I'm considerably more Libertarian than the next guy, but you need to take the tin foil hat off for this one.
A futures market like this is just an efficient, effective tool for measuring the likelihood of something happening. It's essentially a datamining technique where you have a large number of intelligent actors processing information for you and coming together to find a market-clearing price. From this price, you can back out the likelihood of the event occuring.
This is nothing more than an application of sports betting or like the Iowa Electronic Markets, which I understand are good predictors of election results.
Alas, I'm afraid some of the more fanciful suggestions here will not come to pass. Do you really think a terrorist would be foolish enough to trade large on a DoD futures market right before committing some act? It would seem silly to do that with your DoD account when you could just sell airline and insurance stocks instead.
A market like this is not going to be sufficiently liquid for someone to either hedge the risk of an event or profit much on one.
That is, if you came to the market and tried to buy $3 billion worth of "Chippewa Falls destroyed by fire and brimstone SEP '03" futures, you'd probably spook the market and wouldn't find any profitable edge.
If I were the King of Jordan and I found out people were willing to pay $97 for a "King overthrown by December" I'd be pretty damned greatful for the head's up. It's like a free opinion poll.
And...except that it might be government sanctioned (though it would be easy enough to have an outside firm run the market), this is not different than betting sites making markets on whether Saddam will still be in power.
TIA sucks. But I think this is a not-so-novel, but pretty ingenious thing that really doesn't trample anyone's liberties.
I think this is why it may be more difficult for RIAA to go after file downloaders instead of file sharers.
If you already own a legitimate copy of a copyrighted work is it wrong for you to download another?
What do you get when you buy a CD? Is it a bundled license to listen to the music plus a single physical copy?
When you scratch your CD and need to replace it, why should you have to pay again for that license? Why not just pay a media fee -- or make things more efficient for all involved and just download it off the net?
It is a very curious question what a judge would think if RIAA sued a downloader who was able to provide a physical copy of a CD for every song he allegedly downloaded. Particularly if he could provide a store receipt dated earlier than the alledged copying...
Like everyone else, I first thought all this legal hoopla by the RIAA and other private, quasi-governmental and the U.S. Congress would eventually put an end to file sharing, but thinking about it more I realized that file sharing will just evolve. It is simply becoming too easy to transfer bits of data for file sharing to stop.
What are some of the likely outcomes?
1. Anonymous file sharing. I think the technical challenges to this are pretty huge. There are legitimate reasons to allow anonymous information exchange, and even the US government seems to desire this to promote favored political dissidents. If someone can geninuinely overcome the challenges, I imagine peer-to-peer networks will survive, but I'm not very sanguine about this.
2. Private networks. Rather than letting just any yahoo search the files on your computer and suck down your precious bandwidth, I forsee private networks where friends and family can share files, but strangers can't. As long as you keep your list of buddies under reasonable control, it's going to be difficult for anyone to track file back to you.
3. Local exchanges. Even more extreme than a private network, people might make direct device-to-device copies. Go over to a friend's house and download their entire music collection to your laptop. Meet someone at the library and sync up your iPod. Whatever - by cutting out the middleman, there are no sticky subpoena issues with your ISP. Think about it - as data storage and data transfer rates improve, it'll be feasible to exchange files with any person you casually meet. Instead of meeting for the coupon swap, you can bring your PDA/iPod/laptop/hard drive and swap with your friends.
I really don't see how encryption, watermarking, or stronger enforcement of IP laws is going to put this genie back in the bottle.
The music industry, just like every other content provider, is going to have to adapt their business model, by providing a reasonably priced service that provides consumers what they want.
I think the only viable business model is subscription based access to a music catalog. For something like $10 or $20/mo., subscribers will have access to the entire catalog - and maybe special features like "webcasts", web radio, etc. But the current distribution system is done.
That and the music indutry needs to turn out something better. Honestly - I haven't downloaded ANY music and I've still only bought about 2 CD's in the past year. It's all crap.
"...all subject to the terms of any applicable approved license."
Which I interpret to mean SF has a perpetual right to publish or use submitted works within the bounds of the software's license, be it GPL, LGPL, or whatever other license models they have approved.
All they are doing is making clear the licensing terms and ensuring that someone doesn't try to retroactively change the terms and then sue SF for IP violations.
