I use PayPal for website subscription payments and online software purchases, though I also accept personal checks, money orders, and purchase orders from schools.
I've read the occasional horror story about PayPal, but I've never had a problem (knock on wood), and I've processed thousands of dollars through them. The stories do concern me, but PayPal is simply head and shoulders above all other payment processors that I've found.
RegSoft, for instance, since you mention them. Minimum $3 charge (and my software is only $12, so that's 25% fee). I get my money a minimum of a month after the sale, I have to pay setup fees, as far as I can tell they don't integrate into my backend OR handle subscription-based payments, and they'd charge me $50 setup just to hit a URL on my site to generate the license key (without even the option of a secure access via callback, etc.).
For that same $12 sale, PayPal skims off only 65 cents (and I have access to the remaining 11.35 immediately), has no setup fees, DOES handle subscriptions, and is securely integrated with my website (check their site for "IPN"), so my database is updated with the payment immediately.
The upside of RegSoft is that it accepts more currencies and accepts phone/fax orders; the downside of PayPal is that it encourages people to signup for a PayPal account, though they can make a simple credit-card payment as well. I deal with this with big notices on my site saying "YOU DO NOT need a PayPal account", etc.. And honestly, I don't think I'm missing much currency-wise -- I accept US dollars, Canadian $, euros, and pounds; that covers the vast majority of my users (and people in other places can and do pay by mail).
They simply don't compare. So I just keep the balance in my PP account pretty low (though the balance I DO have is earning 3.5% interest... yet another factor).
There are cheaper processors out there than RegSoft (Kagi for one, if I remember correctly), but PayPal is pretty tough to beat. I don't ignore the horror stories -- but I do take them with a large grain of salt, since PayPal processes huge numbers of payments with (it seems) razor-slim margins and not much money spent on customer support. Most of the bad situations sound to me like sensible fraud triggers get hit... but then PayPal takes too long to sort the matter out, so people get pissed. Seriously people, if you're using the *cheapest* solution you have to assume they won't be the most reliable, so you'd better have a backup, and don't tie up all your money in a PayPal account!
I think nobody wants to BUY anything for a penny, either. Or -- they don't want to make hundreds of tiny purchases. No matter how easy it is. All micropayments do is *discourage* you from using a service more -- because every little thing you do will cost you money.
Think about it -- what do we have in the real world that works in micropayments? The closest thing I can think of is phone service (where each minute of long distance costs you 7 cents, or whatever).
And most phone companies are trying to AVOID the metered usage model, because people don't like that realization that as they're talking, that money is draining slowly out of their pocket. So - unlimited local calls, free nights and weekends, etc. etc.. The more you talk the more value for your money you get... so this kind of plan gets people in the habit of using the phone for long stretches of time. Then they're willing to pay more (since they feel like they're getting more!), and the usage habits transfer to the standard metered hours.
But now think about a nascent online service. What's bad for a basic, necessary service like phone is HORRIBLE for brand-new, NON-commodity service. An online service needs to do everything it can to encourage you to use it more, to use it all the time, to incorporate it into your life. That's where the money will eventually come from -- people who feel they're getting a lot of value out of it. Nickel-and-diming you to death (and anything that gives you that feeling -- no matter how cheap it is in the end) is the exact opposite of what they need to do.
I haven't thought this through far enough to figure out the ideal alternative -- maybe cheap year-long (unlimited) subscriptions to networks of sites? -- but I feel like micropayments will always give me a bad feeling.
Somehow we just never realized this... we should also encourage businesses to only use ONE accounting method, so that embezzlement investigations can be simpler. There should only be a single gun manufacturer, with only one kind of gun available... imagine how much simpler investigations would be? "Well, we already know it was a Glock 32 handgun...".
What are people thinking, that businesses and products might exist to serve the needs of the people paying for and using them? What nonsense! Only law enforcement matters!
Seriously, even if this were a serious question, don't investigators get MORE useful data in the variations of people's setup? The more unique your suspect's setup, the easier it may be to track them.
And of course it's perfectly simple to find the Firefox cache -- can someone just drop them an email? They can print it out, tack it to the wall, and quit with the whinging.
Generating simple PDFs has been possible for a while now (even before OS X had it on every print dialog!), but Acrobat isn't going anywhere yet.
Making PDFs with embedded forms is a pretty common requirement; I think you need Acrobat to make those forms. There's also stuff with digitally signing documents, password protection, preventing/enabling printing, editing, highlighting, commenting, etc..
In theory (afaik) because PDF is an open format, other developers could implement the Acrobat featureset... but maybe Adobe has that locked down. Maybe you have to make an agreement with them if you use the PDF format... I'm sure they're pretty darn careful about what they give away -- Acrobat is a cash cow for them.
Okay, I'm almost 30... but somehow my mind edits everything in retrospect, so unless I sit down and think about it, it feels to me like I've had an email address since I knew how to spell. Like my Mom must have ordered "Where the Wild Things Are" for us kids from Amazon.com, then googled up some info about the newest line of Transformers.
Weird... of course, that's all nonsense.
When I stop to think, I remember playing Jungle Hunt on my uncle's TI computer, which had cartridges, but could also save data to a cassette tape. Most schoolwork was hand-written, though I wrote a few papers the hi-tech way, on my Dad's (expensive!) computer with no hard drive, but TWO floppy drives, one for the Word Perfect diskette, and one for the save diskette. When I went off to college, I had to use actual, paper maps to figure out how to get there. And I brought along a Macintosh computer with an 80 MB hard drive. And Tetris!
