Solid build, good value. The thumb button (if you're right-handed) is the same as middle-clicking the wheel, but has a more positive feel. Plus the 2 optical sensors make it very usable in games.
I am free to ignore thier creation due to the DRM if I wish
But of course, that's not how it really works.
Until someone comes up with a viable way of compensating creators for thier content without restricing how that content is used in any way shape or form, restricted content is going to be reality
What about books? They aren't 'restricted content' except in that the law prevents unlicensed copying. They are only restricted in this very limited sense.
You seem to think DRM is a 'harmless technology', just as copyright is a 'harmless law'. But while the existence of a copyright law is justified to an extent, it is being abused and extended by big media firms so much as to make it draconian. And again, while DRM perhaps has its place, publishers threaten to implement it in a way that eliminates fair use.
Libre Software providing the freedom to release your creation as you want...
No, freedom isn't about releasing content 'how you want'. The restrictions we want to have on content are ones that prevent anyone from ever taking away our access to fair use of that content. DRM threatens to do exactly this.
Re:Open Source, but not free source.
on
Open Source DRM
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Windows on the other hand, like it or not, is a catalyst of profitable software firms [...]
Windows is a protection racket. Adobe, Veritas et al are riding the coat-tails of a tyrant.
How many companies that you know of that can claim to have profitted from GPL-based software?
The whole point is that people don't profit from selling it. Enormous numbers of people profit from using it. Think about internet infrastructure companies - telcos, web hosting, ISPs. Linux runs these. Small-to-medium size businesses with Linux servers. Movie studios - Gimp and Linux again. Netscape / AOL. Sony. Sharp. And what about those that 'profit' from GNU+Linux merely through avoiding the MS tax? I'm thinking of private individuals, government agencies, universities and research institutions of all kinds.
Yes GPL economics stops profiteering from software/API/platform publishing.
No this isn't bad for the 'IT' industry (software provision), and it definitely isn't bad for the economy as whole.
Progress in the commercial arts, on the other hand, is driven by the profit motive, and the profit motive only. Take away the profit motive, and the wheels of industry grind to a halt.
When the two overlap-- when science is driven by the profit motive-- we see that the commercial model supercedes the academic one.
You seem to be thinking about patents. We are not talking about patentable (or should-be patentable) designs when we talk about computer code. This is for lots of reasons; some purely pragmatic (it's hard to enforce patent law given reverse engineering) and others legal or ethical.
The principal ethical argument for not allowing software patents is that software design is the design of ideas, and is too easy. For example, a patent for water-repellent trousers takes incredible physical resources to acquire, because it involves producing a physical pair of water-repellent trousers. The trousers themselves are likely produced by a novel process, which could not be inferred from the description "water-repellent trousers". A new digital product is no more complex to produce than it is to completely describe. But enough about patents.
Copyrights have historically been used inside both industry and academia to earn money. The copyright is a reward for publishing (not a reward for 'being creative'!). But digital works are distributable and copyable at zero cost. This was not the case before the current era.
For this reason, we should be (and we are) reconsidering copyright and the way it applies to digital or digitisable works. The ownership of source code to a PUBLISHED work is NOT a natural right. In claiming that it is, you are essentially supporting an insane Disney copytight universe, where selling information to people (publishing) doesn't involve selling them the permission to own that information, ever. Sorry, Mr media industry, but that ain't publishing as we know it now, ethically or legally.
The same point rephrased: when information can be published (and marketed and sold) without significant cost, there is no point in significantly burdening the public with copyright obligations. We should make these kinds of information free. By GPL if not by law.
You see what I'm saying? There is a moral case for the GPL. Now I'm with Chomsky, I generally expect companies (e.g. MS) to behave immorally, but not illegally, to make a profit. So in one sense you're right - it's stupid to lay into MS for 'only inching' toward freeing their work. The ultimate solution to profiteering off copyright ('Disneyism') is to rewrite copyright legislation. That's a long hard road.
Lots of the posts seem to be saying that these guns are 'circumventable, hence useless' (to paraphrase). But the market for these guns is those who need them for self-defence. This includes the police, and arguably private individuals.
The biometrics / ID cards are for making it harder for someone who just grabs the gun to use it.