N.B., this clause gives the SUBMITTER substantial rights. SF is disclaiming any interests in the material beyond the terms of the applicable license.
IMHO, the main (and perhaps only) benefit of click-wrapped software is that it provides clear notice of the license to the user.
It's easy to claim that you didn't see the license if it's printed on a small piece of paper that flutters out of the box or in tiny print on the CD or it's kept on a server in Redmond or if it is on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.
Well-intentioned users might have the same problem - if access to the license isn't convenient, they may just assume some terms are there or are not.
But click-wrapping a program that is distributed in binary form makes it pretty clear that the user was given notice of the license, even if he or she chooses not to read it.
I think it makes sense for all software, free, open, or otherwise, to clearly let the user know the terms of the license.
Free software distributed as executables should probably display some kind of copyright and license notice. It makes sense if this happens the first time the program is run -- perhaps saving in a.rc file that the license has been viewed.
When it comes to source code, I'm not sure that any kind of click-wrapping makes sense. It's very easy to put a "LICENSE" file in the with the distribution and to have a copyright banner (and reference to the license file) at the top of each source file.
Click-wrapping may be a way of protecting the authors/maintainers/distributers of free software from any unintended liability from the use of their software.
I think all free software packages should come with express statements of limited liability and warranty.
Old thread...so probably no one will read this, but it is interesting nonetheless.
I was taking it as a given that someone already wrote the software. Once someone has made the investment to create and maintain it, there is no (really little) economic cost to them distributing it far and wide.
It makes sense to apply the lighthouse problem to software. If something is highly desireable but too expensive for any individual to produce, it makes sense to have one person create it and tax the masses. A page from MS's business plan.
But...the problem is in the assumption that everyone's costs and benefits are so uniform. If one person or group has a particularly high need for a lighthouse -- say they are moving galleons full of gold and the expected benefit to them alone is $100k, they can build it and allow others to share the benefit.
Similarly, if the costs of producing the lighthouse are very small for an individual (or perhaps if they are a hobbyist as you suggest), then they may build it for themselves and the freeloaders.
There are myriad reasons for open source projects getting started. Many start with students which is typically low-cost labor, others may want to share code for the few intelligent bits of feedback they'll get, others may have some type of political agenda (free software philosophy, supporting an open or defacto standard), or it may be for fame, glory, or to ultimately get a job or write an O'Reilly book, or maybe just the challenge.
Whatever the reason, it's not clear that there are any fundamental economic constraints on open source projects.
The freeloader problem really manifests itself only in the Tragedy of the Commons. That is, freeloaders are only a problem when resources are scarce.
If we assume the marginal cost of distributing free software is 0 (which is probably true for the developer as there a many sites that will mirror popular software distributions), then why does it matter if 100 or 1000 or 1 million people download it?
I think most open source developers would be happier to have a popular application with 10mm freeloaders, rather than pulling a Bill Gates and bitching about all the ungrateful pirates out there.
The real viability issue for open source is whether it is possible to maintain a stable base of developers for an application -- not the number of freeriders.
One thing I've learned is that recruiters like to see the market churn. They don't make any money if you accept a counteroffer. If you leave, they collect a fee when you move and they collect a fee when your company replaces you. Sweet.
Sometimes companies think they are competitive when they really aren't. Or sometimes they don't pay people their full value because they think you are content and you are getting a bargain.
How many times have I read crap (even on Slashdot) that says "techies" or "geniuses" aren't motivated by cash but by the work environment or the free Jolt or playing games over the OC-12 or whatever.
Yes, sometimes you need to register your dissatisfaction to get properly paid or gain other concessions. Sometimes they don't believe you until you announce you are walking out the door. If your employer makes a counteroffer it doesn't necessarily mean he's just waiting to screw you when someone cheaper comes along.
YMMV. I just get a lot of advice from recruiters that I should bail out NOW. Understand what their motivations are -- oddly enough, they may not be in your best interests.
I understand that broadband providers need to raise cash fast - and that bandwidth hogs do raise their costs.
But there is a danger in this strategy. The value of any network depends on what's on it. The Internet is no different. If broadband providers price out the content providers that the casual (read: profitable) customers want to access, there will be much less demand for broadband.
Of course many of the T-M-T set would prefer to see the Internet become a toll road for access to their proprietary content. RIAA certainly doesn't want to see any competition from some guy distributing his garage band's mp3s from his home PC over his Comcast broadband.