I know why I take modern technology for granted, though. This IS my life. The internet has totally pervaded my existence. What would my life be like without these technologies?
I spend most of my day sitting in front of a computer... at work and often at leisure as well. I have now moved hundreds of miles away from the company I still work for, communicating primarily over email, writing code in a language invented less than a decade ago, adding features to a system that runs over the internet. Checking changes into a source control system that is, likewise, hundreds of miles away. Or updating my other source of revenue, a website that I built entirely using free tools and which I host in a server also hundreds of miles away from my home. When people pay for something on my site, they are shunted to s different server on the other side of the country. When a customer lives in Zambia, or the Netherlands, or in North Pole, Alaska, it's interesting but no surprise. But when a customer actually lives somewhere in my area, I'm startled. I wonder with an curious shiver if I may have actually SEEN this person before -- that would be amazing!
I had some serious vision problems last year (long-term damage from an infection I had as a kid), and went through a series of operations to replace various parts of both eyes (and advances in medicine are off-topic here, but again, thank you modern technology). But as long as one eye could make out magnified text on a 21" monitor, I could still do my work and still earn a living... it didn't make a difference at all that I couldn't see well enough to leave the house.
So how would my life have been different if I'd been born 50 years earlier? Even 10 years earlier? I can't even imagine it.
How is this is any different from OpenSource Software? Let's say, for instance, a Linux user utilizing a particular piece of OSS finds that, once he gets into the code, he can make some changes that can significantly improve the OSS's performance.
It's very different. Let me explain. In your above example, this Linux user is free to make his changes and improve the OSS's performance. He doesn't have to release his changes -- he can keep them to himself and use the upgraded version internally to his heart's content. But if he wants to distribute and help out the community, he has the option of licensing out his updates under the GPL -- which puts the same limits on the people who use the update as the limits he's under, using the software in the first place. In exchange for a lot of value (the free use AND SOURCE of the original software) he's optionally returning value (his updates, IF he decides to distribute them).
Where's the value exchange in the Macromedia transaction? I send them a valuable idea, which they can implement and sell FOR CASH MONEY. Or I send them a rant which they can ALTER into a compliment and post on their home page with my name -- trading on the "goodwill" value of my name for increased sales (even if people don't know me personally, those customer testimonials have commercial value, and my good name is now going to show up tied to Macromedia -- which can harm me when they do something really evil).
Where's the value returned to me? There's none. Of course they aren't going to give me credit for an improvement -- their image is better served by giving credit to their amazing engineering team.
So what else should they do? This is simple. It's fine for them to warn me that they may use an idea submitted this way without paying me -- I agree with you on that bit, though it is a bit mean to say they definitely won't pay you (in my business I reward customers who give me super feedback, not on policy but because I appreciate it!). But the second part should be simply, you retain copyright for your words, and though we aren't responsible for keeping them secure and private, but we won't republish them in any form without your consent.
This is by default how communications work (including email) -- the writer retains copyright, and the recipient has the rights of fair use, which does *not* include publication. Macromedia has to add this section to their agreement to explicitly limit the rights you'd normally have.
Obviously I'm exaggerating for purposes of humour... but you should be able to get a pretty good print off of the scanner itself, right? I know that the average print tends to be smeared, or partial, etc. -- but how hard would it be to get a nice one from the scanner (where they place the full fingertip straight-on and carefully, and press down...).
Um, be aware of the rights you are surrendering when submitting any text to their "support" form, though:
However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting ("Posting") your Submission you are granting Macromedia, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their businesses (including, without limitation, all Macromedia services), including, without limitation, the license rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submissions; to publish your name in connection with your Submission; develop, manufacture, and market products incorporating such ideas, concepts, or techniques, and the right to sublicense such rights to any supplier of the services and/or materials on the website.
No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Submission, as provided herein.
Ya know, ignore that comment I made above about "no childish flames". I'd like to see them "publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate, and reformat" something really puerile.
You shall not use the Software to develop any software or other technology having the same primary function as the Software, including but not limited to using the Software in any development or test procedure that seeks to develop like software or other technology, or to determine if such software or other technology performs in a similar manner as the Software.
That's forbidding *black-box* reverse-engineering. Sure, no decompiling, etc... but they're saying that if you use the software as intended, to run a Flash file, but you're keeping track of what it looks like, you're violating their agreement. Wow.
This part is neat, too:
You may not make or distribute copies of the Software, or electronically transfer the Software from one computer to another or over a network.
Obviously that first part sucks if you want to, say, backup your computer, make a "base install" ghost, install Flash onto all corporate computers, etc.. But look closely at the second part: when you download the installer, you are already breaking their EULA. Sweet. And if they audit you ("Did you download this? You're in the server logs. By the way, Macromedia pays me $2,000 an hour."), you have to pay them for the privilege.
Man, those lawyers are really earning their keep.
I think we should *all* write concerned letters to Macromedia, asking for an in-writing caveat to the license indicating that we are indeed allowed to download the Flash player from their server, to our computer, over a network. This stuff is amazing. Those lawyers must be working overtime.
The silly thing about this article in particular was the popup walkthrough.
They show a fingerprint scanner, and how the print gets warped before being stored. Then along comes John Q. Hacker, who manages to hack the database, extract the stored (and presumably encrypted) fingerprint data, build a fake fingerprint out of that data... and BOOM! He is foiled because of that warping step.
Wow, that hacker went to a huge amount of work just to get that fingerprint data.. meanwhile, the user is happily going about her day, leaving copies of this "secret" all over the place. If the hacker can't lift a print from her car door, or the office building door handle, anything around her home, etc.. well, we know there's a nice full print sitting there on the scanner!
