It is missing two important things:
* A standard package format (RPM or DEB)
Actually, it appears to be rpm. See chapter 13 Software installation.
I'd rather it not be rpm. A standard package should be able to install on a linux system that doesn't have a package manager program. They should be able to do something like untar the package, cd to the directory, and type./install. That way they only need tar, the uncompress program (gzip/bzip), and maybe bash (if./install is a shell script and not a executable)
* A standard desktop framework (KDE or GNOME)
Why do we really need KDE or GNOME? X Programs
linked to GTK, Motif/lesstif, or xlib work fine on my system, and fvwm2 is good enough for me. I don't think the standard says you can't use KDE or GNOME, it just standardizes various file formats and libraries, doesn't it?
I think the main reason they don't accept it is because they don't understand how computer art is made. They probably think most of it is just dots/lines/circles, sections of images taken from screencaps of a TV show, cutting and pasting photos, etc.
Computer art will most likely be more accepted when more artists start using it, and the critics know enough to tell if something was "painted" or just slapped together by Joe HomeUser.
I think that they are trying to put too much duplicate functionality into all these devices. The focus should change to making each device do one thing, and do it well.
Yes, but if all of these devices are given so much extra functionality, then we can have fun dealing with viruses attacking everything. Just imagine: a ten line script could make every cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, computer, and toaster completely useless in a matter of hours. Come on! This is what everyone wants. It helps cure boredom!
And why should such devices have a keyboard? So that thirteen year old kids can write the viruses while they are sitting in class waiting for the bell to ring.
I didn't say anything against sampling or fair use. The person I responded to seemed to be saying that it's okay to take something someone else worked very hard on and give it all away without the author's permission.
There's a stark difference between working for an individual and putting something on the shelves hoping to be paid.
Yes, but their are people who did a lot of work to put that "something on the shelf", and if you give away free copies of a product they created with the intent to sell, then it is the same as having them work for you and not be paid.
Look at it like this: If the grocers buys some fruit and it goes off because people take it from the trees instead due to your $5/lemon prices did we somehow steal? I'd say no, even though the grocer expected to make money on the fruit.
Yes, if it is your own tree, but if you go to the grocer's orchard and take his lemons, would you call that stealing? You could argue that lemons are free because the trees produce fruit all by themselves, but what seems to be missing from that argument is the fact that there may have been people who worked at tilling the soil, planting the seeds, and spraying the trees with insectiside. All this work is necessary to have a resonable assurance that you will have many lemons that are of resonable quality. And the difference between this analogy and someone creating a movie/song/etc is that the product wouldn't be produced at all without them. Sure some other person could produce something similar if they worked at it, but my point was that the original author did do the necessary work and should be able to control what happens to it--within reason and without infringing on other people's rights to produce their own origional works, or their rights to live their lives without being harrased by companies trying to "protect" those copyrights.
People decide it doesn't have enough value to be worth buying ($20 CD),
Getting screwed is completely another issue. If you think something costs too much, don't buy it. That's what I do. And if I thought they were screwing me, I also wouldn't buy it then "share" it with my 10,000 closest friends...they may like the CD and go out and buy it themselves or some of the companies merchandise. That just gives the bastards more money to screw us again! What should be done is boycott the wackos until they are bankrupt.
However, I am of the opinion that if the company doesn't let the artist have any significant net profit, then the product *should* be in the public domain. Let's make this a law and force the corrupt movie and music industry to their knees! Then maybe the *real* artists would get shelf space in your local music and video store. And we wouldn't have to deal with any of this formula crap the current companies put out.
I don't think it is. IBM is a fairly stable company and has been around since before computers. They have no reason to lie, not to mention the fact that they are always doing R&D, and therefore often release news about their developments. If I had money to invest, IBM would be one of my top choices...
Maybe technicly copying is not stealing, but realize if someone is trying to sell some form of intelectual property, they probably spent time and money specificly because they expected to be paid by everyone who used that product.
Consider, for example, you are hired on by a company. You work for two weeks, and ask for your paycheck. They say, "We changed our mind, we decided not to pay you." Wouldn't you be pretty mad? They didn't steal anything from you, but you did do a lot of work, and the agreement was that you would be paid.
Copying movies/music/software is like the example above. When the companies that produced these things sold them to people, they expected that:
They would be paid for the copy you have
You would not give free copies to anyone else
By copyrighting something they aren't stopping you from creating your own original works,
just stopping you from taking something they made and not getting compensated for it. Patents, banning products that might be used for illegal copying, and etc. are another story...but that is a completely different issue.
As for all this copy protection crap that the movie/music industry is doing, if they're smart (pun intended), they will drop it.
About 10/15 years ago the software industry was doing the same sort of thing. They had all forms of "copy protection" from hardware keys (is like a smart card) to phantom sectors. These "protections" did little else than keep the below average joe user from making illegal copies. There were tons of products sold in electronics and computer magazines that were specificly made for circumventing copy protections, and even if they were made illegal (like the music and movie industries are trying to do now), the big time pirates would still be able to do it...they would easily spend the time and money to break the protection and then they could make countless amounts of money selling copies on the street.
What it did do however, was cause problems for their legitimate users. People were inconvenienced by having to stick a key into their serial port everytime they wanted to use company y's software. The phantom sectors and the like didn't work correctly for all hardware configurations, so there were a significant number of people who, after buying the product, found out the hard way that it didn't work. I even heard some forms of copy protection actually damaged some disk drives!