Like many open source advocates, I am generally opposed to the idea of software patents, particularly under the current US patent system.
It is very hard for me to understand why anyone should be granted a 17 year monopoly on something in an industry that changes so quickly. Given the relatively low cost of developing new algorithms (compared to say drug research), the amount of simultaneous development, and the vast amount of prior work and prior art that all programming depends on, it seems a little disingenous for anyone to even apply for a software patent.
But as is often the case reality doesn't exactly jive with our open source utopia.
I have long thought that the FSF (as inimical or oxymoronic as that would be) or some other open source leadership group should create a foundation to manage software patents on behalf of open source developers.
The foundation would have clearly established rules for licensing and royalties and patent grantees so inclined could assign their patents there.
Eventually the open source community would have a portfolio of patents that they could use as a defense against software patents owned by corporations.
At the same time, this would have the benefit of calling attention to the inanity of PTO granting software patents.
It seems to me that this is what RedHat is doing - and I give them a lot of credit for it. The danger is that these patents become an asset of the corporation. While the current management may be completely trustworthy in this respect, there is always the danger that a change of control might put the patents at considerable risk.
Anyway, what do people think? What is open source's best defense against a world of software patents?
That's a great idea - we should only tax the people who care about NASA for NASA!!
And while we're at it, we'll pay for police protection with a tax on handguns, alarms and mace (after all, those are the people interested in protection); fire protection with a tax on smoke alarms and extinguishers; cleaning up the environment by taxing granola and birkenstocks; and welfare by taxing Volvos!
Aside from certain use fees and excise taxes where consumption is generally related to some gov't service (e.g., gasoline consumption is generally related to highway use), the gov't taxes us generally and then allocates the monies according to priorities.
I don't see a decent rationale for why scifi consumers should fund NASA when the population at large reaps the benefits of the scientific and techological discoveries. It's not just the kids with Jar-Jar dolls who drink Tang...
Best texts on algorithms
on
Deep Algorithms?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
So what are the best texts on algorithms? I mean texts that describe the algorithm and cover the etiology and perhaps importance rather than just being a cookbook or leaving everything as an exercise for the reader?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm considerably more Libertarian than the next guy, but you need to take the tin foil hat off for this one.
A futures market like this is just an efficient, effective tool for measuring the likelihood of something happening. It's essentially a datamining technique where you have a large number of intelligent actors processing information for you and coming together to find a market-clearing price. From this price, you can back out the likelihood of the event occuring.
This is nothing more than an application of sports betting or like the Iowa Electronic Markets, which I understand are good predictors of election results.
Alas, I'm afraid some of the more fanciful suggestions here will not come to pass. Do you really think a terrorist would be foolish enough to trade large on a DoD futures market right before committing some act? It would seem silly to do that with your DoD account when you could just sell airline and insurance stocks instead.
A market like this is not going to be sufficiently liquid for someone to either hedge the risk of an event or profit much on one.
That is, if you came to the market and tried to buy $3 billion worth of "Chippewa Falls destroyed by fire and brimstone SEP '03" futures, you'd probably spook the market and wouldn't find any profitable edge.
If I were the King of Jordan and I found out people were willing to pay $97 for a "King overthrown by December" I'd be pretty damned greatful for the head's up. It's like a free opinion poll.
And...except that it might be government sanctioned (though it would be easy enough to have an outside firm run the market), this is not different than betting sites making markets on whether Saddam will still be in power.
TIA sucks. But I think this is a not-so-novel, but pretty ingenious thing that really doesn't trample anyone's liberties.
I think this is why it may be more difficult for RIAA to go after file downloaders instead of file sharers.
If you already own a legitimate copy of a copyrighted work is it wrong for you to download another?
What do you get when you buy a CD? Is it a bundled license to listen to the music plus a single physical copy?
When you scratch your CD and need to replace it, why should you have to pay again for that license? Why not just pay a media fee -- or make things more efficient for all involved and just download it off the net?
It is a very curious question what a judge would think if RIAA sued a downloader who was able to provide a physical copy of a CD for every song he allegedly downloaded. Particularly if he could provide a store receipt dated earlier than the alledged copying...
Like everyone else, I first thought all this legal hoopla by the RIAA and other private, quasi-governmental and the U.S. Congress would eventually put an end to file sharing, but thinking about it more I realized that file sharing will just evolve. It is simply becoming too easy to transfer bits of data for file sharing to stop.
