The RIAA or anyone else is not about to figure out a business model for ME so that I can make lots of money. And I'm NOT willing to prop up the RIAA just so that I can continue to download bittorrents of Linux or other legally distributed copyrighted works. I'll not purchase my freedom by helping a bunch of knot-heads figure out a new reality.
It's interesting that you assume I have not worked "efficiently" in the IT field. True or not, that is irrelevant to my point.
If I can do a "average" IT or programming or knitting or lawn care or whatever job in only 20 hours a week instead of 40, I should fill the other 20 hours with productive activity to provide even more value to my employer (and myself). If I am very efficient at my job, by boss should give me more to do and I should find more to do. The more value I contribute, the more valuable I am to the company and to my resume. If the company will not or cannot give me more to do, that is a strong indicator that my position is not on a growth curve. Occupying a stagnant position is not a good place to be. Stagnation will be lopped off at the first sign of financial difficulty or re-organization.
There can be many reasons why a company will keep paying someone for 40 hours of work even though they only deliver 20. But I cannot think of a good long-term reason why they would or why you would want them to. Perhaps you could enlighten me?
If I have enough down time to get wrapped up in my own personal projects, I better start looking for another job. Positions with full-time pay and part-time work get out-sourced or eliminated, I'd expect.
Besides, while I don't like having way too much to do, being busy providing value to your employer and yourself is more rewarding than being paid to be paid.
Sounds like you don't like the down time or feel guilty about it. Go find another job or create a better one where you are.
You seem to be equating the terms innovation and invention. Your list of things Google did not invent does not preclude innovation in those areas.
"Syndicated advertisements existed long before Google" but highly focused, non-intrusive, online advertising is Google's innovation on top of syndicated advertisements.
"Syndicated news existed long before Google" but tailored aggregation of news and specific news searches is Google's innovation.
"Search engines existed before Google" but the ranking and crawling or other ways Google implemented search innovated search engines to give better results.
"Web mail of various kinds existed long before Google" but Google innovated by making drastically improving the UI and increasing storage space.
Currently in the US, backing up a DVD that you've purchased involves bypassing a digital encryption algorithm, which is explicitly prohibited by the DMCA.
Incorrect. Making a byte-for-byte copy of the DVD does not decrypt the video contents. Since this does not bypass the CSS encryption, the restriction of the DMCA does not apply. Whether or not it is fair use is subject to further discussion but I can make full copies of the DVDs I own without triggering the anti-decryption portion of the DMCA. Now, if I extract only the video portion of the DVD, yes, the DMCA would apply.
Please do your part to understand before you continue to add to the confusion.;^)
A legally blind friend found that the Sony rootkit, when finally removed, triggered the licensing checks of his screen reader and accessibility software. He had to pay some hundreds of dollars (forget the exact amount) to the unsympathetic accessibility software makers (a whole other issue) to relicense so he could use the computer. Then, he had to re-install all his MS Office and other software to re-register them with the screen reader software.
Total cost to him: $140 for the removal service and $200+ to relicense the screen reader stuff and 4.5 days of home business down time.
Neither his family nor my family will every by Sony products again and this little settlement does not change that.
I live in the Phoenix, Arizona, USA area. One morning we all woke up to find the Krispy Kreme donut shops all closed. Articles in the paper described employees showing up to work with the doors chained shut. They were not even told it would happen.
One day about 10 years ago I went to work to find an email response from a significant software component supplier. I had submitted a critical bug report the day before. The response was a canned email saying "Sorry, we are out of business as of four days ago." The company had a muli-thousand dollar licence and support contract with them. Could we sue based on failure to fullfill the contract? Yes, but when they are in recievership, what good does it do to waste time suing?
My point is that commercial projects are not immune to suddenly "going away" and lumping community projects into a pile of unreliable resources is just as valid as saying commercial projects will always be dependable.
At an intersection not far from my house there are two strip malls on two of the corners. Each mall has a sandwich shop.
