No one can argue that his OS's and Apps are less than perfect, but he made his empire by being a shrewd business man, not a good programmer/visionary.
That's exactly what's wrong with him - he benefited personally from hindering others (forcing them to use his crappy software). If you think that morality is all about helping other people, even at your own personal expense, then he's done exactly the opposite.
If you were given the opportunity to have his life, would you take it?
A normal person gets countless opportunities to become more successful by inconviniencing others. Since most of us don't steal and loot our way to success, something clearly prevents it. That something is what Bill (along with the great majority of other corporate leaders) lacks - he's not bound by moral obligations.
I guess what I'm driving at is that success is not an absolute term. If it was, a thief or a murderer could be called successful just because they got away with it. Ususally, you have to do something FOR your fellow man to get that man's (woman's) respect.
Linus comes to mind here - he's not a millioner, but he's loved by millions of people. Which do you think feels better (I have no idea, but I'm prepared to guess), and based on that, who is then more successful?
The acceptance of mysticism (Eastern, Western, or any other kind) IS in contradiction with science. When I was unfortunate enough to suffer through kidney desease several years ago, the medical techniques that saved my life were not based on idle speculation about the cosmos, they were a result of years of experimentation and research. While these require a lot more imagination and creativity than your average prayer/chant/initiation ritual, they do have the distict advantage of seeking out the truth about the physical world, and therefore working. I think that anyone who rejects the principles that underlie scientific research and then turns around and accepts its benefits is just a tad hypocrytical.
Besides solving trivial human problems like failing kidneys and viral infections, science is the only way to answer the really large questions: how big is the universe, what part do we play in it, how did we start out, and where are we going. Most of these questions were satisfactorily answered only in this century with some (are we alone, for example?) waiting to be answered as we speak. When non-scientific systems try to tackle these problems, they almost invariably fall into the trap of placing us at the center. With the risk of making this post even longer than it already is, let me explain why I think that's wrong.
It is perfectly natural for an apple worm to think that the apple contains the whole world, but it's not true. It is just as natural for uninformed people to think that the Earth, or the humanity living on it, is all there is, but that's not true either. There're infinite worlds in this universe and ours is pretty inconsequential compared to others. Although the previous statement was proven by years of hard work by many smart people, it is self apparent as well. Just think of what you thought about the world and your place in it when you were a kid. As most people grow, their horizons widen, and most of them, at least, realize that the world is bigger and more diverse than they had previously imagined. Most religions place people and their particular surrondings at the center of the universe, revealing the narrow horizons of those who created such systems.
The reason science and religion cannot be complimentary is that while covering the same ground, one seeks the truth (and then checkes it again and again against the evidence) while the other just hypothesizes about things. Unless you think that "truth" is an empty word, you have to come to the conclusion that one pretty much excludes the other's possibility.
There seems to be a gleeful joy in subverting the system somehow....
I think they're subverting the system quite well by themselves. Before blaming others they should really examine the way this program runs - it's certainly not governed by anything WE would call intelligence.
Personal experience: After downloading my first packet (January 7, and therefore computed thousands of times before), I've gone 97.806% through it before it abruptly stopped and started downloading a second one - now from January 8th. Guess what, the first packet was never registered as completed! Not only can't they send out correct data, but the client can't even properly process the data it gets! I realize that my case may not necessarily be typical, but it makes you wonder - what other bugs are out there?
Saying they couldn't predict how many people would be interested in this is silly considering the coolness of the original idea and the fact that most people interested in science/astronomy/alien intelligence actually have computers and are on the Net! Thinking that hundreds of thousands of people might show up would not have been a wild guess, folks!
I'm still hoping this is a short term organizational problem they're having, otherwise I might just consider switching to some of the other worthwhile distributed projects out there.
Unfortunately, many scientists choose to dogmatically follow Science as if it were a religion
Dogma is something people (usually ignorant people) blindly accept. It is presented without proof and it usually doesn't allow for debate. In short, it is what we call religion. In fact, a religion without dogma could scaresly be called a religion since it would lack structure. The whole purpose of science, on the other hand, is to prove facts. The only way you can do that is through free inquiry. To accuse science of dogmatism is to totally miss the point of why science exists.