Okay, suppose she wears gloves at all times, and wipes the scanner while holding the door open with her foot. Well, if we're assuming the hacker can get into the database, he can just start collecting fingerprints from *anyone* in the system. Then he has multiple examples of input and output of the warping process. Isn't that enough to build a rough guess of what the target's fingerprint will look like when unwarped? He doesn't even need to get it exactly, since we're dealing with a fuzzy-recognition thing here.
* something you can forget
* something you can lose
* something that can change as you age
More like:
Something you bypass by shoulder-surfing, post-it-note-observation, social engineering, brute force cracking, or even educated guessing (no special tools required); input will be quickly replaced (often with a greater difficulty version) once compromised, or on a schedule. Usually stored as a lossy hash on the backend, which is close to useless for our purposes.
Something you bypass by picking a pocket (often an unattended jacket pocket), and optionally duplicating the mag stripe (some special tools required). Input is quickly replaced once compromised (or on a schedule). Possibly stored as a useless hash on the backend.
Something you bypass by replicating the input; fortunately the input is almost always in plain view for photographic capture, measurement, and duplication, or (even better) the input is left intact and fully replicable on anything the target touches. Some easy-to-get tools required. Input is *never* replaced even once compromised (except via input corruption through brute-force exploits applied directly to target), and data on the backend (until recently...) was stored as usable data, not a hash.
If the hash is compromised, the company could change the distortion applied to the face, and obtain a new hash.
Umm... isn't that fairly irrelevant, since the input (real OR faked) would remain exactly the same?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but this seems like changing the way a password hash is stored in the database without actually changing the password itself.
The password is the input -- your retina, your fingerprint, etc.. You can't change that, so once someone has a reliable method to duplicate what the scanner sees, the security is toast -- regardless of what contortions they put the data through on the back end.
I don't have time to walk you through every point here, but let me quickly point out some problems. You aren't trolling me, are you? Try looking at these two pathways from the point of *insert-commercial-developer-name-here*, and think about it, I think what I'm saying will make more sense.
The point petrus4 is getting at is that there seems to be this erroneous perception that if a company forks BSD'ed code, and closes the source, the BSD'ed branch of the fork disappears. (It doesn't.) The original author still has full rights to the BSD'ed "parent code" that's sitting on his hard disk. He can sell it, modify it, give it away, etc. That someone else has a copy that's closed source doesn't restrict what happpens to the version that's BSD'ed I don't see how this is relevant to choosing BSD vs. GPL. If he releases it into the public domain, he can still sell it, modify it, give it away, etc.. He is unrestricted. So what? That's true no matter what he does.
No, they started at the same place - the released version of the code. Huh? He started a year ago, and now has worked for a FULL year without being paid for that work. He is 1 year in the hole -- depending on his skill, possibly about 100K. Acme corp is starting with no investment. He likely has debts to pay off, etc. etc. to say nothing of the psychological investment of a year of his life -- if he gets no money and no recognition out of it, that will hurt.
The fact that one part time programmer can't compete with 20 full time programmers is a pointless tautology. At any rate, even if Acme started from scratch, the 20 programmers could catch up in less than a month (the relesed program only represents one man-year of work).
Think for a moment about large projects you have worked on. 20 programmers can likely work on disparate features in parallel in a well-designed framework, but if they were trying to reproduce his year's work designing the architecture, deciding the featureset, etc. etc. that wouldn't translate at all into a month's work for 20 programmers. That would be chaos.
If his design and concept are crap, it doesn't matter much what he does. But if a year's worth of focussed thought have come up with something really sweet, this is something that cannot be measured at all in man-hours. Sure, Acme can take their chances, and put 20 guys on the project of coming up with a competitor... but they're starting from scratch, and remember that the majority of corporate development projects FAIL.
And if he GPL's it, it won't even take that long. Someone else can offer source+code for free, once they obtain it from him. Takes less than an hour to put it live on the internet - it's hard to compete with "exactly the same, but free."
Read the GPL. Someone else CANNOT offer his source and code for free -- they can only distribute it under the same GPL terms. If Acme wants to use his sweet architecture, they CANNOT freely give away their additions (GPL only), and they CANNOT sell their additions closed-source.
But if he wants to earn some money, he can sell bundling licenses, and he can sell closed source additions (which Acme could also develop... but not sell except as GPL, so they can't compete). MySQL is a real-life example of dual-licenses, but the kind of small project I'm thinking of is ActiveWidgets. Check out the site and see if you can tell me that his kind of small project would be better off with a BSD license. No one would need to pay him for anything. I like some of his components... but to use them on one of my commercial sites, I'd have to pay him.
Choosing GPL vs. BSD just means you are granting fewer rights to the rest of the world -- and if you want to, you can sell those specific rights (like commercial bundling) later, to commercial folks who need them and can afford them, whereas other GPL projects (who likely can't afford your licenses anyway) get to include your work without paying a cent.
Let me jump in here. This is stuff I've researched pretty thoroughly, and I don't even keep track of what RMS is talking about nowadays -- I just know what's in the licenses.
They'd be doing that with what in essence would be a *fork*, though...or a derived work.
Okay, so let's say he spends a year working on his application, than releases it under the BSD license. Acme company takes the source, changes the logo, packages it up, and sells it under a commercial license (binary only) for $20. They can do this. Then they put 20 programmers to work improving the application, and they sell the now best-of-breed app, closed source, for $100. Given that they got a full year of free man-hours on the project, they clean up, and the original project can't possibly keep up. This is also OK under the BSD license, as long as Acme puts the proper text in the about box.