"Does it acheive a goal that couldn't have been achived within the [one sandwich shop] with less effort? E.g. different [special sauces in the same shop]?
"Surely a [different] name for [each store] wan't enough?
"I don't see how this kind of replication of effort best serves the [sales of sandwiches to the populace] in the long run.";^)
"Our startup honestly wanted to use OSS products. We do not want to spend time for any OSS bug fixing so our main requirement was -official support for all OSS products-."
Great. Good Idea.
"MSVS 2005 is ~$700... VxWorks or WinCE in our next product... An OEM version of Windows XP Pro is ~$140... Windows Unix services are free."
None of the above chosen solutions, at the prices cited, include "official support" None of them. I am an embedded developer and the one solution for which you don't cite a price, VxWorks or WinCE, will cost many thousands of dollars, per seat, if you want full, "official support."
From this I conclude that you were requiring full "official support" for OSS solutions but do not require "official support" for closed source solutions. Why are you surprised at the significant price difference in that case?
- Open Amarok - Attach iPod Nano - Amarok pops up a box that asks if I want to use it to manage a new iPod - Click affirmative - Transfer, delete, manage music and podcasts at will
I have not read the article so I don't understand the issue. Are the using a two-year-old version of some odd distro?
Was the parking lot posted as being for customers only? Did the parking space have a time limit posted? Did the coffee shop owners ask him to move or to stop parking there? Did the property owner ask him to stop parking there? Did the coffee shop owners ask him to stop using the Internet connection? Did the coffee shop owners post a sign or have a login page that placed any restrictions on use of the Internet connection?
These are all things that the article fails to mention or does not report because they did not happen. All we get is that the coffee shop didn't like him leaching as so they called the police. Zero to "911" over using a freely available Internet connection. Absolutely ridiculous.
The guy will walk because he did nothing wrong and no effort was made to create boundaries around his behavior prior to police involvement. I would also not be surpised if he turns around and sues the shop and the police for harrasment or something. The police should have told the shop owners to "put a fence" around their Internet connection or parking lot and to quit wasting their time about a "creepy" guy following the rules the shop created.
Instead of laptops, what if this was the "Teach the World to Read" campaign. Does this sound acceptable?
"Family starving? Learn to read!" "Need a job? Learn to read!" "No running water? Crapping in a ditch? Learn to read!"
If so, why? Don't the same reasons for teaching people to read apply to teaching people to use a computer? If not, why not?
It is foolish thinking to believe... 1....everyone in the third world is starving. Most are not, just not eating well. 2....everyone in the third world doesn't have a job. Most do, just not good ones. 3....everyone in the third world doesn't have access to clean water and sanitary conditions. Most do, just not plumbing.
What a computer in their hands does is open up a whole world of possible advancement and improvements to all of the above. It helps their economy, micro and macro, to rise to improved nutrition, better jobs and better infrastructure. It adds to their own self-sufficientcy and capabilities.
I have been to a few poor parts of the world. In one example, I have seen a water/irrigation project that a generous group from the US installed some years prior. It was in complete disuse and decay because the locals did not know how or have the resources to maintain it.
In the long run education and local knowledge are more important than support programs and one-time gifts. These computers are intented to help create the long term and local solutions to these issues.
It makes sense to compare text only and web based email clients if you look at it from a "pure" email perspective. Perspective: I need a tool to read, write and organize email. What can do that?
Now, if the I were start adding more criteria like must be text based or must display graphic attachments inline or etc., I would start eliminating clients from the comparison.
You are just applying criteria (text and standalone vs. web-based) before you start the comparison. Which also makes sense, if that is the narrower scope you want to apply.
And, I agree with you. The article does feel like a bit of a plug for Gmail. But I expected that as soon as he said "I work for Google," didn't you?