And so the fascination with non-scientific viewpoints will only increase...
In other words, we're going back to the dark ages? Can't argue with you there, my friend. The public schools of this country (of which you so obviously are a graduate) bring the ignorance of the past closer to us with every decade. In fact, I'll remember not to use big words in my further remarks for fear they have stopped teaching them already.
Sadly, the West has yet to learn much about wisdom.
Sadly, people who think "falsity" is a word find their way to Slashdot.
If you think that Eastern mysticism is the real Truth, you should live by those principles - next time you get sick, invite an Eastern mystic to your house instead of a Western doctor. With any luck you will bring your life expectancy to that of dogma free Tibet (around 55 years if I'm not mistaken). You see, the Truth sounds great in badly written Hollywood movies, but in practice, it is no more than the set of beliefs of a few million oppressed peasants in a dirt poor, far away corner of the Earth. Indoor plumbing would impress these people a lot more than Eastern (or Western) philosophy could ever hope to, and I don't blame them. It's practical, convenient, and unlike the Truth, it works.
Science...can never, by definition, prove anything about the ultimate nature of reality
The main reason I replied to this comment (and god knows, I don't usually respond to off-topic posts) is the poster's utter arrogance of rejecting science while continuing to use it's fruits. He even wrote that stuff on a computer! While absurd, Luddism was at least consistent in it's methods - they really destroyed technology. I think MuppetBoy (a great name for an Eastern philosopher, by the way) should do us all a favor and never use his computer again.
Re:Corel support Open Source, no really they do !
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As usual the Linux fanatics I mentioned in the above post strike quickly, if it was MS you wouldn't be happy you would bitch even more because they were trying to kill of MS Office competition, you have done nothing but prove my point even further
If you want to critique Linux, please do - there's nothing healthier than intelligent critisism. But please make your arguments logically consistent (hint: comparing the largest company in the world to Corel is not really logical).
As other people have already pointed out, bundling is not evil in itself. It only becomes evil (as pretty much anything does), when it's done from a monopolistic position.
When Micro$oft bundles IE, everyone is affected. When a company like Corel bundles WP, it just provides one more choice for the consumer - you can always choose another distribution if you don't like it.
If you fail to see this distinction, you're really missing the point.
Re:Corel support Open Source, no really they do !
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They are actually considering bundling, isn't that one of the reasons we are pissed at MS, or is it OK for a Linux distro to do it ?
The reason we're mad at M$ bundling is that it RESTRICTS CHOICE. You literally cannot have a Windows PC without M$ Internet Explorer now, even if you do prefer Netscape. Corel's distribution will not restrict the Linux users' choice in any way - if you don't like WordPerfect, get something that doesn't bundle it (i.e. every other Linux distribution known to man). If you do like WordPerfect, however - great! Then Corel would probably be the most convenient distro for you. This ADDS to users' choices, not subtracts from them.
AOL isn't just a crappy service provider any more. They own a very hefty chunk of the world's software Intellectual Property now, including some very neat companies they picked up with their acquisition of Netscape. Give them some credit. They're a different company now, or are at least trying to be.
Since when does owning things make you good? I always thought it was all about innovation and technical excellence, but you've obviously found other criteria for judging technology companies. I guess buying things up and screwing them over does make you cool aftetr all.
These are some very screwed priorities, my friend.
Did you ever read the Winamp credits? Right now they are full of stunt coordinators, llama wranglers, and assistants to Fifi. There's even someone credited as a "Big Biz Exploiter" - now that will cease to be a joke.
Needless to say, the next WinAmp will have zero personality, just like AOL itself. And that's if we're lucky. If we're not, it will have ads and require a lengthy login during which you disclose your yearly income and toaster preferences.
Frankly, your argument doesn't make sense. If you want to "take control of your computer", you HAVE to learn something about it. On the other hand if you're scared of a little "exploring, poking, and prodding", you should be thankful to graphical user environments, not opposed to them.
It's impossible to criticize KDE for being too difficult and too user friendly at the same time - in fact it's not. My 4 weeks experience with it is that it's extremely easy to use and to configure.
If you want to take real control - don't install a GUI environment. If you want to take control without "poking and exploring", you're clearly asking too much of life.
