I don't think this necessarily needs to be a profits vs. ethics dichotomy. Obviously a consultant that looks to squeeze every last dime out of its customers will make more money in the short term, but its customers will suffer in the long term as a result. Especially now that the dot-com bubble has burst and investors are demanding real profits, a successful company needs to trim the fat -- whether that means laying off extraneous employees or firing an exploitative consulting firm. Companies that employ these swindlers won't be able to compete with those who get honest consulting advice. Ultimately, they'll fold, taking the reputations of the "unethical" consulting firms with them. So you can be ethical and make $$$, too.
Does anyone remember the AOL lawsuits from a few years back? People sued because they got busy signals trying to dial up -- they felt that by not being able to connect, they weren't getting what they were paying for.
As soon as Napster goes subscription (and hence becomes a legitimate business in the eyes of averagejoeschmo@aol.com), you can count on a huge increase in the proportion of modem users. While curious average users will sign up in droves, college students with high speed access will avoid the charges by using other methods of file transfer among their friends, e.g. ICQ, IM, FTP, file-sharing, etc.
And you can also bet that complaints from modem users will skyrocket: people can't connect to the servers, can't find the songs they want, downloads are too slow, high-speed users keep disconnecting them, etc.
Right now, a large percentage of Napster files come from college students (witness the huge drop in files over winter break), and since modem users don't have to pay for the service, they don't have any legitimate cause for complaint. But as soon as they're in the vast majority and are shelling out a monthly fee, modem users will expect a certain level of service. Unless Napster can deliver it, they had better be prepared for a barrage of lawsuits.
... they're colluding to fix output and prices. Laws against collusion and cartels are NOT made to prevent corporations from "patting each others' backs and shunning the upcoming little guy." They're made to prevent producers from splitting the market by limiting output, creating shortages, high profits, and above-equilibrium prices (e.g. OPEC). Unless this is happening (and I doubt it is), this isn't any different from any other industry group, such as the collective of milk producers that pays for those clever "got milk?" ads.
Now, if their security systems stopped the intruders cold, why were 7500 credit cards then used fraudulently?
It is well known that credit card theft and fraud occurs for many reasons -- and it could be a coincidence that some victims of credit card fraud are also Egghead customers. Take a random sample of 3 million credit card accounts, and it's quite likely that some of them have been used fraudulently, just by chance. If 7500 cards, or 0.25%, is close to the average fraudulent activity for a random sample, then there is no reason to suspect a correlation with the Egghead break-in -- and we can probably conclude that credit card numbers were not stolen.
The press release says that "one nanometer is one-millionth of a meter." But isn't 1 nm = 10^-9 m = 1 billionth of a meter? It also says that a micron is "one-thousandth of a meter," which I thought was a millimeter.
Robert Heinlein said it best: for all its problems, politics is the only way to get things done that doesn't involve breaking heads.
Not to get off on a libertarian rant here, but...
If you think that politics doesn't involve breaking heads, try not registering for the draft -- or even worse, not paying your taxes -- and see how many times the government asks politely before they send someone to your house with a gun. Say what you will about "ruthless, greedy, competing multinationals" and "empty suits" -- at least they derive their influence from mutually consensual transactions, not from brutal force -- and business can never "ravage" the world the way government has (are we so quick to forget Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Tianenmen Square, South Africa under apartheid...?)
While you listen to Bush, Gore, and Nader go down their laundry list of issues they want to "do something about" (i.e. control by force), remember what political philosopher John Locke said: "Nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it. So that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me."
IT
Not a First Amendment Issue!
on
Anonymity
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· Score: 4
The statement that the court ruled that "anonymous speech is not a protected right" is false. Anonymous speech enjoys the same protections under the First Amendment as any other speech (see this post).
However, some speech is not covered under the First Amendment: libel, obscenity, fraud, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, etc. This ruling says that the right to the anonymity of speakers does not extend to non-protected speech. So, while I can criticize Microsoft's policies anonymously with impunity, I can't slander Bill Gates and hide from prosecution behind a shield of anonymity.