The camera is for taking evidence which can be used to support self-defence claims.
The special ammo is for making it harder for a thief to use the gun after stealing it.
Intelligent weapons are not supposed to be a panacea for gun crime in general. They are supposed to be safe, and an incremental improvement in the suppression of gun theft, unlicensed/illegal gun use, and criminal violence.
Mod parent up. The only thing is, he's slightly wrong about existing ATMs - the ones with braille still use a tiny visual display to tell you what buttons to press! Blind people need audio feedback!
Accessibility worries me far more than the chances of increased identity theft, since I guess you will still need a PIN. Disabled groups are already angry (I know I would be) about bank practices like charging for counter service. Also, there are an increasing number of internet banks which cannot offer cashiers at all.
Hopefully those who cannot (or do not want to) use the iris ID will have some alternative form of ID available (a separate smartcard? another PIN? voiceprint?).
Googled and found this article from a few years ago: ATM accessibility
Victim disarmament, whether it occurs on an airplane, in a school, or in a post office, is still victim disarmament.
Hence the term 'going postal'?
Seriously, you think "It leads to horrors like 9/11"? I find this incredible. IHBT once again. Wait, you have an argument too... it's that if only the passengers on the 9/11 WTC planes had had guns/boxcutters/whatever, they would have brought the planes down!... what bollocks. It looks like the theory of preventing 'victim disarmament' depends on IDing the victims beforehand. (Smells like racism.) If you're self-identifying as a victim you've already got problems which should disqualify you from gun ownership.
BTW, it seems to me that 'strong government' by Sharon is doing a nice job of wrecking Israel. Would 'victim disarmament' of certain Palestinians, along with the Jewish settlers, perhaps be a good move? Or do jfpo.org want Hamas et al to keep the 'right to protect themselves' (as they see it)?
I agree that restricting model rocket motor shipments is foolish.
But your argument? It's completely irrelevant.
Imagine a society where citizens are not allowed knives, guns, explosives, anything sharp or slightly dangerous...
OK, apart from knives, fine. It seems infeasible to ban the inclined plane.
My point is basically that if you increase defense it will keep the amount of damage a terrorist can do around the same
This doesn't follow. 9/11 casualties were not caused by 'weapons' (except indirectly by boxcutters) but by planes. Planes are a form of transport. They did damage because they have lots of 'chemical energy' (kerosene) in them.
Many kinds of concentrated energy storage are dangerous in this respect - petrol, rocket motors, fertiliser. Restricting peoples' ability to accumulate such substances does make sense up to a point. But it's not as if any government is about to ban chemical energy. They will (and should) restrict some things and not others. There is a spectrum of cases.
A terrorist will get his/her hands on explosives, firearms, or whatever they need regardless of what rules are put in place.
This is false in general. 'whatever'? What about nukes?
In summary, your post looks like a well-disguised NRA troll. You say: restricting what individuals can own isn't a panacea for terrorism, hence it is useless. The truth is that, yes, stupid restrictions like for rocket motors will be ineffective, but that this has no real implications of restricting e.g gun ownership.
One, where's the market? I mean rilly? Two, this is supposed to make cash for MS how?
news.com.com he say:
A team of 12 recent college graduates, led by group manager Tammy Savage, has been trying to develop products aimed at the "Net generation," or young people currently between the ages of about 13 and 24.
Well the first thing is, does this market even exist? You see such people using AIM, ICQ etc all the time. This software is junk. Do the 'Net-Gen' (sic) care? No. They have other things to do than learn any more than the most trivial UI. As for heavy teenage net users, what about this, from the other article:
You invite friends to form a posse of up to 10 participants.
What's with the arbitrary limitation? My kid sister's 'posse' (blech) is easily twice that big. Sounds like a mess. What are you supposed to call your group? 'J. Sixpack's buddies'? It doesn't work - that's like having gang leaders in the playground. That's not how kids do instant messaging. Is it?
musicmix... Playlists have a maximum of 60 tunes
Drag-n-drop ('push') filesharing is a nice idea, but the kids already know about Kazaa, especially the heavy users. For anyone with enough bandwidth to stream nice audio to 10 buddies, they're way better off getting redistributable files from real P2P and letting friends/randoms pull them back off at their leisure.
