You have got the right to patch Excel (and sell that patch), sell your macro's, but not to distribute Excel (since you didn't write it yourself and didn't get permission). So I don't agree with the FSF. I believe that copyright laws are far too extensive. A limited copyright term for software with code escrow (like Lawrence Lessig proposes) enables people to profit from their creations, while still contributing to the public domain in a useful way.
I also believe that open source is the most economical thing to do when building software that is part of the basic infrastructure, just like hardware standards are usually preferable to proprietary inventions. IMHO BSD is the perfect license to build the infrastructure with. The restrictive GPL is mostly counterproductive in that it disallows perfectly sensible uses of sourcecode. Thus it actually prevents companies from getting involved with open source and contributing (which often is the most sensible thing to do).
This is wrong in that the student will probably run down the car instead of fixing it up. He will not be compensated for his hard work (which I think he should be entitled to). I don't think this is a very good lesson to teach someone (don't try to create something nice, you won't be compensated for your hard work).
I was talking about the basic GPL vs BSD debate (that this clearly turned into). I'm not going to change my analogies to include monopolies and the quality of certain products. The whole 'fight MS with the GPL' is just a bullshit story that ignores the fact that abusive monopolies must be stopped by law. Blame the US government for fucking up.
The point of my analogy still stands: should people be allowed to commercialize their hard work (on their own terms) if it is based on/linked to your stuff? Methinks this freedom is very important to stimulate people to develop new things.
BTW, I noted that my comparison was flawed, but is still 10x better than the other one. Call me biased for making that clear. It seems your bias is making _you_ take my analogy for far more than it is.
Distributing under a BSD or X11 license would necessarily "subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License." if said implementation were relicensed under the GPL.
There is a difference between may and would. BSD-licensed code will not necessarily be GPL'ed, so while it may happen, it would not be certain. My IANAL-opinion is that the BSD-license is allowed.
Think about it like a family gathering (well.. 'dream' family anyways). Everybody brings some food with them, and give to everyone wanting it. What would you like about some cousin that'd just come and take without ever giving anything (or even saying if it had some hair in it)?
Your comparison is all wrong. You make it seem like every user is obliged to add something to the program. They are not (even with GPL'ed code). Of course, the entire example is flawed anyway since the cookies are infinitely replicable. Such a feat hasn't been performed with physical goods since Jezus used his magic on the bread and fish.
A better (but still flawed) example would be: suppose that you give your old, run-down Mustang to a poor college student. He puts a lot of hours in it and shapes it into a true hotrod. What would you think of him selling it for a decent figure?
You still violate: IPR Impairing License shall mean [...] any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form;
Your renamed GPL still requires the disclosure of the source in most cases. The license explicitly states that any instance of such a requirement is enough to violate the license.
Point (a) is not true for BSD (that was a typo in the post you replied to). The fact that you are not required to disclose the source of an app that uses BSD-licensed code is the major complaint that GPL-advocates have about the BSD-license. They fear that people don't distribute the changes they make to open source code (although you can argue long and hard about the validity of this argument). Anyway, BSD doesn't violate any of the three limitations. PD is perfectly acceptable as well.
Of course, once you relicense BSD as GPL the code becomes tainted, but that only works for the tainted code. I find this quite amusing as the (L)GPL is meant to draw code into the web of Free Software (a situation where GPL'ed code can take from other open source code, but not vice versa. This is a typical case of embrace and extend). MS simply puts out it's own restrictive license to counter this and promote BSD-like licenses and every GPL-advocate screams foul.
Apple's excellent industrial design is probably the biggest factor in buying a mac when you're "Joe Average". [...] but to the standard consumer - all they're seeing is perty lines and good looks.
I think that usability sells Macs, not simply a nice-looking design. IMHO you severely underestimate Joe Mac Average. They have to fight against the notion that 'everybody' uses Windows and their decision is often well-considered (since they get hammered with stupid questions whenever they tell people they own a Mac).
Some of the usability factors that make 'us' buy a Mac: - GUI - Great apps (including iTunes and iMovie). - Consistency between apps (How many different key-combo's for finding something are there in Windows? I think I've seen 5+ ways to do it.) - Great monitor-support for the new iMac, swing-open case of the G4, standard 802.11 support on all machines and other features of Apple's machines that actually make the machine more usable. Contrast this with some of the 'designs' by other companies that seem intent on making the machine less functional (and are usually butt ugly). - It works. Apple's OS and hardware have never failed me when I had work to do (or I could fix it easily).
On the other hand I think that Joe Win Average usually focuses much more on Mhz and 'more' features, instead of looking at the things that they want to achieve. Somehow this is considered fully rational. Whatever.
He does compromise, however. The LGPL is an example of that.
His intention is that LGPL is used for software that is not special and thus cannot be used to force people towards fully free code. He wants to prevent people from using competing software* and sees less-viral code as a second best solution to fight proprietary code. I honestly cannot see this as much of a compromise. It is similar to a company that fights an open source competitor by lowering the price of it's software. The difference between the two decrease, but it is in no way a compromise. Only if the company gives up some of it's tendencies for secrecy and opens up some of the source they truly compromize. This is akin to RMS advocating LGPL for all software, not just the stuff that can't help his quest to force all software to be 'Free'.
*It seems that he believes that people don't see the value of the GPL by themselves. RMS must 'force' them. This is a very selfish, dictatorial viewpoint. RMS simply doesn't care about the (possible) problems of his doctrine that don't effect him: - less software for certain markets (you cannot spread the development costs over many buyers). - higher software costs for and more bugs in some software (more special purpose, less off-the-shelf software). - less potential for programmers to earn a living. - software may need obfuscation. A good example are FPS's that are susceptible to multiplayer hacks. They are hacked much, much more easily if the source is open (and there are no viable defenses).
RMS mostly avoids to talk about these problems and that makes him an ignorant fool in the eyes of many. I don't see why he should get any more respect than the MPAA or the BSA. They similarly have a lofty ideal (get people compensation for their hard work), but advocate extreme measures that have major negative consequences (which they happily ignore). And they also want to use some kind of force to make me obey their selfish rules.
Who said anything about Linux? I was saying they could take a BSD derived system and make that the centerpiece of their Open Source Strategy.
You're right, I was confused with another post./me sticks foot in mouth and forces himself to listen to Britney Spears in punishment.
Perhaps you have a point, but I still can't see MS moving to Unix. I suspect it will cost many years to get it right and I don't really see the advantages for them. It's not like it will be so much more stable than Win2000 or XP (I'd expect the hybrid to be very unstable initially). It will probably break a lot of software as well, hurting the major advantage of Windows: backward compatibility. I would much sooner see them releasing parts of the Windows-source or opening up (more) parts of.NET.
