The fact that an artist put a lot of effort into creation does not, in and of itself, establish a right to be paid. A simple counterexample: Parents put a great deal of effort and expense into raising children, but nobody suggests that this effort entitles them to make a financial profit on the venture.
IMHO, people deserve recognition when they benefit someone else. In our society, money is the form of recognition that's most convenient. It's not ideal, but it certainly makes things easier. So, commonly, I would expect an artist to get paid for art produced, by the people who benefit. Ideally, from the listeners who like it. Under the current model, by the label that distributes albums, and profits from those sales.
In regards to your counterexample, philosophically, I believe art benefits the world. Whether I as an individual like a particular piece or not, I believe I (and the rest of the world) do benefit. In contrast, there are a lot of parent-raised-people out there whom I don't think benefit anyone at all. 8)
I read the piece Bruce posted on technocrat.net, then read through the thread here (At a score of 3. Only so many hours in the day.). And there was quite a bit of heat being sent at Bruce. So I went and re-read the original piece. As far as I can tell, Bruce is simply saying "Look, Be made a mistake. They're fixing that mistake. But here's a real-world example of why it's important to know your licenses." That's all. Here's a violation that happened by accident. Luckily, everyone's being sensible, and fixing this reasonably.
This really has nothing to do with GPL, or Open Source. It has to do with licensing.
Slashdot claims, in a headline, that "anonymous hosting is banned."
Read the little blurb, and it says that not at all. It says that if a webpage does not clearly identify the page owner, any content on it becomes the responsibility of the webmaster.
So either A) the page owner puts up identification, so it's no longer anonymous, or B) the hosting service takes on all responsibility, thus rendering it directly liable for anything that gets posted. B) is, IMHO, not terribly likely.
Granted, the law might not state "anonymous webpages are illegal", but the effect is the same. No more anonymous hosting within the boundaries of France.
Makes sense to me. If child pornography is illegal, and someone posts it up on an anonymous webserver, anonymously, *someone* needs to be held responsible for getting rid of the content.
Illegal content is still illegal. And was illegal before this. Sensible AUPs would disallow illegal content.
What's so wrong with that? Unless the French government is really pushy, sounds to me like it'll only become a problem for webmasters who have users that post illegal content.
"Why do you want to be anonymous if you don't have anything to hide?"
What about commentary on political or social issues? If someone is trying to express an opinion without prejudicing an audience either for or against the expresser, they need anonymity. If someone is trying to avoid flames (or sometimes physical threat), they need anonymity. If someone is blowing the whistle on corruption in business or government, they might also need anonymity.
Ideally, no one would be anonymous. Because ideally, no one would have need to be so.
But information cannot be totally free, they argue. There must be some obstacle to reaching information (whether you mean literature or movies or economic data when you say the word "information"). That obstacle is the one where money is made.
I think that's where much of the conflict arises. The obstacles often seem artificial. Paying a toll on a bridge to pay the bills on the construction and maintenance of that bridge is understandable. Paying a toll because a troll has set up shop and demanded payment is annoying. While I will grant Big Business generally does more than the troll, their actions and their choice of spin provide a rather, well, trollish image.
Is our goal as linux users and open source advocates really to take Linux et. al "all the way to consumers"?
IMHO, there isn't really a particular goal as such, no. And I don't think the desire, even, really, is to take Linux to the consumers. Rather, it's for the consumers to come to Open Source solutions to their needs. That's rather different.
Ars Technica has an interesting analysis of the Crusoe chips. One of the ideas mentioned is that Crusoe represents Transmetas solutions to a specific set of problems. IMHO, Transmeta isn't saying the Crusoe chipset *couldn't* be used in a desktop machine, just that you haven't seen their desktop solution yet.
A Wrinkle in Time A Wind in the Door A Swiftly Tilting Planet Many Waters
A very good series and, IMHO, well-suited for teens. The main characters are young, and easy to identify with.
Also, I recommend Paul Hogan for hard SF (Code of the Life-Maker or the Giants series to start, I think). Also, my personal favorite is Spider Robinson. Decidedly not *hard* SF, Spider focuses on the *people*. TOR has started reprinting the early Callahan's books, so the best one to start with is available now. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.