This is what people don't understand. He'd still have his original code. He also would still have the option of selling it.
Sure, he can sell the original code, but he can't compete with that gang of 20 programmers so he won't earn much. Remember, they started with no investment whatsoever, with a full year of development already complete... whereas he had to actually do all that work, so he's way behind from the start.
Putting his code under the GPL won't stop other people from selling copies of it, either.
Okay, let's do the GPL scenario. Acme company now has the right to take the code, change the logos, and distribute it ONLY UNDER THE GPL (which means they must include the complete source code, and everyone they sell it to has the right to distribute what they bought for free if they want). They won't sell many. It just takes one guy to make it a free download. Then Acme puts 20 programmer to work improving the app -- they create the super-duper app. And they can use it in-house only, or sell it ONLY UNDER THE GPL, so they have to include the source code of their updates, and anyone they sell it to has all of the GPL rights as well. And the original project can incorporate their updates if he likes (though not if he wants to sell it himself -- he's limited to the GPL if he wants to use THEIR copyrighted code).
There seems to be an erroneous perception (although I know exactly where/who it comes from) that when someone uses a non-GPL license, they immediately lose any and all right to their work, or to what happens to it. This is quite simply not true. They don't govern what happens to derivative works, sure...but they can still control what happens to the parent.
[How exactly is "you must include this copyright notice if you sell my work" controlling the parent code? Remember, Acme doesn't even have to modify it before selling it under a commercial license. The ONLY restriction is the copyright notice.]
Anyway, read through the above, and/or read through the licenses themselves if you don't believe me, and tell me if you still take the same view. There *are* places where the Apache and BSD licenses play an important role, or they wouldn't exist -- but they are quite close to public domain for all intents and purposes, and for small, personal projects like this one... they are not appropriate.
This is probably more an academic exercise than sorting out an important point by now. You're right that it would generally be pointless to alternate licenses per dates.
BUT it's important to understand that as the copyright holder, you *can* add restrictions to the GPL, and you can change the license (and presumably the new license applies to all updates to the code), and you can offer multiple licenses.
Many people think that once you release your code as GPL, the people who download it have the same rights as you do -- that YOU are limited to the GPL. You were talking about things the licenses would not let you do -- this is very misleading, because you (as copyright holder) aren't restricted to the licenses.
For example, you can *sell* commercial extensions to your GPL'ed application, that are linked directly to it, and sell the whole bundle under a commercial license. It's irrelevant that you are also distributing the base code as GPL.
This is pretty important. A lot of companies are avoiding the GPL like poison because they don't understand this distinction.
The only time you are bound to the GPL is if you accept someone else's code into your project (because THEY own the copyright, unless they assign it to you). Then you are bound to the GPL for anything linked to their code.
You DO still have copyright over your software, unless you assign it to the public domain. You *can* change the license you distribute it under every day. You *can* add restrictions.
But let's say you license it under GPL on Monday. I download it. On Tuesday, you change the license for the same exact code to MIT. YES, you can do this, but I still have the rights the GPL gave me to redistribute for my Monday version, so I'm free to distribute that myself under the GPL.
Now, I don't own the copyright, so *I* can't change that license in any way... and if you keep developing your MIT-licensed code, I can only use the updated code under the new MIT license.
The real point here is that the power remains with the copyright holder. You can do whatever you want with your code. You have to honor agreements you made, so you can't change your agreement with me once I've downloaded it... but you can make a different agreement with anyone else you choose.
Related to this -- you certainly can add your own limits to the GPL. Again, YOU own the copyright and you can make whatever agreement you like with the people you give it to (as long as you aren't breaking any laws) -- if they don't agree, they can't use your software. For example, in the license itself they discuss how you can write "this software falls under the GPL version X.X and above", vs. "the GPL (any version)", vs. "the GPL X.X only". You are allowed to add caveats, and this is specifically discussed (though mostly discouraged for simplicity's sake) in the documentation about the GPL on gnu.org.
Replace Google with Napster and Perfect 10 with the RIAA. Is this really such an open and shut case in favor of Google?
This is nonsense. The cases are totally different -- Napster's primary function was transferring music files directly between users, most of the transfers were illegal, and the RIAA found evidence that Napster encouraged this.
A better analogy here would be to say replace Google with "the phone book" and imagine suing them if some of the businesses listed turned out to be selling some stolen goods. Sure, some people are finding those businesses based on a search in the phone book... but the VAST majority of businesses thus indexed are totally legal, and if you find your stolen TV sitting on the shelf in a store you GO AFTER THE STORE, not the phone book.
Notice too that Google is not being sued for helping the copycats steal the images (because the Google spider gets stopped by password protection like anyone else, and obeys robots.txt) -- these sites must have purchased a membership and downloaded the images themselves, then paid for hosting, and created their own sites.
This technically isn't working at the moment, because the site is well and truly hosed... but PLEASE only try this link instead of hitting the main one, and eventually it will recover:
You should check out getting a serious upgrade (for less money!) to the current CodeMonster promotion: 1 free domain registration, 15 full domains, 75 subdomains, 7680 MB Disk, 192 GB Transfer, 3000 Mailboxes, 375 Users, MIVA merchant E-Commerce, etc. for 16/mo if you pay 2 years in advance, 20/month if you pay 1 year.
PHP4/5, RoR, CVS, anon FTP server, etc. -- I've been looking around for shared hosting for all of my "little" sites to live on, and this is now it (I signed up about 10 minutes ago). If you're signing up and feeling generous you can say "jtheory" referred you... thanks.
BTW, no Java/JSP support (for those making assumptions based on my username...), but I only use Java for larger sites anyway.