Hmm... or, alternatively, you could spend $20 a pop to buy the actual DVDs, for less than 10 bucks a gig!!! (Possibly much less, depending on the length of the movie.)
"Yes, the image is somewhat grainy and limited to just six frames per second," Welborne said. "But the technology will only improve as 466 MHz processors with more efficient Pipeline Burst Cache and Accelerated Graphics Ports with 10 MB VRAM become standard in the consumer marketplace. And when they do, the images will be remarkably crisp and detailed, every bit as good as that of, say, a 19-inch Philips-Magnavox TV."
"This is incredible," said Wayne Messers, a Huntington Beach, CA, systems analyst who sampled the Presario 6000 last weekend at the National Computer And Electronics Expo in San Diego. "I'm watching TV, but there's a keyboard in front of the screen."
"U.S. crporations should have more than one purpose. They also owe something to their workers and the communities in which they operate, and they should sometimes sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities."
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
-Adam Smith
In other words: when we buy a product from a company, we don't do it out of concern for the company's well-being. Then why should companies who sell to us should be concerned with ours? We don't pay a higher price than we'd like to as a favor to the stockholders -- we try to get the best deal possible. Likewise, why should companies sacrifice profits to make their products less expensive, improve service, etc. if it isn't in their best interest?
One of the basic facts about capitalism is that when two parties enter into a transaction, they do so out of mutual benefit. (If you would truly be worse off without a product, you wouldn't buy it.) Basically, it's an even trade. They don't owe you anything -- no more than you owe them.
Distribute the descrambling tool separately and explicitly inform anyone who downloads the tool that they are permitted to use the tool to descramble your work for their personal use unless they are an employee, lawyer, consultant, etc. of the MPAA or one of its member companies or they communicate the results of the descrambling to any of those people.
Wouldn't that be like stuffing a kilo of cocaine into a box with a shrinkwrap license? "You have the right to open this box, unless you're with the DEA." In any case, once probable cause is established -- which would take very little time, especially if you distributed the scrambled code over the Internet -- I would expect that your scrambled DeCSS could be unscrambled, legally, with a warrant/court order. In which case, of course, you're screwed.
"MontaVista would like to see this technology, or similar technology, utilized as a foundational feature of Linux 2.5... Linus indicated that he is leaning towards a fully preemptable kernel approach in Linux 2.5."
For a company that claims to be revolutionizing Linux kernel development (I assume it's them making the claims, considering this sounds more like a press release than a news report) -- shouldn't they know that the next version of Linux is 2.6, not 2.5?
"The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope."
Ahem... vicarious? Well, I guess we're not really observing these things directly -- more like we're living vicariously through the Hubble telescope. But I'm sure that's what Timothy meant. (stifled laughter)
Reminds me of Clueless:
"You have to work out regularly, not just sporadically."
"How do you know if you're doing it sporadically?"
I think he knows what X is, guys, I sure do, but I have absolutely no idea why X11R6.5.1 is important to *me*.
You hit the nail on the head. A couple of the other posts suggest that I don't know what X is. Of course I know what X is! (I'd have a hell of a time using Linux if I didn't!) But does "X11R6.5.1" mean the same thing as just plain "X"? And what about "XFree86"? Just a couple technicalities that your average, casual Linux user (i.e. myself) might not know by default.
I'm not going to be one of those people who gripes that Slashdot is not Freshmeat, and therefore shouldn't announce software releases. (Hey, if it's News for Nerds, it's fair game.) However, could we try to have some explanations of exactly what this software is, what it does, and why this release is significant? Posters and editors should realize that this isn't the same audience as Freshmeat (i.e. not everyone compulsively keeps track of and updates every item of software in their system). And, I'm embarassed to say, "X11R6.5.1" doesn't mean much to me. C'mon guys: if we wanted plain vanilla software announcements, we'd read Freshmeat (and many of us do). So please, don't just announce the news -- report it.
