Not to mention, nobody ever says "Someone has a case of the mondays". Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.
I find it highly unlikely that there are any in common use Linux based traffic control systems. The systems in use today are either dos based, or they're wind river or other embedded device systems. Linux is overkill for such a system and provides no benefit.
It's not that rare at all, even if you ignore the over 60 crowd (which I agree is become more technology literate), there are still tons of people I interact with every day that know nothing about computers much less the internet.
Uhh.. what? I know lots of people who's lives are not touched by Linux in any way whatsoever. They don't own smartphones or tivo's or even flat screen tv's. They don't own ebook readers, or even surf the internet. Exagerate much?
Some music and books and movies would still be made and sold, sure.. but nowhere near what is currently enjoyed. And certainly, nothing large budget would ever get made.
As for libraries... that's a bit of a red herring. First, you have to go to a library, which isn't always as convenient as a book store (or online ebook store). Second, you have to search and find them based on their goofy filing system (not typically alphabetical like most book stores). Third, you have to hope nobody else has it checked out. Fourth, you have to return it within a certain time period or pay fines...
My time is valuable. Even if I made $8 an hour, it would likely take more than an hour to do all that, so i'm actually wasting time i could be spending earning money.
Copyright is already decriminalized on the end consumer level. The lawsuits that have been going on are civil, not criminal. Nobody has gone to jail for sharing some music or movies.
You're also confusing the fact that some people, who have the knowledge, can break DRM.. but the vast majority can't. It's easier to get books with DRM than without for most people.
My entire point is that piracy itself hurts people as much as someone simply choosing not to buy a product.
No, it doesn't.
Assuming you can't get a product you want for free, then choosing not to buy a product is "voting with your wallet". Works that nobody are interested in will not make money and will not survive.
If I choose not to buy a product, I don't care whether or not the author survives or ever makes another product.
If I do choose to pirate a work, then that means I want the product and potentially other products the author makes. Not paying for it is detremental to gaining other products from the author and/or publisher.
Further, not paying for products you like may, in the long run, prevent authors from creating works for you to pirate and publishers from distributing works you want to pirate.
In other words, you're taking a short term gain for a long term loss.
You're confusing distributors with the distribution system. Trucking companies aren't distributors just as ISP's aren't.
Most people, yourself included, seem to think publishers do nothing. THey provide a number of services, such as forcing the author to improve the quality of their work, hiring editors to assist the authors, marketing the product, and organizing those tours you claim the author will make their money at (it costs a lot of money that the authors don't have.. and that money is not recouped by the ticket sales, but by the residual product sales the tour generates).
You're confusing "not interested in it" with "not interested in paying for it". Nobody thinks someone should have to pay for something they don't want.
However, Most people that DO want the work would choose not to pay for it, if given the option.
I'm not talking about Piracy, where you're doing something illegal. I'm talking about if copyright did not exist, and authors and publishers had no right to control distribution.
You said it yourself. If you can get it for free, you'd rather do that. So would everyone else. And few, if anyone, would compensate the author.
Umm. no. And, isn't that really the point? They certainly aren't popular enough for most people to have ever heard of them. And how do you know if they're going out of business or not? Have you seen their financials?
No, but I'd bet freely copyable works would have prevented Star Wars, The Matrix, pretty much anything written by Steven King, and a lot of other stuff you probably would not be happy about losing...
Just for the sake of argument, let's accept that assertion of yours as truth: Infinite distribution necessarily causes financial problems for publishers. That doesn't explain why they would choose to give fewer lending rights to possessors of digital copies than to those who buy the paper object. Nor does it explain why they charge pretty much the same price for this reduced capability.
If publishers could control physical books like they can ebooks, they would have forced those limitations a long time ago. But, they can't. They can't prevent libraries from lending the same copy. They can't prevent you from lending a book to a friend. With DRM, they can. It's as simple as that.
As for the assertion.. given that publishers business models are predicated on controlling how many copies are made and sold, then yes.. it's pretty logical that infinite distribution causes financial problems for publishers. It's ludicrious and disingenuous to even pretend otherwise.
Does that mean publishers couldn't change their business model? no. Could they be equally as profitable? Quite possibly. However, i don't yet think such a business model exists that could survive freely copyable works.
Free software has become marginally profitable for reasons that would not apply to musicians and authors. First, few musicians and authors write their work for themselves. They do it for others. It's highly unlikely that a musican listens to his own work much other than through playing it for others. And a book author doesn't read his own works other than to edit. Free Software developers do use their own tools, though.. and primarily develop them for their own use. Sometimes people think others can get use out of them as well, and make them free software. Or they contribute to an already free project because the tool is useful for themselves. Publishers (Red Hat, Novell, etc..) then sell support contracts based on that work, which also doesn't work with books or music.
