Software and hardware companies want to have it both ways. They want an enforceable contract that users agree to, but they also want to present their wares in a friendly way that makes people think they are buying something normally.
I agree with you fully. Burying what you can and can't do in a EULA, one that you can't read until you take the software home and start installing it, is not what I have in mind. If they wanted to impose such conditions on the software's use, it would behoove them to have on the packaging in big red letters: "BY PURCAHSING THIS SOFTWARE YOU AGREE NOT TO DO X"
But think about it, what you are saying is that you can sell me a copyrighted work that I am forbidden to read myself
Sure. I was thinking of this as an example when I wrote my last post. I could write a book, and say to you, "Here's my book, it's $5, but if you buy it you can't read chapters 3, 7, or 9." And I'd have no problem with that. If you don't want to pay money for a book whose full contents I say you can't read, then fine - don't buy it. But don't buy it, knowing what terms I've laid out, and then whine later on down the road.
As I stated before, I am 100% for allowing folks to make transactions that they mutually agree upon. If you want to decompile software, buy software that doesn't contain such provisions against decompilation. What's wrong with that?
What ethical problems? Decompiling is perfectly moral and ethical.... If I legally own a copyrighted work I am allowed to read it, period and end of story. Corporate licences excepted, software is SOLD, not licensed despite the scary words on the box and the dread click through EULA.
I disagree here. I am a strong believer that people should be able to trade goods/services for prices/conditions they mutually agree upon. If I write software and say I will sell it to you for $x on condition that you do Y (perhaps Y is not decompiling the source), and you agree to these terms, I think it is morally repugnant of you to break our agreement and decompile. You had the choice to not purchase my product, after all.
Back in 2000, I started a feature on my personal blog where I tried to take a photo everyday. At the time, it was mostly done to force myself to learn more about photography -- including basics like framing, lighting, etc. It was also a great way to record memories of that year as they happened. I kept it up on a near-daily basis for about nine months total and in that time I captured a lot of changes. I switched jobs, moved from one major city to another 500 miles away, I got married, and I met dozens of new people at work, parties, and conferences. The act of taking a camera everywhere and recording memories as they happened gave me a rich archive of that year, and also improved my photography skills in the process.
A few weeks ago I realized how quickly everything has been changing since I've turned 30, and how much I miss doing daily photos. I came up with the idea of doing it over ten years for a couple reasons. Although it sounds like a lot of work, it's only about 3650 images if I posted every single day, and I've taken more than that many shots in just the last year alone. During the upcoming ten years, from the time I turn 31 until I turn 41, I expect I'll be witnessing a great deal of major changes and would love to have a way to remember them.
I've been using Lookout (free). I've downloaded the Google Desktop and it's indexing (it is taking a while, Lookout just blazes through when indexing... guess Google is indexing the entire HD, though). While Lookout is great, there are two issues that I don't like about it:
It doesn't show the first few lines of an email, I have to open each one to see if that's the one I'm interested in. I'm hoping Google shows a small preview.
You can't move emails around with Lookout. From the search interface it would be nice to be able to move/delete emails. I'm 99.9% certain Google won't allow for this either, though.
I'd agree with you 100% if it wasn't for the fact that employees GET PAID A SALARY BY THE COMPANY while outside investors do not. Furthermore, I have no issues with a company giving shares to its employees, but they should have to count such options as an expense against the bottom line. That's all.
What makes the nerds rich, usually, is stock options. Now there are moves afoot to make it harder for companies to grant options.... Options are a good idea because (a) they're fair, and (b) they work.
The real problem with stock options is not that CEOs are (yes, still today) making millions of dollars per year from options, but options are fundamentally flawed as an accounting measure. When granting an option, the company is increasing the number of shares their company offers, thereby decreasing the value per share from those who already own the company's stock. Furthermore, when creating options the companies do not have to claim them as an expense, as they do, say, employee salaries. So companies can hire employees for less with the promise of options, and reduce their expenses (since salaries are lower and options don't count against expenses), thereby (artificially) raising their bottom line. Who gets screwed in this are the public who purchased the shares at retail price.
Stock options are fine, but only if they are treated as an expense against the company's bottom line.
Not everyone has a cell phone, laptop, a PSP, or a GameBoy. Besides, try to quantify this need. Electricy is important for a plethora of vital things: heating, cooling, refridgeration, safe lighting, etc. But being able to play a networked GameBoy game in the park? If you want that, fine, pay for some commercial service, but why should I have to pony up any of my money?
When things are best provided as a localized monopoly, I would rather the government (yes, with it's inherent inefficiencies, which are magnitudes less than rabid conservatives would have you believe) have that monopoly, than a for-profit company that will eventually abuse that monopoly.
While I agree that in a service that is "best provided as a localized monopoly" that, yes, gov't is much better than privitization. But must there be a monopoly? Why can't there be multiple wireless service providers, competing with one another?
Also, whenever you have a gov't-sponsored program, like a monopolized WISP, you have to remember that (in theory) everyone's paying for it. So it should be a service that virtually everyone utilizes/benefits from. I agree that electricity, water, sewer, etc., fall under this category, but wireless Internet access? This benefits only those with a means/interest to go online, and with the appropriate hardware. Personally, I'd rather pay for wireless service myself (or not, if I decide it's not worth it), than not have the decision and be forcibly taxed for this service.