Right, point two... well hello, profit model? Looks like this is just another MSNIM-a-like project to be rolled into the OS. I don't see this as making any legit cash for Microsoft - it's not something the kids will pay for (and it's not corporate P2P). Can we say 'bundling'?
3 degrees might be great, especially if it has better than the usual godawful Microsoft UI. I suppose I shouldn't knock it till I've tried it (or a Linux clone...). And surely MS have got some market research to go on. But while making money out of kids is tricky (e.g. no-one likes adware), MS's strategy is obviously just to bundle, embrace and extend. And that rankles.
I just don't like viral licensing because it destroys the software economy by creating a tragedy of the commons.
This is where your response seems strange to me. Like I said, I don't at all think that it's time for musicians to be forced to license their work permissively (or as copyleft). But what about in 10 or 20 years, if the only way anyone ever reads a book, listens to music, or enjoys some other piece of art is electronically? This is where software is now; not just a digital product, but commonly distributed electronically also.
If you like, try listening to this Stallman speech: Richard M. Stallman's speech, Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks, given at MIT. I think it addresses the issue of 'tragedy of the commons' and why it doesn't apply to digitally reproducible works. If every 'farmer' can have his own perfect copy of the common 'field' (as in the digital case) then such commons can support an indefinite number of 'farmers' without deteriorating.
The idea of copyright is to give up public freedoms (the natural right to copy or modify something you own) in exchange for a greater output of works. But when it's possible for anyone to copy works easily and perfectly, the worth of the corresponding former freedoms is very great. (Greater than that of the freedom to copy a physical object, for example.) The RIAA, DMCA, software patents, and other interfering mechanisms are preventing us from utilising these freedoms, but without offering any compensating advantages (such as lower cost).
Copyleft licenses attempt to re-establish the 'digital commons'. They give specific permission to exercise the freedoms to duplicate (and/or modify, etcetera). This is about public freedoms, not about business sense. I'm not saying Moby (or Microsoft) would necessarily make more cash through copyleft (or at least permissive licensing). But if they did copyleft their work, they would be giving freedoms back to the public - freedoms worth far more than the equivalent sales.
There are just so many things wrong with your argument, I don't know which ones to focus on.
Perhaps this is because it is merely an analogy, and not a precise one. I'm not sure that society is ready for compulsory permissive licensing of artistic works - or that it could ever be. Nonetheless, this would be a valid option for people like Moby to increase the freedoms of their audience. (I also neglected to mention the cash that Moby could make from live appearances, licensed apparel etc.)
Most of the new bands I like aren't commercial successes.
Then they would not be significantly harmed if they permitted reduplication of their music! They're 'failures' anyway, right?
Consider that for the majority of ambitious music acts, commercial failure actually means losing money. Not making a living, even a small one, but going broke. If you liked these kind of (local?) acts, then you'd probably already be paying them by attending concerts or buying records directly off them (something which you could still do if they permitted reduplication). Failing that (let's say all they do is distribute free mp3s) they'd be fools not to give you a way of supporting them voluntarily. You go on about the 'internet radio' bands you like. Isn't there a whole system of donation or voluntary subscription waiting to be set up here? Why can't you pay them for reduplicable mp3s with liner notes, or t-shirts? Isn't it the smaller acts, with no outgoings on advertising, MTV, yada yada, who can use the 'word of mouth' from mp3s to make a profit?
Oh, and loans (or even government assistance, in some countries) are often available to artists needing materials/studio time. Why is it that an aspiring painter buys his own paint (but retains the copyright in his pictures) while a musician signs his soul over to the RIAA in exchange for an advance to buy studio time? The difference here (apart from the sheer cost of music-making) seems to be that the music industry, leveraging the ease of duplication of music to its own ends, is bloated with derivative but money-making rubbish. This sustains a cartel in the distribution market.
The only differences for smaller acts who permit reduplication of their music semm to be (A) better, and legitimate publicity on the internet, and (B) poorer prospects for a traditional contract with a record company.
Amateur carpenters, sculptors, potters, etc mostly create chairs, urns, etc. to decorate their own houses or to give as gifts to their friends.