Either way, the only way that books or music can be profitable is if distribution is controlled. People simply will not pay for something they can get for free, unless it's easier to to pay for it than to acquire it for free (in which case publishers would simply take all the profit and not give any to the artists).
That doesn't mean that nobody would ever create new music or books given infinute distribution.. but things would be different. Some would find the changes welcome, some would not. I do know that I would not want my only selections to be works that had no financial incentive to be good.
You are confusing "goods" with "creative effort". It costs more than $7.99 worth of an authors time to write a full length novel, have it edited, marketed and distributed. The cost for developing the content is amortized over the entire set of sales for the book (which are higher for physical media because of the printing, distribution, and paper costs)
If you could duplicate a distribute a physical book for zero cost, that still doesn't change the fact that the author has spent a good portion of their life and creative energy creating the work, and deserves to be paid for it if they choose to. It's not like books are randomly generated by a computer.
It's true that books would (and should) be cheaper (or artists should make more money) but it would still cost.
If you don't believe that creative effort doesn't deserve to be rewarded, then either you feel entitled to things you didn't pay for, or you don't care about the creative work and won't read it. But you can't consume it and simultaneously say there is no value to it. That's just being dishonest..
So you're saying that if we could freely copy music and books, that nothing would change? That argument is so ridiculous because it shows a remarkable lack of thought about the consequences.
First, few people will pay for something they can get for free. Second, even if it was 'easier' to pay for something than to get the free version, then the distributors would copy everything and never pay the artists. Thus you would only pay the distributors (while the distributors take a large chunk today, the artists at least usually get something of it).
Oh, so because I know something you don't.. i'm a "know it all". That's the excuse of the arrogant when they are caught out on their ignorance.
You can, in fact, turn ansi compatibility on and off, and not just in Microsoft C++, but borland, and gcc as well (I still refer to the compiler borland made as borland rather than whatever company owns it this week). gcc has various extension modes that make it non-ansi compatible if you enable or disable them as well.
In vc++ 6, there is a switch call/Za that turns off Microsoft extensions, making the compiler (significantly more ansi compliant, including things like for loop, which you claim wasn't there).
All os's have some kind of concept of a "handle" for the things you mention, be it process id, or some other token. The specification for the CLI makes no assumptions on this, and abstracts this out.
It's true, if you want to do certain functions, you have to drop to unsafe (native) code, and that's not portable.. that's probably what you're thinking of. You have to do the same in Java for things that are not supported by the core framework.
The GUI has nothing to do with C# the language, or the CLI. You can use any GUI you want, and GTK# is common for Mono.
That is why Star Bucks only has ONE flavor of coffee and absolutely no tea.
No, but that's why they don't have 300 flavors of coffee, and 900 flavors of tea. It's also why they have the same flavors of coffee and tea and pastry at every store.
You're trying to twist a strength into a weakness.
Haven't you ever heard of using your enemies strength against them? It's a key factor in many martial arts. A strength isn't always positive in every situation.
Everyone does that, so do Google and Firefox. They claim that the data is only used to help them determine which features people use, or how often certain things go wrong.
The for loop initialization variables changed scope when ANSI C++ came out(93? 94?). Borland had the fix within a month - M$ still didn't in 2007 (last time i looked).
Wrong. Visual C++ 6 had ansi conformant for loop in VC6 back 1998, however it wasn't turned on by default because it broke MFC. However, if you wanted to strict ansi C++ you could turn it on.
Given that YOU were the one that "missed" that VC had this, ask yourself "maybe i'm wrong about everything else" as well.
It's completely true that you couldn't use ansi standard and MFC, which is why MS changed things in VC7 so that for loop and other ansi functionality could be enable or disabled individually (rather than a straight "ansi" mode as was the case in VC6).
Still, it's true that VC isn't, and will likely never be 100% standard compliant, because certain features like "export" aren't worth the effort to implement (nobody uses it, and only very few other compilers implement it either, for example.. gcc doesn't, nor does borland)
So do ME a favor, don't be so cocky about your assumptions. You're wrong.
C# is not "cross platform", it's "platform agnostic". There is nothing, absolutely nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada in the C# standard that has any kind of Windows dependancy, requirement, or "could only be implemented on windows" aspect to it.
And it's an ISO standard, something that Java never was, and something that Sun backed out of twice.
Microsoft has had an ansi C++ conforming compiler (with the exceptoin of esoteric high end features that almost nobody implemented like partial templates) a long time ago.
While it's true that if you wanted to use certain features like MFC (which would lock you into windows anyways) then you had to disable those ansi features (and they defaulted to off), but that changed about 10 years ago.
