If I'm a business corporation looking to improve something like my company Intranet using a tool like this, I'd be thinking it's pretty cool until I hit this line:
"...We charge commercial customers based on the volume of Curl content executed..."
I think the cost aware boss has no reason not to stick with either Perl or PHP, both of which can bring incredible functionality to the web without having expense or browser or platform worries dragging in tow.
"... knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education..."
I just can't believe that this was even proposed. How do these people stay elected? I really want to say something informative/interesting here, but I'm literally at a complete loss for words.
And people wonder why the education system is a shambles in the USA. Making it illegal to think outside of the box certainly isn't going to help any.
Hmmm.... wasn't letting China host the next Olympics supposed to help curb this kind of oppression because of the "hightened global attention" they'd be receiving?
Sometimes I wonder why leaders give such obviously empty reasons...
This is the very thing that completely dumfounded me about the whole Napster debaucle. Throughout the entire court proceding the differentiation between making a tape recording of a CD and making an MP3 was that the MP3 was an "exact digital reproduction". The very definition of the format contradicts that statement, and yet this never seened to his the spotlight.
Sure you can download all your music from Napster and never have to pay anything, but you are _NOT_ getting CD quality audio. I used Napster to gather many songs for many reasons. Sometimes I had the songs on a media such as 33,45,or 78 vinyl, and simply didn't want to go to the trouble of recording them to disk. Other times I simply wanted to see what such and such group and/or song sounded like. If I found something that I really liked, then I went out and purchased the CD.... why? Well, I appreciate _quality_. MP3 is nice for a quick and dirty perusual of a song, but that's about it in my opinion. Well, I guess it's also good enough to play at low volumes on cheap PC speakers...
The Music Industry's attack on distributed file sharing is more about controlling what kind of material gets presented to the public more than about mass bootlegging, in my opinion.
I know this is a little off topic, but I've sort of been waiting for something like this hit the "general news sites"... I just find it funny that it didn't happen until long after Napster's demise.
Well, I went to read this story because I thought there would be some interesting information. Instead I got half a dozen two paragraph slides, some cute little movie clips, and walked away knowing no more than I did before I started.
An in depth analysis/commentary on just what is involved in making a shuttle launch would be an amazing piece to read I think. Unfortunately in depth news pieces seem to be a thing of the past.
While I'm not partial to the RedHat distribution, it often bothers me when I see proponents of other Linux distributions taking shots at RedHat to no real purpose.
Hopefully, seeing actions such as this will help to quell the "RedHat is no better than Microsoft" nonsense. I supose this is a little off topic, but I think RedHat ends up getting the short end of the stick more times than not by the very community that they routinely fight the hardest for.
First of all, many thanks to Doug for his candid and non-obscenely-lawyerized comments/answers.
Something I would like to point out, however is the interesting non-mention of the GPL. "free Open Source software" is often mentioned, but never is the fact that the power of the "Linux movement" if I can use that term is pretty firmly rooted in the GPL. While I agree that RMS can come off as very strong most of the time, I do think it is significant that most software designed for Linux is not only available free of charge, and with the source code, but that it is protected by the GPL. This is the major difference, in my mind between the BSDs and Linux. Anyone can use BSD code (stuff like, oh I don't know... a TCP/IP stack for instance), incorporate it into their code, and then hide it.
Microsoft has been in the profitable licenscing business for a long time now, and I think that while they say that Linux is their number one "target" right now, what they really mean is that the GPL and all its implications is their target, for it effectively competes on the philosophical level with Microsoft's licenscing stategies... or at least I think it does. Many peole don't care about any of this, but they will in future. When the US Consitution was drafted up the Bill of Rights as we know it wasn't seen as something that was needed... but some of the more extremeist of the drafters foresaw that it would become important in the future. I think the GPL should be looked at in the same light. Many think it's try to defend something that isn't that important right now... and that may be true, but far in the future it is going to be extremely important. And the general public has shown time and time again that they often don't think about the far reaching consequences until it is way too late. IMO, the Microsoft licensing philosophy exploits this.
Also, when it comes to a single desktop environment, I think that compatibility would be nice, but that GNOME or KDE or any of the hundreds of individual window managers should not "concede" and merge together into a "unified linux desktop". That is the purpose of the distribution in my mind... already some distributions, like Mandrake, default to a specific environment. If you are saavy enough to change it, hooray, if you don't want to futz with it, hooray.
In Brave New World stability was chosen at the cost of choice. Having a wide degree of choice does cause problems, does make some people feel bad emotions (anxiety, frustration, powerlessness), but I see the alternative of having the maddening hordes take the easy road of numbing happiness as a danger, not a boon.