Granted. But my father (for example) is semi-retired and is a 'hobbyist' painter. Nonetheless he has sold a couple of paintings in the last year for money, and not to friends (about $300 each, I think). Even though paintings can't be easily duplicated, he still managed to get enough 'distribution' (gallery showings, etc) to make money (although not a profit). And he has an incentive, albeit not overwhelming, to increase his skill and output. Isn't this what many free software developers do? What's wrong with that model, in the end?
It's not the case that 'the same applies' to software and/or music as applies to sculpture (say) in every sense of the analogy. This is because code, and music, are like 'protected' speech, and are easily and perfectly duplicated. The copyright contract, between public and government, is unfavourable if it criminalises large groups of people. Right now, copyright extensions and a draconian stance on small-time music copying is part of this relationship. It should be re-examined. (Analogously, think EULAs and the BSA.)
Either that, or artists who give a monkey's about audience freedoms can proceed to permissively license their music. The problem with such a grassroots musician's revolution is that too few established artists own the rights, or would care to ameliorate them if it were possible. Software makers are further along this road, perhaps because they are more clued up about the internet's effect on the economics of collaboration and distribution.
Moby is so popular that he could probably afford to live on donations / club memberships from his fans. This would be a good option if he released all his music under a license that permitted reduplication (à la Mandrake Linux, perhaps).
Furthermore, he has sold ('licensed') many of his songs to companies for advertising. This is pretty lucrative, and could be so regardless of the license on copies owned by private individuals. (Analogous: MySQL, QT.)
What Moby seems to be implying with this alleged comment is that there are lots of overrated, commercially over-successful music groups. This is pretty obviously true. The music industry is too big, then: and is dominated by a cartel (the RIAA, duh). Wouldn't we all be better off, as radio listeners at least, if there were fewer really awful (but commercially successful) songs being recorded? Indeed, fewer songs in general? It would be the case that only a few people made serious cash, i.e. a living, out of music. What's the problem with that? Compare the number of professional carpenters, sculptors, potters or painters, and the number of people that pursue these arts/crafts on a skilled but amateur, or at least part time, basis. (Analogous: the software industry, and people who write nonfree code for a living. Duh.)
"I'll never understand how geeks want government out of privacy and copyright..."
No-one in the Free Software movement wants 'government out of copyright' or 'no copyright'. That would hand all GPL code to corporations, on a plate, by making protected source code distribution impossible. Protected binary distribution might still be possible through patents or secret copy-protection mechanisms.
Separate issue: geeks want governments not to unfairly and retroactively extend copyrights, because that's unfair.
Separate issue: geeks want privacy, because that is a right. rights are upheld by the government.
"through newer regulations..."
You're trolling here. The suits against MS will not result in any legislative action. Their task is to apply anti-trust penalties. As an abusive monopoly they get special treatment. What is difficult to understand about that? What is wrong with breaking up Big Oil or Big Software, or any other abusive monopoly?
Stealing is stealing. It doesn't matter if you are stealing a *copy* or stealing the CD from a store. It is not ethical because the legal agreement between the artist, recording company, and you is being broken.
This is misleading. There is a difference between unethical and illegal. Copyright law, e.g. as in the DMCA, is thought to be bad legislation. If that's true then it might be ethical to flaunt the law in order to bring attention to this.
Remember, the only 'contract' the RIAA etc have with the consumers is the ever-changing copyright law, which they insist on applying retroactively. The DMCA doesn't apply directly to music sharing: but the RIAA is a cartel and may have forfeited the moral high ground here. It could be ethical to break the law in their faces.
Of course, you cannot absolutely justify file sharing by pointing out music purchases. But thinking you can defeat the RIAA cartel purely through market forces is probably naive.
Because increases in computing power tend to have exponential results, a problem that could take years for even the fastest computers today might be finished in hours on the new Japanese computer. (Emphasis mine)
Could someone explain to me how with only 5 times as many flops as ASCI White, this machine could be hundreds of times faster? Or am I missing something obvious to do with "vector processing"?
Gabber, the GNOME Jabber client, has excellent gpg support built in, SSL to the server and so on. Both your 'presence' on the network amd your individual messages can be seamlessly signed (and messages encrypted). This would make Jabber a really secure corporate IM system.
It seems there are always people coming up with good ideas for gpg in free software.