Now that they've released Instant Messanger, it's only a matter of time before they release their popular Instant Messenger software! BSD freaks and spelling geeks rejoice!
Let me begin by saying that I am a student at Columbia University, and that I fully support their decision to profit from patents and other intellectual property. Your opposition to this, I think, reflects a poor understanding of the nature of scientific research.
Columbia's engineers work hard to develop useful, even marketable products, and the fact that these products are useful and marketable is a testament to Columbia's success -- not evidence that they have "sold out." What's more, this money can go to other useful causes, such as student financial aid, or to fund less-profitable research in other fields, such as history, or sociology, or pure mathematics (which I am paid to do).
It's not as though Big Evil Corporation (TM) calls up the office of Columbia's president and says: "Quick, we need some research and statistics from the Chemical Engineering department to support our evil, corporatist, anti-geek agenda!" Scientific research isn't like that. It's based on facts -- you can't just magically come up with results to support your personal agenda. In that way, it's quite different from journalism, don't you think?
As I, being something of a Libertarian, understand it: there are a few *big* differences between Objectivists and Libertarians. Although the two groups agree on laissez-faire capitalism as the best economic/political system, Objectivists (among whom I do not include myself) have some strong additional beliefs.
Objectivists have a rigid moral system, based around self-interest (or "selfishness"), which states that an individual's highest moral interest is improving his own life (without harming others, of course). While Libertarians believe that a person has a right to such a life, they do not attach any moral weight to it. So Libertarians would oppose government welfare, but allow people to give voluntarily to charities. Objectivists, however, denounce charitable giving as immoral.
Furthermore, Objectivism has a strict system of epistemology (reason), metaphysics (objective reality), and aesthetics (strongly resembling the works of Ayn Rand... just kidding, sort of). Libertarians make no judgement on these things, and Objectivists typically use this fact to portray them as a bunch of free-lovin', drug-legalizin', non-judgemental hippie anarchists.
In short: Libertarians believe that people should be free because intelligent people can differ. Objectivists believe that people should be free -- but that there is still only one "true way."
How can companies like Sega be convinced that products that don't make them money anymore should be made GPL?
The copyright isn't just on the actual games themselves; it's on the characters too. So even if they're not making any money off the original "Sonic the Hedgehog," for example, making it GPL would release Sonic to the public --allowing people to make bootleg Sonic games, merchandise, etc. And it would almost certainly damage Sega's image, not to mention making it less profitable for them to sell "Sonic the Hedgehog 13" (or whatever number they're at now) for the Dreamcast.
This would be akin to Disney GPLing "Fantasia" and releasing Mickey Mouse to the public. I can only imagine the flood of bootleg Disney merchandise once the copyright runs out on "Steamboat Willie."
In short: sometimes if something isn't free, there's a very good reason for it.
While the SDMI seems like a good idea, unfortunately it's too little, too late. Because of the music industry's years of vehement opposition to anything resembling an online strategy -- first shutting down mp3 web sites, then Napster -- they've inadvertently created a market for systems like Gnutella and Freenet, which are virtually unstoppable because of their decentralized, distributed nature. This is the music industry's equivalent of the unstoppable "superbugs" that might result from the overuse of antibiotics -- and now that they're here, there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle.
No matter what ingenious encryption or watermarking system is used, it boils down to this: at some point, between the 0's and 1's and the analog output, the music must be decrypted/decompressed/whatever. There is nothing -- repeat, nothing -- that will ever stop people from capturing the signal somewhere in the chain, recording it as an mp3, and putting it up on Gnutella. Sure, there might be some quality loss -- but since that doesn't seem to bother people now, I doubt it will bother them then.
Don't think that this is about piracy. If that were the case they would have gone after radio stations a long time ago.
If the radio stations weren't paying royalties, the record companies would go after them, too. Don't think that radio is "free" music by any means -- every time your local station plays "The Real Slim Shady," Eminem and his record company get a nice juicy cut of it.