My Freshman year in high school (1993) I bought an old computer from my relatives, a Compaq portable computer - it looked like this, but was technologically superior as the Compaq had two 5.25" floppy drives. (And what a steal I got the computer for - my relatives dropped over $3,000 dollars in 1983 for that beast, and I paid them a mere $20 ten years later.)
Anyway, I had fun with that cement block of a computer for a couple of months, wrote some games with the BASIC interpretter that came with whatever version of DOS, but eventually my eyes started bugging out from staring at the 4.5" black and green monochrome monitor, so I had to give it up. Fortunately my parents were, by that time, just a few short months away from buying a Packard Bell 486 DX/2! Oh joy.
"I represent the American Museum of the Moving Image, and I wanted to write to you to ask you for your help in melting our Web server, bringing our entire site to a halt. I think this is something your audience would find particular interest in doing."
I do backend Web development primarily, but for the few times I have to - *shudder* - do front-end development, I find FireFox's WebDeveloper Extension invaluable.
The Ringworld is like a small slice of a Dyson Sphere, a massive ring with radius slightly larger than 1 AU, spun to simulate gravity on the inside with thousand mile-high side walls to hold atmosphere.
I'm not a big science fiction reader, but reading the above reminded me of Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama.
It's been a long time for me to, but recently I got a new computer and when installing Win2k3 I needed to have a floppy to load the drivers for the SATA hard drive in the box. I was unable to find a way to have the boot up process read from a CD. (I tried, seeing as the box I bought, I bought without a floppy, figuring I'd have no need for it... good thing I had decided to save the old computer's floppy before scrapping it!)
Let's just say Mark is not afraid to make trades. Each offseason the Mavs make some pretty big moves, this time dealing Antoine and Antwane, as well as losing Steve Nash. Last year was getting Antoine and Antwane, but giving up Van Exel. The year before it was getting Van Exel. And on and on and on. While he has kept together a core of players - Nash (well, not anymore), Finley, and Dirk - he has no qualms about trying new pieces for just a single season before dealing them off to somewhere else. Is this smart basketball management? I dunno, I doubt it, but I think it's good for generating interest and excitement from the fans, so it's probably good business. And the more you learn about Mark Cuban the more you learn this guy is good at business.
I think the Google Pigeons need to work a bit on their translation skills:
We are unaware of if these photographs are true or false. The machine seems to us well punt, and the history a rocambolesque hair. An airport is today more than ever a protected archi place where nobody can move without monitoring. Being given that one easily finds them on Internet, we deliver them to you.
Just like how no company has written programs that work exclusivly on 2k/xp/2k3 and not 95/98/me.
But the install base for 2k/xp/2k3 is high. When Longhorn roles out, only folks with bleeding edge computers will have it. Had MS not made these Longhorn features available in xp/2k3/2k, then no sane software company would develop for them until Longhorn had achieved sufficient market saturation.
I'll say it again: Microsoft's decision was strictly a business decision, no more, no less. It's good news for those of us who are looking forward to Longhorn, since we'll be able to take advantage of some of the cool features earlier, and there's now a plausible chance that companies will start utilizing these technologies on new software projects in the foreseeable future.
If most of the updates will be available for current versions of Windows, what is the incentive to upgrade?
Think about it: if Longhorn is a major break from Win2k3/WinXP, and products written for Longhorn (using Avalon, XAML, Indigo features, taking advantage of WinFS, etc.) won't run on these older technologies, what software company in its right mind would write code using said technologies? NONE.
However, if software companies could write code that utilizes these new features, and these new features would also work on older, still in-use OSes, then said technologies become an option for a software company.
This move makes sense: without it, Longhorn would have a next to impossible time gaining market traction, IMO.
See Raymond Chen's blog. He has some entries that shed light on why some decisions were made vs. others in Windows - the reason being internationalization of the software.
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I agree with you fully. Burying what you can and can't do in a EULA, one that you can't read until you take the software home and start installing it, is not what I have in mind. If they wanted to impose such conditions on the software's use, it would behoove them to have on the packaging in big red letters: "BY PURCAHSING THIS SOFTWARE YOU AGREE NOT TO DO X"
Sure. I was thinking of this as an example when I wrote my last post. I could write a book, and say to you, "Here's my book, it's $5, but if you buy it you can't read chapters 3, 7, or 9." And I'd have no problem with that. If you don't want to pay money for a book whose full contents I say you can't read, then fine - don't buy it. But don't buy it, knowing what terms I've laid out, and then whine later on down the road.
As I stated before, I am 100% for allowing folks to make transactions that they mutually agree upon. If you want to decompile software, buy software that doesn't contain such provisions against decompilation. What's wrong with that?
I disagree here. I am a strong believer that people should be able to trade goods/services for prices/conditions they mutually agree upon. If I write software and say I will sell it to you for $x on condition that you do Y (perhaps Y is not decompiling the source), and you agree to these terms, I think it is morally repugnant of you to break our agreement and decompile. You had the choice to not purchase my product, after all.