With a BSD licensed OS, they could give back to the community while at the same time developing proprietary software into a product that they would profit from.
MS giving back????
How many businesses would opt for the free version of Darwin over Linux if it had $Billions of support?
First of all, the strategy would require Darwin to be quite boring with all the interesting stuff in the expensive Win-Darwin. So it wouldn't really be free. Secondly, IBM puts billions in Linux so that cannot be the reason to run Win-darwin. The problem I have with MS technologies is that you get locked in. They usually pretend that the technology is open and cross-platform, but they always extend it with their own proprietary stuff (see ActiveX, (D)COM, Java,.NET). Apple rarely does this (they did make a soon-forgotten promise about cross-platform cocoa once) and I've never seen Sun do this. This problem won't be solved with Win-Darwin so I really don't see the point.
Darwin, without the Apple-centric goodies on top, isn't much more than FreeBSD with chocolate chips.
Wrong, Darwin is a Mach-kernel + NetInfo + some stuff taken from FreeBSD and NetBSD (mostly small apps). It's quite different from FreeBSD.
This would be good -- I wonder if they do this already? "That guy over there. He's a Linux lover. Put him in that trouble-maker group over there."
I agree. It can't be achieved without a takeover/hiring many new programmers. But how many Linux-programmers would want to work for MS?
Possible, but I don't think so. MS seems to me to simply outwait and outspend competition when rivals threaten. I think that is why they've been so flaccid in combatting the midrange server marketshare erosion they're experiencing due to Free OSes. This competitor is not one they can outspend or outwait--in fact, out-waiting will likely eat them alive.
Indeed, open source has got the potential to be an unstoppable competitor. The fact that there is no controlling company that can be bled to death makes it impossible to just offer a cheap/free competing product to eliminate the OS. On the other hand, MS seems to have strong control over the OEMs. There are defense mechanisms in place.
From what I've read, MS isn't a culture of non-internal competition. Rather, they're a complete opposite. I've read that the Office divisions on Mac and Windows are fierce competitors.
My impression is that the Mac division (which produces IE, Outlook, etc) has a mission to create the best MS products for the Mac. The Windows divisions on the other hand seem to ignore this mostly ('The Mac is no threat to us'). They seem focused on their own customers and mostly enhance their products after research (which has gotten us the talking paperclip and the confusing menu's that change). AFAI can tell, innovations to the Windows products are mostly motivated by the upgrade cycle. New versions need enough improvement to get the current users to upgrade.
I think that MS could cope with basic internal competition (two similar products being developed at the same time). The big problem I see is that Linux is basically anathema to MS's culture. It's all about standards and openness, something that threatens MS's monopoly position. I strongly doubt if they can cope with that kind of 'internal competition'.
Where do you get the dea that Microsoft has a "copyright" on.Net? They do own some patents on the way the technologies work, but that is nowhere near a copyright..Net has been submitted to the ECMA, and if M$ has it copyrighted projects like Mono, which already has a working C# compiler, wouldn't be able to exist.
You can only copyright an implementation. The copyright is automatically granted by law on someone's work, so MS has the copyright on their implementation of.NET. All the.NET-api's have not been submitted to the ECMA, only the C#-stuff. So there is no open standard that you can use to implement.NET on various platforms. If Mono wants to support the apps that run on.NET it will have to reverse engineer like Wine..NET is just as proprietary as COM or Java.
You also have to register before you can buy a baseball bat.
No, you have to register before you troll.
But you can pay someone to kill you legally (assisted suicide)!
No, only a doctor may perform euthanasia after consulting with another doctor. The procedure may only be performed if someone is terminally ill and must be verified by an ethical board. This is in contrast to other countries where euthanasia happens about as often as in the Netherlands, but there are no clear rules. In those countries doctors make the decision in secret, usually without consulting another doctor or even the patient.
You don't decide whether or not something is illegal based on the harm it causes.
Yes, you do. A good example is alcohol. It certainly causes harm, but we allow it for regulating does less harm to society than banning it totally (the US has proven that in the '20's). Most countries have made a different choice for harddrugs because the harm is much greater. They believe that more harm is prevented than is caused by the crimes that junkies, dealers and the mafia commit.
How can you be an active member of a shooting club if you don't own a gun?
The club owns guns that you can shoot with. Just like a dart club owns darts;)
Oh, and there's a much simpler way to put up a barrier against criminals purchasing legal guns. (Do a criminal record check...)
I was not simply talking about direct purchases. The illegal guns that criminals purchase come from somewhere. That can be sell-through, theft or other ways to 'convert' legal guns into illegal ones. The less restrictive gun laws in the US have made it easier for criminals to get guns, just check the percentage of crimes committed with a gun. The ratio is much higher in the US.
Shouldn't you consider the harm that a product can cause as well? I'd rather face an angry man carrying a laptop with Napster than a agressive guy with a gun.
Besides that, a product can also be made partially legal. In the Netherlands, you may only buy a gun if you've been an active member of a shooting club for a year or so. That keeps guns available to those who which to use it for legal means, while providing substantial barriers to weirdo's/criminals/angry people.
It has come to my attention that you have disallowed Finlay Dobbie the rights normally associated with the status of Darwin Committer and have later disabled his ADC-account, where these decisions were both based on his age. I am dismayed that you disallow this talented young programmer to work on Darwin. We should applaud and encourage this form of community service that benefits hundreds of thousands of your customers. His work has helped to fix a nasty bug that could lock up MacOS X for minutes. He has also added new functionality to the official Darwin distribution. I believe that his contributions and ability to carry responsibility should be judged based on his performance.
I understand that you may be worried about the legal implications of working with minors. However, the laws that protect minors were never intended to keep minors from learning, contributing to society or taking responsibility. They do give parents the responsibility to monitor and (if necessary) steer their children. We cannot monitor and steer our children if they have insufficient freedom to make their own decisions. A proper education of our children depends on their ability to take responsibility. I urge you to contact the parents of Finlay Dobbie and ask them to sign the contracts that are necessary for someone to contribute to Darwin. This should be sufficient to guarantee that your contracts with Finlay Dobbie are legally binding and you can stop any violation of the contract under the authority of law.
As your customer, I have always known Apple to be a company that tries to act ethically. This includes your policy of Equal Employment Opportunity that disallows your employees to discriminate "on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity characteristics or expression, disability, medical condition, U.S. Military or veteran status in recruiting, hiring, training and promoting." I hope and trust that you will not limit this policy to your employees, but will apply it to your contacts with volunteers that contribute to your products as well. I hope you will soon correct this error and make me a proud Mac-user once again.