What are some of the likely outcomes?
1. Anonymous file sharing. I think the technical challenges to this are pretty huge. There are legitimate reasons to allow anonymous information exchange, and even the US government seems to desire this to promote favored political dissidents. If someone can geninuinely overcome the challenges, I imagine peer-to-peer networks will survive, but I'm not very sanguine about this.
2. Private networks. Rather than letting just any yahoo search the files on your computer and suck down your precious bandwidth, I forsee private networks where friends and family can share files, but strangers can't. As long as you keep your list of buddies under reasonable control, it's going to be difficult for anyone to track file back to you.
3. Local exchanges. Even more extreme than a private network, people might make direct device-to-device copies. Go over to a friend's house and download their entire music collection to your laptop. Meet someone at the library and sync up your iPod. Whatever - by cutting out the middleman, there are no sticky subpoena issues with your ISP. Think about it - as data storage and data transfer rates improve, it'll be feasible to exchange files with any person you casually meet. Instead of meeting for the coupon swap, you can bring your PDA/iPod/laptop/hard drive and swap with your friends.
I really don't see how encryption, watermarking, or stronger enforcement of IP laws is going to put this genie back in the bottle.
The music industry, just like every other content provider, is going to have to adapt their business model, by providing a reasonably priced service that provides consumers what they want.
I think the only viable business model is subscription based access to a music catalog. For something like $10 or $20/mo., subscribers will have access to the entire catalog - and maybe special features like "webcasts", web radio, etc. But the current distribution system is done.
That and the music indutry needs to turn out something better. Honestly - I haven't downloaded ANY music and I've still only bought about 2 CD's in the past year. It's all crap.
The operative part of that clause being:
"...all subject to the terms of any applicable approved license."
Which I interpret to mean SF has a perpetual right to publish or use submitted works within the bounds of the software's license, be it GPL, LGPL, or whatever other license models they have approved.
All they are doing is making clear the licensing terms and ensuring that someone doesn't try to retroactively change the terms and then sue SF for IP violations.
N.B., this clause gives the SUBMITTER substantial rights. SF is disclaiming any interests in the material beyond the terms of the applicable license.
IMHO, the main (and perhaps only) benefit of click-wrapped software is that it provides clear notice of the license to the user.
It's easy to claim that you didn't see the license if it's printed on a small piece of paper that flutters out of the box or in tiny print on the CD or it's kept on a server in Redmond or if it is on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.
Well-intentioned users might have the same problem - if access to the license isn't convenient, they may just assume some terms are there or are not.
But click-wrapping a program that is distributed in binary form makes it pretty clear that the user was given notice of the license, even if he or she chooses not to read it.
I think it makes sense for all software, free, open, or otherwise, to clearly let the user know the terms of the license.
Free software distributed as executables should probably display some kind of copyright and license notice. It makes sense if this happens the first time the program is run -- perhaps saving in a
When it comes to source code, I'm not sure that any kind of click-wrapping makes sense. It's very easy to put a "LICENSE" file in the with the distribution and to have a copyright banner (and reference to the license file) at the top of each source file.
Click-wrapping may be a way of protecting the authors/maintainers/distributers of free software from any unintended liability from the use of their software.
I think all free software packages should come with express statements of limited liability and warranty.
Old thread...so probably no one will read this, but it is interesting nonetheless.
I was taking it as a given that someone already wrote the software. Once someone has made the investment to create and maintain it, there is no (really little) economic cost to them distributing it far and wide.
It makes sense to apply the lighthouse problem to software. If something is highly desireable but too expensive for any individual to produce, it makes sense to have one person create it and tax the masses. A page from MS's business plan.
But...the problem is in the assumption that everyone's costs and benefits are so uniform. If one person or group has a particularly high need for a lighthouse -- say they are moving galleons full of gold and the expected benefit to them alone is $100k, they can build it and allow others to share the benefit.
Similarly, if the costs of producing the lighthouse are very small for an individual (or perhaps if they are a hobbyist as you suggest), then they may build it for themselves and the freeloaders.
There are myriad reasons for open source projects getting started. Many start with students which is typically low-cost labor, others may want to share code for the few intelligent bits of feedback they'll get, others may have some type of political agenda (free software philosophy, supporting an open or defacto standard), or it may be for fame, glory, or to ultimately get a job or write an O'Reilly book, or maybe just the challenge.
