Our parent company president put it this way: IT is one of those professions where it's "normal" to have everything working perfectly. You might get a little recognition if you rescue an imperiled client, but don't hold your breath.
On products: There aren't very many industries where the "product" (that is, software) can be replicated with minuscule cost. Sure, there are issues like copyright and (ugh) patents, and thanks to Bill Gates, companies can and do charge for licenses that impose pseudo-legal (consumer) or contractual (business) limitations on use. But taken by itself, software as a product is often treated as something with little or no cost. Certainly, anything made by a loosely-connected band of volunteers will invariably be gratis, compared to an app written by a company's development team.
On services: I think you actually won't find very many people arguing for free services within the OSS community. No one's complaining that Red Hat makes money doing this, nor are the complaints thrown at Novell or IBM of this nature-- they're commonly complaints based around making indemnity agreements with companies who are historically hostile to open source.
I'm also wondering whether the Linux distro had newer libraries and drivers (esp. drivers). I noticed that the GCC compile had the BSDs using GCC 4.2 while Ubuntu was using 4.4; it might not be significant, but it could have made all the difference there.
Though it does seem (given other comments) that Linux handles I/O faster-- I'm not sure how much turning off debugging symbols will do, as 7.2 was also left in Ubuntu's dust there. It would certainly be worth checking out for the FreeBSD crew.
Rather, this is Google managing to chip away at MS's anti-competitive use of IE and make MS actually compete fairly a little more, pretty much the opposite of Google trying to kill fair competition which is what the EEE strategy is all about.
So by putting their fingers in what's arguably Microsoft's worst product, Google is employing the corporate version of kancho?
It's not just ASCAP. It's several industries, the ones who demand protection of their "intellectual property". It's this idea that companies face real losses even when one shmuck makes a personal copy of their products. They've been fighting it tooth and nail since the introduction of the player piano (probably earlier), because they are so used to the idea of getting a perpetual trickle of cash for every creative work, that they cannot fathom a business model where they do not have complete control of production and distribution (and hence, complete control of where and when they get paid).
In their world (at least in the minds of media cartel execs), making a backup in case of disaster makes you a thief. In their world, sharing even a tiny portion of a great song to a friend as a recommendation makes you a pirate. In their world, every idea and creative thought has a nonzero, non-negative price, and if they happen to have a stake in it, every person desiring access had better pay up, whether through retail, contract, or litigation.
It's the same bullshit that made Sony/BMG think that putting rootkits on CDs was a stonkin' good idea, and it's also what motivates practically every commercial game publisher to put idiotic copy protection add-ons that cause instability and other completely unnecessary hassles.
It's the same bullshit that makes RIAA members think that suing their own customers using overinflated "online piracy" loss figures is better than steering them towards legal alternatives and honestly estimating their losses through downloading.
It's the same bullshit that makes the MPAA and its allies think that letting customers have any modicum of control over their televisions, HD computer displays, and set-top boxes will be beginning of the media apocalypse (it would, but only in the sense that they don't get to control the entire market in the way they want). It's the same bullshit that makes them think that turning movie theaters into draconian venues is a great way to maximize profits by eliminating the handful of idiots that bring video cameras inside (along with a lot more dissatisfied and insulted yet legitimate customers).
And it's the same bullshit that motivates them to bribe and lie to politicians and diplomats all over the world so that we get such misguided treaties like the Berne Convention (which expanded copyright lifetimes to over 50 years), the WIPO treaty (which resulted in the stupid DMCA that forbids copy protection circumvention), and the upcoming ACTA.
Look, copyright and patent are not bad ideas-- they are effective means of spurring creative works and innovation. But abuse is rampant on the side of industry, at least as much as there are careless kids downloading TV show episodes and movies that aren't sanctioned for online distribution. And frankly, these industries whining about losses through downloading are at least as resistant to change for the better as those who fought the player piano and the recordable cassette tape.
While I would love a free L4D2, I doubt Valve will want a repeat of what happened in Australia with (I think) the Orange Box-- crossing the Pacific to Thailand to buy cheap copies.
But this could be better marketed as an expansion pack to the original, frankly.
... But it's still a lot better than burning diesel to bring crude oil from the Persian Gulf.