Ian Scot's plumber is also preparing his next major work, "Life's Choices: Why Putting Food Scraps in the Trash or Disposal Determines Your Success." It's a collaborative effort co-authored with Dilbert's world's smartest garbage man.
"If I cannot do with the content what I want to do with the content, I will not buy the content. If I cannot buy equipment that will let me do what I want with the content, I will not buy the equipment. DRM cracked or not, if the products (content and content players) restrict me from doing what I want, the producers will lose me as a customer.
There are vast numbers of ways to spend my time that I will not sacrifice my freedom at the alter of entertainment. Maybe I will end up in the minority from the mindless masses. That's my choice. But they (entertainment industry companies) face two dilemas getting this to come about.
1. The content producers and content player companies will always be at odds. The producers want more enforced control but the player companies know that less control will increase sales. This will not change. Even Sony's movie and music arms can't fully bring the electronic side in line.
2. Even "average" users expect to be able to move content around and watch it without having to jump through hoops. There are [few] examples of content and products with hard DRM that have been a success. iTunes and DVD do not have hard DRM. No one I know, for example, wants to buy a song that can only be played on one computer and not moved to a player or a new computer like some music services do.
I, therefore, feel pretty comfortable that full control DRM will not succeed in the marketplace. This is why those that want it are trying to get laws passed to mandate it."
In the long run, I don't think DRM will win. In the mean time, I can do without "popular" content. I already do without it anyway since most of it is not worth my time.
Your comment is very interesting and I'll have to go look for that book. However, I'd just like to point out that your question is not about the future, it is now.
Cruise missles, ICBMs and even just vastly superior artillery and aircraft make the "causing of pain to [other men] with no risk to [themselves]" a reality now.
Cruise missles were launched on Bagdad from ships in the Red Sea. That ship was not in any danger from the people it attacked. Even the stealth bombers that participated in the first attacks on Bagdad were not in any credible danger from Iraqi forces.
What is my point? Well, I'm not sure, execpt to point out that your question is immediate and requires thought now. We don't need to wait for robots to need the discussion.
Don't be silly. Shortly after Star Wars came out there were 1 and 2 hour TV specials on how the movies were made and how the special effects were done. Heck, there were news reels on how Disney was able to make color animation and how the voices were done. The movie industry has ALWAYS documented and shown the public how the magic is done.
I suggest you don't know how to suspend disbelief anymore. Or refuse to do so. Or are jaded by the current lousy movies that try to make up for their failings with great special effects.
If the movie is well written, well acted and has great effects, knowing how it was made just increases my respect and wonder at the process.
One thing newspapers have which Slashdot does not is journalistic integrity.
I don't believe that anymore. There are 5 newspapers of various sizes in my area. Over time I have been had direct knowledge of various events that were then reported in the papers. Not one paper ever provided an accurate story without at least slant or blatent ommissions that amounted to a lie. If I find that every article describing events of which I have personal knowledge is wrong, how can I possibly trust any other article?
Nope, I don't subscribe to any of them. And when they call or come to the door, I tell them why I won't subscribe.
Windows doesn't "come with everything" because the vendor wants to maintain it's trade secrets and control.
Linux doesn't have to come with everything. The base Ubuntu install, for example, does not come with developer tools. Even if it did, you don't have to use them or install them even. The plus is that if you want to have everything, you can. You have a choice without having to spend money.
Windows requires more money to exersize your choice.
Slashdot Mirror
The parent expresses exactly the single biggest reason that ISP should not be allowed to do this sort of thing. The conflict of interest is huge!
Thanks for expressing it so well.
"We need to find a way..." Who is we?
The RIAA or anyone else is not about to figure out a business model for ME so that I can make lots of money. And I'm NOT willing to prop up the RIAA just so that I can continue to download bittorrents of Linux or other legally distributed copyrighted works. I'll not purchase my freedom by helping a bunch of knot-heads figure out a new reality.
I'll not be extorted!
It's interesting that you assume I have not worked "efficiently" in the IT field. True or not, that is irrelevant to my point.
