For the vast bulk of "ordinary" users the computer is just a thing they switch on and it "just works".
They use M$ Windows cos that's what it came with, that's what everyone else uses and, in business at least, that's the platform targeted by the mainstream application developers.
They use M$ Office and M$ Outlook and M$ Internet Explorer cos that's what it came with, that's what everyone else uses and they get email attachments and website downloads that presume the existence of this platform.
These people usually have little, if any, computer literacy, They have little, if any, awareness of the "politics" of the open source argument. The overwhelming majority will have no understanding of or use for the source at all.
If you want to change their habits, you won't succeed by selling the operating system. "What's an operating system and why would I care about it?"
If you want to change their habits, you won't succeed by trying to change everything all at once or by selling the virtues of "open source".
If you want to change their habits, you won't succeed by giving them a CD full of strangely named things that they have to "compile" or "make" or learn howto use a plain text editor to configure.
Pick one thing, say OpenOffice, make sure that it is idiot proof with an idiot proof install routine. List ALL its virtues and, particularly, why anyone would want to use it in preference to M$ Office that they're all used to.
looks like a pretty likely source of further info but, as it's entirely comprised of large graphic images of text (rather than just the text like any real webmaster would have known to use) I reckon it must all be too secret for us.
Perhaps Bill Gates hasn't approved the release yet.
It's really hard to imagine what law they might use to outlaw the actual reading and writing of "their" file formats and I've just had a quick look round their website and found nothing.
It's almost certainly illegal to reverse engineer one of their applications to deduce the file format but, if you can manage without doing that, it should be perfectly legal whatever they say.
Who knows? Maybe the law of supply and demand will triumph once again and, given over-supply of Linux people with implicit shortfall of Windows newbies, demand for Linux will increase!
Not being a US citizen, I can sit back and enjoy the spectacle without having to take it too seriously [yet].
It seems to me that, if you have a law which makes copying illegal then using technology to prevent copying implies that the law isn't enough. You don't think that people will obey the law so you devise some technical mechanism to prevent them doing what they're not allowed to do.
The DMCA adds a whole new dimension. Now you have a law designed to protect authors from their own incompetence. Hey! we're not really good at making anti-copy devices and some people will make copies in spite of them. Please change the law to make it illegal to try.
Presumably the next step will be to produce a technical device to catch the new breed of lawbreakers, then...
Am I the only one to detect the beginning of a vicious circle here?
Yes I do use Windows, partly for the fact that it mostly "works" and partly because that's what most folks "out here in reality" use.
Windows does not work flawlessly. I have long since lost count of the number of blue screens and "illegal operations" I've had but it does work well enough for me to use it.
I'm a 30 year computer nerd so I CAN cope with the complexities of setting up Linux, et al but, if I just want to write a letter, why struggle?
Windows has succeeded DESPITE its faults because it's useable. Linux has failed to succeed DESPITE its strengths because, for normal people, it's not useable.
Clearly it's better for it to work, look good and behave well enough for those without a degree in computer science to use.
With few exceptions, all software represents a compromise. If something looks good and is easy to use, its faults will often be tolerated (and they can always be fixed). If it doesn't look good or it isn't easy to use it may not live long enough to get fixed.
The attitude of free software nerds towards useability is often the defining limitation of the spread of free software.
The fact that it's free should not mean that you should have to be a nerd to use it. Good useability is probably more important than correct functionality.
The major advantage of open source rather than proprietary is that, because the source is open to all, it can be criticized and improved by all rather than being let loose in a "good enough" state.
The "best" route for producing reliable, feature rich but unbloated software is to have one man (or a small group) produce it to a clear, well-designed, specification, have it thoroughly tested and have it marketed inline with its design.
The best model for doing that is probably the proprietary one but, in the absence of an altruistic corporation able to act as "benign dictator", open source is as good as it gets.
Does anyone still take the US Patent Office seriously?
Surely they are the modern equivalent of the old Roman circuses - light entertainment to take the citizens' minds off the harsh realities of daily life.
If I, sitting in a darkened room with no internet access, design and implement a software solution to a real-world problem I can make money from it because copyright in the program belongs to me. No effort involved, copyright automatically belongs to me.
If patents are available as "protection" then wealthy corporations and individuals will take advantage of them, most of us won't.
Pretty soon I won't be able to sit in my darkened room anymore because I will have to conduct exhaustive searches on my ideas just in case somebody, somewhere, has a patent on one of its components.
Is this really the best environment in which to nurture creativity, innovation, self-reliance, etc? Or is it merely the best environment to enable wealthy corporations to stifle competition and get richer?
It seems to me that there are three separate issues here:-
1) Your ability to re-use code you've developed.
2) Your customer's rights to the resultant code.
3) GPL.
Taking (1) first, you clearly want to be able to re-use your code (and you're going to one way or another, even if that means physically writing it again) - if you don't actually own the code because of contractual obligation, you should insist on at least your own ability to re-use it. Are you really going to re-invent the wheel for each new contract?
2) If the contract involves providing the source to the customer, they will need the ability to maintain it and copy it for their own purposes and may not want to put too much effort into complying with the terms of an agreement (GPL) that's not really anything to do with them.
3) GPL - is that the answer to (1) and (2)? If not as seems likely, the code may well be beneficial to the open source community but GPLing it may actually get in your way.
Slashdot Mirror
Piracy is theft. It's already illegal.
The IP owner already has the law on his side and, additionally, he's free to make whatever use of technology he likes.
The real issue here is "what are the poor congressmen going to do with themselves if they're not allowed to dream up stupid new laws?"