The only downside is that instead of having bits of plastic in landfills and the Pacific gyre, we're chucking the carbon stored within into the atmosphere. It'll be marginally useful as a transition/legacy fuel technology or a means of expanding the strategic reserves, but alternatives that absorb atmospheric CO2, nuclear, or renewable energy are still superior.
No mention of byproducts, but what self-respecting corporation admits faults in their operation?
Of course, for a conglomerate like GE (NBC), or NewsCorp, you'll probably find a sub-operation that you don't like and would rather not fund by buying shares (Heck, I wouldn't fund either because they encourage oligopoly and conflicts of interest in the media market). Let your conscience and convictions decide.
Another way is to buy stock, if the rag is a component of a publicly traded corporation. Slashdot, for example, is part of Sourceforge, Inc. (NASDAQ:LNUX). Not a whole lot of trading volume, but dirt cheap price per share. And, if Slashdot and sister companies like Thinkgeek help Sourceforge expand, you can get a return on the investment as well.
On the business side, though, LNUX isn't exactly GOOG, MSFT, or AAPL (at least, according to analysts who'd rather see the latter from all tech companies). But that's probably for the best.
Strategically, this may be the opportunity the Chinese were looking for all along. They are on track to see an 8% growth in GDP, while the US and other economies are struggling to get back in the game. If they can set up a much better deal for them while the other side is hamstrung...
I don't remember if DHS personnel are at those checkpoints, but I'm pretty sure that if DHS people are akin to the FBI, TSA agents (the people who actually work the checkpoints) are the reject cops who get assigned to school security.
The only thing worse than a bad cop is a reject cop who thinks he ought to get a cop's job-- inevitably, someone gives the reject a cop's job and he goes to town on the public.
The logical fallacy is the argument "{All} file sharing is copyright infringement and/or theft" (known as a "fallacy of accident"). What you and other advocates for the status quo are saying is that there is no other purpose for file sharing software than copyright infringement. (One may argue that "file sharing = copyright infringement or theft" means "SOME file sharing...", but a categorical assumption such as this one will generally be taken as "ALL file sharing...")
Although it's true that the lion's share of file sharing activity infringes copyrights (which is an entirely different argument than the one I posited above), it is not the case that this is the exclusive use of file sharing software.
Ask anyone who obtained a Linux DVD electronically. Ask anyone who used BitTorrent to grab OpenOffice.org.
I think we all realize that the only reason the industry associations pin the lion's share of losses to "piracy" is because:
1. They don't want to take any responsibility for crummy content, 2. It's easier to blame the customer when you're pandering to shareholders, and 3. For that matter, this helps them turn producers and artists against the audience when the real thing hurting creativity and sales is the industry's lock-down on the entire production process (You want these professional crew members? Pay the Man. You want this nifty studio? Pay the Man).
Prof. Lessig did a talk on TED some years ago, where he says that this generation and subsequent generations will be the content creators en masse. That means (finally) control in the long run will not be in the hands of the aforementioned cartels, unless they lobby/legislate the ability to create and re-create content on the computer out of existence.
At the moment, the greatest achievement a country can make is space travel. Sure the US did it first so what?
Uh... wasn't Russia first? Sure, they were beat to the moon by the US, but they did fire off the first successful satellite and had the first man in space... Heck, even with aging tech and suffering a huge defeat in the space race, they still had MIR in orbit for a while-- not what one would call a space colony, but an important first step.
Legend has it that a Russian magazine scoffed at Star Trek for not having Russian cosmonauts in the cast, and Roddenberry did use that as a justification for bringing in Chekov, although the scoff in question was never verified.
Or these two guys. Although their guilt is still being debated, the fact that it is debatable means that the standard of criminal justice failed in the wake of the prosecution's desire for a scapegoat.
Slashdot Mirror
While that's probably true, that wasn't the sound of fighter jets over your head...
Our parent company president put it this way: IT is one of those professions where it's "normal" to have everything working perfectly. You might get a little recognition if you rescue an imperiled client, but don't hold your breath.
On products: There aren't very many industries where the "product" (that is, software) can be replicated with minuscule cost. Sure, there are issues like copyright and (ugh) patents, and thanks to Bill Gates, companies can and do charge for licenses that impose pseudo-legal (consumer) or contractual (business) limitations on use. But taken by itself, software as a product is often treated as something with little or no cost. Certainly, anything made by a loosely-connected band of volunteers will invariably be gratis, compared to an app written by a company's development team.