If I can do a "average" IT or programming or knitting or lawn care or whatever job in only 20 hours a week instead of 40, I should fill the other 20 hours with productive activity to provide even more value to my employer (and myself). If I am very efficient at my job, by boss should give me more to do and I should find more to do. The more value I contribute, the more valuable I am to the company and to my resume. If the company will not or cannot give me more to do, that is a strong indicator that my position is not on a growth curve. Occupying a stagnant position is not a good place to be. Stagnation will be lopped off at the first sign of financial difficulty or re-organization.
There can be many reasons why a company will keep paying someone for 40 hours of work even though they only deliver 20. But I cannot think of a good long-term reason why they would or why you would want them to. Perhaps you could enlighten me?
If I have enough down time to get wrapped up in my own personal projects, I better start looking for another job. Positions with full-time pay and part-time work get out-sourced or eliminated, I'd expect.
Besides, while I don't like having way too much to do, being busy providing value to your employer and yourself is more rewarding than being paid to be paid.
Sounds like you don't like the down time or feel guilty about it. Go find another job or create a better one where you are.
http://k12ltsp.org/ that has been around and available for years? It's based on Fedora but everything is there for a standard office environment.
You seem to be equating the terms innovation and invention. Your list of things Google did not invent does not preclude innovation in those areas.
"Syndicated advertisements existed long before Google" but highly focused, non-intrusive, online advertising is Google's innovation on top of syndicated advertisements.
"Syndicated news existed long before Google" but tailored aggregation of news and specific news searches is Google's innovation.
"Search engines existed before Google" but the ranking and crawling or other ways Google implemented search innovated search engines to give better results.
"Web mail of various kinds existed long before Google" but Google innovated by making drastically improving the UI and increasing storage space.
etc...
The tech community in general tends to define "innovation" as "invention" which is not necessarily true. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation)
Currently in the US, backing up a DVD that you've purchased involves bypassing a digital encryption algorithm, which is explicitly prohibited by the DMCA.
;^)
Incorrect. Making a byte-for-byte copy of the DVD does not decrypt the video contents. Since this does not bypass the CSS encryption, the restriction of the DMCA does not apply. Whether or not it is fair use is subject to further discussion but I can make full copies of the DVDs I own without triggering the anti-decryption portion of the DMCA. Now, if I extract only the video portion of the DVD, yes, the DMCA would apply.
Please do your part to understand before you continue to add to the confusion.
A legally blind friend found that the Sony rootkit, when finally removed, triggered the licensing checks of his screen reader and accessibility software. He had to pay some hundreds of dollars (forget the exact amount) to the unsympathetic accessibility software makers (a whole other issue) to relicense so he could use the computer. Then, he had to re-install all his MS Office and other software to re-register them with the screen reader software.
Total cost to him: $140 for the removal service and $200+ to relicense the screen reader stuff and 4.5 days of home business down time.
Neither his family nor my family will every by Sony products again and this little settlement does not change that.
I live in the Phoenix, Arizona, USA area. One morning we all woke up to find the Krispy Kreme donut shops all closed. Articles in the paper described employees showing up to work with the doors chained shut. They were not even told it would happen.
One day about 10 years ago I went to work to find an email response from a significant software component supplier. I had submitted a critical bug report the day before. The response was a canned email saying "Sorry, we are out of business as of four days ago." The company had a muli-thousand dollar licence and support contract with them. Could we sue based on failure to fullfill the contract? Yes, but when they are in recievership, what good does it do to waste time suing?
My point is that commercial projects are not immune to suddenly "going away" and lumping community projects into a pile of unreliable resources is just as valid as saying commercial projects will always be dependable.
At an intersection not far from my house there are two strip malls on two of the corners. Each mall has a sandwich shop.
;^)
"Does it acheive a goal that couldn't have been achived within the [one sandwich shop] with less effort? E.g. different [special sauces in the same shop]?