The major problem on my machine at work (a P2 366 with 128MB) is the amount of memory that Java-applications use. The speed of the application is usually acceptable once it's swapped in.
Some good examples are jEdit, a very good Java-based text editor and intelliJ IDEA, a great Java IDE. I've never seen a pure Java app that blended in perfectly with an OS however.
I regularly hear about people that have moved from a Mac to a PC, but can't do without EV. They spend a lot of effort to get it to run on a Mac-emulator. The game is easily expandible and great plug-ins have been created. I believe that the EV series (EV, EV Override and EV Nova) are among the most popular games on the Mac.
PS. I have amused many of my nephews and nieces with Ambrosia's games. I could even get some of them to ask their parents for a Mac;)
You can also use the instructions in this article to easily compile version 4.0.6 with the options that you want.
2) Civilization III is known to be slow (also on a PC). Have you installed the latest patch and disabled quartz text? You can also try to make an image of the CD (with disk copy) and use that, that should speed it up a bit as well. Optimizing your HD is also advisable. I've heard about a guy having smooth gameplay with the same machine that you have, so it's certainly possible.
You want an alternative? Become a hardware engineer. Or a landscape architect. Seriously, there's nothing saying you have to make a living in any certain field.
It's not just that I want an alternative to make money. I want to be able to provide my customers with the stuff that they want. Can't you grasp that users exist? That they might actually be happy if I'm able to sell my product to many so the costs are low? You're just an incredibly selfish person making it seem like you want what's best for users. But in reality, you just want free software and access to source code. The wishes of the majority of users seem to be irrelevant to you.
When do we just say that enough is enough, that the world has changed, and we aren't going to try to protect obsolete business models?
Selling IP is not obsolete. With new business models that empower the creators, instead of the distributors, it can and hopefully will be very succesful. I'm perfectly willing to pay a honest price if the majority of my money goes to the creator. But I'm not a fool that will pay the RIAA, MPAA and publishers far too much money for sitting on their asses and trying to take away our rights.
The DMCA and other regulations are meant to fight the empowerment of the creators+users that is made possible by information technology. The battle extends far beyond software and the GPL is not an answer to the problem.
If we could revise copyrights that'd be a huge step forward, but it'll never happen. Not in a world where political bribery is an accepted fact.
Try to get it changed. At least I'm glad that political bribery in the Netherlands is not accepted/legal and happens far less. Unfortunately there are few politicians that truly understand what's at stake. Most just believe the lobbyists of the large corporations and totally ignore users and creators. Perhaps you should write to your congressman and ask him to make his voters happy instead of the few corporations. Ultimately votes are still more important to politicians than money (although you can convert money into votes).
If someone wants an engine that doesn't exist, they will pay to get it. Once it's been created, it can be copied, but iD has already been paid for it.
I understand it. I also understand that the first one to create the engine is screwed. His competitors can use the engine he payed for:
Nr 1: Cost for the engine+content Nr 2: Cost of the content . .. Nr infinity: Cost of the content
In a perfect economy, the selling price will be marginally higher than the lowest cost by which you can make the product (if not, extra competitors will come to the market). The lowest cost is the cost of the content, so the company that creates the engine is screwed. They will be go bankrupt for being innovative and creating a new engine! Even if the economy is not perfect, the one that innovates and creates the engine still will be punished by a smaller income. Somehow I don't want to punish people who create new things, do you?
Part of the problem is that currently each developer makes their game in a vacuum, from scratch, and when you consider that suddenly being released under the GPL, it seems like everyone else could just steal your stuff. But ID could benefit from what others wrote as well (Carmack, despite being a genius, isn't the sole owner of game programming skillz).
They already sell the engine and get bug fixes from other game makers. I don't expect that many people will be able to add features to such a complex engine (it's not easy to comprehend such a beast and start contributing). A big downside to a GPL'ed engine is that it is much easier to cheat. When ID GPL'ed their old games, the number of cheats skyrocketed. This makes the games less valuable. I honestly believe that ID will lose far, far more than it would gain.
Being essentially an engine-maker might become less lucrative, but that doesn't mean the engines won't get made. Or the games.
Despite the fact that I can rationally argue that the game market will be hurt severely, you still 'believe' that the engines+games will be made. Believing an irrational, unprobable theory is called a religion. I'm fully open to other religions, but don't expect rational individuals to support you on that.
There are good business models. They are being used right now. Are the ones I'm giving you not perfect? So what? It's not my job to come up with the perfect business model, but to demonstrate that there are ways to make money doing the same thing, and let the business majors work out the details. Business majors, I might add, who are already doing this.
I'm not against open source. Au contraire, I believe it will be very important to the maturing of information technology. However, I believe in an environment were open source and proprietary software can exist together. IMO forcing everyone to use open source will make certain desirable creations impossible or unlikely. You nor any other GPL advocate have been able to convince me that this is not so. IMO you should be proving that this is false, because you are the one that want to take away freedoms from others! You can whine and complain all day about the fact that I'm not smart enough to come up with new business plans, but fact is that simple economics dictate that a forced GPL society will hurt many that create IP or use it. All the arguments that GPL advocates put forward merely argue that we shouldn't pay people for providing a large group with their creations, but instead should earn money by pushing all the expenses on one company or by getting money for a related things (service). The first creates an immense barrier and harms the market of software that companies really want: off-the-shelf, cheap, well-tested, userfriendly software. The latter essentially removes all incentive to create a good, userfriendly product. You can only survive by making software difficult to use/extend so people will pay you.
I want the best thing for users and creators, you cannot provide that. Your extreme ideas will just do great harm to our lives and economy.
Then I'm not sure what exactly you are talking about, as the right of first sale is one of the rights specifically reserved for the creator. Outside of the right of first sale, how exactly are you expecting to limit distribution?
By sueing the people that sell CD's with your work without consent. Don't tell me you never noticed that the police regularly cracks down on 'illegal' music/software. What's stopping you from selling CD-R's with MS Office openly on eBay? Methinks it is the law.
There is no impetus to add 'features' to music.
Remixes, covers, CD's that contain a certain collection of music, using an euqalizer to change the music.
Essentially the difference is that software is -software-, and that is all the difference in the world.
I'm afraid that won't do. I don't mind if you justly differentiate, for example because software is useful for a short while (and the copyright should thus last a short while). A book has a much longer useful life. I simply don't see why the IP of software should not be protected, but music should.