Well, I guess that's about all I have to say about it. Thanks for reading.
I sometimes wonder at why people seem to think that the Republicans are out to censor everything and the Democrats are all for free speech.... has everyone forgotten that the spearhead of the PMRC was none other than staunch Democrat Tipper Gore?
Actually if all they cared about was the dollar, we wouldn't be having this mess. There are certainly more long term profits to be made by taking these new digital formats and finding a new and innovative way to make money from them.
This nonsense of trying to lock everything down and create laws that make viewing your product illegal is not good business. Sure it maintains profit margins for now, but long term will do nothing but cause damage.
Not to sound exceedingly paranoid here, but this is not so much about money as it is about fear of losing power and face.
So called "Blue Light" laws are scattered all over the place... especially in the so called "Bible Belt", which is where I happen to live. I find them very annoying, but over time am convinced that they will slowly get replealed.
I don't see how marketing will have much effect at all on Linux. Most of the people I know who seriously run a Linux distribution dont' use it because they saw a ZDTV splash or a PCMag splash about it. They run it because in their research, they found it to be the best solution to their problems... that research being a gathering of facts, not hype. Marketing can have a lot of sway with people who don't know or aren't concerned about the facts of a situation, but this is a short term effect. Eventually, the facts win... I think this is why Linux has not gone away already.
I've already addressed some of this above, but the core group of Linux developers/users don't use Linux because it's "cool". If your user base is based on people who think your product is "cool" then you are playing a dangerous game, because they are liable to leave at a drop of a hat, regardless of what the marketing droids say.
Once again, Linux is best served by its lack of marketing. Spending resources on producing the best solution to a problem is always better in the long run to trying to grab the quick buck. Personally I prefer Linux to be respected than be popular.
I really thought there was more to this post, otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered replying, but I've already typed this much... so there it is.
The main reason Mac OS X won't be a serious threat to Linux is the same thing that has IMO always hurt Apple's market share. In order to use their software, you must buy their hardware. I'm not well versed in Mac OS lore, but unless I'm mistaken, OS X will not run on x86 hardware... which is what the average joe consumer is going to be buying for quite a while to come. It's cheap for those not wanting to spend a lot of money, and the concept of getting the latest and greatest video card or other high profile peripheral for bragging rights is there for the folks that have money to burn.
Apple/Mac will always have their niche... but the reason Microsoft and Linux exist is because of cheap x86 hardware. And as far as I can tell [cue up your Beatles CD] it's getting cheaper all the time.
You don't seem to hear much about the other journalling filesystems, most notably JFS and ext3. I would really like to see an article comparing the different filesystems... including a walkthrough of patching the kernel, making the filesystem, etc... perhaps I'll do one up this weekend.
Seems to me that what we really need is for the Fluorescent CD product to get out the door and into the mainstream.... then you would have enough storage space to use just about any format you wanted. High compression would no longer be required.
I'm kinda surprised we don't already hear more about this technology.... perhaps it's vapourware as well, but it seems to me that if and when it finally gets out the door that it will quite possibly put an end to DVDs in general.
As I don't know much about the subject that's all I really have to say, but anyone who wants to take a look at this technology and possibly make a better call as to its validity, the company is
Constellation 3D.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that when your band was starting out that there was little to no big time publicity to help get you into the public eye. Instead you relied heavily on word of mouth and members of the general public telling others "hey, this band is great, check them out".
It seems to me that at that time, a utility such as napster would have been extremely beneficial to your efforts. You weren't extremely well known and you were not getting the benefits from million dollar marketing. Something like napster would have sped up what happened anyway, people made tapes of your music... passed them off to friends... who made tapes and passed them along, etc. And the ones who liked what they heard, went and bought the album. I can personally remember a friend of mine who went from having half a dozen multiple redubbed tapes of your music to owning every album you had done (3 or 4 at the time I believe).
So I guess what I'm curious about is would you still be so upset if you were not already famous? Right now you don't have to worry about publicity, most of America has heard of you and even if they don't particularly care for your style of music can probably point out a few of your songs just from massive radio play. By suing napster, and alienating the ones who use it, aren't you concerned that you're taking the thrill of discovery out of the hands of your would be fans and placing into the hands of your record label's marketing and publicity departments? Granted I'm not a Metallica fan (no offense guys), but this seems to be something that goes completely contrary to what I remember blasting out of my friends' speakers 10 years ago.
I find it telling that the only members of the music community that bothered to voice their dissent with the PMRC was Frank Zappa and John Denver. I'm an avid fan of the former, and never cared for the latter, but after that incident, I had a far greater respect for John Denver.