You're making the absurdly obvious mistake of confusing Linux software with its tweak-happy userbase. Your argument appears to be based on this:
Linux users are geeks, therefore if you are not a geek, you cannot use Linux.
This is just false. The fact that most of the people that use Linux (on the desktop) like tweaking it all the time is due to a couple of factors.
Many people using desktop Linux are interested in contributing to testing or creating new free software, software which is by its very nature updated frequently.
Many people using desktop Linux are likely to be interested in improving their system by software or hardware upgrades (hence kernel compilation, etc).
Now since when does either of these apply to your parents?
Even if they aren't the sharpest tools in the box, it should only take a little help for them to grasp the workings of a nice fresh install of, say, Mandrake 8.2 or RedHat 7.2 (etc etc). If you do it for them (which is what someone did with Windows before, after all) they need never see the word 'kernel', let alone 'XFree'.
The article says Hubble is going to be retrofitted once more and then retired in 2010. Would anyone like to fill me in on why it can't be kept going indefinitely?
Is there going to be a much better replacement, for example? I would have thought it economic to keep Hubble in space, even if it was superseded. Guess that shows what I know.
There have been much bigger 'virtual economies' before, like Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars, etcetera etcetera... even baseball cards. What EQ and other MMORPGs have is similar in that game tokens acquire significant real-world value. Trading-cards have also been highly deflationary in the tournament scene, except for 'killer' rares that are in tightly limited supply, and potentially allow busted decks. And they get legislated out of play sooner or later.
Of course there are significant differences, like the CCG companies never claimed the cards were their property so as to clamp down on the secondary market.
Really the kind of 'economics' shown here in EQ is so like these traditional 'stamp-collecting' patterns of artificial scarcity control, I don't think it's interesting yet. If a MMORPG can get big, say half a million users or so in a contiguous environment, with no stupid restrictions on resale or internal trade, there might be interesting phenomena.
Slashdot Mirror
Solid build, good value. The thumb button (if you're right-handed) is the same as middle-clicking the wheel, but has a more positive feel. Plus the 2 optical sensors make it very usable in games.
The GStreamer player does this. It's very nice, although a little crashy. Go look.
But of course, that's not how it really works.
Until someone comes up with a viable way of compensating creators for thier content without restricing how that content is used in any way shape or form, restricted content is going to be reality
What about books? They aren't 'restricted content' except in that the law prevents unlicensed copying. They are only restricted in this very limited sense.
You seem to think DRM is a 'harmless technology', just as copyright is a 'harmless law'. But while the existence of a copyright law is justified to an extent, it is being abused and extended by big media firms so much as to make it draconian. And again, while DRM perhaps has its place, publishers threaten to implement it in a way that eliminates fair use.
Libre Software providing the freedom to release your creation as you want...
No, freedom isn't about releasing content 'how you want'. The restrictions we want to have on content are ones that prevent anyone from ever taking away our access to fair use of that content. DRM threatens to do exactly this.
False. Dumbass/troll. GPL FAQ
Yes GPL economics stops profiteering from software/API/platform publishing.
No this isn't bad for the 'IT' industry (software provision), and it definitely isn't bad for the economy as whole.
When the two overlap-- when science is driven by the profit motive-- we see that the commercial model supercedes the academic one.
You seem to be thinking about patents. We are not talking about patentable (or should-be patentable) designs when we talk about computer code. This is for lots of reasons; some purely pragmatic (it's hard to enforce patent law given reverse engineering) and others legal or ethical.
The principal ethical argument for not allowing software patents is that software design is the design of ideas, and is too easy. For example, a patent for water-repellent trousers takes incredible physical resources to acquire, because it involves producing a physical pair of water-repellent trousers. The trousers themselves are likely produced by a novel process, which could not be inferred from the description "water-repellent trousers". A new digital product is no more complex to produce than it is to completely describe. But enough about patents.
Copyrights have historically been used inside both industry and academia to earn money. The copyright is a reward for publishing (not a reward for 'being creative'!). But digital works are distributable and copyable at zero cost. This was not the case before the current era.