Furthermore, MP3s let you hear music on demand -- which is a big difference from radio, where you might have to listen for hours to hear your favorite song. Record companies are willing to go along with this because it gives them a chance to get you hooked on new music while you're listening for your favorites. And radio stations like it, because they get to play ads. Take these aspects away, plus the royalties, and you've got something that no sane record company would support. And since they own the copyright, like it or not, that should be the final word.
So- the judge is taking away a _major_ distribution channel from me, at the request of... my competition.
I see this post as a call to arms -- not to legislators, but to programmers. The extremist "music should be free" crowd have created programs (e.g. Napster and Gnutella) that don't even attempt to separate artists who want to share their music (e.g. the above poster) from those who don't (e.g. Metallica). By doing this, they have hurt independent artists by:
1. Refusing to separate legal content from illegal content -- and forcing judges (such as this one) to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
2. Flooding music sharing services with illegal bootlegs of major artists, making it even harder for independent artists to be heard.
3. Allowing music sharing services to become synonymous with "stealing," reducing their image as viable distribution methods.
There are a lot of brilliant programmers out there, and hopefully some of you are reading this. For the sake of musicians everywhere who want to be heard: create a music distribution channel that PROTECTS copyrights instead of circumventing them. You can do this; don't sit around waiting for the record companies to do it for you. And if you succeed, there's probably a lot more money (and integrity) in it than there is providing a way for people to steal Pearl Jam tracks over the Net.
The major point this article fails to acknowledge is that "intellectual property", whether or not it was called that, has always existed. Even before patents, copyrights, trademarks -- which are notable only in that they are government-enforced -- individuals devised ways to guard their ideas from being used by others.
Take, for example, the closely guarded secrets of medieval stone masons -- which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet, since it was the key closed-source metaphor behind Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Or take secret recipies, or any other trade secrets that existed just as well without government.
My point is that intellectual property is not something to be argued for or against -- for better or worse, it just exists. And, as the founders of the United States noted in the Constitution, it takes its most undesirable form when good ideas lay dormant for fear that they might be stolen. IP law is a trade-off: the government will protect your monopoly on your idea, under the condition that you allow the government to publish the idea after a certain period of time.
Why would this be desirable? Say, for example, I come up with Invention X, a remarkable discovery that will benefit countless millions. However, I don't have a factory to produce the product, and I fear that without government protection, Big Company Y would steal my idea and immediately begin producing Invention X in their existing factory more efficiently than I could, thus capturing the market for my invention. Why, then, would I put in all the effort to develop and perfect Invention X, when I would never have the opportunity to recoup my costs (let alone make a profit)? I'd be better off just keeping my ideas to myself.
By "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries," intellectual property laws prevent against this, the worst-case scenario: that a brilliant idea or invention might die with its creator, never having been passed on to contribute to the public good.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think this necessarily needs to be a profits vs. ethics dichotomy. Obviously a consultant that looks to squeeze every last dime out of its customers will make more money in the short term, but its customers will suffer in the long term as a result. Especially now that the dot-com bubble has burst and investors are demanding real profits, a successful company needs to trim the fat -- whether that means laying off extraneous employees or firing an exploitative consulting firm. Companies that employ these swindlers won't be able to compete with those who get honest consulting advice. Ultimately, they'll fold, taking the reputations of the "unethical" consulting firms with them. So you can be ethical and make $$$, too.
Cheers,
IT
RedHat name evolution: (Most of this is stolen from this post)
... Any other guesses?
