Even in poor countries like Mexico, University students are meant to have an all around education that teaches them how their technical skills and decisions will affect society as a whole and allows them to place technology in a wider context.
We have mandatory lectures in economics, accounting and electives in literature, sociology and political science for example.
No child between the ages of 6 and 12 is without school. In poor areas the conditions are not ideal, and the school may not be in the immediate vicinity, but the schools are there and actually are being used.
The level of scholarity in Mexico has been raising steadily (meaning more people stay longer in school) as well as indicators like literacy (which is 92% as now, that is to say at least 92% of the population has attended enough school to learn to read, but most likely is more since there is a percentage of people that became functionally illiterate even if they received the necessary education).
So, the point is that Mexico has problems, but most children would benefit of a technological tool that gives them access to 1st world skills.
As for the tirade about Bill Gates you should know better. You know how in Mexico the drug dealers often are very loved by their communities because they give money to the church, they build a health clinic, they are patrons of artists. My point is that doing good with wealth obtained by dubious means is not necessarily as good as it may seem (and here I am not comparing Gates with a drug baron, but I use the example as a means of enhancing my point with a extreme example).
Yes, in Mexico of our pains there are many poor children, but many of those in poverty have just enough food and clothing (because education is there, pretty much all children in Mexico go to school, and please do not dispute this fact, I have many acquaintances in the teaching profession that can vouch for this) for them to benefit of such educational tool.
This is what is happening: while children in developed countries very often have constant acccess to computers both at home ans school, in Mexico most children will not see a computer until they are 12 (if lucky). THis kind of project could help to redress the balance.
Yeah, philanthropy in Mexico sometimes is chaotic, but that does not mean that philanthropy should be discouraged.
If you are not going to be truly charitable, then don't involve your company in charitable enterprises which are *non for profit*...
It is equally unethical to try to take advantage as a contribution in such projects to peddle your wares.
Are we so morally corrupt that we can't see anymore when something is immoral or unethical (maybe not illegal mind you), and even worst, there are people out there prepared to defend or justify such actions?
Property is in principle irreplaceable. Give me the keys of your car. Now you have no keys (and maybe no car). That is property.
Now give me a good idea to share music. The Internet? Cool. Now you have the idea, I have it also, and I can pass it around. But you still have it.
Now, tell me how do you stop me sharing the idea, doing things with it, creating new ideas based on it. Well, the only way is creating a social construct enforced by the society.
Without that you can't do squat about it. Even giving me a beating (in the very remote case that you could survive my mad karate skills) would not extract the idea from my brain.
Once I have an idea it is mine, any social constructs that abuse the natural state of things are doomed to failure, because they only work if you and I accept that it is fair for you to profit from the idea having occurred first to you, but the moment you want to screw me (with outrageous claims about owning ideas for 100 years and stuff like that) then I will try to go back to my natural right of use any ideas as I see fit.
You could as well are how art and science would develop if aliens landed or if we became pigs.
We can't know how people would decide to make money out of their creative talents in a copyrightless modern world.
Buit since you like speculation allow me to speculate, from examples in the past most likely works that are now copyrightable would be created via patronage of some kind.
So do you want a good book? Somebody powerful would commission it, but by somebody powerful I don't mean only rich people or corporations, unions or cooperatives of regular people could band together for this purpose.
Lets say JK Rolling would have released her first Harry Potter on the Net, people most likely would have liked it, and many would have requested that she writes a new one, to which she could have put a price *prior* to writing it. Or somebody interested in exploiting the book in new and different ways, could request a new book. Who knows, the possibilities are endless and people, driven by greed, would find ways to make money out of their creative talent.
As for the movies the process would be similar. Up to a point the process today is pretty similar: everybody and his dog knows what a big movie is all about, so people could pay in advance if they find the idea interesting. Or perhaps all would be advertised supported, in the way "this movie was brought to you by" etc. Perhaps the system would not give to finance $100 million blockbusters, but would we really lost that much if that was the case? I mean is not having Titanic and Jurassic Park really such a great loss?
Copyright would be an incentive if its terms were strict and short lived.
On it's current form is the abating of monopolistic practices payed for by media companies via political contributions (bribes by another name).