That's probably for the best, as they are not equipped to handle childbirth, but that's gonna be one mighty lonely metal tube.
I'd agree with you 100% if it wasn't for the fact that employees GET PAID A SALARY BY THE COMPANY while outside investors do not. Furthermore, I have no issues with a company giving shares to its employees, but they should have to count such options as an expense against the bottom line. That's all.
The real problem with stock options is not that CEOs are (yes, still today) making millions of dollars per year from options, but options are fundamentally flawed as an accounting measure. When granting an option, the company is increasing the number of shares their company offers, thereby decreasing the value per share from those who already own the company's stock. Furthermore, when creating options the companies do not have to claim them as an expense, as they do, say, employee salaries. So companies can hire employees for less with the promise of options, and reduce their expenses (since salaries are lower and options don't count against expenses), thereby (artificially) raising their bottom line. Who gets screwed in this are the public who purchased the shares at retail price.
Stock options are fine, but only if they are treated as an expense against the company's bottom line.
More commentary...
Not everyone has a cell phone, laptop, a PSP, or a GameBoy. Besides, try to quantify this need. Electricy is important for a plethora of vital things: heating, cooling, refridgeration, safe lighting, etc. But being able to play a networked GameBoy game in the park? If you want that, fine, pay for some commercial service, but why should I have to pony up any of my money?
While I agree that in a service that is "best provided as a localized monopoly" that, yes, gov't is much better than privitization. But must there be a monopoly? Why can't there be multiple wireless service providers, competing with one another?
Also, whenever you have a gov't-sponsored program, like a monopolized WISP, you have to remember that (in theory) everyone's paying for it. So it should be a service that virtually everyone utilizes/benefits from. I agree that electricity, water, sewer, etc., fall under this category, but wireless Internet access? This benefits only those with a means/interest to go online, and with the appropriate hardware. Personally, I'd rather pay for wireless service myself (or not, if I decide it's not worth it), than not have the decision and be forcibly taxed for this service.
Anyway, I had fun with that cement block of a computer for a couple of months, wrote some games with the BASIC interpretter that came with whatever version of DOS, but eventually my eyes started bugging out from staring at the 4.5" black and green monochrome monitor, so I had to give it up. Fortunately my parents were, by that time, just a few short months away from buying a Packard Bell 486 DX/2! Oh joy.
"I represent the American Museum of the Moving Image, and I wanted to write to you to ask you for your help in melting our Web server, bringing our entire site to a halt. I think this is something your audience would find particular interest in doing."
I do backend Web development primarily, but for the few times I have to - *shudder* - do front-end development, I find FireFox's WebDeveloper Extension invaluable.
I'm not a big science fiction reader, but reading the above reminded me of Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama.
It's been a long time for me to, but recently I got a new computer and when installing Win2k3 I needed to have a floppy to load the drivers for the SATA hard drive in the box. I was unable to find a way to have the boot up process read from a CD. (I tried, seeing as the box I bought, I bought without a floppy, figuring I'd have no need for it... good thing I had decided to save the old computer's floppy before scrapping it!)
Mark mentions "key chain drives," so maybe he's referring to RAM drives like USB drives, and not your "tyipcal" platter-based hard drive?
Let's just say Mark is not afraid to make trades. Each offseason the Mavs make some pretty big moves, this time dealing Antoine and Antwane, as well as losing Steve Nash. Last year was getting Antoine and Antwane, but giving up Van Exel. The year before it was getting Van Exel. And on and on and on. While he has kept together a core of players - Nash (well, not anymore), Finley, and Dirk - he has no qualms about trying new pieces for just a single season before dealing them off to somewhere else. Is this smart basketball management? I dunno, I doubt it, but I think it's good for generating interest and excitement from the fans, so it's probably good business. And the more you learn about Mark Cuban the more you learn this guy is good at business.
You realize you'll have thousands of /.'ers clicking now, to finally see what a vagina looks like.
But the install base for 2k/xp/2k3 is high. When Longhorn roles out, only folks with bleeding edge computers will have it. Had MS not made these Longhorn features available in xp/2k3/2k, then no sane software company would develop for them until Longhorn had achieved sufficient market saturation.
I'll say it again: Microsoft's decision was strictly a business decision, no more, no less. It's good news for those of us who are looking forward to Longhorn, since we'll be able to take advantage of some of the cool features earlier, and there's now a plausible chance that companies will start utilizing these technologies on new software projects in the foreseeable future.
Think about it: if Longhorn is a major break from Win2k3/WinXP, and products written for Longhorn (using Avalon, XAML, Indigo features, taking advantage of WinFS, etc.) won't run on these older technologies, what software company in its right mind would write code using said technologies? NONE.
However, if software companies could write code that utilizes these new features, and these new features would also work on older, still in-use OSes, then said technologies become an option for a software company.
This move makes sense: without it, Longhorn would have a next to impossible time gaining market traction, IMO.
See Raymond Chen's blog. He has some entries that shed light on why some decisions were made vs. others in Windows - the reason being internationalization of the software.