What about making a stat-page counting the different clients, OS, and top domains?
That kind of stuff used to be on the "About" page, but it's been taken down for some reason. I say we bring it back!
Re:KDE-1.1.1 on Red Hat: The 5.x Packager Speaks!
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I just wanted to say that what you do means a lot to probably thousands of people. I recently installed KDE 1.1 on Red Hat 5.2, and the installation procedure was very easy and clear. One could only hope that it remains that way now that Red Hat will take over the job of packaging the RPMs.
Liebowitz has authored other studies and papers defending Microsoft's position. "Dismal Science Fictions: Network Effects, Microsoft and Antitrust Speculation," co-authored by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis and published last year by the Cato Institute, examined lock-in, antitrust, and the link between quality and software market share, refuting arguments that Microsoft's lock-in position allows it to engage in exclusionary or predatory business practices. The Cato paper was a preview of a book, tentatively titled "Technology, Innovation and Market Competition," due out this year.
Anyone who watches C-SPAN with any kind of regularity knows that the CATO Institute is an incredibly right wing organization. I once saw them actually defending global warming - the reasoning was that winter costs our economy more than the greenhouse effect.
The real reason behind all of this is that they're rabidly against any kind of government intervention in the economy, be it to stop companies polluting the air or monopolizing software.
If you start off with this kind of an ideological assumption, you can prove virtually anything - pigs can fly, global warming is good, and Microsoft is not a monopoly. The only thing you have to do to write these surveys is fit the facts to what you and your friends at the CATO Institute have been believing all along - capitalism is best left unchecked.
Even if you agree with their ideology (and I obviously don't), is this a way to do independent research?
No one would be able to "make it" in the monetary sense, just like Mozart wasn't able to "make it" in his time. That would instantly eliminate most of the crap, since money is the only reason such groups exist. It's the indie bands who will stay, admittedly poor, but artists throughout history have prided themselves on being poor. That's the price you pay for not having a boring, repetitive job. And for many people that price is worth paying.
My solution is something like the BBC. It's a government financed institution that has been making great movies and television for many years. IMO, we need an organization like that in the US.
The vast majority of movies don't do very well. Only a handful every year get enough notice to make the big bucks. But literally thousands of movies are released every year. Why? Is each one of these an attempt to get rich? Moviemaking is not a very lucrative business for most.
The reason most of them try is the same reason people play the lottery - they have a small chance to win big. This is not a good motivation to make art. This motivation wasn't available to artists through most of history, and art didn't seem to suffer for it.
If you honestly believe that 99% of the movies out today are conceived of, written, and filmed with the sole purpose of making the most money possible, you're just plain dumb. Perhaps the marketers for the studio that released the film think that, but the filmakers, actors, directors, and screenwriters actually LIKE what they do
I actually don't think so. How can you LIKE making another disaster movie? I mean, it's predictable and boring. In my opinion, for most people it's a job that they have to do rather than a way to express their thoughts.
The abolition of copyright laws would mean that no one would want to make movies or books or software any more.
You contradict yourself earler by saying that neither Mozart nor Beethoven were motivated by making money. And as anyone using Linux knows, software that can be copied freely can be better then software released under conventional licenses.
Your mistake is that you're confusing creative endeavors with boring ones. You DO have to pay people to work on an assembly line or in accounting offices because those lines of work just don't provide the kinds of mental stimulation that could make them fun. But as anyone who can play a guitar knows, making music IS fun. By paying millions for it you're just inviting people who would never have gone there in the first place (enter the Spice Girls, Nsync, etc.). By taking something that was fun (art), and turning it into a profession, you make Nsync possible, since they are a copy of a copy of a terrible boy band. Copying (just like working on an assembly line) isn't fun, so you have to conclude that the only reason such bands get formed is the possibility of making money from them.
As you rightly point out, movies are different, simply because it takes so much money to make them. My solution is something like the BBC, which has been making quality movies and television for decades with financing by the government. If I have a choice between them and what Hollywood produces, I'd choose a good British movie every time.
What you are taking is the revenues to the company that produces it. Don't forget that they have to recover costs, and profits, if they are to keep making movies in the future (they aren't in the business for fun). Stealing copies increases the costs to the company, and they will certainly pass that along to the consumer (THAT'S YOU!!!).