For that I'm getting a little fed up with my current (little & local) host, and thinking of moving to RimuHosting.com - I can get a decent VPS for a good rate, and they have Java experience. Anyone have any experience with them?
Bull. Of course you can sell the software. Only after that you cannot make them pay for the source.
This is true -- but keep in mind that because you're distributing under the GPL, it's usually silly to charge a lot for it, because the people you sell it to have the right to give it away for free. This is a very important aspect. From the same FAQ:
If I distribute GPL'd software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge? No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
Slashdot Mirror
And thanks to evolution, to BALDLY go where no hominid has gone before.
...sorry, but the Earth HATES being anthropomorphosized.
I use PayPal for website subscription payments and online software purchases, though I also accept personal checks, money orders, and purchase orders from schools.
I've read the occasional horror story about PayPal, but I've never had a problem (knock on wood), and I've processed thousands of dollars through them. The stories do concern me, but PayPal is simply head and shoulders above all other payment processors that I've found.
RegSoft, for instance, since you mention them. Minimum $3 charge (and my software is only $12, so that's 25% fee). I get my money a minimum of a month after the sale, I have to pay setup fees, as far as I can tell they don't integrate into my backend OR handle subscription-based payments, and they'd charge me $50 setup just to hit a URL on my site to generate the license key (without even the option of a secure access via callback, etc.).
For that same $12 sale, PayPal skims off only 65 cents (and I have access to the remaining 11.35 immediately), has no setup fees, DOES handle subscriptions, and is securely integrated with my website (check their site for "IPN"), so my database is updated with the payment immediately.
The upside of RegSoft is that it accepts more currencies and accepts phone/fax orders; the downside of PayPal is that it encourages people to signup for a PayPal account, though they can make a simple credit-card payment as well. I deal with this with big notices on my site saying "YOU DO NOT need a PayPal account", etc.. And honestly, I don't think I'm missing much currency-wise -- I accept US dollars, Canadian $, euros, and pounds; that covers the vast majority of my users (and people in other places can and do pay by mail).
They simply don't compare. So I just keep the balance in my PP account pretty low (though the balance I DO have is earning 3.5% interest... yet another factor).
There are cheaper processors out there than RegSoft (Kagi for one, if I remember correctly), but PayPal is pretty tough to beat. I don't ignore the horror stories -- but I do take them with a large grain of salt, since PayPal processes huge numbers of payments with (it seems) razor-slim margins and not much money spent on customer support. Most of the bad situations sound to me like sensible fraud triggers get hit... but then PayPal takes too long to sort the matter out, so people get pissed. Seriously people, if you're using the *cheapest* solution you have to assume they won't be the most reliable, so you'd better have a backup, and don't tie up all your money in a PayPal account!
I think nobody wants to BUY anything for a penny, either. Or -- they don't want to make hundreds of tiny purchases. No matter how easy it is. All micropayments do is *discourage* you from using a service more -- because every little thing you do will cost you money.
Think about it -- what do we have in the real world that works in micropayments? The closest thing I can think of is phone service (where each minute of long distance costs you 7 cents, or whatever).
And most phone companies are trying to AVOID the metered usage model, because people don't like that realization that as they're talking, that money is draining slowly out of their pocket. So - unlimited local calls, free nights and weekends, etc. etc.. The more you talk the more value for your money you get... so this kind of plan gets people in the habit of using the phone for long stretches of time. Then they're willing to pay more (since they feel like they're getting more!), and the usage habits transfer to the standard metered hours.
But now think about a nascent online service. What's bad for a basic, necessary service like phone is HORRIBLE for brand-new, NON-commodity service. An online service needs to do everything it can to encourage you to use it more, to use it all the time, to incorporate it into your life. That's where the money will eventually come from -- people who feel they're getting a lot of value out of it. Nickel-and-diming you to death (and anything that gives you that feeling -- no matter how cheap it is in the end) is the exact opposite of what they need to do.
I haven't thought this through far enough to figure out the ideal alternative -- maybe cheap year-long (unlimited) subscriptions to networks of sites? -- but I feel like micropayments will always give me a bad feeling.
Somehow we just never realized this... we should also encourage businesses to only use ONE accounting method, so that embezzlement investigations can be simpler. There should only be a single gun manufacturer, with only one kind of gun available... imagine how much simpler investigations would be? "Well, we already know it was a Glock 32 handgun...".
What are people thinking, that businesses and products might exist to serve the needs of the people paying for and using them? What nonsense! Only law enforcement matters!
Seriously, even if this were a serious question, don't investigators get MORE useful data in the variations of people's setup? The more unique your suspect's setup, the easier it may be to track them.
And of course it's perfectly simple to find the Firefox cache -- can someone just drop them an email? They can print it out, tack it to the wall, and quit with the whinging.
Generating simple PDFs has been possible for a while now (even before OS X had it on every print dialog!), but Acrobat isn't going anywhere yet.
Making PDFs with embedded forms is a pretty common requirement; I think you need Acrobat to make those forms. There's also stuff with digitally signing documents, password protection, preventing/enabling printing, editing, highlighting, commenting, etc..
In theory (afaik) because PDF is an open format, other developers could implement the Acrobat featureset... but maybe Adobe has that locked down. Maybe you have to make an agreement with them if you use the PDF format... I'm sure they're pretty darn careful about what they give away -- Acrobat is a cash cow for them.
Okay, I'm almost 30... but somehow my mind edits everything in retrospect, so unless I sit down and think about it, it feels to me like I've had an email address since I knew how to spell. Like my Mom must have ordered "Where the Wild Things Are" for us kids from Amazon.com, then googled up some info about the newest line of Transformers.
