If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called
an idea, which an individual man exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces
itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one
possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself
without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread
from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have
been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening
their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or
exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. --Thomas Jefferson
UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
ONCE AGAIN, MICROSOFT IS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR HUMAN RIGHTS
A friend of mine operated an ISP in Brazil, and in 1996, Microsoft entered an agreement with them in which they agreed to distribute Explorer. Weeks before a large marketing launch, Microsoft uped the price from free to not-free, threatening the company with financial ruin....unless, of course, they stopped distributing Netscape Navigator. Finally, GNU/Linux is showing the monsters that a world of giving, not taking, can produce better products for people.
Once again, the friends of humanity up in Redmond are trying to destroy a competitor. Not only are they trying to destroy GNU/Linux, but they are also trying to destroy our rights to give our expressions.
Burney: I don't think distributions in general are profitable for anybody. Really, in what way can people make money at all on Linux?
Wow, now that's a fine statement. It seems to be quite profitable for the CUSTOMER and the USER. Maybe some old school technology companies should focus more on the needs of their customers than just the needs of their shareholders. RedHat, Mandrake and Suse all seem to be figuring out how to create revenues by focusing on service solutions instead of holding their customers hostage. For those distros that remain true to the values of the communities that support them, they will surely create profits. It quite early in this new paradigm to decide that one cannot make money.
Burney: Proprietary [software] is a good way to make money; with open source, there's no way [to make money] because you don't control your intellectual property.
Another enlightened statement. A weather balloon doesn't control mother nature, but the designers have understood that there are forces that can be tapped with incredible potential. Just don't @#$% with mother nature or you can quickly meet your death. The problem here is that it's difficult to change a proprietary closed control oriented company into an standards based, open, cooperative oriented company. When you start from scratch with the right corporate DNA, it can work. The new open sources companies are more aligned with their users, and this will ultimately win. The ways to make money are just being developed.
The problem is the same with any relationship - lack of communication. With closed software, you have no easy way to connect with the engineers who are developing it. You have no way to give direct feedback, or incentives to get them to pay attention to the "users" needs (except a pink slip if they don't listen to the product marketing manager). With open source, at least you can do something about it yourself (if you can hack).
What we need across the free software (or open source if you prefer) industry is a simple way for users to give feedback directly to the authors. Feedback in the form of $ and suggestions. Today, commercial enterprises are there to take money and suggestions, but we need ways to get these businesses to be as transparent as possible, taking as little out of the dialogue and out of the cash flow. They feedback and profits should be decentralized, going to the real creators, which are both the users who define new needs, and the engineers who create the machine interface.
MandrakeSoft is trying to do something along these lines, and has just created an experts marketplace so that users can give back to technologists. Soon enough, there will be direct links from software products coming out of communities directly linking with a system like MandrakeExpert. This will finally give users a simple way to "give back" directly to a person who has "given" to them. Check out http://www.mandrakeexpert.com.
All of the commercial open source companies need to remember why they exist. The exist because of the thousands of gifts that come there way from users and developers. The commercial companies need to invest more of their investors capital trying to figure out ways to give back to these communities that give them life. Otherwise, the communities will stop giving, and they will all become proprietary companies.
The world is not binary. Saying that corporations should have "one" purpose implies a disconnected world.
The tobacco industry lawsuit, microsoft lawsuit, and the upcoming landslide of other lawsuits indicate that a focus on profit without ethics is simply not good for shareholders.
The world is not disconnected, and profits with ethics will win. The American public, through a) shorting stock in unethical companies and b) complaints to their attorney
generals will rearrange the priorities for American corporations. It's happening right now.
Slashdot Mirror
A TRUE AMERICAN VOICE
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called
an idea, which an individual man exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces
itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one
possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself
without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread
from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have
been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening
their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or
exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. --Thomas Jefferson
UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
ONCE AGAIN, MICROSOFT IS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR HUMAN RIGHTS
A friend of mine operated an ISP in Brazil, and in 1996, Microsoft entered an agreement with them in which they agreed to distribute Explorer. Weeks before a large marketing launch, Microsoft uped the price from free to not-free, threatening the company with financial ruin....unless, of course, they stopped distributing Netscape Navigator. Finally, GNU/Linux is showing the monsters that a world of giving, not taking, can produce better products for people.
Once again, the friends of humanity up in Redmond are trying to destroy a competitor. Not only are they trying to destroy GNU/Linux, but they are also trying to destroy our rights to give our expressions.
Well FUCK THEM.
Burney: I don't think distributions in general are profitable for anybody. Really, in what way can people make money at all on Linux?
Wow, now that's a fine statement. It seems to be quite profitable for the CUSTOMER and the USER. Maybe some old school technology companies should focus more on the needs of their customers than just the needs of their shareholders. RedHat, Mandrake and Suse all seem to be figuring out how to create revenues by focusing on service solutions instead of holding their customers hostage. For those distros that remain true to the values of the communities that support them, they will surely create profits. It quite early in this new paradigm to decide that one cannot make money.
Burney: Proprietary [software] is a good way to make money; with open source, there's no way [to make money] because you don't control your intellectual property.
Another enlightened statement. A weather balloon doesn't control mother nature, but the designers have understood that there are forces that can be tapped with incredible potential. Just don't @#$% with mother nature or you can quickly meet your death. The problem here is that it's difficult to change a proprietary closed control oriented company into an standards based, open, cooperative oriented company. When you start from scratch with the right corporate DNA, it can work. The new open sources companies are more aligned with their users, and this will ultimately win. The ways to make money are just being developed.
The problem is the same with any relationship - lack of communication. With closed software, you have no easy way to connect with the engineers who are developing it. You have no way to give direct feedback, or incentives to get them to pay attention to the "users" needs (except a pink slip if they don't listen to the product marketing manager). With open source, at least you can do something about it yourself (if you can hack). What we need across the free software (or open source if you prefer) industry is a simple way for users to give feedback directly to the authors. Feedback in the form of $ and suggestions. Today, commercial enterprises are there to take money and suggestions, but we need ways to get these businesses to be as transparent as possible, taking as little out of the dialogue and out of the cash flow. They feedback and profits should be decentralized, going to the real creators, which are both the users who define new needs, and the engineers who create the machine interface. MandrakeSoft is trying to do something along these lines, and has just created an experts marketplace so that users can give back to technologists. Soon enough, there will be direct links from software products coming out of communities directly linking with a system like MandrakeExpert. This will finally give users a simple way to "give back" directly to a person who has "given" to them. Check out http://www.mandrakeexpert.com. All of the commercial open source companies need to remember why they exist. The exist because of the thousands of gifts that come there way from users and developers. The commercial companies need to invest more of their investors capital trying to figure out ways to give back to these communities that give them life. Otherwise, the communities will stop giving, and they will all become proprietary companies.
The world is not binary. Saying that corporations should have "one" purpose implies a disconnected world. The tobacco industry lawsuit, microsoft lawsuit, and the upcoming landslide of other lawsuits indicate that a focus on profit without ethics is simply not good for shareholders. The world is not disconnected, and profits with ethics will win. The American public, through a) shorting stock in unethical companies and b) complaints to their attorney generals will rearrange the priorities for American corporations. It's happening right now.