I understand that particular objection. And it does make sense.
It takes a village. Or at least a tech guy and business guy.
A farmer doesn't make any money just by growing plants.
But you, and another poster, raise a curious point. Code might very well fall more squarely under 'art' at some point in the future, as more and more pragmatic problems are solved to the point of a single 'click'. And there are certainly economic realities that comes with being an 'artist', ask some of them about it.
How many times have you called Microsoft to find out how to use a feature in Office? Most help is built-in, or web-based at this point, making it a function of easily replicable software. Incremental improvement at exhorbitant prices.
Not sure what you're going for here, but yea, sure. You get to install the software.
sorry, I let a bit of bias creep into that post that shouldn't have really been there.
So it's not at all a level playing field and once again, those with money make the money. Those without don't.
Some would argue that is a level playing field. It's tough to see how arguing that people without money make money and people with money don't make money, makes any sense.
It is about the little guy contributing and the little guy then gets the access of the big guy. The access is the multiplier. There will always be poor and rich, most able to leverage their position. But here the idea is that everyone should have the lever, the degree to which one can use it is immaterial in that context.
I'll take the money I make while writing proprietary code for a closed-source software company. It's much better than none.
I've got no problems with that, having done the same thing. And then I use that money to support the things I belive in, hoping somewhere along the way to create a sustainable reaction, but you can do what you want, that's the beauty of it.
and after the huge up-front R&D investment is made?
Charging $300 for incremental improvements distributed on $.10 plastic is how you become the world's richest man. But it becomes hard to defend in perpetuity.
Sorry that my brevity set off your b.s. alarm. Of course there's an up front cost, but how does that justify an un-ending ripoff? And it's an up-front cost that was replicated in recent year by dudes typing in basements, if you'll recall.
He not only doesn't profit from his software, he enables others to profit from it.
And he is enabled to profit from anyone else's software who practices the same philosophy. Just like everyone else. It is a leveled playing field that puts everyone at the level of Gates and Ellison, with access to the source code of hugely powerful application.
I don't see the issue here. You just have to keep working. Clemens' wants to be Bill Gates and charge people $199 for a $0.10 piece of plastic. He doesn't have a problem with that. It seems fair and rational to him.
Others think that kind of irrational exhuberance is good for no one and think $199 is a decent take-home for a good days' work.
There's a whole lot of room to move around here that isn't a 1 or a 0. A Gates or a Stallman. There's lots of different software too. And differnt rules and notions can apply.
But don't think you'll be able to charge anyone but fools for a basic operating system, or browser, or email program, or media player, or ripper, or DVD player, or calculator, etc. etc. etc.
Aah, but if you provide the service that brings these tools to their fingertips, then maybe you can get an honest days pay out of the deal. Or perhaps a wee bit more.
it there any chance of those states aligning somewhere along with the way with string theory and the number of dimensions?
I just got the elegant universe book for christmas and haven't been through it all yet, but that pattern, 3 obvious ones, a bunch of others, but really not as popular or easily identified, 'curled-up', if you will.
would there be a way to generate a force using the same concept as an airplane's wings? i.e. make one side of the flow move faster than the other causing a change in presssue require an addtional force (lift in planes, 'spin' is atoms) to balance?
cool story. wierd stuff happens when you get close to stopping the flow of time.
I can't believe it's still being proposed as a buiness idea. This type of project should, IMHO, be looked at more like a public service project. Something akin to the national highway system. Information Superhighway is a term I heard a while back.
Publicly fund it, and publicly police it.
Or, just make it law that bandwidth can be shared and TOS that limit such a 'right' should be considered null and void.
The Internet economy is strange because it's one of abundance rather than scarcity. And that abundance only shows up after MASSIVE capital investment. Reaching that critical mass for Wi-Fi would be tough for a single company, but not quite as tough as a country.
Yes, you say to your boss. 'Well there's this protection money we pay to Microsoft, then you got to pay me, and every now and again we buy new computers. Projections call for us needing X more of Y type this year, and Z types of Pendantic Crap Model 123 the one after that.'
