The other advantage, besides price, is *control*. With OSS you have a fighting chance of figuring out how the heck it really works, so that you can use it the way *you* want/need to instead of the way that some marketing genius thinks everybody should use it. And you can even alter it, if need be, to make it more suitable for your special needs.
These arguments are of course pointless to most of the people who are sitting in cafes sipping Internet, but a few of them are in positions to make use of that power to give their employers (and themselves!) a competitive advantage.
Where does the product or its packaging say that it's illegal to skip the warning? Hmmm, maybe it's on the same sheet as that "license" the makers are always babbling about -- the one they've never given me the opportunity to sign or even read.
>>In the case of a recording, the artist sold the performance to the recording company. The recording company then sells the ability to reproduce...
>No , because the "ability to reproduce" is freely obtainable (or at next to no cost) to everyone with a PC, tape recorder etc.
I did select the wrong word. The recording company then sells the *legal right to reproduce the performance under specified conditions*. Without that grant of license you have no *legal* right to reproduce the recorded performance, whatever you think your moral rights might be.
The musicians are certainly entitled to whatever their contract with the record company says they are owed. If they were promised royalties then they are entitled to payment by the record company for every copy that the record company sells. That was the agreement which induced them to perform for the record company, and whether or not you see a performance in the playing of a recording has absolutely nothing to do with this because you are not a party to that contract.
The performance *is* property by definition. The law defines a property right in original expression.
I think you have the legalities of construction a little confused too. The people who build a house build it for the general contractor, who pays them for their performance and either provides the materials or reimburses the workers' materials expenditures. The workers have a claim on the general contractor for the goods and services provided to him, and in turn the general contractor has a property right in the finished house until you pay for it, even if it exists on land that you already own free and clear.
In the case of a recording, the artist sold the performance to the recording company. The recording company then sells the ability to reproduce that performance to recover its cost and earn profit from the service of providing that ability to you. Whether it's live or not is not at issue.
Do you think that, just because the carpenters and plumbers have already done their work, you can tell your general contractor, "thanks for the house," and take the house without paying him?
Indeed, I should think that calling someone a pirate in court solely because he violated copyright is not just a cheap emotional appeal, but actionable as slander or even false testimony.
Well, hooray for that judge. When the Navy finds a record-company's ship adrift or scuttled, with its crew murdered and the holds emptied of CDs, the RIAA can call *that* "piracy", but I don't see how anyone could do that through a wire. (Okay, maybe with robots....)
"In conclusion don't take advantage of your role as an administrator to accomplish political goals."
Good point. When *judges* do that, lots of people scream about "legislating from the bench", as if it were wrong for someone not authorized by the citizens to make law to be making law. Hmmm.
And don't tell me that juries are made up of citizens and so are authorized. This could only be true if *all* citizens were in that one jury. Sorry, there's only twelve of you, and the rest of us have not been consulted.
It is saying, "why don't they leave our innocent P2P networks and developers alone, and go after the real criminals?" Now they are suing people against whom we may expect they have actual evidence of copyright violation, and again this is wrong? I don't understand.
Wouldn't this tend to attack the standard tactic of negotiating a less-costly out-of-court settlement? Wouldn't it strike at the roots of plea-bargaining?
Whether you think those would be good or bad side-effects, I think you'll agree that they are far-reaching and worthy of careful study.
The board at Disney may also be asking themselves the question I asked myself: what in the world would Comcast *do* with Disney Studios? Their network holdings are another and much clearer story.
Sorry, a 90% solution is okay for pencils but totally unacceptable for parachutes. The tremendous cost of the consequences of such design decisions shouts (to me, anyway) that the product is *not* "good enough".
Indeed, if MS would just delete anything they ship that has the word "Active" in its name, the 'net would be a lot safer. Active documents take the only (theoretically) intelligent component (the user) out of the loop and enable much of the unwanted behavior we're seeing.
Does anyone seriously believe that CHRISTMA EXEC could have spread so quickly or so widely as Blaster?
For that matter, nonfunctional code should have been optimized away.
What's nonfunctional code doing in there in the first place? I've lost count of the number of times someone has posted on LKML, "I'm removing frobnicate_foo() because I just rewrote the last place that calls it and it's not needed anymore," or, "I just realized that nothing calls x() anymore, so here's a patch to remove it."
Of course, if the programmers who build network buffers on the stack were all shipped out to Hamburger U. and replaced with people who think before they code, it would be a lot harder for malware authors to diddle the stack, wouldn't it?
It sounds like this particular service's closest analogy in the traditional telecom sphere would be Directory Assistance. It's not carriage at all; it's a *client* of a carrier. I have no problem with FCC determining that something which is not a carrier should not be regulated as if it were.
But what does this have to do with regulation of VoIP itself? W.r.t. speech connections, a VoIP provider arguably *is* a carrier, and if so then it should be regulated as a carrier so that we'll be able to rely on it as we do on traditional telephony.