Weird... of course, that's all nonsense.
When I stop to think, I remember playing Jungle Hunt on my uncle's TI computer, which had cartridges, but could also save data to a cassette tape. Most schoolwork was hand-written, though I wrote a few papers the hi-tech way, on my Dad's (expensive!) computer with no hard drive, but TWO floppy drives, one for the Word Perfect diskette, and one for the save diskette. When I went off to college, I had to use actual, paper maps to figure out how to get there. And I brought along a Macintosh computer with an 80 MB hard drive. And Tetris!
I know why I take modern technology for granted, though. This IS my life. The internet has totally pervaded my existence. What would my life be like without these technologies?
I spend most of my day sitting in front of a computer... at work and often at leisure as well. I have now moved hundreds of miles away from the company I still work for, communicating primarily over email, writing code in a language invented less than a decade ago, adding features to a system that runs over the internet. Checking changes into a source control system that is, likewise, hundreds of miles away. Or updating my other source of revenue, a website that I built entirely using free tools and which I host in a server also hundreds of miles away from my home. When people pay for something on my site, they are shunted to s different server on the other side of the country. When a customer lives in Zambia, or the Netherlands, or in North Pole, Alaska, it's interesting but no surprise. But when a customer actually lives somewhere in my area, I'm startled. I wonder with an curious shiver if I may have actually SEEN this person before -- that would be amazing!
I had some serious vision problems last year (long-term damage from an infection I had as a kid), and went through a series of operations to replace various parts of both eyes (and advances in medicine are off-topic here, but again, thank you modern technology). But as long as one eye could make out magnified text on a 21" monitor, I could still do my work and still earn a living... it didn't make a difference at all that I couldn't see well enough to leave the house.
So how would my life have been different if I'd been born 50 years earlier? Even 10 years earlier? I can't even imagine it.
How is this is any different from OpenSource Software? Let's say, for instance, a Linux user utilizing a particular piece of OSS finds that, once he gets into the code, he can make some changes that can significantly improve the OSS's performance.
It's very different. Let me explain.
In your above example, this Linux user is free to make his changes and improve the OSS's performance. He doesn't have to release his changes -- he can keep them to himself and use the upgraded version internally to his heart's content. But if he wants to distribute and help out the community, he has the option of licensing out his updates under the GPL -- which puts the same limits on the people who use the update as the limits he's under, using the software in the first place. In exchange for a lot of value (the free use AND SOURCE of the original software) he's optionally returning value (his updates, IF he decides to distribute them).
Where's the value exchange in the Macromedia transaction? I send them a valuable idea, which they can implement and sell FOR CASH MONEY. Or I send them a rant which they can ALTER into a compliment and post on their home page with my name -- trading on the "goodwill" value of my name for increased sales (even if people don't know me personally, those customer testimonials have commercial value, and my good name is now going to show up tied to Macromedia -- which can harm me when they do something really evil).
Where's the value returned to me? There's none. Of course they aren't going to give me credit for an improvement -- their image is better served by giving credit to their amazing engineering team.
So what else should they do? This is simple. It's fine for them to warn me that they may use an idea submitted this way without paying me -- I agree with you on that bit, though it is a bit mean to say they definitely won't pay you (in my business I reward customers who give me super feedback, not on policy but because I appreciate it!). But the second part should be simply, you retain copyright for your words, and though we aren't responsible for keeping them secure and private, but we won't republish them in any form without your consent.
This is by default how communications work (including email) -- the writer retains copyright, and the recipient has the rights of fair use, which does *not* include publication. Macromedia has to add this section to their agreement to explicitly limit the rights you'd normally have.
Obviously I'm exaggerating for purposes of humour... but you should be able to get a pretty good print off of the scanner itself, right? I know that the average print tends to be smeared, or partial, etc. -- but how hard would it be to get a nice one from the scanner (where they place the full fingertip straight-on and carefully, and press down...).
Ya know, ignore that comment I made above about "no childish flames". I'd like to see them "publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate, and reformat" something really puerile.
Here's their email support form. Not for any childish flames, of course, but if you don't like something a company is doing you should let them know.
That's forbidding *black-box* reverse-engineering. Sure, no decompiling, etc... but they're saying that if you use the software as intended, to run a Flash file, but you're keeping track of what it looks like, you're violating their agreement. Wow.
This part is neat, too:
Obviously that first part sucks if you want to, say, backup your computer, make a "base install" ghost, install Flash onto all corporate computers, etc.. But look closely at the second part: when you download the installer, you are already breaking their EULA. Sweet. And if they audit you ("Did you download this? You're in the server logs. By the way, Macromedia pays me $2,000 an hour."), you have to pay them for the privilege.
Man, those lawyers are really earning their keep.
I think we should *all* write concerned letters to Macromedia, asking for an in-writing caveat to the license indicating that we are indeed allowed to download the Flash player from their server, to our computer, over a network. This stuff is amazing. Those lawyers must be working overtime.
The silly thing about this article in particular was the popup walkthrough.
They show a fingerprint scanner, and how the print gets warped before being stored. Then along comes John Q. Hacker, who manages to hack the database, extract the stored (and presumably encrypted) fingerprint data, build a fake fingerprint out of that data... and BOOM! He is foiled because of that warping step.
Wow, that hacker went to a huge amount of work just to get that fingerprint data.. meanwhile, the user is happily going about her day, leaving copies of this "secret" all over the place. If the hacker can't lift a print from her car door, or the office building door handle, anything around her home, etc.. well, we know there's a nice full print sitting there on the scanner!
