Good post. It seems every 2 weeks we go through this on/.
Also keep in mind when your kid wants the latest and greatest teeny-bopper cd for 29.99$ you can be thankful you are supporting the no-talent hacks ad "Midbar technologies".
It takes a complete friggin moron to think they can make bits uncopyiable. Like Bruce Schneier said once:
"Making bits uncopyable is like making water not wet".
I think the trick will be just not to support the so called "performers" [as you call them] since most of them are just abused hacks anyways [ahem, spears....]
"Which comcast has neatly sidestepped by not allowing VPN."
Yeah that sucks. My ISP [rogers.com] blows worse though. Not only are they probably selling my viewing habits but they're almost always down as well. [like right now....I'm posting from school]. They suck so much that if the world had to depend on this quality of service [from rogers] for telephones modern civilization would cease to exist as we know it.
Personally I think a multi-billion dollar company should be able to host 490K people with more uptime than 23%.
Quite frankly the restriction on "can't resell your Windows CDROM" isn't at all on point. You don't own the program, you have purchased a license to use a copy of it.
Like when you rent a video game, except on a longer term basis. You can't resell rented games since you don't own them, just the right to use them.
Depends. The only reason tapping phones is illegal [at least in most countries] is because of the explicit right and expectation of privacy.
If you shouted in public something you can hardly feel violated when others learn about it.
The internet is inherently non-private. If you want a private connection use crypto. Otherwise, work under the assumption that everyone else knows everything you do on the net.
Yeah but no form of "deadline" is ok. Even if you get 3 years for trivial task it is possible that a bug is in there.
The key to success is multiple eyes. The more knowledgeable people you have peer-review the code the better and more likely you are to see a bug that you will just overlook [or not think about].
I find at school I'm far more critical about other peoples code than my own. Often my buddies will find a trivial bug I overlooked in a manner of minutes [stupid things like not formatting an output correctly or doing a sort the wrong way, etc...]
Why is it everytime someone uses Linux its ground-breaking news?
I mean I have a MP3CD player. I don't care if it runs linux or windows or macos. I just want it to play MP3s.
Also how much of Linux are they using? A fragment of it? I mean a radio certainly has no use for 99% of the linux kernel [multi-tasking, virtual memory, etc...]
Um even in the BBS days I was running freeware programs like L.O.R.D and Renegade.
Others like doors like "bbs sim" stayed on my system for all of a week at most.
Truth be told I must have tried about 40 BBS doors during my BBS sysop days [I was also the FD hub for TransCanada and FidoNet in the area]. Most of the doors I tried were just cheap hacks using publicly available "door" units for Turbo Pascal 6 [I know I programmed with them myself].
Same crap in the desktop world with Pkzip and Winzip, and Winace and Winrar, etc...
Cost and "worth" are not the same thing. Thats a sad fact you really should have to realize.
Spending 100Million dollars to extract gold from my blood, doesn't change the value of gold overall.
Spending 100million dollars to make a grouping of bits, doesn't change the worth of a bit.
The key to making money off of non-bigtime commercial code [i.e stuff that big companies won't use] is all in the support.
Give out a free copy that is fully functional. That will hinder rampant piracy [quite frankly, I wouldn't wade threw stupid warez sites if your program was already free!].
Then you simply make subscriptions [say 5$/mo] to get updates, support [via email/phone/fax/etc] and such.
That way people can still get the program, but others who like staying on top of things can get your service.
The trick though is that you have to write more than one program. Imagine a cable company that offers only 1 channel. None too impressive?
If you write a whole suite of tools geared towards desktop users [e.g. archiver, web browser, ftp client, media player, etc...] then you can get more customers from more sources.
Not only that but if you build a reputation than others will fetch your stuff and cling. Its like on my PC. I have a GNU compiler, GNU linker, GNU assembler, GNU etc...
Otherwise people will just pirate the "full" copy and screw you up the ass anyways.
"As a stronger example, I had another software free, with emailware. All I requested was for people to mail me when they downloaded a copy, so that I could get notice where on earth my soft was used and for what purposes. In my logs I could count around 250 downloads. I received 3 (yep, THREE) mails."
Big deal. I wrote a crypto library and within two weeks there were over 500 downloads. I got all of five or so emails.
All that means is that about 300 people downloaded it [some people got it more than once, updates, etc..] 150 of which probably either don't need/want help and 150 just threw it out.
I get the most useful help from only a few people and I kinda like it that way.