Not to mention, nobody ever says "Someone has a case of the mondays". Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.
What part of "they don't [...] even surf the internet" didn't you understand?
I find it highly unlikely that there are any in common use Linux based traffic control systems. The systems in use today are either dos based, or they're wind river or other embedded device systems. Linux is overkill for such a system and provides no benefit.
It's not that rare at all, even if you ignore the over 60 crowd (which I agree is become more technology literate), there are still tons of people I interact with every day that know nothing about computers much less the internet.
What part of "every day" don't you understand?
Uhh.. what? I know lots of people who's lives are not touched by Linux in any way whatsoever. They don't own smartphones or tivo's or even flat screen tv's. They don't own ebook readers, or even surf the internet. Exagerate much?
Some music and books and movies would still be made and sold, sure.. but nowhere near what is currently enjoyed. And certainly, nothing large budget would ever get made.
As for libraries... that's a bit of a red herring. First, you have to go to a library, which isn't always as convenient as a book store (or online ebook store). Second, you have to search and find them based on their goofy filing system (not typically alphabetical like most book stores). Third, you have to hope nobody else has it checked out. Fourth, you have to return it within a certain time period or pay fines...
My time is valuable. Even if I made $8 an hour, it would likely take more than an hour to do all that, so i'm actually wasting time i could be spending earning money.
Copyright is already decriminalized on the end consumer level. The lawsuits that have been going on are civil, not criminal. Nobody has gone to jail for sharing some music or movies.
You're also confusing the fact that some people, who have the knowledge, can break DRM.. but the vast majority can't. It's easier to get books with DRM than without for most people.
My entire point is that piracy itself hurts people as much as someone simply choosing not to buy a product.
No, it doesn't.
Assuming you can't get a product you want for free, then choosing not to buy a product is "voting with your wallet". Works that nobody are interested in will not make money and will not survive.
If I choose not to buy a product, I don't care whether or not the author survives or ever makes another product.
If I do choose to pirate a work, then that means I want the product and potentially other products the author makes. Not paying for it is detremental to gaining other products from the author and/or publisher.
Further, not paying for products you like may, in the long run, prevent authors from creating works for you to pirate and publishers from distributing works you want to pirate.
In other words, you're taking a short term gain for a long term loss.
You're confusing distributors with the distribution system. Trucking companies aren't distributors just as ISP's aren't.
Most people, yourself included, seem to think publishers do nothing. THey provide a number of services, such as forcing the author to improve the quality of their work, hiring editors to assist the authors, marketing the product, and organizing those tours you claim the author will make their money at (it costs a lot of money that the authors don't have.. and that money is not recouped by the ticket sales, but by the residual product sales the tour generates).
You're confusing "not interested in it" with "not interested in paying for it". Nobody thinks someone should have to pay for something they don't want.
However, Most people that DO want the work would choose not to pay for it, if given the option.
I'm not talking about Piracy, where you're doing something illegal. I'm talking about if copyright did not exist, and authors and publishers had no right to control distribution.
You said it yourself. If you can get it for free, you'd rather do that. So would everyone else. And few, if anyone, would compensate the author.
Think of the cultural impact if someone went back in time and killed George Lucas in his teens. Wait.. that sounds like a good plot for a movie...
I guess you've never heard of Baen Publishing?
Umm. no. And, isn't that really the point? They certainly aren't popular enough for most people to have ever heard of them. And how do you know if they're going out of business or not? Have you seen their financials?
No, but I'd bet freely copyable works would have prevented Star Wars, The Matrix, pretty much anything written by Steven King, and a lot of other stuff you probably would not be happy about losing...
If publishers could control physical books like they can ebooks, they would have forced those limitations a long time ago. But, they can't. They can't prevent libraries from lending the same copy. They can't prevent you from lending a book to a friend. With DRM, they can. It's as simple as that.
As for the assertion.. given that publishers business models are predicated on controlling how many copies are made and sold, then yes.. it's pretty logical that infinite distribution causes financial problems for publishers. It's ludicrious and disingenuous to even pretend otherwise.
Does that mean publishers couldn't change their business model? no. Could they be equally as profitable? Quite possibly. However, i don't yet think such a business model exists that could survive freely copyable works.
Free software has become marginally profitable for reasons that would not apply to musicians and authors. First, few musicians and authors write their work for themselves. They do it for others. It's highly unlikely that a musican listens to his own work much other than through playing it for others. And a book author doesn't read his own works other than to edit. Free Software developers do use their own tools, though.. and primarily develop them for their own use. Sometimes people think others can get use out of them as well, and make them free software. Or they contribute to an already free project because the tool is useful for themselves. Publishers (Red Hat, Novell, etc..) then sell support contracts based on that work, which also doesn't work with books or music.