Okay, suppose she wears gloves at all times, and wipes the scanner while holding the door open with her foot. Well, if we're assuming the hacker can get into the database, he can just start collecting fingerprints from *anyone* in the system. Then he has multiple examples of input and output of the warping process. Isn't that enough to build a rough guess of what the target's fingerprint will look like when unwarped? He doesn't even need to get it exactly, since we're dealing with a fuzzy-recognition thing here.
* something you can forget
* something you can lose
* something that can change as you age
More like:
If the hash is compromised, the company could change the distortion applied to the face, and obtain a new hash.
Umm... isn't that fairly irrelevant, since the input (real OR faked) would remain exactly the same?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but this seems like changing the way a password hash is stored in the database without actually changing the password itself.
The password is the input -- your retina, your fingerprint, etc.. You can't change that, so once someone has a reliable method to duplicate what the scanner sees, the security is toast -- regardless of what contortions they put the data through on the back end.
I don't have time to walk you through every point here, but let me quickly point out some problems. You aren't trolling me, are you? Try looking at these two pathways from the point of *insert-commercial-developer-name-here*, and think about it, I think what I'm saying will make more sense.
The point petrus4 is getting at is that there seems to be this erroneous perception that if a company forks BSD'ed code, and closes the source, the BSD'ed branch of the fork disappears. (It doesn't.) The original author still has full rights to the BSD'ed "parent code" that's sitting on his hard disk. He can sell it, modify it, give it away, etc. That someone else has a copy that's closed source doesn't restrict what happpens to the version that's BSD'ed
I don't see how this is relevant to choosing BSD vs. GPL. If he releases it into the public domain, he can still sell it, modify it, give it away, etc.. He is unrestricted. So what? That's true no matter what he does.
No, they started at the same place - the released version of the code.
Huh? He started a year ago, and now has worked for a FULL year without being paid for that work. He is 1 year in the hole -- depending on his skill, possibly about 100K. Acme corp is starting with no investment. He likely has debts to pay off, etc. etc. to say nothing of the psychological investment of a year of his life -- if he gets no money and no recognition out of it, that will hurt.
The fact that one part time programmer can't compete with 20 full time programmers is a pointless tautology. At any rate, even if Acme started from scratch, the 20 programmers could catch up in less than a month (the relesed program only represents one man-year of work).
Think for a moment about large projects you have worked on. 20 programmers can likely work on disparate features in parallel in a well-designed framework, but if they were trying to reproduce his year's work designing the architecture, deciding the featureset, etc. etc. that wouldn't translate at all into a month's work for 20 programmers. That would be chaos.
If his design and concept are crap, it doesn't matter much what he does. But if a year's worth of focussed thought have come up with something really sweet, this is something that cannot be measured at all in man-hours. Sure, Acme can take their chances, and put 20 guys on the project of coming up with a competitor... but they're starting from scratch, and remember that the majority of corporate development projects FAIL.
And if he GPL's it, it won't even take that long. Someone else can offer source+code for free, once they obtain it from him. Takes less than an hour to put it live on the internet - it's hard to compete with "exactly the same, but free."
Read the GPL. Someone else CANNOT offer his source and code for free -- they can only distribute it under the same GPL terms. If Acme wants to use his sweet architecture, they CANNOT freely give away their additions (GPL only), and they CANNOT sell their additions closed-source.
But if he wants to earn some money, he can sell bundling licenses, and he can sell closed source additions (which Acme could also develop... but not sell except as GPL, so they can't compete). MySQL is a real-life example of dual-licenses, but the kind of small project I'm thinking of is ActiveWidgets. Check out the site and see if you can tell me that his kind of small project would be better off with a BSD license. No one would need to pay him for anything. I like some of his components... but to use them on one of my commercial sites, I'd have to pay him.
Choosing GPL vs. BSD just means you are granting fewer rights to the rest of the world -- and if you want to, you can sell those specific rights (like commercial bundling) later, to commercial folks who need them and can afford them, whereas other GPL projects (who likely can't afford your licenses anyway) get to include your work without paying a cent.
Let me jump in here. This is stuff I've researched pretty thoroughly, and I don't even keep track of what RMS is talking about nowadays -- I just know what's in the licenses.
They'd be doing that with what in essence would be a *fork*, though...or a derived work.
Okay, so let's say he spends a year working on his application, than releases it under the BSD license. Acme company takes the source, changes the logo, packages it up, and sells it under a commercial license (binary only) for $20. They can do this. Then they put 20 programmers to work improving the application, and they sell the now best-of-breed app, closed source, for $100. Given that they got a full year of free man-hours on the project, they clean up, and the original project can't possibly keep up. This is also OK under the BSD license, as long as Acme puts the proper text in the about box.
This is what people don't understand. He'd still have his original code. He also would still have the option of selling it.
Sure, he can sell the original code, but he can't compete with that gang of 20 programmers so he won't earn much. Remember, they started with no investment whatsoever, with a full year of development already complete... whereas he had to actually do all that work, so he's way behind from the start.
Putting his code under the GPL won't stop other people from selling copies of it, either.
Okay, let's do the GPL scenario. Acme company now has the right to take the code, change the logos, and distribute it ONLY UNDER THE GPL (which means they must include the complete source code, and everyone they sell it to has the right to distribute what they bought for free if they want). They won't sell many. It just takes one guy to make it a free download. Then Acme puts 20 programmer to work improving the app -- they create the super-duper app. And they can use it in-house only, or sell it ONLY UNDER THE GPL, so they have to include the source code of their updates, and anyone they sell it to has all of the GPL rights as well. And the original project can incorporate their updates if he likes (though not if he wants to sell it himself -- he's limited to the GPL if he wants to use THEIR copyrighted code).