I am routinely amazed at the number of people (read customers) that massive companies like MS routinely piss off. It seems that there used to be an atmosphere that customers were fickle unpredictable beasts that had to be convinced to use your product or you might not have a company anymore. Has this feeling gone away because of customer apathy, highly advanced and fine tuned marketing technique/theory, or the situation of once a company becomes large enough they only need to maintain a statistically determined user base of a specific size.
Especially in the case of Microsoft, it seems that there is a widespread adversarial relationship between them and their customers. Friends and collegues of mine that are avid Microsoft users are constantly complaining about how MS shafted them and others. But when I mention that if they're so mad and disatisfied with the product that they paid for that it's their duty as a customer to spend their dollars elsewhere. Then I get looked at like I'm from another planet. They all seem to think that I'm some sort of computer genius/guru because I use Linux exclusively. I've tried to explain that I'm extremely far from either one, and as far as I can tell if a person were to spend as much time reading Linux documentation as they did trying to "trick" some MS app into doing what they wanted that they too would quickly become adept at the Linux environment.
Sorry to rant about like this, but it just amazes me sometimes that people don't feel bad about handing over money for a product they don't feel is the best solution for their particular need/problem/situation.
I hear things like this and my immediate reaction is that this is great. One of the really awesome things about the whole open source situation allows for anyone to go and make a custom tailored operating system package specially suited to their own needs, and still be compatible with all the other specialized linux packages out there.
Then I think about the average computer user (these days). What do they see? Well, they see RedHat linux, Corel Linux, Caldera Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, Storm Linux, Slackware Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, Stampede Linux, Abit Linux, etc etc. They were thinking about trying out Linux, until they started to look for a particular distribution to try out and got a migraine trying to figure out which one is the best. Now for people already familiar with the way Linux works, this really isn't that big of a deal. I know, and most of the Slashdot audience (I'm suspecting) knows that Linux is Linux, and all the different distributions really are nothing more than different packaging on the same product. But I think this is something that will escape the first time user. And how long before there is the backlash against all these different flavors that do nothing but confuse the vast populace who want the power but do not want to learn how to use it. What then happens when the force of clueless billions force Linux into a nicely shaped box, trumpeting that now this great package of power can be easily used by all with no fear of serious repurcussion.
I'm not about to go into whether this is a good or a bad thing. That, I fear, is nothing but fodder for the flame-mongers (but surely there aren't any flame-mongers at Slashdot... *cough* *cough*). But I do think it is a topic that requires some serious thought by any and all Linux users. Often I muse over whether or not it would be a good thing to have everyone and their brother using Linux. On the one hand I think, yes, it would be of great benefit to all to have at their diposal an operating system and software environment that was of such a wonderful caliber and rooted in the best of ideology at the same time. And then I wonder how painful it might be to be forced to sit back and watch the maddening hordes take something that has real value and trivialize it and dismantle it and distill it into easy to swallow placated bits, forever doomed to be taken for granted with that high degree of apathy that all things taken for granted are bound to receive.
Well, I had intended this to be a comment of only a few sentences so I will climb down off my soapbox now.
I think the problem isn't just how long will the storage last, but how long will it take to move the gargantuan amount of material that has already been collected and is still being added to at a furious pace.
There was another Slashdot article about this a while back.
Slashdot Mirror
If I'm a business corporation looking to improve something like my company Intranet using a tool like this, I'd be thinking it's pretty cool until I hit this line:
"...We charge commercial customers based on the volume of Curl content executed..."
I think the cost aware boss has no reason not to stick with either Perl or PHP, both of which can bring incredible functionality to the web without having expense or browser or platform worries dragging in tow.
I just can't believe that this was even proposed. How do these people stay elected? I really want to say something informative/interesting here, but I'm literally at a complete loss for words.
And people wonder why the education system is a shambles in the USA. Making it illegal to think outside of the box certainly isn't going to help any.
Sometimes I wonder why leaders give such obviously empty reasons ...
Yeah, I know it's a horrible groaner ....
That Rhubarb is mighty bad stuff. I know because I've seen it kill people. Let's Blame Canada and get it outlawed for the safety of the children!
What? I'm being silly? Okay mister, perhaps you could explain to everyone why you don't want to help the children.
And on, and on, and on .... *sigh*
This is the very thing that completely dumfounded me about the whole Napster debaucle. Throughout the entire court proceding the differentiation between making a tape recording of a CD and making an MP3 was that the MP3 was an "exact digital reproduction". The very definition of the format contradicts that statement, and yet this never seened to his the spotlight. .... why? Well, I appreciate _quality_. MP3 is nice for a quick and dirty perusual of a song, but that's about it in my opinion. Well, I guess it's also good enough to play at low volumes on cheap PC speakers ...