Another note, I wrote a winamp plugin "TomSteady" which according to winamp.com has had 105,000 downloads. I've gotten about 35 emails about that so far [most were just thank you notes, which rock] and occasional flames or something.
Personally I like opening my email box every once and a while and seeing a quick 2 line "thank you" note from someone who downloaded either my plugins or other source code [on my website].
I don't care to get world fame, or money. I just like writing stuff, occasionally others like my stuff too. The best thing you can have is the uninvited thank you note. It shows people are still considerate.
Hey jerk, when did I say I wouldn't pay for software?
Just because I don't believe in 5$ shareware does not mean I don't believe in paying for software.
My point [which you failed to hit] was that so much shareware out there is pure and utter crap, which is why people only get "6 subscribers" [as one poster put it].
If you make shitty software or unoriginal stuff then you're obviously not going to make any money. But don't blame your poor sales on piracy either.
"the whole point of the top article is that comanies like Ambrosia make simple soft, like a screenshot utility (snapz) or cool arcade games. You can't charge support on that kinda stuff."
I recall back in the day of BBSes the "5$ software" BBS doors.
The software was crap losers hacked together in all of 10 mins at the most [most games ended up being basically the same].
Utils like shells and screen shot programs are not very unique nor uncommon.
Imagine if gold grew on maple trees... etc..
The whole/. community seems to forget that if something is not hard to come by its not worth much at all. I certainly would not pay 15$ for a zip program when I can get info-zip for FREE.
The problem is you can't make people pay for something that is worthless. Bits are easy to duplicate... And afterall, when you think about it that is all they are paying for. In essence the money goes to the people who made it, but at the store I am paying for bits.
Imagine if pepsi came out of taps for free at your house. Would you goto the store to buy some pepsi to "support the pepsi developers"?
"Yes, I agree. This is why I said above that MPEG4 will not be on the level of MPEG1 for years. When you said "MIPS," I thought you meant the chip, not the abbreviation."
Sorry, yeah I meant raw computing power. For example, most MP3 chips are just DSP processors with a MP3 codec in the ROM. Its the most economical way to implement the codec. Good designs would naturally have hardware acceleration for the operations performed [hence using a DSP core as the basis].
While I think Div/x is great [looks very good at low rates like 512kbit/sec for 320x240x30fps] its just not scalable like the MPEG-4 standard.
Another important concept is that MPEG-4 is not just one codec. Its a set of several codecs.
One thing that pisses me off is that the specs for MPEG-4 are not free. I can agree with the license for use since it takes time/money to develop it, but for research students and such its a pain, specially when your college doesnt spend money on books without pullout diagrams.
can *play*. I'm talking about both encoding and decoding.
If Divx requires 35% of my Athlon 1.2ghz to encode at full quality, I imagine on a 100Mhz ARM [i.e digital video camera or something] it would be way too much.
MPEG-4 has layers/modes [??? not sure about the vernacular] that are suitable for various levels of complexity suited to the platform.
Its like saying an MPEG I Layer III audio codec is also a Layer I codec. It ain't. Layer I is suitable for very low end platforms whereas Layer III requires more cpu time...
I'd rather buy a MP3 player than a GoshMot player.
I'd rather buy a DVD player than a AcidNet VCD player [etc...]
Plus MPEG-4 is a total standard, DivX is just an implementation of portions of it. MPEG-4 can be suited for a variety of MIPSes platforms, DivX cannot.
Plus if you're going to make a product for $100Million you'd rather just pay the license than risk it with a format which may infringe on tons of patents...
Slashdot Mirror
I get your point, but to me I don't really equate manipulative with intelligence.
Tom
Here, here.
/.
Good post. It seems every 2 weeks we go through this on
Also keep in mind when your kid wants the latest and greatest teeny-bopper cd for 29.99$ you can be thankful you are supporting the no-talent hacks ad "Midbar technologies".
It takes a complete friggin moron to think they can make bits uncopyiable. Like Bruce Schneier said once:
"Making bits uncopyable is like making water not wet".
I think the trick will be just not to support the so called "performers" [as you call them] since most of them are just abused hacks anyways [ahem, spears....]
Tom
"Which comcast has neatly sidestepped by not allowing VPN."
Yeah that sucks. My ISP [rogers.com] blows worse though. Not only are they probably selling my viewing habits but they're almost always down as well. [like right now....I'm posting from school]. They suck so much that if the world had to depend on this quality of service [from rogers] for telephones modern civilization would cease to exist as we know it.
Personally I think a multi-billion dollar company should be able to host 490K people with more uptime than 23%.