On services: I think you actually won't find very many people arguing for free services within the OSS community. No one's complaining that Red Hat makes money doing this, nor are the complaints thrown at Novell or IBM of this nature-- they're commonly complaints based around making indemnity agreements with companies who are historically hostile to open source.
I'm also wondering whether the Linux distro had newer libraries and drivers (esp. drivers). I noticed that the GCC compile had the BSDs using GCC 4.2 while Ubuntu was using 4.4; it might not be significant, but it could have made all the difference there.
Though it does seem (given other comments) that Linux handles I/O faster-- I'm not sure how much turning off debugging symbols will do, as 7.2 was also left in Ubuntu's dust there. It would certainly be worth checking out for the FreeBSD crew.
So by putting their fingers in what's arguably Microsoft's worst product, Google is employing the corporate version of kancho ?
People are complaining about the Office ribbon for no good reason, and primarily because the idiot who wrote TFA didn't look at the Firefox wiki.
The Firefox dev team is heavily using Google Chrome's UI as "inspiration", not Office 2007.
It's not just ASCAP. It's several industries, the ones who demand protection of their "intellectual property". It's this idea that companies face real losses even when one shmuck makes a personal copy of their products. They've been fighting it tooth and nail since the introduction of the player piano (probably earlier), because they are so used to the idea of getting a perpetual trickle of cash for every creative work, that they cannot fathom a business model where they do not have complete control of production and distribution (and hence, complete control of where and when they get paid).
In their world (at least in the minds of media cartel execs), making a backup in case of disaster makes you a thief. In their world, sharing even a tiny portion of a great song to a friend as a recommendation makes you a pirate. In their world, every idea and creative thought has a nonzero, non-negative price, and if they happen to have a stake in it, every person desiring access had better pay up, whether through retail, contract, or litigation.
It's the same bullshit that made Sony/BMG think that putting rootkits on CDs was a stonkin' good idea, and it's also what motivates practically every commercial game publisher to put idiotic copy protection add-ons that cause instability and other completely unnecessary hassles.
It's the same bullshit that makes RIAA members think that suing their own customers using overinflated "online piracy" loss figures is better than steering them towards legal alternatives and honestly estimating their losses through downloading.
It's the same bullshit that makes the MPAA and its allies think that letting customers have any modicum of control over their televisions, HD computer displays, and set-top boxes will be beginning of the media apocalypse (it would, but only in the sense that they don't get to control the entire market in the way they want). It's the same bullshit that makes them think that turning movie theaters into draconian venues is a great way to maximize profits by eliminating the handful of idiots that bring video cameras inside (along with a lot more dissatisfied and insulted yet legitimate customers).
And it's the same bullshit that motivates them to bribe and lie to politicians and diplomats all over the world so that we get such misguided treaties like the Berne Convention (which expanded copyright lifetimes to over 50 years), the WIPO treaty (which resulted in the stupid DMCA that forbids copy protection circumvention), and the upcoming ACTA.
Look, copyright and patent are not bad ideas-- they are effective means of spurring creative works and innovation. But abuse is rampant on the side of industry, at least as much as there are careless kids downloading TV show episodes and movies that aren't sanctioned for online distribution. And frankly, these industries whining about losses through downloading are at least as resistant to change for the better as those who fought the player piano and the recordable cassette tape.
While I would love a free L4D2, I doubt Valve will want a repeat of what happened in Australia with (I think) the Orange Box-- crossing the Pacific to Thailand to buy cheap copies.
But this could be better marketed as an expansion pack to the original, frankly.
... But it's still a lot better than burning diesel to bring crude oil from the Persian Gulf.
The only downside is that instead of having bits of plastic in landfills and the Pacific gyre, we're chucking the carbon stored within into the atmosphere. It'll be marginally useful as a transition/legacy fuel technology or a means of expanding the strategic reserves, but alternatives that absorb atmospheric CO2, nuclear, or renewable energy are still superior.
No mention of byproducts, but what self-respecting corporation admits faults in their operation?
A 4.4 BSD-Lite Unix derivative favors the BSD way over System V. Gee, ya think?