There seems to be an erroneous perception (although I know exactly where/who it comes from) that when someone uses a non-GPL license, they immediately lose any and all right to their work, or to what happens to it. This is quite simply not true. They don't govern what happens to derivative works, sure...but they can still control what happens to the parent.
[How exactly is "you must include this copyright notice if you sell my work" controlling the parent code? Remember, Acme doesn't even have to modify it before selling it under a commercial license. The ONLY restriction is the copyright notice.]
Anyway, read through the above, and/or read through the licenses themselves if you don't believe me, and tell me if you still take the same view. There *are* places where the Apache and BSD licenses play an important role, or they wouldn't exist -- but they are quite close to public domain for all intents and purposes, and for small, personal projects like this one... they are not appropriate.
This is probably more an academic exercise than sorting out an important point by now. You're right that it would generally be pointless to alternate licenses per dates.
BUT it's important to understand that as the copyright holder, you *can* add restrictions to the GPL, and you can change the license (and presumably the new license applies to all updates to the code), and you can offer multiple licenses.
Many people think that once you release your code as GPL, the people who download it have the same rights as you do -- that YOU are limited to the GPL. You were talking about things the licenses would not let you do -- this is very misleading, because you (as copyright holder) aren't restricted to the licenses.
For example, you can *sell* commercial extensions to your GPL'ed application, that are linked directly to it, and sell the whole bundle under a commercial license. It's irrelevant that you are also distributing the base code as GPL.
This is pretty important. A lot of companies are avoiding the GPL like poison because they don't understand this distinction.
The only time you are bound to the GPL is if you accept someone else's code into your project (because THEY own the copyright, unless they assign it to you). Then you are bound to the GPL for anything linked to their code.
You're both partly wrong, and partly right.
You DO still have copyright over your software, unless you assign it to the public domain. You *can* change the license you distribute it under every day. You *can* add restrictions.
But let's say you license it under GPL on Monday. I download it. On Tuesday, you change the license for the same exact code to MIT. YES, you can do this, but I still have the rights the GPL gave me to redistribute for my Monday version, so I'm free to distribute that myself under the GPL.
Now, I don't own the copyright, so *I* can't change that license in any way... and if you keep developing your MIT-licensed code, I can only use the updated code under the new MIT license.
The real point here is that the power remains with the copyright holder. You can do whatever you want with your code. You have to honor agreements you made, so you can't change your agreement with me once I've downloaded it... but you can make a different agreement with anyone else you choose.
Related to this -- you certainly can add your own limits to the GPL. Again, YOU own the copyright and you can make whatever agreement you like with the people you give it to (as long as you aren't breaking any laws) -- if they don't agree, they can't use your software. For example, in the license itself they discuss how you can write "this software falls under the GPL version X.X and above", vs. "the GPL (any version)", vs. "the GPL X.X only". You are allowed to add caveats, and this is specifically discussed (though mostly discouraged for simplicity's sake) in the documentation about the GPL on gnu.org.
Does that help?
Replace Google with Napster and Perfect 10 with the RIAA. Is this really such an open and shut case in favor of Google?
This is nonsense. The cases are totally different -- Napster's primary function was transferring music files directly between users, most of the transfers were illegal, and the RIAA found evidence that Napster encouraged this.
A better analogy here would be to say replace Google with "the phone book" and imagine suing them if some of the businesses listed turned out to be selling some stolen goods. Sure, some people are finding those businesses based on a search in the phone book... but the VAST majority of businesses thus indexed are totally legal, and if you find your stolen TV sitting on the shelf in a store you GO AFTER THE STORE, not the phone book.
Notice too that Google is not being sued for helping the copycats steal the images (because the Google spider gets stopped by password protection like anyone else, and obeys robots.txt) -- these sites must have purchased a membership and downloaded the images themselves, then paid for hosting, and created their own sites.
This technically isn't working at the moment, because the site is well and truly hosed... but PLEASE only try this link instead of hitting the main one, and eventually it will recover:
.nyud.net:8090 to the domain name.
coralized link
Future submitters: PLEASE PLEASE use coralized links! It's easy -- just add
Correction - to get anon FTP support you'll need to pay for a unique IP (another $5/month)
You should check out getting a serious upgrade (for less money!) to the current CodeMonster promotion: 1 free domain registration, 15 full domains, 75 subdomains, 7680 MB Disk, 192 GB Transfer, 3000 Mailboxes, 375 Users, MIVA merchant E-Commerce, etc. for 16/mo if you pay 2 years in advance, 20/month if you pay 1 year.
PHP4/5, RoR, CVS, anon FTP server, etc. -- I've been looking around for shared hosting for all of my "little" sites to live on, and this is now it (I signed up about 10 minutes ago). If you're signing up and feeling generous you can say "jtheory" referred you... thanks.
BTW, no Java/JSP support (for those making assumptions based on my username...), but I only use Java for larger sites anyway.
For that I'm getting a little fed up with my current (little & local) host, and thinking of moving to RimuHosting.com - I can get a decent VPS for a good rate, and they have Java experience. Anyone have any experience with them?
Bull. Of course you can sell the software. Only after that you cannot make them pay for the source.
This is true -- but keep in mind that because you're distributing under the GPL, it's usually silly to charge a lot for it, because the people you sell it to have the right to give it away for free. This is a very important aspect. From the same FAQ:
If I distribute GPL'd software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?
No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.
-Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy
That's a good one...