... I just find it funny that it didn't happen until long after Napster's demise.
Sure you can download all your music from Napster and never have to pay anything, but you are _NOT_ getting CD quality audio. I used Napster to gather many songs for many reasons. Sometimes I had the songs on a media such as 33,45,or 78 vinyl, and simply didn't want to go to the trouble of recording them to disk. Other times I simply wanted to see what such and such group and/or song sounded like. If I found something that I really liked, then I went out and purchased the CD
The Music Industry's attack on distributed file sharing is more about controlling what kind of material gets presented to the public more than about mass bootlegging, in my opinion.
I know this is a little off topic, but I've sort of been waiting for something like this hit the "general news sites"
An in depth analysis/commentary on just what is involved in making a shuttle launch would be an amazing piece to read I think. Unfortunately in depth news pieces seem to be a thing of the past.
I guess that's it ...
Hopefully, seeing actions such as this will help to quell the "RedHat is no better than Microsoft" nonsense. I supose this is a little off topic, but I think RedHat ends up getting the short end of the stick more times than not by the very community that they routinely fight the hardest for.
Something I would like to point out, however is the interesting non-mention of the GPL. "free Open Source software" is often mentioned, but never is the fact that the power of the "Linux movement" if I can use that term is pretty firmly rooted in the GPL. While I agree that RMS can come off as very strong most of the time, I do think it is significant that most software designed for Linux is not only available free of charge, and with the source code, but that it is protected by the GPL. This is the major difference, in my mind between the BSDs and Linux. Anyone can use BSD code (stuff like, oh I don't know ... a TCP/IP stack for instance), incorporate it into their code, and then hide it.
Microsoft has been in the profitable licenscing business for a long time now, and I think that while they say that Linux is their number one "target" right now, what they really mean is that the GPL and all its implications is their target, for it effectively competes on the philosophical level with Microsoft's licenscing stategies ... or at least I think it does. Many peole don't care about any of this, but they will in future. When the US Consitution was drafted up the Bill of Rights as we know it wasn't seen as something that was needed ... but some of the more extremeist of the drafters foresaw that it would become important in the future. I think the GPL should be looked at in the same light. Many think it's try to defend something that isn't that important right now ... and that may be true, but far in the future it is going to be extremely important. And the general public has shown time and time again that they often don't think about the far reaching consequences until it is way too late. IMO, the Microsoft licensing philosophy exploits this.
Also, when it comes to a single desktop environment, I think that compatibility would be nice, but that GNOME or KDE or any of the hundreds of individual window managers should not "concede" and merge together into a "unified linux desktop". That is the purpose of the distribution in my mind ... already some distributions, like Mandrake, default to a specific environment. If you are saavy enough to change it, hooray, if you don't want to futz with it, hooray.
In Brave New World stability was chosen at the cost of choice. Having a wide degree of choice does cause problems, does make some people feel bad emotions (anxiety, frustration, powerlessness), but I see the alternative of having the maddening hordes take the easy road of numbing happiness as a danger, not a boon.
Well, I guess that's about all I have to say about it. Thanks for reading.
Just a thought.
Blast away I say, I'll never see it.
This nonsense of trying to lock everything down and create laws that make viewing your product illegal is not good business. Sure it maintains profit margins for now, but long term will do nothing but cause damage.
Not to sound exceedingly paranoid here, but this is not so much about money as it is about fear of losing power and face.
Pride is causing this mess, not greed.
Just my 2c.
I don't see how marketing will have much effect at all on Linux. Most of the people I know who seriously run a Linux distribution dont' use it because they saw a ZDTV splash or a PCMag splash about it. They run it because in their research, they found it to be the best solution to their problems ... that research being a gathering of facts, not hype. Marketing can have a lot of sway with people who don't know or aren't concerned about the facts of a situation, but this is a short term effect. Eventually, the facts win ... I think this is why Linux has not gone away already.
I've already addressed some of this above, but the core group of Linux developers/users don't use Linux because it's "cool". If your user base is based on people who think your product is "cool" then you are playing a dangerous game, because they are liable to leave at a drop of a hat, regardless of what the marketing droids say.
Once again, Linux is best served by its lack of marketing. Spending resources on producing the best solution to a problem is always better in the long run to trying to grab the quick buck. Personally I prefer Linux to be respected than be popular.
I really thought there was more to this post, otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered replying, but I've already typed this much ... so there it is.
Without a doubt, this has to be one of the best "buiness strategy" games I've ever played. Oh, and it's fun too. :)
Apple/Mac will always have their niche ... but the reason Microsoft and Linux exist is because of cheap x86 hardware. And as far as I can tell [cue up your Beatles CD] it's getting cheaper all the time.