May be if we abolish the system you described, the only movies that WOULD get produced would be those made "for fun". Isn't that the best of all possible worlds? Imagine - no more movies about dinasaurs, earthquakes or Leonardo Dicaprio.
Real art doesn't require money - people do it simply because it's fun to do. Therefore, if we get commercialism (read copyright protection) out of entertainment, all that will remain is stuff created for fun.
If you extend that argument to music, we'd get rid of Michael Bolton, but we'd still have Nirvana and REM. No one in their right mind would spend the time and resources it takes to record an nSync (sp?) album if it didn't pay huge amounts of money. And yet I'm sure that when the Rolling Stones were writing their songs, it was a fun experience for them - they'd probably be doing it even if they didn't have to.
Through most of recorded history copyright didn't exist, so you couldn't really make money from entertainment. That is why there was no artistic equivalent of the Spice Girls during the Renaissance. Makes you think, doesn't it?
Every successful start up eventually does an Initial Public Offering of their stock. After that you can become part owner by buying shares. In theory, the company is governed by its stockholders, so if Red Hat ever becomes public, it's current management will lose its independence.
They will probably become more profit oriented, which isn't necessarily bad for Linux, since we'll always have other distributions to fall back on.
It's even worse than that. MS Word clipart (which no one I know has ever used in their lives) takes up 81 MB by itself.
Democrats have a healthy distrust of big business
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There's nothing wrong with competition, but it has to be regulated. Imagine a sports event without judges or rules.
Microsoft, by leveraging their Windows monopoly makes it impossible for companies like Netscape or Corel to compete. If every Windows system comes preloaded with IE, and there are no major differences between it and Netscape (M$ copied Netscape's entire look and functionality), Netscape is going to lose, even if it didn't deserve to.
That is the whole point about monopoly power - it discourages (not helps) competition. A superior product loses and an inferior product wins. Before trying Linux (yes, I am a newbie) I thought that computers were supposed to crash every few hours. Most people still think that way because 95% of all computers sold in stores are preloaded with Windows.
And by the way, your complaint about Excel illustrates, not undermines my point. Your wife's job requires her to use Excel not because it's a better product, but because MS has been successful at establishing MS Office as a standard, inventing proprietary file formats along the way to squish even a possibility of a competition.
As to Linux not being as user friendly as Windows - that is changing fast. Future versions of major Linux distributions will probably include KDE or GNOME, eliminating that excuse once and for all. The distro I use (Red Hat 5.2) is user friendly enough for me:)
Republicans = Big Business (Yes, that includes M$ too) Democrats = Real People
I think everybody forgets that it's the Democrats who wrote this country's anti-trust laws, and it's a Democratic Justice Department that is trying to enforce them right now. Imagine a Republican standing up to a big corporation. Now imagine them standing up to the biggest corporation the world has ever seen. This is clearly impossible.
Democrats have a healthy distrust of big business and that is what we need.
Although I've never heard about Asperger's Syndrome before I read an article in the New York Times about it, I do know what it is. Giving it a fancy name will not obscure the central issue at stake: some of us CANNOT form meaningful relationships with other people in spite of being completely normal in other respects. By normal I mean fully functional mentally. We're not slow, emotionally unstable, or in any way delusional. But something does get lost in our efforts to communicate. This could be inborn or it could well be a consequence of a slightly abnormal childhood - my mind is open on that. The interest in things technical and mathematical is completely natural - a machine will not laugh at you or think you're weird. The world of numbers and formulas is objective, rational, and requires a completely different set of skills than talking to people.
There is another escape - and that is finding people like ourselves to share this experience with. That is what the two guys in the article have found and that is what most of us have found at one point or another.
Although psychiatry isn't really a science, and the term Asperger's probably doesn't mean much except hot air, we do have some legitimate scientific questions to ask:
Why are most socially challenged people men? How does it really start? And is there a cure?
I'll leave you with this thought: society really needs us. Without the kind of dedication and technical expertise such people provide the general standard of living would be lower and the problems society faces would be larger. So deal with it!
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This response shows that you have very little idea of what it is to create money.
I always thought that creating money meant actually working for a living. How does owning lots of stock create money?
