in modern office software that make creating 'Lovely Documents'
You're kidding, right? Compare the appearance of documents created with LaTeX to Word documents. LaTeX wins.
Most academic papers (al least in math and CS) is still done using LaTeX. It let's the author concentrate on the content and let's the computer concentrate on beatiful output.
First of all DeCSS does not copy anything - it simply descrypts the data. Unless you want to take the position that anytime you read data from a DVD you actually copy it...
Anyway, what kind of trade secret is it, if everybody knows it?
We just had a story on how to make money as a self-employed tech
support guy. This is an opportunity - you can make money helping people getting their computers running. Rather than paying M$ $30/phone call - let them pay you.
If I create an original work, and I offer to sell it to you on the condition that you don't make copies for other people, you have the choice to buy it and not make copies, or to not buy it at all.
That's correct. But currently the condition is that I don't make a copy of your work for 150 years. I think that's excessive.
Not only that, you can control what kind of creative work I can do, because you can say that I derived mine from yours.
If the copyright term was 14 years, I'd be much happier. I think 150 years is unfair, especially since your own work is derived from other creative works that came before hand.
Cringley's idea is as dumb as suggesting Merril Lynch can buy one copy of Microsoft(tm) Windows XP(r) and install it on 9000 PCs, because they're all property of 1 corporation.
It's not as dumb as you think. Merril Lynch can buy one copy of Red Hat and install it on 9000 PCs and that's quite legal.
The problem is that to preserve old business models people are trying to introduce various measures (technical and legal) to make digital files act like physical goods.
If someone can come up with a business model that takes advantage of the ease with which digital data are copied he/she will be the next Bill G.
Which leaves us "renting" the CD through the mail. Ever wonder why you never see CD rental places in the US? Why there's not a "nettunz" to go with "netflix?" It's because they're illegal. According to USC Title 17, Section 109, "Limitations on exclusive rights: Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord":
That's true. However, they happen to get a lot blues as well, including quite a bit of new stuff by the lesser known artists (for example Debbie Davies - whose a blues guitar player in the BB King/Clapton class).
I'm not really interested in the current "big" names. But if needed I do buy CDs, or borrow from my friends (for example I heard Nora Jones before she got all those grammies - but I didn't like it enough to buy the CD).
How many people play violent video games and imagine that the people they are shooting are real?
I would guess very few, mentally disturbed individuals. There were people who read the Bible and then go on a killing rampage - should we stop people from reading the Bible?
Or use the simulated violence to release agression?
As opposed to using actual violence? Is this bad?
Why not blame CNN - after all they show pictures of real death and mayhem.
Streaming gives you the worst of both worlds - the bandwidth wastage of P2P, with the DRMness of pay-per-view. Maybe I'm a Luddite around here, but when it comes to streaming, I Just Don't Get it.
I agree with you. On internet streaming is stupid. Internet is not radio...
To save on bandwith MP3.com should just index their MP3 files and distribute them using a Napster style client. Then the use of bandwidth is distributed among all the users.
Would they ever do that? I'm not holding my breath:)
If I write a song and don't want anyone to hear it, that should be my right.
That is your right. Do not publish it.
So the solution is central storage. Streaming audio is very do-able over broadband today.
No it's not. Distributed storage is much more resiliant to failures. Plus you'd have to put control over all the songs at some central authority. I want to control the music I own.
As others have pointed out. Storage is cheap bandwith is expensive...
Kind of funny then how CD sales have been declining in recent years. Are you just plain naive or are you pushing an agenda here?
Maybe sales are declining because less music is promoted? Look at the size and variety of radio playlists, or the crap on MTV (do they ever play music anymore?).
These days I find out about new music from friends or maybe news groups. And I get all the old jazz I want from Emusic.com (and Nora Jones is not jazz).
The few CDs I tried to buy (to replace some old vinyl records) are out of print.
Never mind that many people (like my wife and my kids) would like to buy singles - not whole CDs - and create their own mixes.
But I really have no problem with people being sued for sharing commercialy available copyrighted works.
So if I buy a DVD and then lend it to a friend, I should go to jail? After all I shared commercially available commercial work. What if I lend it to 10 friends? What if I have a party to view the DVD?
I'm on the vendor side of the fence at the moment too. Using open source libraries/tools plus your internally developed tools a vendor is in a good position to get things done well, even if it is a custom job.
That's the theory at least. You have to watch for internal guys (like I used to be:)) who will rip a vendor solution to shreds because it doesn't do exactly what's needed. This can be counter-productive in the long run..:)
And if you need it right now, hiring developers isn't an option. But if you have a little time, a good plan, and talented people, it can work. Shoot, it better, because that's how I make my living;-)
But if you can get a talented group together you should do better as a vendor, where the developers are the "profit center" rather than an expense.
I've spent time working on both sides of the fence...
-1 Sarcasm. Geez, what is with all the venom on this site.
Sorry for the sarcasm. But I've seen too many systems that were built by one or two guys just to solve the present problem and wound up being a nightmare to support in the following years.
The main problem with internal development is that it is a cost center. Another words, you don't make any money developing software internally, it just costs money. At best it can save you some money.
You may wind up in a situation where, you can spend $150K on a package now and make $10M using it in the next 6 months. Or pay some developer $50K for six months and start making money then.