Version - Name - Tie-together
3.0.3 - Picasso
3.0.4 - Rembrandt - Painters
4.0 - Colgate - Toothpastes
4.1 - Vanderbilt - Universities
4.2 - Biltmore - The Vanderbilts lived in Biltmore Estate
4.8 - Thunderbird - Hotels near the San Jose airport
4.9 - Mustang - Ford automobiles
5.0 - Hurricane - WWII fighters
5.1 - Manhattan - Mixed drinks
5.2 - Apollo - Theaters
5.9 - Starbuck - Battlestar Galactica characters
6.0 - Hedwig - Starbuck MN & St Hedwig TX are small towns
beta - Lorax - Hedwig Godiva & the Lorax are Dr Seuss characters
6.1 - Cartmann - MS Word macro-viruses (or cartoon characters)
beta - Piglet - Cartoon characters
6.2 - Zoot - Dr Piglet & Sir Zoot are occupants of Castle Anthrax
beta - Pinstripe - Types of suits
7.0 - Guinness - Beer (Guinness is a stout, Pinstripe is an ale)
beta - Fisher - Star Wars actors
7.1 - ? - ?
Maybe 7.1 final release will be named after a chess player
Cheers,
IT
Does anyone remember the AOL lawsuits from a few years back? People sued because they got busy signals trying to dial up -- they felt that by not being able to connect, they weren't getting what they were paying for.
As soon as Napster goes subscription (and hence becomes a legitimate business in the eyes of averagejoeschmo@aol.com), you can count on a huge increase in the proportion of modem users. While curious average users will sign up in droves, college students with high speed access will avoid the charges by using other methods of file transfer among their friends, e.g. ICQ, IM, FTP, file-sharing, etc.
And you can also bet that complaints from modem users will skyrocket: people can't connect to the servers, can't find the songs they want, downloads are too slow, high-speed users keep disconnecting them, etc.
Right now, a large percentage of Napster files come from college students (witness the huge drop in files over winter break), and since modem users don't have to pay for the service, they don't have any legitimate cause for complaint. But as soon as they're in the vast majority and are shelling out a monthly fee, modem users will expect a certain level of service. Unless Napster can deliver it, they had better be prepared for a barrage of lawsuits.
Cheers,
IT
... they're colluding to fix output and prices. Laws against collusion and cartels are NOT made to prevent corporations from "patting each others' backs and shunning the upcoming little guy." They're made to prevent producers from splitting the market by limiting output, creating shortages, high profits, and above-equilibrium prices (e.g. OPEC). Unless this is happening (and I doubt it is), this isn't any different from any other industry group, such as the collective of milk producers that pays for those clever "got milk?" ads.
Cheers,
IT
Now, if their security systems stopped the intruders cold, why were 7500 credit cards then used fraudulently?
It is well known that credit card theft and fraud occurs for many reasons -- and it could be a coincidence that some victims of credit card fraud are also Egghead customers. Take a random sample of 3 million credit card accounts, and it's quite likely that some of them have been used fraudulently, just by chance. If 7500 cards, or 0.25%, is close to the average fraudulent activity for a random sample, then there is no reason to suspect a correlation with the Egghead break-in -- and we can probably conclude that credit card numbers were not stolen.
Cheers,
IT
The press release says that "one nanometer is one-millionth of a meter." But isn't 1 nm = 10^-9 m = 1 billionth of a meter? It also says that a micron is "one-thousandth of a meter," which I thought was a millimeter.
Robert Heinlein said it best: for all its problems, politics is the only way to get things done that doesn't involve breaking heads.
...
Not to get off on a libertarian rant here, but
If you think that politics doesn't involve breaking heads, try not registering for the draft -- or even worse, not paying your taxes -- and see how many times the government asks politely before they send someone to your house with a gun. Say what you will about "ruthless, greedy, competing multinationals" and "empty suits" -- at least they derive their influence from mutually consensual transactions, not from brutal force -- and business can never "ravage" the world the way government has (are we so quick to forget Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Tianenmen Square, South Africa under apartheid...?)
While you listen to Bush, Gore, and Nader go down their laundry list of issues they want to "do something about" (i.e. control by force), remember what political philosopher John Locke said: "Nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it. So that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me."
IT
The statement that the court ruled that "anonymous speech is not a protected right" is false. Anonymous speech enjoys the same protections under the First Amendment as any other speech (see this post).