As for your buggyness complaint, I don't get a refund when there are errors in the book I buy. Sorry, but the availability of the source is simply a feature. You can make a decision not to buy software if you don't get the source, but I don't see why you should have the right to it.
What do you mean, survival of the fittest crap? Are you telling me you that there really aren't good business models and bad ones? Are you telling me that every model, no matter how crappy, deserves to live forever despite changes in the environment around it?
No, but people may call foul when you don't provide a system that benefits them. Russia didn't fare well with central planning, do you think the lack of goods+food was the fault of the businesses that didn't adapt or that the system was to blame? I think that the system that you propose will make it impossible to create a lot of useful software with any business plan.
I grew up in the suburbs, and I never saw a milkman. It stopped working in the majority of places. Did the consumer suffer from not having fresh milk delivered to the door? Did the poor milkman's children starve because he couldn't deliver milk anymore?
You see, there was a good alternative. The new way was cheaper and was a benefit to the consumer. RMS's evil empire is not. I don't give a damn about how the milk gets to us from the dairy farm, but I do care if it becomes illegal to sell milk and we all have to keep our own cow.
But I won't back away from the consequences of what we're talking about. Slightly less software is created. Software created by those with no longer valid business models, and who can't adapt. Is this a negative consequence for users? Only if the software that was lost was particularly desireable, or if the remaining pool of software is not diverse enough to be healthy. Barring that, it is no more "negative" than the failure of a couple dot coms that had neat but anything but necessary services.
I'm not convinced that just a bit of software will be effected. I think the consequences will be serious. You admit that the dotcoms didn't provide crucial software, many 'generic' software is crucial to companies throughout the economy (ERP systems, data warehousing, databases). I'm not willing to risk a disaster because you like a free OS+software.
Does this mean iD goes out of business? Maybe. Personally, I think Carmack & co are more than smart enough to deal with it. Either they'd hire some more artists and make games that are more than just interesting technology, or they'll do something like become programmers-for-hire for other game companies, writing or customizing game engines for the other company to add content to
Your solutions don't work out. Whatever they try, creating the engine is not feasable since competitors will copy their work and are always cheaper off.
If that doesn't work... *shrug* You'll have to come up with something more substantial than one company losing their business model to disuade me.
I just took one of the most succesful companies in the games-sector. If they don't succeed, who will?
Not that this is the "little theory" that I "love"... It isn't even my theory or wish. I'm just pointing out that if it came to pass, all the "My poor babies will starve!" alarmists will be shown wrong, unless they just can't adapt.
Well, you are unable to give good business models for people to earn money creating the software people would like to have. Your argument is like claiming that we don't need money because people will adapt. In fact, it is a better argument since I can come up with a bartering model that will work in theory. Too bad that it will propel us back into the dark ages.
So don't exist by selling software. Exist by selling hardware that uses it, or by supporting software other people write, or writing custom software that is of much more value to the company that commissioned it than it would be to anyone else (and thus, would never be programmed without their sponsorship.)
Actually, my company is moving from custom applications to a more generic one. It will make our products much, much cheaper, less buggy and we will make more profit (if it works out well). In your scenario, we couldn't do that. In fact, we expect to service a lot of companies that don't have the dough for work-for-hire. But I guess that they don't have the right to our software in your utopia.
Nobody whines that there's no market for ice now that everyone can afford a freezer. (There used to be a thriving market in selling large blocks of ice for homeowners to use basically as a refrigerator.) It could be that selling software has only temporarily been a means to make a ton of money. It wouldn't be the end of the world.
The problem is that there is no freezer. There would be no problem if you provide a good substitute to the current system that allows programmers to be paid for creating the software we need. Many believe that a 100% GPL'ed world will not allow for this. I've challenged GPL-advocates to explain to me how some software would ever be created with the GPL, I've never had a good answer. They always flee in generics like support fees or work for hire, but never explain to me how something simple like an game with a 1 year shelf-life that takes 2 years to create with a full-time team can be written this way.
There isn't much precedent in the world for intangible goods.
This copyright thing didn't start with software, you know:
The Congress shall have power... to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. United States Constitution
Now we have software though, which can be copied essentially for free, and which has no special original that people want. Any copy is the same as any other. Why should we expect a market based around this to work like other markets?
Now we have books though, which can be copied for very little, and which have no special original that people want. Any copy is the same as any other. Why should we expect a market based around this to work like other markets?
Because it works and there is no good alternative. It works well for books and it works fairly well for software. The problems started when the developers began saying that software is something special and it is really a service and not a good. If you take away the EULA, DMCA and the other crap that this resulted in, there are only two problems: - The copyrights in this area last too long, 5 years is enough for software, not 70+ - Software has seperate binaries and code, unlike books which you can learn from. Lawrence Lessig proposes that we put the code into escrow in return for the monopoly on copyright.
It seems to me that Lawrence Lessig's proposals will fix most problems we have now. At least then I'll still be able to play games and make money selling generic software;)
It seems to me that you twisted the argument into the wrong direction. Let me try and find a big fallacy in your reasoning by asking the following question:
Should a musician, artist, movieproducer or writer be able to limit the distribution of his work? Note that I'm not saying anything about being able to sell the first copy.
If a creator may, methinks you are inconsistent as I don't really see the difference between the IP that is software and the IP that is music. Both can be copied at low cost and are created once and used many times. Both can be plain or a true work of art. Both can be created as works for hire or as a 'proprietary' off-the-shelf package. You can even earn money in both cases with services (many bands earn a lot with concerts).
If a creator may not, this clashes with your statement that the content of a game can help you restrict it's distribution. That would severely limit the creation of games, unless you can come up with a great plan to pay the programmers. I cannot. And don't start that survival of the fittest crap on me, if you want a change that has serious negative consequences for users (because less software is created), you must answer for that. I happen to dislike people that love their own little theory about how the world should be, but don't care about the negative consequences (the rulers of N-korea come to mind).
BTW, instead of Diablo II, let us talk about Quake 3. The artwork isn't the most amazing part about the game. In fact, many companies have licensed the engine to create their own games. I suspect that an open engine will bankrupt ID as competitors will just create their own artwork/levels (with 1/5th the effort). ID will lose the licensing income _and_ will get a lot more competitors so their game will sell less. Since they have the highest costs, it seems likely that they go under.
Slashdot Mirror
You have got the right to patch Excel (and sell that patch), sell your macro's, but not to distribute Excel (since you didn't write it yourself and didn't get permission). So I don't agree with the FSF. I believe that copyright laws are far too extensive. A limited copyright term for software with code escrow (like Lawrence Lessig proposes) enables people to profit from their creations, while still contributing to the public domain in a useful way.