"Surely a [different] name for [each store] wan't enough?
"I don't see how this kind of replication of effort best serves the [sales of sandwiches to the populace] in the long run."
"Our startup honestly wanted to use OSS products. We do not want to spend time for any OSS bug fixing so our main requirement was -official support for all OSS products-."
Great. Good Idea.
"MSVS 2005 is ~$700... VxWorks or WinCE in our next product... An OEM version of Windows XP Pro is ~$140... Windows Unix services are free."
None of the above chosen solutions, at the prices cited, include "official support" None of them. I am an embedded developer and the one solution for which you don't cite a price, VxWorks or WinCE, will cost many thousands of dollars, per seat, if you want full, "official support."
From this I conclude that you were requiring full "official support" for OSS solutions but do not require "official support" for closed source solutions. Why are you surprised at the significant price difference in that case?
On my OpenSUSE 10.1:
- Open Amarok
- Attach iPod Nano
- Amarok pops up a box that asks if I want to use it to manage a new iPod
- Click affirmative
- Transfer, delete, manage music and podcasts at will
I have not read the article so I don't understand the issue. Are the using a two-year-old version of some odd distro?
Good tip, thanks.
[open another tab to preferences. homepage. scroll... Ah! click]
Done. No more silly rehash Backslash.
Was the parking lot posted as being for customers only?
Did the parking space have a time limit posted?
Did the coffee shop owners ask him to move or to stop parking there?
Did the property owner ask him to stop parking there?
Did the coffee shop owners ask him to stop using the Internet connection?
Did the coffee shop owners post a sign or have a login page that placed any restrictions on use of the Internet connection?
These are all things that the article fails to mention or does not report because they did not happen. All we get is that the coffee shop didn't like him leaching as so they called the police. Zero to "911" over using a freely available Internet connection. Absolutely ridiculous.
The guy will walk because he did nothing wrong and no effort was made to create boundaries around his behavior prior to police involvement. I would also not be surpised if he turns around and sues the shop and the police for harrasment or something. The police should have told the shop owners to "put a fence" around their Internet connection or parking lot and to quit wasting their time about a "creepy" guy following the rules the shop created.
Instead of laptops, what if this was the "Teach the World to Read" campaign. Does this sound acceptable?
...everyone in the third world is starving. Most are not, just not eating well. ...everyone in the third world doesn't have a job. Most do, just not good ones. ...everyone in the third world doesn't have access to clean water and sanitary conditions. Most do, just not plumbing.
"Family starving? Learn to read!"
"Need a job? Learn to read!"
"No running water? Crapping in a ditch? Learn to read!"
If so, why? Don't the same reasons for teaching people to read apply to teaching people to use a computer? If not, why not?
It is foolish thinking to believe...
1.
2.
3.
What a computer in their hands does is open up a whole world of possible advancement and improvements to all of the above. It helps their economy, micro and macro, to rise to improved nutrition, better jobs and better infrastructure. It adds to their own self-sufficientcy and capabilities.
I have been to a few poor parts of the world. In one example, I have seen a water/irrigation project that a generous group from the US installed some years prior. It was in complete disuse and decay because the locals did not know how or have the resources to maintain it.
In the long run education and local knowledge are more important than support programs and one-time gifts. These computers are intented to help create the long term and local solutions to these issues.
It makes sense to compare text only and web based email clients if you look at it from a "pure" email perspective. Perspective: I need a tool to read, write and organize email. What can do that?
Now, if the I were start adding more criteria like must be text based or must display graphic attachments inline or etc., I would start eliminating clients from the comparison.
You are just applying criteria (text and standalone vs. web-based) before you start the comparison. Which also makes sense, if that is the narrower scope you want to apply.
And, I agree with you. The article does feel like a bit of a plug for Gmail. But I expected that as soon as he said "I work for Google," didn't you?