However, some speech is not covered under the First Amendment: libel, obscenity, fraud, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, etc. This ruling says that the right to the anonymity of speakers does not extend to non-protected speech. So, while I can criticize Microsoft's policies anonymously with impunity, I can't slander Bill Gates and hide from prosecution behind a shield of anonymity.
Putting aside the obvious issues of privacy, abuse, security, etc., I have one question:
If there's no method to verify identity without a DNA database, how would you verify people's identities to BUILD the DNA database?
Cheers,
IT
Hmm ... or, alternatively, you could spend $20 a pop to buy the actual DVDs, for less than 10 bucks a gig!!! (Possibly much less, depending on the length of the movie.)
This sort of bass-ackwards thinking reminds me of the classic Onion article: New $5,000 Multimedia Computer System Downloads Real-Time TV Programs, Displays Them On Monitor.
"Yes, the image is somewhat grainy and limited to just six frames per second," Welborne said. "But the technology will only improve as 466 MHz processors with more efficient Pipeline Burst Cache and Accelerated Graphics Ports with 10 MB VRAM become standard in the consumer marketplace. And when they do, the images will be remarkably crisp and detailed, every bit as good as that of, say, a 19-inch Philips-Magnavox TV."
"This is incredible," said Wayne Messers, a Huntington Beach, CA, systems analyst who sampled the Presario 6000 last weekend at the National Computer And Electronics Expo in San Diego. "I'm watching TV, but there's a keyboard in front of the screen."
Cheers,
IT
"U.S. crporations should have more than one purpose. They also owe something to their workers and the communities in which they operate, and they should sometimes sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities."
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
-Adam Smith
In other words: when we buy a product from a company, we don't do it out of concern for the company's well-being. Then why should companies who sell to us should be concerned with ours? We don't pay a higher price than we'd like to as a favor to the stockholders -- we try to get the best deal possible. Likewise, why should companies sacrifice profits to make their products less expensive, improve service, etc. if it isn't in their best interest?
One of the basic facts about capitalism is that when two parties enter into a transaction, they do so out of mutual benefit. (If you would truly be worse off without a product, you wouldn't buy it.) Basically, it's an even trade. They don't owe you anything -- no more than you owe them.
Cheers,
IT
Distribute the descrambling tool separately and explicitly inform anyone who downloads the tool that they are permitted to use the tool to descramble your work for their personal use unless they are an employee, lawyer, consultant, etc. of the MPAA or one of its member companies or they communicate the results of the descrambling to any of those people.
Wouldn't that be like stuffing a kilo of cocaine into a box with a shrinkwrap license? "You have the right to open this box, unless you're with the DEA." In any case, once probable cause is established -- which would take very little time, especially if you distributed the scrambled code over the Internet -- I would expect that your scrambled DeCSS could be unscrambled, legally, with a warrant/court order. In which case, of course, you're screwed.
Cheers,
IT
"MontaVista would like to see this technology, or similar technology, utilized as a foundational feature of Linux 2.5 ... Linus indicated that he is leaning towards a fully preemptable kernel approach in Linux 2.5."
For a company that claims to be revolutionizing Linux kernel development (I assume it's them making the claims, considering this sounds more like a press release than a news report) -- shouldn't they know that the next version of Linux is 2.6, not 2.5?
Cheers,
IT
"The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope."
... vicarious? Well, I guess we're not really observing these things directly -- more like we're living vicariously through the Hubble telescope. But I'm sure that's what Timothy meant. (stifled laughter)
Ahem
Reminds me of Clueless:
"You have to work out regularly, not just sporadically."
"How do you know if you're doing it sporadically?"
Cheers,
IT
I think he knows what X is, guys, I sure do, but I have absolutely no idea why X11R6.5.1 is important to *me*.