I would think the only liability a support contract would acknowledge (if any) is for the support itself. Thus, the support company might be held responsible for notification, and due diligence in that regard, but not necessarily for a fix.
Slashdot Mirror
It may be within the terms of the contract, and it may be perfectly legal.
However, it's still crap to screw over your retailer, and the customers who PAID for your product.
IMHO, people deserve recognition when they benefit someone else. In our society, money is the form of recognition that's most convenient. It's not ideal, but it certainly makes things easier. So, commonly, I would expect an artist to get paid for art produced, by the people who benefit. Ideally, from the listeners who like it. Under the current model, by the label that distributes albums, and profits from those sales.
In regards to your counterexample, philosophically, I believe art benefits the world. Whether I as an individual like a particular piece or not, I believe I (and the rest of the world) do benefit. In contrast, there are a lot of parent-raised-people out there whom I don't think benefit anyone at all. 8)
I read the piece Bruce posted on technocrat.net, then read through the thread here (At a score of 3. Only so many hours in the day.). And there was quite a bit of heat being sent at Bruce. So I went and re-read the original piece. As far as I can tell, Bruce is simply saying "Look, Be made a mistake. They're fixing that mistake. But here's a real-world example of why it's important to know your licenses." That's all. Here's a violation that happened by accident. Luckily, everyone's being sensible, and fixing this reasonably.
This really has nothing to do with GPL, or Open Source. It has to do with licensing.
Slashdot claims, in a headline, that "anonymous hosting is banned."
Read the little blurb, and it says that not at all. It says that if a webpage does not clearly identify the page owner, any content on it becomes the responsibility of the webmaster.
So either A) the page owner puts up identification, so it's no longer anonymous, or B) the hosting service takes on all responsibility, thus rendering it directly liable for anything that gets posted. B) is, IMHO, not terribly likely.
Granted, the law might not state "anonymous webpages are illegal", but the effect is the same. No more anonymous hosting within the boundaries of France.
Makes sense to me. If child pornography is illegal, and someone posts it up on an anonymous webserver, anonymously, *someone* needs to be held responsible for getting rid of the content.
Illegal content is still illegal. And was illegal before this. Sensible AUPs would disallow illegal content.
What's so wrong with that? Unless the French government is really pushy, sounds to me like it'll only become a problem for webmasters who have users that post illegal content.
"Why do you want to be anonymous if you don't have anything to hide?"
What about commentary on political or social issues? If someone is trying to express an opinion without prejudicing an audience either for or against the expresser, they need anonymity. If someone is trying to avoid flames (or sometimes physical threat), they need anonymity. If someone is blowing the whistle on corruption in business or government, they might also need anonymity.
Ideally, no one would be anonymous. Because ideally, no one would have need to be so.
I think that's where much of the conflict arises. The obstacles often seem artificial. Paying a toll on a bridge to pay the bills on the construction and maintenance of that bridge is understandable. Paying a toll because a troll has set up shop and demanded payment is annoying. While I will grant Big Business generally does more than the troll, their actions and their choice of spin provide a rather, well, trollish image.
IMHO, there isn't really a particular goal as such, no. And I don't think the desire, even, really, is to take Linux to the consumers. Rather, it's for the consumers to come to Open Source solutions to their needs. That's rather different.
Ars Technica has an interesting analysis of the Crusoe chips. One of the ideas mentioned is that Crusoe represents Transmetas solutions to a specific set of problems. IMHO, Transmeta isn't saying the Crusoe chipset *couldn't* be used in a desktop machine, just that you haven't seen their desktop solution yet.
Accurate language to inaccurate language (and back) translator c2txt2c
http://personal.sip.fi/~lm/c2txt2c/
Created for precisely these reasons, actually. To demonstrate that source code is speech.
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Many Waters
A very good series and, IMHO, well-suited for teens. The main characters are young, and easy to identify with.
Also, I recommend Paul Hogan for hard SF (Code of the Life-Maker or the Giants series to start, I think). Also, my personal favorite is Spider Robinson. Decidedly not *hard* SF, Spider focuses on the *people*. TOR has started reprinting the early Callahan's books, so the best one to start with is available now. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.
I would think the only liability a support contract would acknowledge (if any) is for the support itself. Thus, the support company might be held responsible for notification, and due diligence in that regard, but not necessarily for a fix.