Homo Sapiens has existed for 200 000 years, give or take. We did perfectly fine for 199 600 or thereabouts without copyright. Hint: one of the traits of our success as a species was the sharing of ideas. Plenty of ideas developed without it, plenty more would have continue to develop because it is the way we are, we intrinsically want to do things and share them with others.
Copyright goes against the grain of normal human collaboration. That is fine, but as any social construct, it has to be fair in order to be acceptable.
People, without realizing or not, have the feeling that they are getting a raw deal and are acting in consequence.
Any abusive tax (because at the end that is what copyright is, in a natural state of things nobody would have to pay for using somebody else's ideas, people living in more primitive conditions simply don't have such a concept) will be opposed, worked around and avoided by any possible means by many people.
So is copying illegal? Well, maybe yes, but politicians are been bought to make things illegal. So is it immoral? The people are speaking by their actions, and they are saying it isn't.
Copyright infringement is the excuse to inconvenience the users.
DRM is a mechanism of control, all the bullshit about piracy is just a badly disguised attempt to make it palatable. ANd people don't like to be controlled and act in consequence.
The real issue here is the unrealistic expectation of companies going digital with their products, they want to embrace the advantages without any of the disadvantages. Have their cake and eat it as they say here in UKia.
And very often we are not talking about outright piracy, but just plain inconveniencing of costumers: why shouldn't I be able to buy a DVD, transfer easily its contents to my PC (Linux, Apple, Solaris, Windows, whatever) and from there to synchronize wiht my PDA, my mobile phone or my video player? And why shouldn't I be able to share the digital copy as long as there is no intent to profit from it?
This should be fucking seamless, it is not technically complicated, but instead of being provided with the tools to do this (at a reasonable price) I am interfered with at each step of the process. And even worst, the companies pushing this down our throats are perverting the deomcratic system by literally buying legislation for their nefarious ends (sorry, but I really don't remember when the popular clamour for DRM was first raised by the people in Western Democracies).
Sorry, but I sympathize with anybody that can't be bothered to follow the line, in spite of myself having decided to vote with my wallet as you suggest.
Capitalism is always banging about how great and good greed is.
But as soon as something that is infinitely reproduceable at very low cost is passed around freely by the proles, then all of the sudden we are told that to follow the path of less resistance based on greed is not good, it is immoral, blah, blah, blah.
Corollary: greed is good as long as you are not a poor sod without expensive lawyers.
In the real world you can't put exorbitant prices to a commodity. Bits in a piece of plastic is a commodity. The movie companies thought they had us by the proverbial little ones without realizing that going digital opened the era of plenty.
Now let me ask one question: would we worse off for not having movies costing $50m + ? I don't think so. "The life of others", winner of the Oscar to best foreign movie, was done with $1m , and it is immensely better than most dross out there.
So 2 things should happen:
1.- Movie executives should learn from the music ones: the public does not want to keep their extravagant habits, you will have to cut costs.
2.- The older distribution model may be dead. Come up with new ideas to make a profit understanding that the free sharing of bits is here to stay. 3D movies may be a start. But most likely services and patronage around movies will be the way forward. And I still want to pay for the cinematic experience, I am sure lots of people will continue to do so, so less reliance on DVDs and other digital distribution methods may become the norm (or not, I would gladly play for an easy way to put a movie in a format I can use freely on my hardware, *any* hardware I own).
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Even in poor countries like Mexico, University students are meant to have an all around education that teaches them how their technical skills and decisions will affect society as a whole and allows them to place technology in a wider context.
We have mandatory lectures in economics, accounting and electives in literature, sociology and political science for example.
When are you asked about priorities when installing nagware?
Why is the default priority of nagware higher that whatever you are running ?
When are you asked the priority at which each little piece of nagware should run?
Answer: never.
Why: bad OS design.
But it looks mightily pretty....
.... but it is the fault of retailers selling you what MS claims are minimum requirements?
Bad, bad, bad retailers and PC manufacturers.
They have no morals.
I wish I never have to do business with you...
Plumbers, welders and electricians don't go to University to learn their trade.
With all due respect I think most IT people could do plumbing, welding or electrical work. The other way around is more debatable.
.... by wrecking havoc with the shop you promised to help.
But some degree of intelligence is assumed about the reader of such a post.
Obviously the poster is an uncompromising optimist.
But only stupid people would canonize him.