May be you know something that I don't?
No one can argue that his OS's and Apps are less than perfect, but he made his empire by being a shrewd business man, not a good programmer/visionary.
That's exactly what's wrong with him - he benefited personally from hindering others (forcing them to use his crappy software). If you think that morality is all about helping other people, even at your own personal expense, then he's done exactly the opposite.
If you were given the opportunity to have his life, would you take it?
A normal person gets countless opportunities to become more successful by inconviniencing others. Since most of us don't steal and loot our way to success, something clearly prevents it. That something is what Bill (along with the great majority of other corporate leaders) lacks - he's not bound by moral obligations.
I guess what I'm driving at is that success is not an absolute term. If it was, a thief or a murderer could be called successful just because they got away with it. Ususally, you have to do something FOR your fellow man to get that man's (woman's) respect.
Linus comes to mind here - he's not a millioner, but he's loved by millions of people. Which do you think feels better (I have no idea, but I'm prepared to guess), and based on that, who is then more successful?
The acceptance of mysticism (Eastern, Western, or any other kind) IS in contradiction with science. When I was unfortunate enough to suffer through kidney desease several years ago, the medical techniques that saved my life were not based on idle speculation about the cosmos, they were a result of years of experimentation and research. While these require a lot more imagination and creativity than your average prayer/chant/initiation ritual, they do have the distict advantage of seeking out the truth about the physical world, and therefore working. I think that anyone who rejects the principles that underlie scientific research and then turns around and accepts its benefits is just a tad hypocrytical.
Besides solving trivial human problems like failing kidneys and viral infections, science is the only way to answer the really large questions: how big is the universe, what part do we play in it, how did we start out, and where are we going. Most of these questions were satisfactorily answered only in this century with some (are we alone, for example?) waiting to be answered as we speak. When non-scientific systems try to tackle these problems, they almost invariably fall into the trap of placing us at the center. With the risk of making this post even longer than it already is, let me explain why I think that's wrong.
It is perfectly natural for an apple worm to think that the apple contains the whole world, but it's not true. It is just as natural for uninformed people to think that the Earth, or the humanity living on it, is all there is, but that's not true either. There're infinite worlds in this universe and ours is pretty inconsequential compared to others. Although the previous statement was proven by years of hard work by many smart people, it is self apparent as well. Just think of what you thought about the world and your place in it when you were a kid. As most people grow, their horizons widen, and most of them, at least, realize that the world is bigger and more diverse than they had previously imagined. Most religions place people and their particular surrondings at the center of the universe, revealing the narrow horizons of those who created such systems.
The reason science and religion cannot be complimentary is that while covering the same ground, one seeks the truth (and then checkes it again and again against the evidence) while the other just hypothesizes about things. Unless you think that "truth" is an empty word, you have to come to the conclusion that one pretty much excludes the other's possibility.
There seems to be a gleeful joy in subverting the system somehow....
I think they're subverting the system quite well by themselves. Before blaming others they should really examine the way this program runs - it's certainly not governed by anything WE would call intelligence.
Personal experience: After downloading my first packet (January 7, and therefore computed thousands of times before), I've gone 97.806% through it before it abruptly stopped and started downloading a second one - now from January 8th. Guess what, the first packet was never registered as completed! Not only can't they send out correct data, but the client can't even properly process the data it gets! I realize that my case may not necessarily be typical, but it makes you wonder - what other bugs are out there?
Saying they couldn't predict how many people would be interested in this is silly considering the coolness of the original idea and the fact that most people interested in science/astronomy/alien intelligence actually have computers and are on the Net! Thinking that hundreds of thousands of people might show up would not have been a wild guess, folks!
I'm still hoping this is a short term organizational problem they're having, otherwise I might just consider switching to some of the other worthwhile distributed projects out there.
Unfortunately, many scientists choose to dogmatically follow Science as if it were a religion
Dogma is something people (usually ignorant people) blindly accept. It is presented without proof and it usually doesn't allow for debate. In short, it is what we call religion. In fact, a religion without dogma could scaresly be called a religion since it would lack structure.
The whole purpose of science, on the other hand, is to prove facts. The only way you can do that is through free inquiry. To accuse science of dogmatism is to totally miss the point of why science exists.