A tenth is 10%. 10% of 1.3 billion is 130 million.
Although, that is over a million, as you said.
Ian Scot's plumber is also preparing his next major work, "Life's Choices: Why Putting Food Scraps in the Trash or Disposal Determines Your Success." It's a collaborative effort co-authored with Dilbert's world's smartest garbage man.
To quote myself: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164248&cid=137 15878
"If I cannot do with the content what I want to do with the content, I will not buy the content. If I cannot buy equipment that will let me do what I want with the content, I will not buy the equipment. DRM cracked or not, if the products (content and content players) restrict me from doing what I want, the producers will lose me as a customer.
There are vast numbers of ways to spend my time that I will not sacrifice my freedom at the alter of entertainment. Maybe I will end up in the minority from the mindless masses. That's my choice. But they (entertainment industry companies) face two dilemas getting this to come about.
1. The content producers and content player companies will always be at odds. The producers want more enforced control but the player companies know that less control will increase sales. This will not change. Even Sony's movie and music arms can't fully bring the electronic side in line.
2. Even "average" users expect to be able to move content around and watch it without having to jump through hoops. There are [few] examples of content and products with hard DRM that have been a success. iTunes and DVD do not have hard DRM. No one I know, for example, wants to buy a song that can only be played on one computer and not moved to a player or a new computer like some music services do.
I, therefore, feel pretty comfortable that full control DRM will not succeed in the marketplace. This is why those that want it are trying to get laws passed to mandate it."
In the long run, I don't think DRM will win. In the mean time, I can do without "popular" content. I already do without it anyway since most of it is not worth my time.
Your comment is very interesting and I'll have to go look for that book. However, I'd just like to point out that your question is not about the future, it is now.
Cruise missles, ICBMs and even just vastly superior artillery and aircraft make the "causing of pain to [other men] with no risk to [themselves]" a reality now.
Cruise missles were launched on Bagdad from ships in the Red Sea. That ship was not in any danger from the people it attacked. Even the stealth bombers that participated in the first attacks on Bagdad were not in any credible danger from Iraqi forces.
What is my point? Well, I'm not sure, execpt to point out that your question is immediate and requires thought now. We don't need to wait for robots to need the discussion.
Don't be silly. Shortly after Star Wars came out there were 1 and 2 hour TV specials on how the movies were made and how the special effects were done. Heck, there were news reels on how Disney was able to make color animation and how the voices were done. The movie industry has ALWAYS documented and shown the public how the magic is done.
I suggest you don't know how to suspend disbelief anymore. Or refuse to do so. Or are jaded by the current lousy movies that try to make up for their failings with great special effects.
If the movie is well written, well acted and has great effects, knowing how it was made just increases my respect and wonder at the process.
One thing newspapers have which Slashdot does not is journalistic integrity.
I don't believe that anymore. There are 5 newspapers of various sizes in my area. Over time I have been had direct knowledge of various events that were then reported in the papers. Not one paper ever provided an accurate story without at least slant or blatent ommissions that amounted to a lie. If I find that every article describing events of which I have personal knowledge is wrong, how can I possibly trust any other article?
Nope, I don't subscribe to any of them. And when they call or come to the door, I tell them why I won't subscribe.
Or, if you prefern KDE over GNOME, http://www.kubuntu.org/
No mumbo jumbo. Drop in the CD, enjoy! Enough said.
How do you know "What Novell is doing here is creating a platform for Ximian and the only way to get any distro to accept Ximian was to buy Suse." ??
And by what stretch of logic is the above "proven true" by "Hubert's comments that Ximian had lots of talented people." ???
Windows doesn't "come with everything" because the vendor wants to maintain it's trade secrets and control.
Linux doesn't have to come with everything. The base Ubuntu install, for example, does not come with developer tools. Even if it did, you don't have to use them or install them even. The plus is that if you want to have everything, you can. You have a choice without having to spend money.
Windows requires more money to exersize your choice.