And no, I don't get paid for this, which is why you get it for free.;-)
And this fear, uncertainty and doubt about the ephemeral TCO can be brought home by doing an extensive audit throughout your company for all licenses of all Microsoft products. Then calculate how many more you need to buy to stay legal and current for the 2003 versions.
This should all be in a spreadsheet or other database that can generate a report for the PHB at a moment's notice, allowing one to focus on reading the 'tech press' to stay current about management techniques, efficiency primers, and professional discussion of TCO, i.e. what admin's do best...
check out the archos v320 or some such, 3.8 in. screen and a 40 gb portable back up drive.
With a handy hook-up TO a TV, it becomes essentially a portable Tivo. Once they partner up with someone like Tivo, you can just hook it to the Tivo, download your programs, and watch them anywhere. P2P and a computer works the same way, although then there is a codec converter involved.
I travel, so stuff like this is very useful, but yet, for the completely sedentary it doesn't make much sense to carry around a complete media library, or last weeks missed programs, or your favorite movies.
Frankly, these things rock, although you can get limited similar use out of a good PDA, it's the simplicity of the things that will help them take over.
The iPod is a speed bump, and will have a video screen soon or fade into memory like the Newton.
I'm not using all the addresses, it turns out that I got a number of reporters addresses from the virus, at various publications around the country. It was pretty much a ready made media-contact list after I filtered out the normal addresses.
I realize that just fine. It's not a doom and gloom scenario, just a very strange one. Something of immense dollar value is replaced by something of no dollar value. The value to society is still provided (the service of the software) and the money can and will move to another place, but the outlook for an economy might not be so rosy, even to the extreme that it could cause a strange panic and real damage.
So I'm curous how such things would look to an economist.
A) Where everyone has in the country pays $100 for software, generating a $30,000,000,000/yr industry.
B) Everyone in the country gets $100 worth of software for free, destroying a $30,000,000,000 industry.
Is it just the change from one to another that is the problem? Or is there some hidden danger from everyone on the planet being born with 'rights' to software that used to cost $1,000 a seat?
I mean, sheesh, that's like $6,000,000,000,000 added to the global economy overnight. For 'free'.
I noticed that bit too. I'm really happy with what I use Open Office for...dealing with that random.doc or.xls someone forwards to my laptop (XP, Alienware gaming dream box). They aren't my main authoring tools, but they cover the gap so I don't have to track down some dang office 97 license from way back and install the bloat again just to open what should have been a simple text document.
They (CFY) use Windows, as do we. [click 'home computers'] For us, this was purely a pragmatic decision, as there is some training on Microsoft OS's at school and it really would be a bit much to dump Linux on someone who is barely PC literate (not to mention the SAT prep software that has been donated to us is also Windows only). Yes, this does make the OS more espensive (by a factor of at least 2) than the hardware it runs on, but Microsoft does offer non-profit licensing options which we are currently working through the process to obtain (along with official 501(c)(3) statues (it takes at least 120 days, we're about a month in)).
Hey, just an idea that is taking off. We closed the digital divide by 6 computers this last weekend, and have about 80 more in the wings...and some private funding upwards of 5 figures to help smooth out the process. And this is soley from word of mouth and friends, part time over a couple of months.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand that particular objection. And it does make sense.
It takes a village. Or at least a tech guy and business guy.
A farmer doesn't make any money just by growing plants.
But you, and another poster, raise a curious point. Code might very well fall more squarely under 'art' at some point in the future, as more and more pragmatic problems are solved to the point of a single 'click'. And there are certainly economic realities that comes with being an 'artist', ask some of them about it.
However.
Hey, look, it's fine for them to sell their software, it's just getting harder to sell the idea that it's a good deal.
But you can rest assured, there will be no Indian Microsoft that rises up and dominates the software market. If that's any consolation...
sorry, I let a bit of bias creep into that post that shouldn't have really been there.