For the vast bulk of "ordinary" users the computer is just a thing they switch on and it "just works".
They use M$ Windows cos that's what it came with, that's what everyone else uses and, in business at least, that's the platform targeted by the mainstream application developers.
They use M$ Office and M$ Outlook and M$ Internet Explorer cos that's what it came with, that's what everyone else uses and they get email attachments and website downloads that presume the existence of this platform.
These people usually have little, if any, computer literacy, They have little, if any, awareness of the "politics" of the open source argument. The overwhelming majority will have no understanding of or use for the source at all.
If you want to change their habits, you won't succeed by selling the operating system. "What's an operating system and why would I care about it?"
If you want to change their habits, you won't succeed by trying to change everything all at once or by selling the virtues of "open source".
If you want to change their habits, you won't succeed by giving them a CD full of strangely named things that they have to "compile" or "make" or learn howto use a plain text editor to configure.
Pick one thing, say OpenOffice, make sure that it is idiot proof with an idiot proof install routine. List ALL its virtues and, particularly, why anyone would want to use it in preference to M$ Office that they're all used to.
That might do it.
http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/MOST/research.html#optical
looks like a pretty likely source of further info but, as it's entirely comprised of large graphic images of text (rather than just the text like any real webmaster would have known to use) I reckon it must all be too secret for us.
Perhaps Bill Gates hasn't approved the release yet.
Aw shucks!
It's really hard to imagine what law they might use to outlaw the actual reading and writing of "their" file formats and I've just had a quick look round their website and found nothing.
It's almost certainly illegal to reverse engineer one of their applications to deduce the file format but, if you can manage without doing that, it should be perfectly legal whatever they say.
Who knows? Maybe the law of supply and demand will triumph once again and, given over-supply of Linux people with implicit shortfall of Windows newbies, demand for Linux will increase!
Not being a US citizen, I can sit back and enjoy the spectacle without having to take it too seriously [yet].
...
It seems to me that, if you have a law which makes copying illegal then using technology to prevent copying implies that the law isn't enough. You don't think that people will obey the law so you devise some technical mechanism to prevent them doing what they're not allowed to do.
The DMCA adds a whole new dimension. Now you have a law designed to protect authors from their own incompetence. Hey! we're not really good at making anti-copy devices and some people will make copies in spite of them. Please change the law to make it illegal to try.
Presumably the next step will be to produce a technical device to catch the new breed of lawbreakers, then
Am I the only one to detect the beginning of a vicious circle here?
You seem to be the perfect example of the subject line.
You either didn't read the thread or you're yet another example of the "head in the sand" approach to learning about the world around you.
I agree entirely (almost) with what you say.
Yes I do use Windows, partly for the fact that it mostly "works" and partly because that's what most folks "out here in reality" use.
Windows does not work flawlessly. I have long since lost count of the number of blue screens and "illegal operations" I've had but it does work well enough for me to use it.
I'm a 30 year computer nerd so I CAN cope with the complexities of setting up Linux, et al but, if I just want to write a letter, why struggle?
Windows has succeeded DESPITE its faults because it's useable. Linux has failed to succeed DESPITE its strengths because, for normal people, it's not useable.
Clearly it's better for it to work, look good and behave well enough for those without a degree in computer science to use.
With few exceptions, all software represents a compromise. If something looks good and is easy to use, its faults will often be tolerated (and they can always be fixed). If it doesn't look good or it isn't easy to use it may not live long enough to get fixed.
The attitude of free software nerds towards useability is often the defining limitation of the spread of free software.
The fact that it's free should not mean that you should have to be a nerd to use it. Good useability is probably more important than correct functionality.
The major advantage of open source rather than proprietary is that, because the source is open to all, it can be criticized and improved by all rather than being let loose in a "good enough" state.
The "best" route for producing reliable, feature rich but unbloated software is to have one man (or a small group) produce it to a clear, well-designed, specification, have it thoroughly tested and have it marketed inline with its design.
The best model for doing that is probably the proprietary one but, in the absence of an altruistic corporation able to act as "benign dictator", open source is as good as it gets.
Virus distribution is illegal in UK Law under the provisions of the Computer Misuse Act 1990
Does anyone still take the US Patent Office seriously?
Surely they are the modern equivalent of the old Roman circuses - light entertainment to take the citizens' minds off the harsh realities of daily life.
If I, sitting in a darkened room with no internet access, design and implement a software solution to a real-world problem I can make money from it because copyright in the program belongs to me. No effort involved, copyright automatically belongs to me.
If patents are available as "protection" then wealthy corporations and individuals will take advantage of them, most of us won't.
Pretty soon I won't be able to sit in my darkened room anymore because I will have to conduct exhaustive searches on my ideas just in case somebody, somewhere, has a patent on one of its components.
Is this really the best environment in which to nurture creativity, innovation, self-reliance, etc? Or is it merely the best environment to enable wealthy corporations to stifle competition and get richer?
1) Your ability to re-use code you've developed.
2) Your customer's rights to the resultant code.
3) GPL.
Taking (1) first, you clearly want to be able to re-use your code (and you're going to one way or another, even if that means physically writing it again) - if you don't actually own the code because of contractual obligation, you should insist on at least your own ability to re-use it. Are you really going to re-invent the wheel for each new contract?
2) If the contract involves providing the source to the customer, they will need the ability to maintain it and copy it for their own purposes and may not want to put too much effort into complying with the terms of an agreement (GPL) that's not really anything to do with them.
3) GPL - is that the answer to (1) and (2)? If not as seems likely, the code may well be beneficial to the open source community but GPLing it may actually get in your way.