For this reason, we should be (and we are) reconsidering copyright and the way it applies to digital or digitisable works. The ownership of source code to a PUBLISHED work is NOT a natural right. In claiming that it is, you are essentially supporting an insane Disney copytight universe, where selling information to people (publishing) doesn't involve selling them the permission to own that information, ever. Sorry, Mr media industry, but that ain't publishing as we know it now, ethically or legally.
The same point rephrased: when information can be published (and marketed and sold) without significant cost, there is no point in significantly burdening the public with copyright obligations. We should make these kinds of information free. By GPL if not by law.
You see what I'm saying? There is a moral case for the GPL. Now I'm with Chomsky, I generally expect companies (e.g. MS) to behave immorally, but not illegally, to make a profit. So in one sense you're right - it's stupid to lay into MS for 'only inching' toward freeing their work. The ultimate solution to profiteering off copyright ('Disneyism') is to rewrite copyright legislation. That's a long hard road.
Lots of the posts seem to be saying that these guns are 'circumventable, hence useless' (to paraphrase). But the market for these guns is those who need them for self-defence. This includes the police, and arguably private individuals.
Intelligent weapons are not supposed to be a panacea for gun crime in general. They are supposed to be safe, and an incremental improvement in the suppression of gun theft, unlicensed/illegal gun use, and criminal violence.
How about...
- A flat part with a minute spirit level
- A rad-counter (would have to contain a replaceable detector material)
- A diamond - use to scratch glass, cars etc
;)
- A coil of dental floss
- An engraved protractor
- A Cap'n Crunch decoder ring (the ring as 2+ moving parts)
- (Tricky) make the ring resonate at an interesting frequency
- (Old school) a signet ring
- (Simple) marked edges - the ring can be flipped like a coin to make decisions
- A tiny, hence probably useless, circular slide rule (link)
- Neodymium!
- An induction coil - for when she needs to make a quick electromagnet
- (Cute, but not useful yet) a strand of your DNA - this way she can clone you
- (Awful) an engraved copy of your pre-nuptial agreement
;)
How geeky is this woman exactly?What popular four-word phrase has the following sha1sum? 006d267706a93df87eef940402bf5a05f4746132
Accessibility worries me far more than the chances of increased identity theft, since I guess you will still need a PIN. Disabled groups are already angry (I know I would be) about bank practices like charging for counter service. Also, there are an increasing number of internet banks which cannot offer cashiers at all.
Hopefully those who cannot (or do not want to) use the iris ID will have some alternative form of ID available (a separate smartcard? another PIN? voiceprint?).
Googled and found this article from a few years ago: ATM accessibility
Seriously, you think "It leads to horrors like 9/11"? I find this incredible. IHBT once again. Wait, you have an argument too... it's that if only the passengers on the 9/11 WTC planes had had guns/boxcutters/whatever, they would have brought the planes down!... what bollocks. It looks like the theory of preventing 'victim disarmament' depends on IDing the victims beforehand. (Smells like racism.) If you're self-identifying as a victim you've already got problems which should disqualify you from gun ownership.
BTW, it seems to me that 'strong government' by Sharon is doing a nice job of wrecking Israel. Would 'victim disarmament' of certain Palestinians, along with the Jewish settlers, perhaps be a good move? Or do jfpo.org want Hamas et al to keep the 'right to protect themselves' (as they see it)?
But your argument? It's completely irrelevant.
OK, apart from knives, fine. It seems infeasible to ban the inclined plane. This doesn't follow. 9/11 casualties were not caused by 'weapons' (except indirectly by boxcutters) but by planes. Planes are a form of transport. They did damage because they have lots of 'chemical energy' (kerosene) in them.Many kinds of concentrated energy storage are dangerous in this respect - petrol, rocket motors, fertiliser. Restricting peoples' ability to accumulate such substances does make sense up to a point. But it's not as if any government is about to ban chemical energy. They will (and should) restrict some things and not others. There is a spectrum of cases.
This is false in general. 'whatever'? What about nukes?In summary, your post looks like a well-disguised NRA troll. You say: restricting what individuals can own isn't a panacea for terrorism, hence it is useless. The truth is that, yes, stupid restrictions like for rocket motors will be ineffective, but that this has no real implications of restricting e.g gun ownership.
One, where's the market? I mean rilly?