And so the fascination with non-scientific viewpoints will only increase...
In other words, we're going back to the dark ages? Can't argue with you there, my friend. The public schools of this country (of which you so obviously are a graduate) bring the ignorance of the past closer to us with every decade. In fact, I'll remember not to use big words in my further remarks for fear they have stopped teaching them already.
Sadly, the West has yet to learn much about wisdom.
Sadly, people who think "falsity" is a word find their way to Slashdot.
If you think that Eastern mysticism is the real Truth, you should live by those principles - next time you get sick, invite an Eastern mystic to your house instead of a Western doctor. With any luck you will bring your life expectancy to that of dogma free Tibet (around 55 years if I'm not mistaken). You see, the Truth sounds great in badly written Hollywood movies, but in practice, it is no more than the set of beliefs of a few million oppressed peasants in a dirt poor, far away corner of the Earth. Indoor plumbing would impress these people a lot more than Eastern (or Western) philosophy could ever hope to, and I don't blame them. It's practical, convenient, and unlike the Truth, it works.
Science...can never, by definition, prove anything about the ultimate nature of reality
The main reason I replied to this comment (and god knows, I don't usually respond to off-topic posts) is the poster's utter arrogance of rejecting science while continuing to use it's fruits. He even wrote that stuff on a computer! While absurd, Luddism was at least consistent in it's methods - they really destroyed technology. I think MuppetBoy (a great name for an Eastern philosopher, by the way) should do us all a favor and never use his computer again.
As usual the Linux fanatics I mentioned in the above post strike quickly, if it was MS you wouldn't be happy you would bitch even more because they were trying to kill of MS Office competition, you have done nothing but prove my point even further
If you want to critique Linux, please do - there's nothing healthier than intelligent critisism. But please make your arguments logically consistent (hint: comparing the largest company in the world to Corel is not really logical).
As other people have already pointed out, bundling is not evil in itself. It only becomes evil (as pretty much anything does), when it's done from a monopolistic position.
When Micro$oft bundles IE, everyone is affected. When a company like Corel bundles WP, it just provides one more choice for the consumer - you can always choose another distribution if you don't like it.
If you fail to see this distinction, you're really missing the point.
They are actually considering bundling, isn't that one of the reasons we are pissed at MS, or is it OK for a Linux distro to do it ?
The reason we're mad at M$ bundling is that it RESTRICTS CHOICE. You literally cannot have a Windows PC without M$ Internet Explorer now, even if you do prefer Netscape. Corel's distribution will not restrict the Linux users' choice in any way - if you don't like WordPerfect, get something that doesn't bundle it (i.e. every other Linux distribution known to man). If you do like WordPerfect, however - great! Then Corel would probably be the most convenient distro for you. This ADDS to users' choices, not subtracts from them.
AOL isn't just a crappy service provider any more. They own a very hefty chunk of the world's software Intellectual Property now, including some very neat companies they picked up with their acquisition of Netscape. Give them some credit. They're a different company now, or are at least trying to be.
Since when does owning things make you good? I always thought it was all about innovation and technical excellence, but you've obviously found other criteria for judging technology companies. I guess buying things up and screwing them over does make you cool aftetr all.
These are some very screwed priorities, my friend.
Did you ever read the Winamp credits? Right now they are full of stunt coordinators, llama wranglers, and assistants to Fifi. There's even someone credited as a "Big Biz Exploiter" - now that will cease to be a joke.
Needless to say, the next WinAmp will have zero personality, just like AOL itself. And that's if we're lucky. If we're not, it will have ads and require a lengthy login during which you disclose your yearly income and toaster preferences.
Bye, llama, we're sure gonna miss you.
Frankly, your argument doesn't make sense. If you want to "take control of your computer", you HAVE to learn something about it. On the other hand if you're scared of a little "exploring, poking, and prodding", you should be thankful to graphical user environments, not opposed to them.
It's impossible to criticize KDE for being too difficult and too user friendly at the same time - in fact it's not. My 4 weeks experience with it is that it's extremely easy to use and to configure.
If you want to take real control - don't install a GUI environment. If you want to take control without "poking and exploring", you're clearly asking too much of life.