I also believe that open source is the most economical thing to do when building software that is part of the basic infrastructure, just like hardware standards are usually preferable to proprietary inventions. IMHO BSD is the perfect license to build the infrastructure with. The restrictive GPL is mostly counterproductive in that it disallows perfectly sensible uses of sourcecode. Thus it actually prevents companies from getting involved with open source and contributing (which often is the most sensible thing to do).
This is wrong in that the student will probably run down the car instead of fixing it up. He will not be compensated for his hard work (which I think he should be entitled to). I don't think this is a very good lesson to teach someone (don't try to create something nice, you won't be compensated for your hard work).
I was talking about the basic GPL vs BSD debate (that this clearly turned into). I'm not going to change my analogies to include monopolies and the quality of certain products. The whole 'fight MS with the GPL' is just a bullshit story that ignores the fact that abusive monopolies must be stopped by law. Blame the US government for fucking up.
The point of my analogy still stands: should people be allowed to commercialize their hard work (on their own terms) if it is based on/linked to your stuff? Methinks this freedom is very important to stimulate people to develop new things.
BTW, I noted that my comparison was flawed, but is still 10x better than the other one. Call me biased for making that clear. It seems your bias is making _you_ take my analogy for far more than it is.
Distributing under a BSD or X11 license would necessarily "subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License." if said implementation were relicensed under the GPL.
There is a difference between may and would. BSD-licensed code will not necessarily be GPL'ed, so while it may happen, it would not be certain. My IANAL-opinion is that the BSD-license is allowed.
Think about it like a family gathering (well.. 'dream' family anyways). Everybody brings some food with them, and give to everyone wanting it. What would you like about some cousin that'd just come and take without ever giving anything (or even saying if it had some hair in it)?
Your comparison is all wrong. You make it seem like every user is obliged to add something to the program. They are not (even with GPL'ed code). Of course, the entire example is flawed anyway since the cookies are infinitely replicable. Such a feat hasn't been performed with physical goods since Jezus used his magic on the bread and fish.
A better (but still flawed) example would be: suppose that you give your old, run-down Mustang to a poor college student. He puts a lot of hours in it and shapes it into a true hotrod. What would you think of him selling it for a decent figure?
You still violate: IPR Impairing License shall mean [...] any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form;
Your renamed GPL still requires the disclosure of the source in most cases. The license explicitly states that any instance of such a requirement is enough to violate the license.
Point (a) is not true for BSD (that was a typo in the post you replied to). The fact that you are not required to disclose the source of an app that uses BSD-licensed code is the major complaint that GPL-advocates have about the BSD-license. They fear that people don't distribute the changes they make to open source code (although you can argue long and hard about the validity of this argument). Anyway, BSD doesn't violate any of the three limitations. PD is perfectly acceptable as well.
Of course, once you relicense BSD as GPL the code becomes tainted, but that only works for the tainted code. I find this quite amusing as the (L)GPL is meant to draw code into the web of Free Software (a situation where GPL'ed code can take from other open source code, but not vice versa. This is a typical case of embrace and extend). MS simply puts out it's own restrictive license to counter this and promote BSD-like licenses and every GPL-advocate screams foul.
Apple's excellent industrial design is probably the biggest factor in buying a mac when you're "Joe Average". [...] but to the standard consumer - all they're seeing is perty lines and good looks.
I think that usability sells Macs, not simply a nice-looking design. IMHO you severely underestimate Joe Mac Average. They have to fight against the notion that 'everybody' uses Windows and their decision is often well-considered (since they get hammered with stupid questions whenever they tell people they own a Mac).
Some of the usability factors that make 'us' buy a Mac:
- GUI
- Great apps (including iTunes and iMovie).
- Consistency between apps (How many different key-combo's for finding something are there in Windows? I think I've seen 5+ ways to do it.)
- Great monitor-support for the new iMac, swing-open case of the G4, standard 802.11 support on all machines and other features of Apple's machines that actually make the machine more usable. Contrast this with some of the 'designs' by other companies that seem intent on making the machine less functional (and are usually butt ugly).
- It works. Apple's OS and hardware have never failed me when I had work to do (or I could fix it easily).
On the other hand I think that Joe Win Average usually focuses much more on Mhz and 'more' features, instead of looking at the things that they want to achieve. Somehow this is considered fully rational. Whatever.
He does compromise, however. The LGPL is an example of that.
His intention is that LGPL is used for software that is not special and thus cannot be used to force people towards fully free code. He wants to prevent people from using competing software* and sees less-viral code as a second best solution to fight proprietary code. I honestly cannot see this as much of a compromise. It is similar to a company that fights an open source competitor by lowering the price of it's software. The difference between the two decrease, but it is in no way a compromise. Only if the company gives up some of it's tendencies for secrecy and opens up some of the source they truly compromize. This is akin to RMS advocating LGPL for all software, not just the stuff that can't help his quest to force all software to be 'Free'.
*It seems that he believes that people don't see the value of the GPL by themselves. RMS must 'force' them. This is a very selfish, dictatorial viewpoint. RMS simply doesn't care about the (possible) problems of his doctrine that don't effect him:
- less software for certain markets (you cannot spread the development costs over many buyers).
- higher software costs for and more bugs in some software (more special purpose, less off-the-shelf software).
- less potential for programmers to earn a living.
- software may need obfuscation. A good example are FPS's that are susceptible to multiplayer hacks. They are hacked much, much more easily if the source is open (and there are no viable defenses).
RMS mostly avoids to talk about these problems and that makes him an ignorant fool in the eyes of many. I don't see why he should get any more respect than the MPAA or the BSA. They similarly have a lofty ideal (get people compensation for their hard work), but advocate extreme measures that have major negative consequences (which they happily ignore). And they also want to use some kind of force to make me obey their selfish rules.
Who said anything about Linux? I was saying they could take a BSD derived system and make that the centerpiece of their Open Source Strategy.
/me sticks foot in mouth and forces himself to listen to Britney Spears in punishment.
.NET.
.NET). Apple rarely does this (they did make a soon-forgotten promise about cross-platform cocoa once) and I've never seen Sun do this. This problem won't be solved with Win-Darwin so I really don't see the point.
You're right, I was confused with another post.