Two, this is supposed to make cash for MS how?
news.com.com he say:
Well the first thing is, does this market even exist? You see such people using AIM, ICQ etc all the time. This software is junk. Do the 'Net-Gen' (sic) care? No. They have other things to do than learn any more than the most trivial UI. As for heavy teenage net users, what about this, from the other article: What's with the arbitrary limitation? My kid sister's 'posse' (blech) is easily twice that big. Sounds like a mess. What are you supposed to call your group? 'J. Sixpack's buddies'? It doesn't work - that's like having gang leaders in the playground. That's not how kids do instant messaging. Is it? Drag-n-drop ('push') filesharing is a nice idea, but the kids already know about Kazaa, especially the heavy users. For anyone with enough bandwidth to stream nice audio to 10 buddies, they're way better off getting redistributable files from real P2P and letting friends/randoms pull them back off at their leisure.Right, point two... well hello, profit model? Looks like this is just another MSNIM-a-like project to be rolled into the OS. I don't see this as making any legit cash for Microsoft - it's not something the kids will pay for (and it's not corporate P2P). Can we say 'bundling'?
3 degrees might be great, especially if it has better than the usual godawful Microsoft UI. I suppose I shouldn't knock it till I've tried it (or a Linux clone...). And surely MS have got some market research to go on. But while making money out of kids is tricky (e.g. no-one likes adware), MS's strategy is obviously just to bundle, embrace and extend. And that rankles.
If you like, try listening to this Stallman speech: Richard M. Stallman's speech, Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks, given at MIT. I think it addresses the issue of 'tragedy of the commons' and why it doesn't apply to digitally reproducible works. If every 'farmer' can have his own perfect copy of the common 'field' (as in the digital case) then such commons can support an indefinite number of 'farmers' without deteriorating.
The idea of copyright is to give up public freedoms (the natural right to copy or modify something you own) in exchange for a greater output of works. But when it's possible for anyone to copy works easily and perfectly, the worth of the corresponding former freedoms is very great. (Greater than that of the freedom to copy a physical object, for example.) The RIAA, DMCA, software patents, and other interfering mechanisms are preventing us from utilising these freedoms, but without offering any compensating advantages (such as lower cost).
Copyleft licenses attempt to re-establish the 'digital commons'. They give specific permission to exercise the freedoms to duplicate (and/or modify, etcetera). This is about public freedoms, not about business sense. I'm not saying Moby (or Microsoft) would necessarily make more cash through copyleft (or at least permissive licensing). But if they did copyleft their work, they would be giving freedoms back to the public - freedoms worth far more than the equivalent sales.
Consider that for the majority of ambitious music acts, commercial failure actually means losing money. Not making a living, even a small one, but going broke. If you liked these kind of (local?) acts, then you'd probably already be paying them by attending concerts or buying records directly off them (something which you could still do if they permitted reduplication). Failing that (let's say all they do is distribute free mp3s) they'd be fools not to give you a way of supporting them voluntarily. You go on about the 'internet radio' bands you like. Isn't there a whole system of donation or voluntary subscription waiting to be set up here? Why can't you pay them for reduplicable mp3s with liner notes, or t-shirts? Isn't it the smaller acts, with no outgoings on advertising, MTV, yada yada, who can use the 'word of mouth' from mp3s to make a profit?
Oh, and loans (or even government assistance, in some countries) are often available to artists needing materials/studio time. Why is it that an aspiring painter buys his own paint (but retains the copyright in his pictures) while a musician signs his soul over to the RIAA in exchange for an advance to buy studio time? The difference here (apart from the sheer cost of music-making) seems to be that the music industry, leveraging the ease of duplication of music to its own ends, is bloated with derivative but money-making rubbish. This sustains a cartel in the distribution market.
The only differences for smaller acts who permit reduplication of their music semm to be (A) better, and legitimate publicity on the internet, and (B) poorer prospects for a traditional contract with a record company.