If you notice, those forms of "protection" are almost non-existant today, specificly becase they caused so much trouble and gave so little benefit that software companies gave up on it. Hollywood and the RIAA may not because they are stupid, but eventually one of these schemes will backfire on them, and a lot of people will get pissed off and stop buying their products. The average person isn't going to spend hundreds of dollars on a peice of equipment and twenty or so for each title, then find out it doesn't work, and not get really mad and do something about it.
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Actually, it appears to be rpm. See chapter 13 Software installation.
I'd rather it not be rpm. A standard package should be able to install on a linux system that doesn't have a package manager program. They should be able to do something like untar the package, cd to the directory, and type ./install. That way they only need tar, the uncompress program (gzip/bzip), and maybe bash (if ./install is a shell script and not a executable)
Why do we really need KDE or GNOME? X Programs linked to GTK, Motif/lesstif, or xlib work fine on my system, and fvwm2 is good enough for me. I don't think the standard says you can't use KDE or GNOME, it just standardizes various file formats and libraries, doesn't it?
I think the main reason they don't accept it is because they don't understand how computer art is made. They probably think most of it is just dots/lines/circles, sections of images taken from screencaps of a TV show, cutting and pasting photos, etc.
Computer art will most likely be more accepted when more artists start using it, and the critics know enough to tell if something was "painted" or just slapped together by Joe HomeUser.
Yes, but if all of these devices are given so much extra functionality, then we can have fun dealing with viruses attacking everything. Just imagine: a ten line script could make every cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, computer, and toaster completely useless in a matter of hours. Come on! This is what everyone wants. It helps cure boredom!
And why should such devices have a keyboard? So that thirteen year old kids can write the viruses while they are sitting in class waiting for the bell to ring.
I didn't say anything against sampling or fair use. The person I responded to seemed to be saying that it's okay to take something someone else worked very hard on and give it all away without the author's permission.
Yes, but their are people who did a lot of work to put that "something on the shelf", and if you give away free copies of a product they created with the intent to sell, then it is the same as having them work for you and not be paid.
Yes, if it is your own tree, but if you go to the grocer's orchard and take his lemons, would you call that stealing? You could argue that lemons are free because the trees produce fruit all by themselves, but what seems to be missing from that argument is the fact that there may have been people who worked at tilling the soil, planting the seeds, and spraying the trees with insectiside. All this work is necessary to have a resonable assurance that you will have many lemons that are of resonable quality. And the difference between this analogy and someone creating a movie/song/etc is that the product wouldn't be produced at all without them. Sure some other person could produce something similar if they worked at it, but my point was that the original author did do the necessary work and should be able to control what happens to it--within reason and without infringing on other people's rights to produce their own origional works, or their rights to live their lives without being harrased by companies trying to "protect" those copyrights.
Getting screwed is completely another issue. If you think something costs too much, don't buy it. That's what I do. And if I thought they were screwing me, I also wouldn't buy it then "share" it with my 10,000 closest friends...they may like the CD and go out and buy it themselves or some of the companies merchandise. That just gives the bastards more money to screw us again! What should be done is boycott the wackos until they are bankrupt.
However, I am of the opinion that if the company doesn't let the artist have any significant net profit, then the product *should* be in the public domain. Let's make this a law and force the corrupt movie and music industry to their knees! Then maybe the *real* artists would get shelf space in your local music and video store. And we wouldn't have to deal with any of this formula crap the current companies put out.
I don't think it is. IBM is a fairly stable company and has been around since before computers. They have no reason to lie, not to mention the fact that they are always doing R&D, and therefore often release news about their developments. If I had money to invest, IBM would be one of my top choices...
Maybe technicly copying is not stealing, but realize if someone is trying to sell some form of intelectual property, they probably spent time and money specificly because they expected to be paid by everyone who used that product.
Consider, for example, you are hired on by a company. You work for two weeks, and ask for your paycheck. They say, "We changed our mind, we decided not to pay you." Wouldn't you be pretty mad? They didn't steal anything from you, but you did do a lot of work, and the agreement was that you would be paid.
Copying movies/music/software is like the example above. When the companies that produced these things sold them to people, they expected that:
By copyrighting something they aren't stopping you from creating your own original works, just stopping you from taking something they made and not getting compensated for it. Patents, banning products that might be used for illegal copying, and etc. are another story...but that is a completely different issue.
As for all this copy protection crap that the movie/music industry is doing, if they're smart (pun intended), they will drop it.
About 10/15 years ago the software industry was doing the same sort of thing. They had all forms of "copy protection" from hardware keys (is like a smart card) to phantom sectors. These "protections" did little else than keep the below average joe user from making illegal copies. There were tons of products sold in electronics and computer magazines that were specificly made for circumventing copy protections, and even if they were made illegal (like the music and movie industries are trying to do now), the big time pirates would still be able to do it...they would easily spend the time and money to break the protection and then they could make countless amounts of money selling copies on the street.
What it did do however, was cause problems for their legitimate users. People were inconvenienced by having to stick a key into their serial port everytime they wanted to use company y's software. The phantom sectors and the like didn't work correctly for all hardware configurations, so there were a significant number of people who, after buying the product, found out the hard way that it didn't work. I even heard some forms of copy protection actually damaged some disk drives!
If you notice, those forms of "protection" are almost non-existant today, specificly becase they caused so much trouble and gave so little benefit that software companies gave up on it. Hollywood and the RIAA may not because they are stupid, but eventually one of these schemes will backfire on them, and a lot of people will get pissed off and stop buying their products. The average person isn't going to spend hundreds of dollars on a peice of equipment and twenty or so for each title, then find out it doesn't work, and not get really mad and do something about it.