Perhaps you have a point, but I still can't see MS moving to Unix. I suspect it will cost many years to get it right and I don't really see the advantages for them. It's not like it will be so much more stable than Win2000 or XP (I'd expect the hybrid to be very unstable initially). It will probably break a lot of software as well, hurting the major advantage of Windows: backward compatibility. I would much sooner see them releasing parts of the Windows-source or opening up (more) parts of
With a BSD licensed OS, they could give back to the community while at the same time developing proprietary software into a product that they would profit from.
MS giving back????
How many businesses would opt for the free version of Darwin over Linux if it had $Billions of support?
First of all, the strategy would require Darwin to be quite boring with all the interesting stuff in the expensive Win-Darwin. So it wouldn't really be free. Secondly, IBM puts billions in Linux so that cannot be the reason to run Win-darwin. The problem I have with MS technologies is that you get locked in. They usually pretend that the technology is open and cross-platform, but they always extend it with their own proprietary stuff (see ActiveX, (D)COM, Java,
Darwin, without the Apple-centric goodies on top, isn't much more than FreeBSD with chocolate chips.
Wrong, Darwin is a Mach-kernel + NetInfo + some stuff taken from FreeBSD and NetBSD (mostly small apps). It's quite different from FreeBSD.
This would be good -- I wonder if they do this already? "That guy over there. He's a Linux lover. Put him in that trouble-maker group over there."
I agree. It can't be achieved without a takeover/hiring many new programmers. But how many Linux-programmers would want to work for MS?
Possible, but I don't think so. MS seems to me to simply outwait and outspend competition when rivals threaten. I think that is why they've been so flaccid in combatting the midrange server marketshare erosion they're experiencing due to Free OSes. This competitor is not one they can outspend or outwait--in fact, out-waiting will likely eat them alive.
Indeed, open source has got the potential to be an unstoppable competitor. The fact that there is no controlling company that can be bled to death makes it impossible to just offer a cheap/free competing product to eliminate the OS. On the other hand, MS seems to have strong control over the OEMs. There are defense mechanisms in place.
From what I've read, MS isn't a culture of non-internal competition. Rather, they're a complete opposite. I've read that the Office divisions on Mac and Windows are fierce competitors.
My impression is that the Mac division (which produces IE, Outlook, etc) has a mission to create the best MS products for the Mac. The Windows divisions on the other hand seem to ignore this mostly ('The Mac is no threat to us'). They seem focused on their own customers and mostly enhance their products after research (which has gotten us the talking paperclip and the confusing menu's that change). AFAI can tell, innovations to the Windows products are mostly motivated by the upgrade cycle. New versions need enough improvement to get the current users to upgrade.
I think that MS could cope with basic internal competition (two similar products being developed at the same time). The big problem I see is that Linux is basically anathema to MS's culture. It's all about standards and openness, something that threatens MS's monopoly position. I strongly doubt if they can cope with that kind of 'internal competition'.
Where do you get the dea that Microsoft has a "copyright" on .Net? They do own some patents on the way the technologies work, but that is nowhere near a copyright. .Net has been submitted to the ECMA, and if M$ has it copyrighted projects like Mono, which already has a working C# compiler, wouldn't be able to exist.
.NET. All the .NET-api's have not been submitted to the ECMA, only the C#-stuff. So there is no open standard that you can use to implement .NET on various platforms. If Mono wants to support the apps that run on .NET it will have to reverse engineer like Wine. .NET is just as proprietary as COM or Java.
You can only copyright an implementation. The copyright is automatically granted by law on someone's work, so MS has the copyright on their implementation of
You also have to register before you can buy a baseball bat.
No, you have to register before you troll.
But you can pay someone to kill you legally (assisted suicide)!
No, only a doctor may perform euthanasia after consulting with another doctor. The procedure may only be performed if someone is terminally ill and must be verified by an ethical board. This is in contrast to other countries where euthanasia happens about as often as in the Netherlands, but there are no clear rules. In those countries doctors make the decision in secret, usually without consulting another doctor or even the patient.
You don't decide whether or not something is illegal based on the harm it causes.
;)
Yes, you do. A good example is alcohol. It certainly causes harm, but we allow it for regulating does less harm to society than banning it totally (the US has proven that in the '20's). Most countries have made a different choice for harddrugs because the harm is much greater. They believe that more harm is prevented than is caused by the crimes that junkies, dealers and the mafia commit.
How can you be an active member of a shooting club if you don't own a gun?
The club owns guns that you can shoot with. Just like a dart club owns darts
Oh, and there's a much simpler way to put up a barrier against criminals purchasing legal guns. (Do a criminal record check...)
I was not simply talking about direct purchases. The illegal guns that criminals purchase come from somewhere. That can be sell-through, theft or other ways to 'convert' legal guns into illegal ones. The less restrictive gun laws in the US have made it easier for criminals to get guns, just check the percentage of crimes committed with a gun. The ratio is much higher in the US.
Shouldn't you consider the harm that a product can cause as well? I'd rather face an angry man carrying a laptop with Napster than a agressive guy with a gun.
Besides that, a product can also be made partially legal. In the Netherlands, you may only buy a gun if you've been an active member of a shooting club for a year or so. That keeps guns available to those who which to use it for legal means, while providing substantial barriers to weirdo's/criminals/angry people.
I agree. AFAIK this should be sufficient. I've just submitted this to Apple's feedback page for OS X:
It has come to my attention that you have disallowed Finlay Dobbie the rights normally associated with the status of Darwin Committer and have later disabled his ADC-account, where these decisions were both based on his age. I am dismayed that you disallow this talented young programmer to work on Darwin. We should applaud and encourage this form of community service that benefits hundreds of thousands of your customers. His work has helped to fix a nasty bug that could lock up MacOS X for minutes. He has also added new functionality to the official Darwin distribution. I believe that his contributions and ability to carry responsibility should be judged based on his performance.
I understand that you may be worried about the legal implications of working with minors. However, the laws that protect minors were never intended to keep minors from learning, contributing to society or taking responsibility. They do give parents the responsibility to monitor and (if necessary) steer their children. We cannot monitor and steer our children if they have insufficient freedom to make their own decisions. A proper education of our children depends on their ability to take responsibility. I urge you to contact the parents of Finlay Dobbie and ask them to sign the contracts that are necessary for someone to contribute to Darwin. This should be sufficient to guarantee that your contracts with Finlay Dobbie are legally binding and you can stop any violation of the contract under the authority of law.
As your customer, I have always known Apple to be a company that tries to act ethically. This includes your policy of Equal Employment Opportunity that disallows your employees to discriminate "on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity characteristics or expression, disability, medical condition, U.S. Military or veteran status in recruiting, hiring, training and promoting." I hope and trust that you will not limit this policy to your employees, but will apply it to your contacts with volunteers that contribute to your products as well. I hope you will soon correct this error and make me a proud Mac-user once again.