I realize that this causes problems for the VoIP carriers, because they depend on an UNreliable service (IP) whereas the telcos run on cell links that were designed from the ground up to meet the needs of isochronous traffic. Well, boo hoo. By the time they get through virtualizing the circuit-switched network properly, they may have very little cost advantage left, but if so then they should've seen that at the outset.
Better stock your pantry well now, if you think it's coming soon. You're postulating a phase change in the global economy, and things are apt to be messy for a while until we haul away the wreckage of the old system and build a new one on its foundation.
Um, is the government forbidden to permit people to identify themselves voluntarily? Because you could start out with everybody as AC and let people opt in for identification.
I submit that reaching beyond what we already grasp is also a fundamental necessity. It's one of the things that made humans, and if we stop doing it we will stop being human.
What reason is there for living, if history stops here?
I think you've misread this. Technology didn't make it possible; the prevailing pricing structure in the mobile communication sector made it possible. It's a marketing phenomenon, and four years from now the equation could be very different.
*Technology never makes things cheaper.* Technology makes it possible to do things you could not have done before at *any* price. We spend 10% *more* but we get 100% more, or 1000% more, in return, because we are doing truly new things. Cost savings may eventually fall out of the changes, but they're a side-effect of reaching our goals in new ways.
All of our personal communication used to be one-to-one; now the Internet makes it easy for individuals to communicate one-to-many or many-to-many, and it's changing the way we attack problems that involve coordination and mass effort. What you did last weekend could not have happened without the Internet no matter how cheap phone calls and postage are, because the real problem is not cost but visibility.
Actually I think that the Dean campaign is failing in the way most campaigns fail these days in the U.S.: too much preaching to the choir and not enough brain-sweat spent on *making the case* to the unbelievers. So many candidates think that moral outrage is all you need; so many candidates find out how wrong they are.
The voters will vote for the candidate who gets off his *own* chump and makes the effort to *convince* them that he has the best understanding of the things they care about. Or they'll vote for the guy with the position that already has them convinced, if none of the candidates cares enough to reason with them.
You do make an important point, sort of: some people seem to think that they can move to cyberspace, as if it weren't an emergent phenomenon rooted in meatspace. Sorry, boys and girls, but you can't leave the Real World just yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Do these big guys really have all that much trouble getting their voices heard in D.C.? Who'd 'a thunk it?
But...why? We already had a standard for this. It's called OpenPGP.
The other advantage, besides price, is *control*. With OSS you have a fighting chance of figuring out how the heck it really works, so that you can use it the way *you* want/need to instead of the way that some marketing genius thinks everybody should use it. And you can even alter it, if need be, to make it more suitable for your special needs.
These arguments are of course pointless to most of the people who are sitting in cafes sipping Internet, but a few of them are in positions to make use of that power to give their employers (and themselves!) a competitive advantage.
It's called, "the way radio receivers originally worked". See "crystal set".
Where does the product or its packaging say that it's illegal to skip the warning? Hmmm, maybe it's on the same sheet as that "license" the makers are always babbling about -- the one they've never given me the opportunity to sign or even read.
>>In the case of a recording, the artist sold the performance to the recording company. The recording company then sells the ability to reproduce...
>No , because the "ability to reproduce" is freely obtainable (or at next to no cost) to everyone with a PC, tape recorder etc.
I did select the wrong word. The recording company then sells the *legal right to reproduce the performance under specified conditions*. Without that grant of license you have no *legal* right to reproduce the recorded performance, whatever you think your moral rights might be.
The musicians are certainly entitled to whatever their contract with the record company says they are owed. If they were promised royalties then they are entitled to payment by the record company for every copy that the record company sells. That was the agreement which induced them to perform for the record company, and whether or not you see a performance in the playing of a recording has absolutely nothing to do with this because you are not a party to that contract.
The performance *is* property by definition. The law defines a property right in original expression.
I think you have the legalities of construction a little confused too. The people who build a house build it for the general contractor, who pays them for their performance and either provides the materials or reimburses the workers' materials expenditures. The workers have a claim on the general contractor for the goods and services provided to him, and in turn the general contractor has a property right in the finished house until you pay for it, even if it exists on land that you already own free and clear.
Think again.
In the case of a recording, the artist sold the performance to the recording company. The recording company then sells the ability to reproduce that performance to recover its cost and earn profit from the service of providing that ability to you. Whether it's live or not is not at issue.
Do you think that, just because the carpenters and plumbers have already done their work, you can tell your general contractor, "thanks for the house," and take the house without paying him?
Indeed, I should think that calling someone a pirate in court solely because he violated copyright is not just a cheap emotional appeal, but actionable as slander or even false testimony.
Well, hooray for that judge. When the Navy finds a record-company's ship adrift or scuttled, with its crew murdered and the holds emptied of CDs, the RIAA can call *that* "piracy", but I don't see how anyone could do that through a wire. (Okay, maybe with robots....)