So it's not at all a level playing field and once again, those with money make the money. Those without don't.
Some would argue that is a level playing field. It's tough to see how arguing that people without money make money and people with money don't make money, makes any sense.
It is about the little guy contributing and the little guy then gets the access of the big guy. The access is the multiplier. There will always be poor and rich, most able to leverage their position. But here the idea is that everyone should have the lever, the degree to which one can use it is immaterial in that context.
I'll take the money I make while writing proprietary code for a closed-source software company. It's much better than none.
I've got no problems with that, having done the same thing. And then I use that money to support the things I belive in, hoping somewhere along the way to create a sustainable reaction, but you can do what you want, that's the beauty of it.
sorry, should have been "....and after the huge up-front R&D investment is made, and repaid 10x over?"
and after the huge up-front R&D investment is made?
Charging $300 for incremental improvements distributed on $.10 plastic is how you become the world's richest man. But it becomes hard to defend in perpetuity.
Sorry that my brevity set off your b.s. alarm. Of course there's an up front cost, but how does that justify an un-ending ripoff? And it's an up-front cost that was replicated in recent year by dudes typing in basements, if you'll recall.
Whitney and Gutenberg will burn in hell forever. Won't somebody think of the slaves and scribes?
He not only doesn't profit from his software, he enables others to profit from it.
And he is enabled to profit from anyone else's software who practices the same philosophy. Just like everyone else. It is a leveled playing field that puts everyone at the level of Gates and Ellison, with access to the source code of hugely powerful application.
I don't see the issue here. You just have to keep working. Clemens' wants to be Bill Gates and charge people $199 for a $0.10 piece of plastic. He doesn't have a problem with that. It seems fair and rational to him.
Others think that kind of irrational exhuberance is good for no one and think $199 is a decent take-home for a good days' work.
There's a whole lot of room to move around here that isn't a 1 or a 0. A Gates or a Stallman. There's lots of different software too. And differnt rules and notions can apply.
But don't think you'll be able to charge anyone but fools for a basic operating system, or browser, or email program, or media player, or ripper, or DVD player, or calculator, etc. etc. etc.
Aah, but if you provide the service that brings these tools to their fingertips, then maybe you can get an honest days pay out of the deal. Or perhaps a wee bit more.
$500 retail = $205 eBay (or thereabouts)
how true. the crazy thing is the same thing applies to other professions/hobbies.
the sad thing is...it also applies to politicians.
Listen to some of those 1940's anecdotes and feel a lot better about the equipment you've fried.
there's a bigger 'mothership' one that is used to brave the wind.
And here's what the American invasion of Afghanistan might have looked like if the consumer tech was shifted 20 years ahead.
to argue devil's advocate for a moment...
Might this be why they are in the information dark ages? It doesn't seem to imply good things.
it there any chance of those states aligning somewhere along with the way with string theory and the number of dimensions?
I just got the elegant universe book for christmas and haven't been through it all yet, but that pattern, 3 obvious ones, a bunch of others, but really not as popular or easily identified, 'curled-up', if you will.
$.02 mas.
bah, I liked the old interface better.
This new one is too clunky.
would there be a way to generate a force using the same concept as an airplane's wings? i.e. make one side of the flow move faster than the other causing a change in presssue require an addtional force (lift in planes, 'spin' is atoms) to balance?
cool story. wierd stuff happens when you get close to stopping the flow of time.
I can't believe it's still being proposed as a buiness idea. This type of project should, IMHO, be looked at more like a public service project. Something akin to the national highway system. Information Superhighway is a term I heard a while back.
Publicly fund it, and publicly police it.
Or, just make it law that bandwidth can be shared and TOS that limit such a 'right' should be considered null and void.
The Internet economy is strange because it's one of abundance rather than scarcity. And that abundance only shows up after MASSIVE capital investment. Reaching that critical mass for Wi-Fi would be tough for a single company, but not quite as tough as a country.