Whatever the reason, it's not clear that there are any fundamental economic constraints on open source projects.
No, this is wrong...
The freeloader problem really manifests itself only in the Tragedy of the Commons. That is, freeloaders are only a problem when resources are scarce.
If we assume the marginal cost of distributing free software is 0 (which is probably true for the developer as there a many sites that will mirror popular software distributions), then why does it matter if 100 or 1000 or 1 million people download it?
I think most open source developers would be happier to have a popular application with 10mm freeloaders, rather than pulling a Bill Gates and bitching about all the ungrateful pirates out there.
The real viability issue for open source is whether it is possible to maintain a stable base of developers for an application -- not the number of freeriders.
One thing I've learned is that recruiters like to see the market churn. They don't make any money if you accept a counteroffer. If you leave, they collect a fee when you move and they collect a fee when your company replaces you. Sweet.
Sometimes companies think they are competitive when they really aren't. Or sometimes they don't pay people their full value because they think you are content and you are getting a bargain.
How many times have I read crap (even on Slashdot) that says "techies" or "geniuses" aren't motivated by cash but by the work environment or the free Jolt or playing games over the OC-12 or whatever.
Yes, sometimes you need to register your dissatisfaction to get properly paid or gain other concessions. Sometimes they don't believe you until you announce you are walking out the door. If your employer makes a counteroffer it doesn't necessarily mean he's just waiting to screw you when someone cheaper comes along.
YMMV. I just get a lot of advice from recruiters that I should bail out NOW. Understand what their motivations are -- oddly enough, they may not be in your best interests.
I understand that broadband providers need to raise cash fast - and that bandwidth hogs do raise their costs.
But there is a danger in this strategy. The value of any network depends on what's on it. The Internet is no different. If broadband providers price out the content providers that the casual (read: profitable) customers want to access, there will be much less demand for broadband.
Of course many of the T-M-T set would prefer to see the Internet become a toll road for access to their proprietary content. RIAA certainly doesn't want to see any competition from some guy distributing his garage band's mp3s from his home PC over his Comcast broadband.
Like many open source advocates, I am generally opposed to the idea of software patents, particularly under the current US patent system.
It is very hard for me to understand why anyone should be granted a 17 year monopoly on something in an industry that changes so quickly. Given the relatively low cost of developing new algorithms (compared to say drug research), the amount of simultaneous development, and the vast amount of prior work and prior art that all programming depends on, it seems a little disingenous for anyone to even apply for a software patent.
But as is often the case reality doesn't exactly jive with our open source utopia.
I have long thought that the FSF (as inimical or oxymoronic as that would be) or some other open source leadership group should create a foundation to manage software patents on behalf of open source developers.
The foundation would have clearly established rules for licensing and royalties and patent grantees so inclined could assign their patents there.
Eventually the open source community would have a portfolio of patents that they could use as a defense against software patents owned by corporations.
At the same time, this would have the benefit of calling attention to the inanity of PTO granting software patents.
It seems to me that this is what RedHat is doing - and I give them a lot of credit for it. The danger is that these patents become an asset of the corporation. While the current management may be completely trustworthy in this respect, there is always the danger that a change of control might put the patents at considerable risk.
Anyway, what do people think? What is open source's best defense against a world of software patents?
That's a great idea - we should only tax the people who care about NASA for NASA!!
And while we're at it, we'll pay for police protection with a tax on handguns, alarms and mace (after all, those are the people interested in protection); fire protection with a tax on smoke alarms and extinguishers; cleaning up the environment by taxing granola and birkenstocks; and welfare by taxing Volvos!
Aside from certain use fees and excise taxes where consumption is generally related to some gov't service (e.g., gasoline consumption is generally related to highway use), the gov't taxes us generally and then allocates the monies according to priorities.
I don't see a decent rationale for why scifi consumers should fund NASA when the population at large reaps the benefits of the scientific and techological discoveries. It's not just the kids with Jar-Jar dolls who drink Tang...
So what are the best texts on algorithms? I mean texts that describe the algorithm and cover the etiology and perhaps importance rather than just being a cookbook or leaving everything as an exercise for the reader?
The Knuth books? Or is there something better?