He helped popularize desktop computing.
By means of:
-Blatantly stealing ideas from true innovators.
-Strongarming business partners.
-Leveraging their monopoly to spread their tentacles.
-Stalling the progress of computing and stifling competition in the field.
-Firmly establishing the abomination of closing the source code to your clients.
I could continue, but I hope you get the idea.
.... with wealth obtained by devious ways.
They are selling like hot cakes.
So your momentous judgment may be quite premature.
No child between the ages of 6 and 12 is without school. In poor areas the conditions are not ideal, and the school may not be in the immediate vicinity, but the schools are there and actually are being used.
The level of scholarity in Mexico has been raising steadily (meaning more people stay longer in school) as well as indicators like literacy (which is 92% as now, that is to say at least 92% of the population has attended enough school to learn to read, but most likely is more since there is a percentage of people that became functionally illiterate even if they received the necessary education).
So, the point is that Mexico has problems, but most children would benefit of a technological tool that gives them access to 1st world skills.
As for the tirade about Bill Gates you should know better. You know how in Mexico the drug dealers often are very loved by their communities because they give money to the church, they build a health clinic, they are patrons of artists. My point is that doing good with wealth obtained by dubious means is not necessarily as good as it may seem (and here I am not comparing Gates with a drug baron, but I use the example as a means of enhancing my point with a extreme example).
Yes, in Mexico of our pains there are many poor children, but many of those in poverty have just enough food and clothing (because education is there, pretty much all children in Mexico go to school, and please do not dispute this fact, I have many acquaintances in the teaching profession that can vouch for this) for them to benefit of such educational tool.
This is what is happening: while children in developed countries very often have constant acccess to computers both at home ans school, in Mexico most children will not see a computer until they are 12 (if lucky). THis kind of project could help to redress the balance.
Yeah, philanthropy in Mexico sometimes is chaotic, but that does not mean that philanthropy should be discouraged.
Intel entered this organization not to pedal their wares, but to put an educational tool in the hand of children that may benefit of it.
Then behind the back of this organization, they try to pedal their own wares.
Honestly, what do they need to do so you stop justifying them? Using those children as slave labour in a chip factory?
If you are not going to be truly charitable, then don't involve your company in charitable enterprises which are *non for profit*...
It is equally unethical to try to take advantage as a contribution in such projects to peddle your wares.
Are we so morally corrupt that we can't see anymore when something is immoral or unethical (maybe not illegal mind you), and even worst, there are people out there prepared to defend or justify such actions?
Unless you are dyslexic ....
Lets see, 50 000 000 at 10 per head, you would need 5 000 000 people to fork a tenner in advance.
Is that unrealistic? I don't think so.
Property is in principle irreplaceable. Give me the keys of your car. Now you have no keys (and maybe no car). That is property.
Now give me a good idea to share music. The Internet? Cool. Now you have the idea, I have it also, and I can pass it around. But you still have it.
Now, tell me how do you stop me sharing the idea, doing things with it, creating new ideas based on it. Well, the only way is creating a social construct enforced by the society.
Without that you can't do squat about it. Even giving me a beating (in the very remote case that you could survive my mad karate skills) would not extract the idea from my brain.
Once I have an idea it is mine, any social constructs that abuse the natural state of things are doomed to failure, because they only work if you and I accept that it is fair for you to profit from the idea having occurred first to you, but the moment you want to screw me (with outrageous claims about owning ideas for 100 years and stuff like that) then I will try to go back to my natural right of use any ideas as I see fit.
You could as well are how art and science would develop if aliens landed or if we became pigs.
We can't know how people would decide to make money out of their creative talents in a copyrightless modern world.
Buit since you like speculation allow me to speculate, from examples in the past most likely works that are now copyrightable would be created via patronage of some kind.
So do you want a good book? Somebody powerful would commission it, but by somebody powerful I don't mean only rich people or corporations, unions or cooperatives of regular people could band together for this purpose.
Lets say JK Rolling would have released her first Harry Potter on the Net, people most likely would have liked it, and many would have requested that she writes a new one, to which she could have put a price *prior* to writing it. Or somebody interested in exploiting the book in new and different ways, could request a new book. Who knows, the possibilities are endless and people, driven by greed, would find ways to make money out of their creative talent.