You hit the nail on the head. A couple of the other posts suggest that I don't know what X is. Of course I know what X is! (I'd have a hell of a time using Linux if I didn't!) But does "X11R6.5.1" mean the same thing as just plain "X"? And what about "XFree86"? Just a couple technicalities that your average, casual Linux user (i.e. myself) might not know by default.
Cheers,
IT
I'm not going to be one of those people who gripes that Slashdot is not Freshmeat, and therefore shouldn't announce software releases. (Hey, if it's News for Nerds, it's fair game.) However, could we try to have some explanations of exactly what this software is, what it does, and why this release is significant? Posters and editors should realize that this isn't the same audience as Freshmeat (i.e. not everyone compulsively keeps track of and updates every item of software in their system). And, I'm embarassed to say, "X11R6.5.1" doesn't mean much to me. C'mon guys: if we wanted plain vanilla software announcements, we'd read Freshmeat (and many of us do). So please, don't just announce the news -- report it.
Thanks,
IT
Now that they've released Instant Messanger, it's only a matter of time before they release their popular Instant Messenger software! BSD freaks and spelling geeks rejoice!
Cheers,
IT
Let me begin by saying that I am a student at Columbia University, and that I fully support their decision to profit from patents and other intellectual property. Your opposition to this, I think, reflects a poor understanding of the nature of scientific research.
Columbia's engineers work hard to develop useful, even marketable products, and the fact that these products are useful and marketable is a testament to Columbia's success -- not evidence that they have "sold out." What's more, this money can go to other useful causes, such as student financial aid, or to fund less-profitable research in other fields, such as history, or sociology, or pure mathematics (which I am paid to do).
It's not as though Big Evil Corporation (TM) calls up the office of Columbia's president and says: "Quick, we need some research and statistics from the Chemical Engineering department to support our evil, corporatist, anti-geek agenda!" Scientific research isn't like that. It's based on facts -- you can't just magically come up with results to support your personal agenda. In that way, it's quite different from journalism, don't you think?
Cheers,
IT
As I, being something of a Libertarian, understand it: there are a few *big* differences between Objectivists and Libertarians. Although the two groups agree on laissez-faire capitalism as the best economic/political system, Objectivists (among whom I do not include myself) have some strong additional beliefs.
... just kidding, sort of). Libertarians make no judgement on these things, and Objectivists typically use this fact to portray them as a bunch of free-lovin', drug-legalizin', non-judgemental hippie anarchists.
Objectivists have a rigid moral system, based around self-interest (or "selfishness"), which states that an individual's highest moral interest is improving his own life (without harming others, of course). While Libertarians believe that a person has a right to such a life, they do not attach any moral weight to it. So Libertarians would oppose government welfare, but allow people to give voluntarily to charities. Objectivists, however, denounce charitable giving as immoral.
Furthermore, Objectivism has a strict system of epistemology (reason), metaphysics (objective reality), and aesthetics (strongly resembling the works of Ayn Rand
In short: Libertarians believe that people should be free because intelligent people can differ. Objectivists believe that people should be free -- but that there is still only one "true way."
Cheers,
IT
How can companies like Sega be convinced that products that don't make them money anymore should be made GPL?
The copyright isn't just on the actual games themselves; it's on the characters too. So even if they're not making any money off the original "Sonic the Hedgehog," for example, making it GPL would release Sonic to the public --allowing people to make bootleg Sonic games, merchandise, etc. And it would almost certainly damage Sega's image, not to mention making it less profitable for them to sell "Sonic the Hedgehog 13" (or whatever number they're at now) for the Dreamcast.
This would be akin to Disney GPLing "Fantasia" and releasing Mickey Mouse to the public. I can only imagine the flood of bootleg Disney merchandise once the copyright runs out on "Steamboat Willie."
In short: sometimes if something isn't free, there's a very good reason for it.
Cheers,
IT
Prove or disprove: P = NP
Good luck!