I think you've got jury duty confused with Election Day.
"In conclusion don't take advantage of your role as an administrator to accomplish political goals."
Good point. When *judges* do that, lots of people scream about "legislating from the bench", as if it were wrong for someone not authorized by the citizens to make law to be making law. Hmmm.
And don't tell me that juries are made up of citizens and so are authorized. This could only be true if *all* citizens were in that one jury. Sorry, there's only twelve of you, and the rest of us have not been consulted.
It is saying, "why don't they leave our innocent P2P networks and developers alone, and go after the real criminals?" Now they are suing people against whom we may expect they have actual evidence of copyright violation, and again this is wrong? I don't understand.
Wouldn't this tend to attack the standard tactic of negotiating a less-costly out-of-court settlement? Wouldn't it strike at the roots of plea-bargaining?
Whether you think those would be good or bad side-effects, I think you'll agree that they are far-reaching and worthy of careful study.
The board at Disney may also be asking themselves the question I asked myself: what in the world would Comcast *do* with Disney Studios? Their network holdings are another and much clearer story.
Sorry, a 90% solution is okay for pencils but totally unacceptable for parachutes. The tremendous cost of the consequences of such design decisions shouts (to me, anyway) that the product is *not* "good enough".
Indeed, if MS would just delete anything they ship that has the word "Active" in its name, the 'net would be a lot safer. Active documents take the only (theoretically) intelligent component (the user) out of the loop and enable much of the unwanted behavior we're seeing.
Does anyone seriously believe that CHRISTMA EXEC could have spread so quickly or so widely as Blaster?
For that matter, nonfunctional code should have been optimized away.
What's nonfunctional code doing in there in the first place? I've lost count of the number of times someone has posted on LKML, "I'm removing frobnicate_foo() because I just rewrote the last place that calls it and it's not needed anymore," or, "I just realized that nothing calls x() anymore, so here's a patch to remove it."
Of course, if the programmers who build network buffers on the stack were all shipped out to Hamburger U. and replaced with people who think before they code, it would be a lot harder for malware authors to diddle the stack, wouldn't it?
It sounds like this particular service's closest analogy in the traditional telecom sphere would be Directory Assistance. It's not carriage at all; it's a *client* of a carrier. I have no problem with FCC determining that something which is not a carrier should not be regulated as if it were.
But what does this have to do with regulation of VoIP itself? W.r.t. speech connections, a VoIP provider arguably *is* a carrier, and if so then it should be regulated as a carrier so that we'll be able to rely on it as we do on traditional telephony.
I realize that this causes problems for the VoIP carriers, because they depend on an UNreliable service (IP) whereas the telcos run on cell links that were designed from the ground up to meet the needs of isochronous traffic. Well, boo hoo. By the time they get through virtualizing the circuit-switched network properly, they may have very little cost advantage left, but if so then they should've seen that at the outset.
Better stock your pantry well now, if you think it's coming soon. You're postulating a phase change in the global economy, and things are apt to be messy for a while until we haul away the wreckage of the old system and build a new one on its foundation.
Let the prof. sue the posters who made libellous statements. Oh, wait, that would be too hard; let's just sue the site's owner, who didn't write them.
Um, is the government forbidden to permit people to identify themselves voluntarily? Because you could start out with everybody as AC and let people opt in for identification.
I submit that reaching beyond what we already grasp is also a fundamental necessity. It's one of the things that made humans, and if we stop doing it we will stop being human.
What reason is there for living, if history stops here?
I think you've misread this. Technology didn't make it possible; the prevailing pricing structure in the mobile communication sector made it possible. It's a marketing phenomenon, and four years from now the equation could be very different.
*Technology never makes things cheaper.* Technology makes it possible to do things you could not have done before at *any* price. We spend 10% *more* but we get 100% more, or 1000% more, in return, because we are doing truly new things. Cost savings may eventually fall out of the changes, but they're a side-effect of reaching our goals in new ways.
All of our personal communication used to be one-to-one; now the Internet makes it easy for individuals to communicate one-to-many or many-to-many, and it's changing the way we attack problems that involve coordination and mass effort. What you did last weekend could not have happened without the Internet no matter how cheap phone calls and postage are, because the real problem is not cost but visibility.
Actually I think that the Dean campaign is failing in the way most campaigns fail these days in the U.S.: too much preaching to the choir and not enough brain-sweat spent on *making the case* to the unbelievers. So many candidates think that moral outrage is all you need; so many candidates find out how wrong they are.
The voters will vote for the candidate who gets off his *own* chump and makes the effort to *convince* them that he has the best understanding of the things they care about. Or they'll vote for the guy with the position that already has them convinced, if none of the candidates cares enough to reason with them.
You do make an important point, sort of: some people seem to think that they can move to cyberspace, as if it weren't an emergent phenomenon rooted in meatspace. Sorry, boys and girls, but you can't leave the Real World just yet.