I've heard a guy say ...
;)
Is that better? Geez, let me criticize your dutch.
The major problem on my machine at work (a P2 366 with 128MB) is the amount of memory that Java-applications use. The speed of the application is usually acceptable once it's swapped in.
Some good examples are jEdit, a very good Java-based text editor and intelliJ IDEA, a great Java IDE. I've never seen a pure Java app that blended in perfectly with an OS however.
I regularly hear about people that have moved from a Mac to a PC, but can't do without EV. They spend a lot of effort to get it to run on a Mac-emulator. The game is easily expandible and great plug-ins have been created. I believe that the EV series (EV, EV Override and EV Nova) are among the most popular games on the Mac.
;)
PS. I have amused many of my nephews and nieces with Ambrosia's games. I could even get some of them to ask their parents for a Mac
1) Precompiled packages for MacOS X based on a nice package manager (PHP 4.1.2 is available):
http://fink.sourceforge.net
You can also use the instructions in this article to easily compile version 4.0.6 with the options that you want.
2) Civilization III is known to be slow (also on a PC). Have you installed the latest patch and disabled quartz text? You can also try to make an image of the CD (with disk copy) and use that, that should speed it up a bit as well. Optimizing your HD is also advisable. I've heard about a guy having smooth gameplay with the same machine that you have, so it's certainly possible.
You want an alternative? Become a hardware engineer. Or a landscape architect. Seriously, there's nothing saying you have to make a living in any certain field.
It's not just that I want an alternative to make money. I want to be able to provide my customers with the stuff that they want. Can't you grasp that users exist? That they might actually be happy if I'm able to sell my product to many so the costs are low? You're just an incredibly selfish person making it seem like you want what's best for users. But in reality, you just want free software and access to source code. The wishes of the majority of users seem to be irrelevant to you.
When do we just say that enough is enough, that the world has changed, and we aren't going to try to protect obsolete business models?
Selling IP is not obsolete. With new business models that empower the creators, instead of the distributors, it can and hopefully will be very succesful. I'm perfectly willing to pay a honest price if the majority of my money goes to the creator. But I'm not a fool that will pay the RIAA, MPAA and publishers far too much money for sitting on their asses and trying to take away our rights.
The DMCA and other regulations are meant to fight the empowerment of the creators+users that is made possible by information technology. The battle extends far beyond software and the GPL is not an answer to the problem.
If we could revise copyrights that'd be a huge step forward, but it'll never happen. Not in a world where political bribery is an accepted fact.
Try to get it changed. At least I'm glad that political bribery in the Netherlands is not accepted/legal and happens far less. Unfortunately there are few politicians that truly understand what's at stake. Most just believe the lobbyists of the large corporations and totally ignore users and creators. Perhaps you should write to your congressman and ask him to make his voters happy instead of the few corporations. Ultimately votes are still more important to politicians than money (although you can convert money into votes).
If someone wants an engine that doesn't exist, they will pay to get it. Once it's been created, it can be copied, but iD has already been paid for it.
.
I understand it. I also understand that the first one to create the engine is screwed. His competitors can use the engine he payed for:
Nr 1: Cost for the engine+content
Nr 2: Cost of the content
. .
Nr infinity: Cost of the content
In a perfect economy, the selling price will be marginally higher than the lowest cost by which you can make the product (if not, extra competitors will come to the market). The lowest cost is the cost of the content, so the company that creates the engine is screwed. They will be go bankrupt for being innovative and creating a new engine! Even if the economy is not perfect, the one that innovates and creates the engine still will be punished by a smaller income. Somehow I don't want to punish people who create new things, do you?
Part of the problem is that currently each developer makes their game in a vacuum, from scratch, and when you consider that suddenly being released under the GPL, it seems like everyone else could just steal your stuff. But ID could benefit from what others wrote as well (Carmack, despite being a genius, isn't the sole owner of game programming skillz).
They already sell the engine and get bug fixes from other game makers. I don't expect that many people will be able to add features to such a complex engine (it's not easy to comprehend such a beast and start contributing). A big downside to a GPL'ed engine is that it is much easier to cheat. When ID GPL'ed their old games, the number of cheats skyrocketed. This makes the games less valuable. I honestly believe that ID will lose far, far more than it would gain.
Being essentially an engine-maker might become less lucrative, but that doesn't mean the engines won't get made. Or the games.
Despite the fact that I can rationally argue that the game market will be hurt severely, you still 'believe' that the engines+games will be made. Believing an irrational, unprobable theory is called a religion. I'm fully open to other religions, but don't expect rational individuals to support you on that.
There are good business models. They are being used right now. Are the ones I'm giving you not perfect? So what? It's not my job to come up with the perfect business model, but to demonstrate that there are ways to make money doing the same thing, and let the business majors work out the details. Business majors, I might add, who are already doing this.
I'm not against open source. Au contraire, I believe it will be very important to the maturing of information technology. However, I believe in an environment were open source and proprietary software can exist together. IMO forcing everyone to use open source will make certain desirable creations impossible or unlikely. You nor any other GPL advocate have been able to convince me that this is not so. IMO you should be proving that this is false, because you are the one that want to take away freedoms from others! You can whine and complain all day about the fact that I'm not smart enough to come up with new business plans, but fact is that simple economics dictate that a forced GPL society will hurt many that create IP or use it. All the arguments that GPL advocates put forward merely argue that we shouldn't pay people for providing a large group with their creations, but instead should earn money by pushing all the expenses on one company or by getting money for a related things (service). The first creates an immense barrier and harms the market of software that companies really want: off-the-shelf, cheap, well-tested, userfriendly software. The latter essentially removes all incentive to create a good, userfriendly product. You can only survive by making software difficult to use/extend so people will pay you.
I want the best thing for users and creators, you cannot provide that. Your extreme ideas will just do great harm to our lives and economy.
Then I'm not sure what exactly you are talking about, as the right of first sale is one of the rights specifically reserved for the creator. Outside of the right of first sale, how exactly are you expecting to limit distribution?
By sueing the people that sell CD's with your work without consent. Don't tell me you never noticed that the police regularly cracks down on 'illegal' music/software. What's stopping you from selling CD-R's with MS Office openly on eBay? Methinks it is the law.
There is no impetus to add 'features' to music.
Remixes, covers, CD's that contain a certain collection of music, using an euqalizer to change the music.