Yes, you say to your boss. 'Well there's this protection money we pay to Microsoft, then you got to pay me, and every now and again we buy new computers. Projections call for us needing X more of Y type this year, and Z types of Pendantic Crap Model 123 the one after that.'
;-)
And no, I don't get paid for this, which is why you get it for free.
And this fear, uncertainty and doubt about the ephemeral TCO can be brought home by doing an extensive audit throughout your company for all licenses of all Microsoft products. Then calculate how many more you need to buy to stay legal and current for the 2003 versions.
This should all be in a spreadsheet or other database that can generate a report for the PHB at a moment's notice, allowing one to focus on reading the 'tech press' to stay current about management techniques, efficiency primers, and professional discussion of TCO, i.e. what admin's do best...
I disagree.
check out the archos v320 or some such, 3.8 in. screen and a 40 gb portable back up drive.
With a handy hook-up TO a TV, it becomes essentially a portable Tivo. Once they partner up with someone like Tivo, you can just hook it to the Tivo, download your programs, and watch them anywhere. P2P and a computer works the same way, although then there is a codec converter involved.
I travel, so stuff like this is very useful, but yet, for the completely sedentary it doesn't make much sense to carry around a complete media library, or last weeks missed programs, or your favorite movies.
Frankly, these things rock, although you can get limited similar use out of a good PDA, it's the simplicity of the things that will help them take over.
The iPod is a speed bump, and will have a video screen soon or fade into memory like the Newton.
I listen to 56k streams with no problem through pdanet on treo 600.
$10/mo to boot.
Ahh yes, I never actually did that one.
I'm not using all the addresses, it turns out that I got a number of reporters addresses from the virus, at various publications around the country. It was pretty much a ready made media-contact list after I filtered out the normal addresses.
I should clear that one up. Thanks.
I realize that just fine. It's not a doom and gloom scenario, just a very strange one. Something of immense dollar value is replaced by something of no dollar value. The value to society is still provided (the service of the software) and the money can and will move to another place, but the outlook for an economy might not be so rosy, even to the extreme that it could cause a strange panic and real damage.
So I'm curous how such things would look to an economist.
Can an economist answer this one?
Which is a better scenario...
A) Where everyone has in the country pays $100 for software, generating a $30,000,000,000/yr industry.
B) Everyone in the country gets $100 worth of software for free, destroying a $30,000,000,000 industry.
Is it just the change from one to another that is the problem? Or is there some hidden danger from everyone on the planet being born with 'rights' to software that used to cost $1,000 a seat?
I mean, sheesh, that's like $6,000,000,000,000 added to the global economy overnight. For 'free'.
I noticed that bit too. I'm really happy with what I use Open Office for...dealing with that random .doc or .xls someone forwards to my laptop (XP, Alienware gaming dream box). They aren't my main authoring tools, but they cover the gap so I don't have to track down some dang office 97 license from way back and install the bloat again just to open what should have been a simple text document.
They (CFY) use Windows, as do we. [click 'home computers'] For us, this was purely a pragmatic decision, as there is some training on Microsoft OS's at school and it really would be a bit much to dump Linux on someone who is barely PC literate (not to mention the SAT prep software that has been donated to us is also Windows only). Yes, this does make the OS more espensive (by a factor of at least 2) than the hardware it runs on, but Microsoft does offer non-profit licensing options which we are currently working through the process to obtain (along with official 501(c)(3) statues (it takes at least 120 days, we're about a month in)).
Then, the economically challenged could buy a cheap PC, or get one used from a church or something, and immediately make it more useful!
Don't wait for the gubmint. Take care of it yourself.
Hey, just an idea that is taking off. We closed the digital divide by 6 computers this last weekend, and have about 80 more in the wings...and some private funding upwards of 5 figures to help smooth out the process. And this is soley from word of mouth and friends, part time over a couple of months.
And yes, we put OpenOffice on the machines.