Of course he was joking. Are you familiar with the concept of irony and how it applies to daily human interaction? Do I have to draw a picture?
What about making a stat-page counting the different clients, OS, and top domains?
That kind of stuff used to be on the "About" page, but it's been taken down for some reason. I say we bring it back!
I just wanted to say that what you do means a lot to probably thousands of people. I recently installed KDE 1.1 on Red Hat 5.2, and the installation procedure was very easy and clear. One could only hope that it remains that way now that Red Hat will take over the job of packaging the RPMs.
Thanks!
Liebowitz has authored other studies and papers defending Microsoft's position. "Dismal Science Fictions: Network Effects, Microsoft and Antitrust Speculation," co-authored by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis and published last year by the Cato Institute, examined lock-in, antitrust, and the link between quality and software market share, refuting arguments that Microsoft's lock-in position allows it to engage in exclusionary or predatory business practices. The Cato paper was a preview of a book, tentatively titled "Technology, Innovation and Market Competition," due out this year.
Anyone who watches C-SPAN with any kind of regularity knows that the CATO Institute is an incredibly right wing organization. I once saw them actually defending global warming - the reasoning was that winter costs our economy more than the greenhouse effect.
The real reason behind all of this is that they're rabidly against any kind of government intervention in the economy, be it to stop companies polluting the air or monopolizing software.
If you start off with this kind of an ideological assumption, you can prove virtually anything - pigs can fly, global warming is good, and Microsoft is not a monopoly. The only thing you have to do to write these surveys is fit the facts to what you and your friends at the CATO Institute have been believing all along - capitalism is best left unchecked.
Even if you agree with their ideology (and I obviously don't), is this a way to do independent research?
No one would be able to "make it" in the monetary sense, just like Mozart wasn't able to "make it" in his time. That would instantly eliminate most of the crap, since money is the only reason such groups exist. It's the indie bands who will stay, admittedly poor, but artists throughout history have prided themselves on being poor. That's the price you pay for not having a boring, repetitive job. And for many people that price is worth paying.
P.S. Is this a long thread or what?
My solution is something like the BBC. It's a government financed institution that has been making great movies and television for many years. IMO, we need an organization like that in the US.
The vast majority of movies don't do very well. Only a handful every year get enough notice to make the big bucks. But literally thousands of movies are released every year. Why? Is each one of these an attempt to get rich? Moviemaking is not a very lucrative business for most.
The reason most of them try is the same reason people play the lottery - they have a small chance to win big. This is not a good motivation to make art. This motivation wasn't available to artists through most of history, and art didn't seem to suffer for it.
If you honestly believe that 99% of the movies out today are conceived of, written, and filmed with the sole purpose of making the most money possible, you're just plain dumb. Perhaps the marketers for the studio that released the film think that, but the filmakers, actors, directors, and screenwriters actually LIKE what they do
I actually don't think so. How can you LIKE making another disaster movie? I mean, it's predictable and boring. In my opinion, for most people it's a job that they have to do rather than a way to express their thoughts.
The abolition of copyright laws would mean that no one would want to make movies or books or software any more.
You contradict yourself earler by saying that neither Mozart nor Beethoven were motivated by making money. And as anyone using Linux knows, software that can be copied freely can be better then software released under conventional licenses.
Your mistake is that you're confusing creative endeavors with boring ones. You DO have to pay people to work on an assembly line or in accounting offices because those lines of work just don't provide the kinds of mental stimulation that could make them fun. But as anyone who can play a guitar knows, making music IS fun. By paying millions for it you're just inviting people who would never have gone there in the first place (enter the Spice Girls, Nsync, etc.). By taking something that was fun (art), and turning it into a profession, you make Nsync possible, since they are a copy of a copy of a terrible boy band. Copying (just like working on an assembly line) isn't fun, so you have to conclude that the only reason such bands get formed is the possibility of making money from them.
As you rightly point out, movies are different, simply because it takes so much money to make them. My solution is something like the BBC, which has been making quality movies and television for decades with financing by the government. If I have a choice between them and what Hollywood produces, I'd choose a good British movie every time.
What you are taking is the revenues to the company that produces it. Don't forget that they have to recover costs, and profits, if they are to keep making movies in the future (they aren't in the business for fun). Stealing copies increases the costs to the company, and they will certainly pass that along to the consumer (THAT'S YOU!!!).