You don't seem to hear much about the other journalling filesystems, most notably JFS and ext3. I would really like to see an article comparing the different filesystems ... including a walkthrough of patching the kernel, making the filesystem, etc ... perhaps I'll do one up this weekend.
I'm kinda surprised we don't already hear more about this technology .... perhaps it's vapourware as well, but it seems to me that if and when it finally gets out the door that it will quite possibly put an end to DVDs in general.
As I don't know much about the subject that's all I really have to say, but anyone who wants to take a look at this technology and possibly make a better call as to its validity, the company is Constellation 3D.
Cheers!
*cough* *cough* hummmmmm ... heh.heh.he...bwahahahahahahahahaha!
Hence the mantra...
"Do or do not, there is no try"
It seems to me that at that time, a utility such as napster would have been extremely beneficial to your efforts. You weren't extremely well known and you were not getting the benefits from million dollar marketing. Something like napster would have sped up what happened anyway, people made tapes of your music ... passed them off to friends ... who made tapes and passed them along, etc. And the ones who liked what they heard, went and bought the album. I can personally remember a friend of mine who went from having half a dozen multiple redubbed tapes of your music to owning every album you had done (3 or 4 at the time I believe).
So I guess what I'm curious about is would you still be so upset if you were not already famous? Right now you don't have to worry about publicity, most of America has heard of you and even if they don't particularly care for your style of music can probably point out a few of your songs just from massive radio play. By suing napster, and alienating the ones who use it, aren't you concerned that you're taking the thrill of discovery out of the hands of your would be fans and placing into the hands of your record label's marketing and publicity departments? Granted I'm not a Metallica fan (no offense guys), but this seems to be something that goes completely contrary to what I remember blasting out of my friends' speakers 10 years ago.
Thanks for your time.
Sean
I find it telling that the only members of the music community that bothered to voice their dissent with the PMRC was Frank Zappa and John Denver. I'm an avid fan of the former, and never cared for the latter, but after that incident, I had a far greater respect for John Denver.
Especially in the case of Microsoft, it seems that there is a widespread adversarial relationship between them and their customers. Friends and collegues of mine that are avid Microsoft users are constantly complaining about how MS shafted them and others. But when I mention that if they're so mad and disatisfied with the product that they paid for that it's their duty as a customer to spend their dollars elsewhere. Then I get looked at like I'm from another planet. They all seem to think that I'm some sort of computer genius/guru because I use Linux exclusively. I've tried to explain that I'm extremely far from either one, and as far as I can tell if a person were to spend as much time reading Linux documentation as they did trying to "trick" some MS app into doing what they wanted that they too would quickly become adept at the Linux environment.
Sorry to rant about like this, but it just amazes me sometimes that people don't feel bad about handing over money for a product they don't feel is the best solution for their particular need/problem/situation.
Then I think about the average computer user (these days). What do they see? Well, they see RedHat linux, Corel Linux, Caldera Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, Storm Linux, Slackware Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, Stampede Linux, Abit Linux, etc etc. They were thinking about trying out Linux, until they started to look for a particular distribution to try out and got a migraine trying to figure out which one is the best. Now for people already familiar with the way Linux works, this really isn't that big of a deal. I know, and most of the Slashdot audience (I'm suspecting) knows that Linux is Linux, and all the different distributions really are nothing more than different packaging on the same product. But I think this is something that will escape the first time user. And how long before there is the backlash against all these different flavors that do nothing but confuse the vast populace who want the power but do not want to learn how to use it. What then happens when the force of clueless billions force Linux into a nicely shaped box, trumpeting that now this great package of power can be easily used by all with no fear of serious repurcussion.
I'm not about to go into whether this is a good or a bad thing. That, I fear, is nothing but fodder for the flame-mongers (but surely there aren't any flame-mongers at Slashdot ... *cough* *cough*). But I do think it is a topic that requires some serious thought by any and all Linux users. Often I muse over whether or not it would be a good thing to have everyone and their brother using Linux. On the one hand I think, yes, it would be of great benefit to all to have at their diposal an operating system and software environment that was of such a wonderful caliber and rooted in the best of ideology at the same time. And then I wonder how painful it might be to be forced to sit back and watch the maddening hordes take something that has real value and trivialize it and dismantle it and distill it into easy to swallow placated bits, forever doomed to be taken for granted with that high degree of apathy that all things taken for granted are bound to receive.
Well, I had intended this to be a comment of only a few sentences so I will climb down off my soapbox now.
There was another Slashdot article about this a while back.