Tom
You have to recall alot of stuff you're doing are not on commercial sites.
Goto my website, I keep logs. Is that itself illegal?
Go through mysite [say I was running a chat server or relay] can I not log stuff on *MY* computer?
I think ISPs *should* log traffic since it helps catch a$$holes that spam/cause havoc.
I think ISPs *should* log traffic, I also think ISPs *should* keep that confidential. Even to people sending abuse@ emails.
Tom
Quite frankly the restriction on "can't resell your Windows CDROM" isn't at all on point. You don't own the program, you have purchased a license to use a copy of it.
Like when you rent a video game, except on a longer term basis. You can't resell rented games since you don't own them, just the right to use them.
Tom
Depends. The only reason tapping phones is illegal [at least in most countries] is because of the explicit right and expectation of privacy.
If you shouted in public something you can hardly feel violated when others learn about it.
The internet is inherently non-private. If you want a private connection use crypto. Otherwise, work under the assumption that everyone else knows everything you do on the net.
Tom
I wouldn't pay an explicit amount to play a game, specially some stupid online game.
Tom
ITS A VIDEO GAME.
Perhaps redundant but a good point none the less. If you spend 80$ on the game, then another $$$ on playing it you're getting cheated.
Games are supposed to be fun for the end user and business for the developer. Not business for both.
Tom
Learn to count. 1024x768x32bpp == 2.25 Mbytes. Even if you have a tripple buffer thats under 8Mbytes.
Assuming you have 250 64x64 textures, thats another 4Mbytes.
So we are talking about 4Gb of ram will be needed for a video game?
Even given complicated maps at most 64 Mb of ram should be required....
"so should intel, who'se chips are clumps of silicon which actually only cost a few bucks tops to make sell"
You are not reading my entire post. Not only are bits cheap but they are easy to manipulate and duplicate.
Given a pile of sand its hard to make a cpu. Given a compute its easy to duplicate a file.
Get the picture?
Yeah but no form of "deadline" is ok. Even if you get 3 years for trivial task it is possible that a bug is in there.
The key to success is multiple eyes. The more knowledgeable people you have peer-review the code the better and more likely you are to see a bug that you will just overlook [or not think about].
I find at school I'm far more critical about other peoples code than my own. Often my buddies will find a trivial bug I overlooked in a manner of minutes [stupid things like not formatting an output correctly or doing a sort the wrong way, etc...]
Tom
disregard that post, I misread the /. page
Tom
Why is it everytime someone uses Linux its ground-breaking news?
I mean I have a MP3CD player. I don't care if it runs linux or windows or macos. I just want it to play MP3s.
Also how much of Linux are they using? A fragment of it? I mean a radio certainly has no use for 99% of the linux kernel [multi-tasking, virtual memory, etc...]
Tom
Um even in the BBS days I was running freeware programs like L.O.R.D and Renegade.
Others like doors like "bbs sim" stayed on my system for all of a week at most.
Truth be told I must have tried about 40 BBS doors during my BBS sysop days [I was also the FD hub for TransCanada and FidoNet in the area]. Most of the doors I tried were just cheap hacks using publicly available "door" units for Turbo Pascal 6 [I know I programmed with them myself].
Same crap in the desktop world with Pkzip and Winzip, and Winace and Winrar, etc...
Tom
While I agree with what you are saying my suggestions were really if you are trying to still extract money out of people.
Tom
Cost and "worth" are not the same thing. Thats a sad fact you really should have to realize.
Spending 100Million dollars to extract gold from my blood, doesn't change the value of gold overall.
Spending 100million dollars to make a grouping of bits, doesn't change the worth of a bit.
The key to making money off of non-bigtime commercial code [i.e stuff that big companies won't use] is all in the support.
Give out a free copy that is fully functional. That will hinder rampant piracy [quite frankly, I wouldn't wade threw stupid warez sites if your program was already free!].
Then you simply make subscriptions [say 5$/mo] to get updates, support [via email/phone/fax/etc] and such.
That way people can still get the program, but others who like staying on top of things can get your service.
The trick though is that you have to write more than one program. Imagine a cable company that offers only 1 channel. None too impressive?
If you write a whole suite of tools geared towards desktop users [e.g. archiver, web browser, ftp client, media player, etc...] then you can get more customers from more sources.
Not only that but if you build a reputation than others will fetch your stuff and cling. Its like on my PC. I have a GNU compiler, GNU linker, GNU assembler, GNU etc...