Granted. But my father (for example) is semi-retired and is a 'hobbyist' painter. Nonetheless he has sold a couple of paintings in the last year for money, and not to friends (about $300 each, I think). Even though paintings can't be easily duplicated, he still managed to get enough 'distribution' (gallery showings, etc) to make money (although not a profit). And he has an incentive, albeit not overwhelming, to increase his skill and output. Isn't this what many free software developers do? What's wrong with that model, in the end?It's not the case that 'the same applies' to software and/or music as applies to sculpture (say) in every sense of the analogy. This is because code, and music, are like 'protected' speech, and are easily and perfectly duplicated. The copyright contract, between public and government, is unfavourable if it criminalises large groups of people. Right now, copyright extensions and a draconian stance on small-time music copying is part of this relationship. It should be re-examined. (Analogously, think EULAs and the BSA.)
Either that, or artists who give a monkey's about audience freedoms can proceed to permissively license their music. The problem with such a grassroots musician's revolution is that too few established artists own the rights, or would care to ameliorate them if it were possible. Software makers are further along this road, perhaps because they are more clued up about the internet's effect on the economics of collaboration and distribution.
Furthermore, he has sold ('licensed') many of his songs to companies for advertising. This is pretty lucrative, and could be so regardless of the license on copies owned by private individuals. (Analogous: MySQL, QT.)
What Moby seems to be implying with this alleged comment is that there are lots of overrated, commercially over-successful music groups. This is pretty obviously true. The music industry is too big, then: and is dominated by a cartel (the RIAA, duh). Wouldn't we all be better off, as radio listeners at least, if there were fewer really awful (but commercially successful) songs being recorded? Indeed, fewer songs in general? It would be the case that only a few people made serious cash, i.e. a living, out of music. What's the problem with that? Compare the number of professional carpenters, sculptors, potters or painters, and the number of people that pursue these arts/crafts on a skilled but amateur, or at least part time, basis. (Analogous: the software industry, and people who write nonfree code for a living. Duh.)
Separate issue: geeks want governments not to unfairly and retroactively extend copyrights, because that's unfair.
Separate issue: geeks want privacy, because that is a right. rights are upheld by the government.
You're trolling here. The suits against MS will not result in any legislative action. Their task is to apply anti-trust penalties. As an abusive monopoly they get special treatment. What is difficult to understand about that? What is wrong with breaking up Big Oil or Big Software, or any other abusive monopoly?Remember, the only 'contract' the RIAA etc have with the consumers is the ever-changing copyright law, which they insist on applying retroactively. The DMCA doesn't apply directly to music sharing: but the RIAA is a cartel and may have forfeited the moral high ground here. It could be ethical to break the law in their faces.
Of course, you cannot absolutely justify file sharing by pointing out music purchases. But thinking you can defeat the RIAA cartel purely through market forces is probably naive.
It seems there are always people coming up with good ideas for gpg in free software.
Linux users are geeks, therefore if you are not a geek, you cannot use Linux.
This is just false. The fact that most of the people that use Linux (on the desktop) like tweaking it all the time is due to a couple of factors.
- Many people using desktop Linux are interested in contributing to testing or creating new free software, software which is by its very nature updated frequently.
- Many people using desktop Linux are likely to be interested in improving their system by software or hardware upgrades (hence kernel compilation, etc).
Now since when does either of these apply to your parents?Even if they aren't the sharpest tools in the box, it should only take a little help for them to grasp the workings of a nice fresh install of, say, Mandrake 8.2 or RedHat 7.2 (etc etc). If you do it for them (which is what someone did with Windows before, after all) they need never see the word 'kernel', let alone 'XFree'.
Is there going to be a much better replacement, for example? I would have thought it economic to keep Hubble in space, even if it was superseded. Guess that shows what I know.
-- Beatrice Hall (attributed to Voltaire)
There have been much bigger 'virtual economies' before, like Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars, etcetera etcetera... even baseball cards. What EQ and other MMORPGs have is similar in that game tokens acquire significant real-world value. Trading-cards have also been highly deflationary in the tournament scene, except for 'killer' rares that are in tightly limited supply, and potentially allow busted decks. And they get legislated out of play sooner or later.
Of course there are significant differences, like the CCG companies never claimed the cards were their property so as to clamp down on the secondary market.
Really the kind of 'economics' shown here in EQ is so like these traditional 'stamp-collecting' patterns of artificial scarcity control, I don't think it's interesting yet. If a MMORPG can get big, say half a million users or so in a contiguous environment, with no stupid restrictions on resale or internal trade, there might be interesting phenomena.