As for the movies the process would be similar. Up to a point the process today is pretty similar: everybody and his dog knows what a big movie is all about, so people could pay in advance if they find the idea interesting. Or perhaps all would be advertised supported, in the way "this movie was brought to you by" etc. Perhaps the system would not give to finance $100 million blockbusters, but would we really lost that much if that was the case? I mean is not having Titanic and Jurassic Park really such a great loss?
Copyright would be an incentive if its terms were strict and short lived.
On it's current form is the abating of monopolistic practices payed for by media companies via political contributions (bribes by another name).
Homo Sapiens has existed for 200 000 years, give or take. We did perfectly fine for 199 600 or thereabouts without copyright. Hint: one of the traits of our success as a species was the sharing of ideas. Plenty of ideas developed without it, plenty more would have continue to develop because it is the way we are, we intrinsically want to do things and share them with others.
Copyright goes against the grain of normal human collaboration. That is fine, but as any social construct, it has to be fair in order to be acceptable.
People, without realizing or not, have the feeling that they are getting a raw deal and are acting in consequence.
Any abusive tax (because at the end that is what copyright is, in a natural state of things nobody would have to pay for using somebody else's ideas, people living in more primitive conditions simply don't have such a concept) will be opposed, worked around and avoided by any possible means by many people.
So is copying illegal? Well, maybe yes, but politicians are been bought to make things illegal. So is it immoral? The people are speaking by their actions, and they are saying it isn't.
Copyright infringement is the excuse to inconvenience the users.
DRM is a mechanism of control, all the bullshit about piracy is just a badly disguised attempt to make it palatable. ANd people don't like to be controlled and act in consequence.
The real issue here is the unrealistic expectation of companies going digital with their products, they want to embrace the advantages without any of the disadvantages. Have their cake and eat it as they say here in UKia.
And very often we are not talking about outright piracy, but just plain inconveniencing of costumers: why shouldn't I be able to buy a DVD, transfer easily its contents to my PC (Linux, Apple, Solaris, Windows, whatever) and from there to synchronize wiht my PDA, my mobile phone or my video player? And why shouldn't I be able to share the digital copy as long as there is no intent to profit from it?
This should be fucking seamless, it is not technically complicated, but instead of being provided with the tools to do this (at a reasonable price) I am interfered with at each step of the process. And even worst, the companies pushing this down our throats are perverting the deomcratic system by literally buying legislation for their nefarious ends (sorry, but I really don't remember when the popular clamour for DRM was first raised by the people in Western Democracies).
Sorry, but I sympathize with anybody that can't be bothered to follow the line, in spite of myself having decided to vote with my wallet as you suggest.
Capitalism is always banging about how great and good greed is.
But as soon as something that is infinitely reproduceable at very low cost is passed around freely by the proles, then all of the sudden we are told that to follow the path of less resistance based on greed is not good, it is immoral, blah, blah, blah.
Corollary: greed is good as long as you are not a poor sod without expensive lawyers.
In the real world you can't put exorbitant prices to a commodity. Bits in a piece of plastic is a commodity. The movie companies thought they had us by the proverbial little ones without realizing that going digital opened the era of plenty.
Now let me ask one question: would we worse off for not having movies costing $50m + ? I don't think so. "The life of others", winner of the Oscar to best foreign movie, was done with $1m , and it is immensely better than most dross out there.
So 2 things should happen:
1.- Movie executives should learn from the music ones: the public does not want to keep their extravagant habits, you will have to cut costs.
2.- The older distribution model may be dead. Come up with new ideas to make a profit understanding that the free sharing of bits is here to stay. 3D movies may be a start. But most likely services and patronage around movies will be the way forward. And I still want to pay for the cinematic experience, I am sure lots of people will continue to do so, so less reliance on DVDs and other digital distribution methods may become the norm (or not, I would gladly play for an easy way to put a movie in a format I can use freely on my hardware, *any* hardware I own).
Where in the mission statement of Intel says that they have to be immoral assholes in order to turn a profit?
/. seem to think this need to make a profit is legally enshrined somewhere. Well, it isn't. So stop the meme.
Many folks around here in
Company that don't do good as part of their corporate objectives eventually stop turning a profit.
History is littered with the carcasses of companies that were unethical, immoral or plain evil.