Either way, the only way that books or music can be profitable is if distribution is controlled. People simply will not pay for something they can get for free, unless it's easier to to pay for it than to acquire it for free (in which case publishers would simply take all the profit and not give any to the artists).
That doesn't mean that nobody would ever create new music or books given infinute distribution.. but things would be different. Some would find the changes welcome, some would not. I do know that I would not want my only selections to be works that had no financial incentive to be good.
You are confusing "goods" with "creative effort". It costs more than $7.99 worth of an authors time to write a full length novel, have it edited, marketed and distributed. The cost for developing the content is amortized over the entire set of sales for the book (which are higher for physical media because of the printing, distribution, and paper costs)
If you could duplicate a distribute a physical book for zero cost, that still doesn't change the fact that the author has spent a good portion of their life and creative energy creating the work, and deserves to be paid for it if they choose to. It's not like books are randomly generated by a computer.
It's true that books would (and should) be cheaper (or artists should make more money) but it would still cost.
If you don't believe that creative effort doesn't deserve to be rewarded, then either you feel entitled to things you didn't pay for, or you don't care about the creative work and won't read it. But you can't consume it and simultaneously say there is no value to it. That's just being dishonest..
So you're saying that if we could freely copy music and books, that nothing would change? That argument is so ridiculous because it shows a remarkable lack of thought about the consequences.
First, few people will pay for something they can get for free. Second, even if it was 'easier' to pay for something than to get the free version, then the distributors would copy everything and never pay the artists. Thus you would only pay the distributors (while the distributors take a large chunk today, the artists at least usually get something of it).
Oh, so because I know something you don't.. i'm a "know it all". That's the excuse of the arrogant when they are caught out on their ignorance.
You can, in fact, turn ansi compatibility on and off, and not just in Microsoft C++, but borland, and gcc as well (I still refer to the compiler borland made as borland rather than whatever company owns it this week). gcc has various extension modes that make it non-ansi compatible if you enable or disable them as well.
In vc++ 6, there is a switch call /Za that turns off Microsoft extensions, making the compiler (significantly more ansi compliant, including things like for loop, which you claim wasn't there).
Read this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa270923(v=VS.60).aspx
While it doesn't explicityly mention the for loop scope, it's covered under more general scop rules in the scope section.
All os's have some kind of concept of a "handle" for the things you mention, be it process id, or some other token. The specification for the CLI makes no assumptions on this, and abstracts this out.
It's true, if you want to do certain functions, you have to drop to unsafe (native) code, and that's not portable.. that's probably what you're thinking of. You have to do the same in Java for things that are not supported by the core framework.
The GUI has nothing to do with C# the language, or the CLI. You can use any GUI you want, and GTK# is common for Mono.
You're suggesting that space didn't give us technology? Seriously?
No, but that's why they don't have 300 flavors of coffee, and 900 flavors of tea. It's also why they have the same flavors of coffee and tea and pastry at every store.
Haven't you ever heard of using your enemies strength against them? It's a key factor in many martial arts. A strength isn't always positive in every situation.
Everyone does that, so do Google and Firefox. They claim that the data is only used to help them determine which features people use, or how often certain things go wrong.
Wrong. Visual C++ 6 had ansi conformant for loop in VC6 back 1998, however it wasn't turned on by default because it broke MFC. However, if you wanted to strict ansi C++ you could turn it on.
Given that YOU were the one that "missed" that VC had this, ask yourself "maybe i'm wrong about everything else" as well.
It's completely true that you couldn't use ansi standard and MFC, which is why MS changed things in VC7 so that for loop and other ansi functionality could be enable or disabled individually (rather than a straight "ansi" mode as was the case in VC6).
Still, it's true that VC isn't, and will likely never be 100% standard compliant, because certain features like "export" aren't worth the effort to implement (nobody uses it, and only very few other compilers implement it either, for example.. gcc doesn't, nor does borland)
So do ME a favor, don't be so cocky about your assumptions. You're wrong.
Nice rambling argument.
C# is not "cross platform", it's "platform agnostic". There is nothing, absolutely nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada in the C# standard that has any kind of Windows dependancy, requirement, or "could only be implemented on windows" aspect to it.
And it's an ISO standard, something that Java never was, and something that Sun backed out of twice.
Microsoft has had an ansi C++ conforming compiler (with the exceptoin of esoteric high end features that almost nobody implemented like partial templates) a long time ago.
While it's true that if you wanted to use certain features like MFC (which would lock you into windows anyways) then you had to disable those ansi features (and they defaulted to off), but that changed about 10 years ago.