I don't exactly have a clean Mac myself, but the upgrade procedure worked flawlessly here.
Sure, iStat Menus failed before the upgrade was released, but that was it. Every other app runs just fine.
I hate to sound like a Mac fanboy, but this is probably the minimum required level of sanity that an OS upgrade should produce.
It wasn't long ago that the MSM reported on "microcredit" sent by individuals to nano-startup businesses in impoverished countries.
Perhaps Google's opening this potential revenue stream is a reflection on print media.
Of course, for a conglomerate like GE (NBC), or NewsCorp, you'll probably find a sub-operation that you don't like and would rather not fund by buying shares (Heck, I wouldn't fund either because they encourage oligopoly and conflicts of interest in the media market). Let your conscience and convictions decide.
Another way is to buy stock, if the rag is a component of a publicly traded corporation. Slashdot, for example, is part of Sourceforge, Inc. (NASDAQ:LNUX). Not a whole lot of trading volume, but dirt cheap price per share. And, if Slashdot and sister companies like Thinkgeek help Sourceforge expand, you can get a return on the investment as well.
On the business side, though, LNUX isn't exactly GOOG, MSFT, or AAPL (at least, according to analysts who'd rather see the latter from all tech companies). But that's probably for the best.
Strategically, this may be the opportunity the Chinese were looking for all along. They are on track to see an 8% growth in GDP, while the US and other economies are struggling to get back in the game. If they can set up a much better deal for them while the other side is hamstrung...
The rich and/or powerful have delusions of grandeur? Pardon my shock.
I don't remember if DHS personnel are at those checkpoints, but I'm pretty sure that if DHS people are akin to the FBI, TSA agents (the people who actually work the checkpoints) are the reject cops who get assigned to school security.
The only thing worse than a bad cop is a reject cop who thinks he ought to get a cop's job-- inevitably, someone gives the reject a cop's job and he goes to town on the public.
Translation: "We want to squeeze cell phone makers so that they make great phones that we can have total control over."
Competition? Verizon? How laughable.
The logical fallacy is the argument "{All} file sharing is copyright infringement and/or theft" (known as a "fallacy of accident"). What you and other advocates for the status quo are saying is that there is no other purpose for file sharing software than copyright infringement. (One may argue that "file sharing = copyright infringement or theft" means "SOME file sharing...", but a categorical assumption such as this one will generally be taken as "ALL file sharing...")
Although it's true that the lion's share of file sharing activity infringes copyrights (which is an entirely different argument than the one I posited above), it is not the case that this is the exclusive use of file sharing software.
Ask anyone who obtained a Linux DVD electronically. Ask anyone who used BitTorrent to grab OpenOffice.org.
Next thing you know, they stand on their hind legs and take up polearms.
I think we all realize that the only reason the industry associations pin the lion's share of losses to "piracy" is because:
1. They don't want to take any responsibility for crummy content,
2. It's easier to blame the customer when you're pandering to shareholders, and
3. For that matter, this helps them turn producers and artists against the audience when the real thing hurting creativity and sales is the industry's lock-down on the entire production process (You want these professional crew members? Pay the Man. You want this nifty studio? Pay the Man).
Prof. Lessig did a talk on TED some years ago, where he says that this generation and subsequent generations will be the content creators en masse. That means (finally) control in the long run will not be in the hands of the aforementioned cartels, unless they lobby/legislate the ability to create and re-create content on the computer out of existence.
Uh... wasn't Russia first? Sure, they were beat to the moon by the US, but they did fire off the first successful satellite and had the first man in space... Heck, even with aging tech and suffering a huge defeat in the space race, they still had MIR in orbit for a while-- not what one would call a space colony, but an important first step.
Legend has it that a Russian magazine scoffed at Star Trek for not having Russian cosmonauts in the cast, and Roddenberry did use that as a justification for bringing in Chekov, although the scoff in question was never verified.
Why worry about voting rights, since voting machines are easier to pwn than PCs?
No, the real reason is: They can't donate serious campaign money.
You mean this one?
I'm not aware of a Windows driver, but it shouldn't be difficult to code; this FS has been in existence for longer than FAT.
Or these two guys. Although their guilt is still being debated, the fact that it is debatable means that the standard of criminal justice failed in the wake of the prosecution's desire for a scapegoat.