I've wondered for a while what the point was. For the price of some of these packages, you can hire 2 developers (or more!) for a year and get them to code an application that does EXACTLY what you want
That sounds like a business plan. If it's so easy to do, why not hire two developers yourself, build the software and then sell it at half price of the competition to ten companies.
Most introductory CS classes using Java use a small, simple class written by the instructor for this purpose.
Well, I was doing this about 5 years ago, so fewer such classes were available. I supposed I could have written one, but the decision to try and teach my son Java was not a planned one. I just started playing one evening.
In any case, it's hard to keep a kid's interest in programming, when they can play really fancy games, and all you can show them to start with is "Hello world".
Mind you, my son learned to code on his own using a game/programming environment called Megazeux. Today he's into writing Flash games.
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You're kidding, right? Compare the appearance of documents created with LaTeX to Word documents. LaTeX wins.
Most academic papers (al least in math and CS) is still done using LaTeX. It let's the author concentrate on the content and let's the computer concentrate on beatiful output.
Anyway, what kind of trade secret is it, if everybody knows it?
My neighbor and I both own acoustic guitars. :)
That's correct. But currently the condition is that I don't make a copy of your work for 150 years. I think that's excessive.
Not only that, you can control what kind of creative work I can do, because you can say that I derived mine from yours.
If the copyright term was 14 years, I'd be much happier. I think 150 years is unfair, especially since your own work is derived from other creative works that came before hand.
It's not as dumb as you think. Merril Lynch can buy one copy of Red Hat and install it on 9000 PCs and that's quite legal.
The problem is that to preserve old business models people are trying to introduce various measures (technical and legal) to make digital files act like physical goods.
If someone can come up with a business model that takes advantage of the ease with which digital data are copied he/she will be the next Bill G.
But my library lends CDs...
Well, at least they doing something, instead of sitting around doing nothing... :)
That's true. However, they happen to get a lot blues as well, including quite a bit of new stuff by the lesser known artists (for example Debbie Davies - whose a blues guitar player in the BB King/Clapton class).
I'm not really interested in the current "big" names. But if needed I do buy CDs, or borrow from my friends (for example I heard Nora Jones before she got all those grammies - but I didn't like it enough to buy the CD).
I guess that's why I like Emusic. Best Buy sucks!
Music by Duke Elligton, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Wes Montgomery is "real music" (TM). Not like the stuff they play on MTV.
OK.. So I'm a jazz snob... :)
Patents? Patents last for 20 years. You must be talking about copyrights...
It's good if they read it on their own and realize it's hogwash. But if you are a psycho-killer then a dog can tell you to kill people too.
I was trying to point out that blaming games is the same a blaming the bible. That is not: the real reason.
I would guess very few, mentally disturbed individuals. There were people who read the Bible and then go on a killing rampage - should we stop people from reading the Bible?
Or use the simulated violence to release agression?
As opposed to using actual violence? Is this bad?
Why not blame CNN - after all they show pictures of real death and mayhem.
With a proper client you could see adds and links to the artists..
I agree with you. On internet streaming is stupid. Internet is not radio...
Would they ever do that? I'm not holding my breath :)
That is your right. Do not publish it.
So the solution is central storage. Streaming audio is very do-able over broadband today.
No it's not. Distributed storage is much more resiliant to failures. Plus you'd have to put control over all the songs at some central authority. I want to control the music I own.
As others have pointed out. Storage is cheap bandwith is expensive...
Maybe sales are declining because less music is promoted? Look at the size and variety of radio playlists, or the crap on MTV (do they ever play music anymore?).
These days I find out about new music from friends or maybe news groups. And I get all the old jazz I want from Emusic.com (and Nora Jones is not jazz).
The few CDs I tried to buy (to replace some old vinyl records) are out of print.
Never mind that many people (like my wife and my kids) would like to buy singles - not whole CDs - and create their own mixes.
So if I buy a DVD and then lend it to a friend, I should go to jail? After all I shared commercially available commercial work. What if I lend it to 10 friends? What if I have a party to view the DVD?
That's the theory at least. You have to watch for internal guys (like I used to be :)) who will rip a vendor solution to shreds because it doesn't do exactly what's needed. This can be counter-productive in the long run.. :)
But if you can get a talented group together you should do better as a vendor, where the developers are the "profit center" rather than an expense.
I've spent time working on both sides of the fence...
Sorry for the sarcasm. But I've seen too many systems that were built by one or two guys just to solve the present problem and wound up being a nightmare to support in the following years.
The main problem with internal development is that it is a cost center. Another words, you don't make any money developing software internally, it just costs money. At best it can save you some money.
You may wind up in a situation where, you can spend $150K on a package now and make $10M using it in the next 6 months. Or pay some developer $50K for six months and start making money then.
Which one would you pick?
That sounds like a business plan. If it's so easy to do, why not hire two developers yourself, build the software and then sell it at half price of the competition to ten companies.
Well, I was doing this about 5 years ago, so fewer such classes were available. I supposed I could have written one, but the decision to try and teach my son Java was not a planned one. I just started playing one evening.
In any case, it's hard to keep a kid's interest in programming, when they can play really fancy games, and all you can show them to start with is "Hello world".
Mind you, my son learned to code on his own using a game/programming environment called Megazeux. Today he's into writing Flash games.