Essentially the difference is that software is -software-, and that is all the difference in the world.
I'm afraid that won't do. I don't mind if you justly differentiate, for example because software is useful for a short while (and the copyright should thus last a short while). A book has a much longer useful life. I simply don't see why the IP of software should not be protected, but music should.
As for your buggyness complaint, I don't get a refund when there are errors in the book I buy. Sorry, but the availability of the source is simply a feature. You can make a decision not to buy software if you don't get the source, but I don't see why you should have the right to it.
What do you mean, survival of the fittest crap? Are you telling me you that there really aren't good business models and bad ones? Are you telling me that every model, no matter how crappy, deserves to live forever despite changes in the environment around it?
No, but people may call foul when you don't provide a system that benefits them. Russia didn't fare well with central planning, do you think the lack of goods+food was the fault of the businesses that didn't adapt or that the system was to blame? I think that the system that you propose will make it impossible to create a lot of useful software with any business plan.
I grew up in the suburbs, and I never saw a milkman. It stopped working in the majority of places. Did the consumer suffer from not having fresh milk delivered to the door? Did the poor milkman's children starve because he couldn't deliver milk anymore?
You see, there was a good alternative. The new way was cheaper and was a benefit to the consumer. RMS's evil empire is not. I don't give a damn about how the milk gets to us from the dairy farm, but I do care if it becomes illegal to sell milk and we all have to keep our own cow.
But I won't back away from the consequences of what we're talking about. Slightly less software is created. Software created by those with no longer valid business models, and who can't adapt. Is this a negative consequence for users? Only if the software that was lost was particularly desireable, or if the remaining pool of software is not diverse enough to be healthy. Barring that, it is no more "negative" than the failure of a couple dot coms that had neat but anything but necessary services.
I'm not convinced that just a bit of software will be effected. I think the consequences will be serious. You admit that the dotcoms didn't provide crucial software, many 'generic' software is crucial to companies throughout the economy (ERP systems, data warehousing, databases). I'm not willing to risk a disaster because you like a free OS+software.
Does this mean iD goes out of business? Maybe. Personally, I think Carmack & co are more than smart enough to deal with it. Either they'd hire some more artists and make games that are more than just interesting technology, or they'll do something like become programmers-for-hire for other game companies, writing or customizing game engines for the other company to add content to
Your solutions don't work out. Whatever they try, creating the engine is not feasable since competitors will copy their work and are always cheaper off.
If that doesn't work... *shrug* You'll have to come up with something more substantial than one company losing their business model to disuade me.
I just took one of the most succesful companies in the games-sector. If they don't succeed, who will?
Not that this is the "little theory" that I "love"... It isn't even my theory or wish. I'm just pointing out that if it came to pass, all the "My poor babies will starve!" alarmists will be shown wrong, unless they just can't adapt.
Well, you are unable to give good business models for people to earn money creating the software people would like to have. Your argument is like claiming that we don't need money because people will adapt. In fact, it is a better argument since I can come up with a bartering model that will work in theory. Too bad that it will propel us back into the dark ages.
So don't exist by selling software. Exist by selling hardware that uses it, or by supporting software other people write, or writing custom software that is of much more value to the company that commissioned it than it would be to anyone else (and thus, would never be programmed without their sponsorship.)
... to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
;)
Actually, my company is moving from custom applications to a more generic one. It will make our products much, much cheaper, less buggy and we will make more profit (if it works out well). In your scenario, we couldn't do that. In fact, we expect to service a lot of companies that don't have the dough for work-for-hire. But I guess that they don't have the right to our software in your utopia.
Nobody whines that there's no market for ice now that everyone can afford a freezer. (There used to be a thriving market in selling large blocks of ice for homeowners to use basically as a refrigerator.) It could be that selling software has only temporarily been a means to make a ton of money. It wouldn't be the end of the world.
The problem is that there is no freezer. There would be no problem if you provide a good substitute to the current system that allows programmers to be paid for creating the software we need. Many believe that a 100% GPL'ed world will not allow for this. I've challenged GPL-advocates to explain to me how some software would ever be created with the GPL, I've never had a good answer. They always flee in generics like support fees or work for hire, but never explain to me how something simple like an game with a 1 year shelf-life that takes 2 years to create with a full-time team can be written this way.
There isn't much precedent in the world for intangible goods.
This copyright thing didn't start with software, you know:
The Congress shall have power
United States Constitution
Now we have software though, which can be copied essentially for free, and which has no special original that people want. Any copy is the same as any other. Why should we expect a market based around this to work like other markets?
Now we have books though, which can be copied for very little, and which have no special original that people want. Any copy is the same as any other. Why should we expect a market based around this to work like other markets?
Because it works and there is no good alternative. It works well for books and it works fairly well for software. The problems started when the developers began saying that software is something special and it is really a service and not a good. If you take away the EULA, DMCA and the other crap that this resulted in, there are only two problems:
- The copyrights in this area last too long, 5 years is enough for software, not 70+
- Software has seperate binaries and code, unlike books which you can learn from. Lawrence Lessig proposes that we put the code into escrow in return for the monopoly on copyright.
It seems to me that Lawrence Lessig's proposals will fix most problems we have now. At least then I'll still be able to play games and make money selling generic software
It seems to me that you twisted the argument into the wrong direction. Let me try and find a big fallacy in your reasoning by asking the following question:
Should a musician, artist, movieproducer or writer be able to limit the distribution of his work? Note that I'm not saying anything about being able to sell the first copy.
If a creator may, methinks you are inconsistent as I don't really see the difference between the IP that is software and the IP that is music. Both can be copied at low cost and are created once and used many times. Both can be plain or a true work of art. Both can be created as works for hire or as a 'proprietary' off-the-shelf package. You can even earn money in both cases with services (many bands earn a lot with concerts).
If a creator may not, this clashes with your statement that the content of a game can help you restrict it's distribution. That would severely limit the creation of games, unless you can come up with a great plan to pay the programmers. I cannot. And don't start that survival of the fittest crap on me, if you want a change that has serious negative consequences for users (because less software is created), you must answer for that. I happen to dislike people that love their own little theory about how the world should be, but don't care about the negative consequences (the rulers of N-korea come to mind).
BTW, instead of Diablo II, let us talk about Quake 3. The artwork isn't the most amazing part about the game. In fact, many companies have licensed the engine to create their own games. I suspect that an open engine will bankrupt ID as competitors will just create their own artwork/levels (with 1/5th the effort). ID will lose the licensing income _and_ will get a lot more competitors so their game will sell less. Since they have the highest costs, it seems likely that they go under.