May be if we abolish the system you described, the only movies that WOULD get produced would be those made "for fun". Isn't that the best of all possible worlds? Imagine - no more movies about dinasaurs, earthquakes or Leonardo Dicaprio.
Real art doesn't require money - people do it simply because it's fun to do. Therefore, if we get commercialism (read copyright protection) out of entertainment, all that will remain is stuff created for fun.
If you extend that argument to music, we'd get rid of Michael Bolton, but we'd still have Nirvana and REM. No one in their right mind would spend the time and resources it takes to record an nSync (sp?) album if it didn't pay huge amounts of money. And yet I'm sure that when the Rolling Stones were writing their songs, it was a fun experience for them - they'd probably be doing it even if they didn't have to.
Through most of recorded history copyright didn't exist, so you couldn't really make money from entertainment. That is why there was no artistic equivalent of the Spice Girls during the Renaissance. Makes you think, doesn't it?
Every successful start up eventually does an Initial Public Offering of their stock. After that you can become part owner by buying shares. In theory, the company is governed by its stockholders, so if Red Hat ever becomes public, it's current management will lose its independence.
They will probably become more profit oriented, which isn't necessarily bad for Linux, since we'll always have other distributions to fall back on.
Did he say that he WAS capable of constructing a complete and properly spelled sentence? :)
It's even worse than that. MS Word clipart (which no one I know has ever used in their lives) takes up 81 MB by itself.
There's nothing wrong with competition, but it has to be regulated. Imagine a sports event without judges or rules.
:)
Microsoft, by leveraging their Windows monopoly makes it impossible for companies like Netscape or Corel to compete. If every Windows system comes preloaded with IE, and there are no major differences between it and Netscape (M$ copied Netscape's entire look and functionality), Netscape is going to lose, even if it didn't deserve to.
That is the whole point about monopoly power - it discourages (not helps) competition. A superior product loses and an inferior product wins. Before trying Linux (yes, I am a newbie) I thought that computers were supposed to crash every few hours. Most people still think that way because 95% of all computers sold in stores are preloaded with Windows.
And by the way, your complaint about Excel illustrates, not undermines my point. Your wife's job requires her to use Excel not because it's a better product, but because MS has been successful at establishing MS Office as a standard, inventing proprietary file formats along the way to squish even a possibility of a competition.
As to Linux not being as user friendly as Windows - that is changing fast. Future versions of major Linux distributions will probably include KDE or GNOME, eliminating that excuse once and for all. The distro I use (Red Hat 5.2) is user friendly enough for me
How about this:
Republicans = Big Business (Yes, that includes M$ too)
Democrats = Real People
I think everybody forgets that it's the Democrats who wrote this country's anti-trust laws, and it's a Democratic Justice Department that is trying to enforce them right now. Imagine a Republican standing up to a big corporation. Now imagine them standing up to the biggest corporation the world has ever seen. This is clearly impossible.
Democrats have a healthy distrust of big business and that is what we need.
Although I've never heard about Asperger's Syndrome before I read an article in the New York Times about it, I do know what it is. Giving it a fancy name will not obscure the central issue at stake: some of us CANNOT form meaningful relationships with other people in spite of being completely normal in other respects. By normal I mean fully functional mentally. We're not slow, emotionally unstable, or in any way delusional. But something does get lost in our efforts to communicate. This could be inborn or it could well be a consequence of a slightly abnormal childhood - my mind is open on that. The interest in things technical and mathematical is completely natural - a machine will not laugh at you or think you're weird. The world of numbers and formulas is objective, rational, and requires a completely different set of skills than talking to people.
There is another escape - and that is finding people like ourselves to share this experience with. That is what the two guys in the article have found and that is what most of us have found at one point or another.
Although psychiatry isn't really a science, and the term Asperger's probably doesn't mean much except hot air, we do have some legitimate scientific questions to ask:
Why are most socially challenged people men?
How does it really start?
And is there a cure?
I'll leave you with this thought: society really needs us. Without the kind of dedication and technical expertise such people provide the general standard of living would be lower and the problems society faces would be larger. So deal with it!