Otherwise people will just pirate the "full" copy and screw you up the ass anyways.
Tom
"As a stronger example, I had another software free, with emailware. All I requested was for people to mail me when they downloaded a copy, so that I could get notice where on earth my soft was used and for what purposes. In my logs I could count around 250 downloads. I received 3 (yep, THREE) mails."
Big deal. I wrote a crypto library and within two weeks there were over 500 downloads. I got all of five or so emails.
All that means is that about 300 people downloaded it [some people got it more than once, updates, etc..] 150 of which probably either don't need/want help and 150 just threw it out.
I get the most useful help from only a few people and I kinda like it that way.
Another note, I wrote a winamp plugin "TomSteady" which according to winamp.com has had 105,000 downloads. I've gotten about 35 emails about that so far [most were just thank you notes, which rock] and occasional flames or something.
Personally I like opening my email box every once and a while and seeing a quick 2 line "thank you" note from someone who downloaded either my plugins or other source code [on my website].
I don't care to get world fame, or money. I just like writing stuff, occasionally others like my stuff too. The best thing you can have is the uninvited thank you note. It shows people are still considerate.
Tom
Hey jerk, when did I say I wouldn't pay for software?
Just because I don't believe in 5$ shareware does not mean I don't believe in paying for software.
My point [which you failed to hit] was that so much shareware out there is pure and utter crap, which is why people only get "6 subscribers" [as one poster put it].
If you make shitty software or unoriginal stuff then you're obviously not going to make any money. But don't blame your poor sales on piracy either.
Tom
One URL
http://tomstdenis.home.dhs.org
Everything I do is given away for free.
So bug off and stop jumping on people unless you have good cause.
:-)
"the whole point of the top article is that comanies like Ambrosia make simple soft, like a screenshot utility (snapz) or cool arcade games. You can't charge support on that kinda stuff."
/. community seems to forget that if something is not hard to come by its not worth much at all. I certainly would not pay 15$ for a zip program when I can get info-zip for FREE.
I recall back in the day of BBSes the "5$ software" BBS doors.
The software was crap losers hacked together in all of 10 mins at the most [most games ended up being basically the same].
Utils like shells and screen shot programs are not very unique nor uncommon.
Imagine if gold grew on maple trees... etc..
The whole
Tom
The problem is you can't make people pay for something that is worthless. Bits are easy to duplicate... And afterall, when you think about it that is all they are paying for. In essence the money goes to the people who made it, but at the store I am paying for bits.
Imagine if pepsi came out of taps for free at your house. Would you goto the store to buy some pepsi to "support the pepsi developers"?
Tom
Just remember when you go out and spend 50$ on a single cd for your kids, you can be thankful you are supporting the losers of MidBar technologies....
:-)
"Yes, I agree. This is why I said above that MPEG4 will not be on the level of MPEG1 for years. When you said "MIPS," I thought you meant the chip, not the abbreviation."
Sorry, yeah I meant raw computing power. For example, most MP3 chips are just DSP processors with a MP3 codec in the ROM. Its the most economical way to implement the codec. Good designs would naturally have hardware acceleration for the operations performed [hence using a DSP core as the basis].
While I think Div/x is great [looks very good at low rates like 512kbit/sec for 320x240x30fps] its just not scalable like the MPEG-4 standard.
Another important concept is that MPEG-4 is not just one codec. Its a set of several codecs.
One thing that pisses me off is that the specs for MPEG-4 are not free. I can agree with the license for use since it takes time/money to develop it, but for research students and such its a pain, specially when your college doesnt spend money on books without pullout diagrams.
Tom
can *play*. I'm talking about both encoding and decoding.
If Divx requires 35% of my Athlon 1.2ghz to encode at full quality, I imagine on a 100Mhz ARM [i.e digital video camera or something] it would be way too much.
MPEG-4 has layers/modes [??? not sure about the vernacular] that are suitable for various levels of complexity suited to the platform.
Its like saying an MPEG I Layer III audio codec is also a Layer I codec. It ain't. Layer I is suitable for very low end platforms whereas Layer III requires more cpu time...
Tom
Brand name I suppose..
I'd rather buy a MP3 player than a GoshMot player.
I'd rather buy a DVD player than a AcidNet VCD player [etc...]
Plus MPEG-4 is a total standard, DivX is just an implementation of portions of it. MPEG-4 can be suited for a variety of MIPSes platforms, DivX cannot.
Plus if you're going to make a product for $100Million you'd rather just pay the license than risk it with a format which may infringe on tons of patents...
Tom