IT
While the SDMI seems like a good idea, unfortunately it's too little, too late. Because of the music industry's years of vehement opposition to anything resembling an online strategy -- first shutting down mp3 web sites, then Napster -- they've inadvertently created a market for systems like Gnutella and Freenet, which are virtually unstoppable because of their decentralized, distributed nature. This is the music industry's equivalent of the unstoppable "superbugs" that might result from the overuse of antibiotics -- and now that they're here, there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle.
No matter what ingenious encryption or watermarking system is used, it boils down to this: at some point, between the 0's and 1's and the analog output, the music must be decrypted/decompressed/whatever. There is nothing -- repeat, nothing -- that will ever stop people from capturing the signal somewhere in the chain, recording it as an mp3, and putting it up on Gnutella. Sure, there might be some quality loss -- but since that doesn't seem to bother people now, I doubt it will bother them then.
Cheers,
IT
Don't think that this is about piracy. If that were the case they would have gone after radio stations a long time ago.
If the radio stations weren't paying royalties, the record companies would go after them, too. Don't think that radio is "free" music by any means -- every time your local station plays "The Real Slim Shady," Eminem and his record company get a nice juicy cut of it.
Furthermore, MP3s let you hear music on demand -- which is a big difference from radio, where you might have to listen for hours to hear your favorite song. Record companies are willing to go along with this because it gives them a chance to get you hooked on new music while you're listening for your favorites. And radio stations like it, because they get to play ads. Take these aspects away, plus the royalties, and you've got something that no sane record company would support. And since they own the copyright, like it or not, that should be the final word.
Cheers,
IT
So- the judge is taking away a _major_ distribution channel from me, at the request of... my competition.
I see this post as a call to arms -- not to legislators, but to programmers. The extremist "music should be free" crowd have created programs (e.g. Napster and Gnutella) that don't even attempt to separate artists who want to share their music (e.g. the above poster) from those who don't (e.g. Metallica). By doing this, they have hurt independent artists by:
1. Refusing to separate legal content from illegal content -- and forcing judges (such as this one) to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
2. Flooding music sharing services with illegal bootlegs of major artists, making it even harder for independent artists to be heard.
3. Allowing music sharing services to become synonymous with "stealing," reducing their image as viable distribution methods.
There are a lot of brilliant programmers out there, and hopefully some of you are reading this. For the sake of musicians everywhere who want to be heard: create a music distribution channel that PROTECTS copyrights instead of circumventing them. You can do this; don't sit around waiting for the record companies to do it for you. And if you succeed, there's probably a lot more money (and integrity) in it than there is providing a way for people to steal Pearl Jam tracks over the Net.
Cheers,
IT
The major point this article fails to acknowledge is that "intellectual property", whether or not it was called that, has always existed. Even before patents, copyrights, trademarks -- which are notable only in that they are government-enforced -- individuals devised ways to guard their ideas from being used by others.
Take, for example, the closely guarded secrets of medieval stone masons -- which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet, since it was the key closed-source metaphor behind Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Or take secret recipies, or any other trade secrets that existed just as well without government.
My point is that intellectual property is not something to be argued for or against -- for better or worse, it just exists. And, as the founders of the United States noted in the Constitution, it takes its most undesirable form when good ideas lay dormant for fear that they might be stolen. IP law is a trade-off: the government will protect your monopoly on your idea, under the condition that you allow the government to publish the idea after a certain period of time.
Why would this be desirable? Say, for example, I come up with Invention X, a remarkable discovery that will benefit countless millions. However, I don't have a factory to produce the product, and I fear that without government protection, Big Company Y would steal my idea and immediately begin producing Invention X in their existing factory more efficiently than I could, thus capturing the market for my invention. Why, then, would I put in all the effort to develop and perfect Invention X, when I would never have the opportunity to recoup my costs (let alone make a profit)? I'd be better off just keeping my ideas to myself.
By "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries," intellectual property laws prevent against this, the worst-case scenario: that a brilliant idea or invention might die with its creator, never having been passed on to contribute to the public good.
-IT