of unemployment with little or no savings in the bank and few assets, and may never find another job again.
Please don't underestimate the heroism of many labor workers in being willing to fight for the rights of other members of their field even though they have very little in the way of insurance or leverage and few weapons that can make management listen.
So why do they do it? Because Bob, the only qualified guy to do job X after 25 years' experience is still only earning 17k while the 24-year-old boss a room away with a 5-year BA+MBA, the guy who plays golf all day and is running the company into the ground because he has no experience, is earning 3.6M and his VP is earning 1.6M, together enough to double the salary or save the jobs of over 300 workers like Bob, who actually make the company what it is. And Bob knows that even though he may never see a pay increase in his working lifetime, if he keeps fighting, younger guys in the workforce coming up may see one; he also knows that if he doesn't fight for better wages, the younger guys coming up may eventually only earn 16k, in spite of inflation, while the MBA's wages go up, up, up, to 2M, 3M or even 4M.
Yes, Bob also realizes that the company may simply ship all the jobs to Mexico, or India, or Malaysia. But if Bob is an American worker or an EU worker, after much soul-searching, he decides to take the risk. A non-living wage is a non-living wage. It does Bob no good to sigh and say "okay, pay me what you'd exploit those 3rd-world workers with" because a 3rd-world wage won't buy Bob food or goods in a 1st-world marketplace.