What do you think of the current situation with IP rights in the free software movement?
The individual gives up his IP rights but companies still uses them.
You don't control the software you have written but big companies like redhat and IBM is using their trademarked brands to associate Linux products with them in the pulics eyes.
One recent example of this is when Redhat grabbed postgresql and just changed its name to Redhat DB without compensating great bridge (that makes postgresql) for their hard work.
It seems to me that capital strong companies are playing by entire different rules than the people who are developing free software.
Different people have different views on what defines freedom.
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1) On one hand we have the traditional western view that people should have freedom to trade property, there among others intellectual property is an important concept that in these days makes up most of the value in most businessess.
This freedom restricts the publics freedom to use the result of other peoples work.
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2) On the other hand we have the view that people should be free from the control owners have over them. This is the fundamental idea of socialism and also the free software foundations view on freedom.
This freedom restricts peoples freedom to control the result of their work.
---
Do you think different views on what freedom is should be respected?
I read most of the posts above and it's just amazing what people are willing to say to try to justify that they take other peoples work (music and others) without paying for it.
"Or imagine being a famous artist like Michaelangelo, or a famous writer like Shakespeare or a famous composer like Bach or... oh wait, none of them had copyright protections. "
Thats right. And thats exactly why they where so few throughout history. Lack of protection.
Compare those quite rare artist at those times with the enourmous production of content today.
What you a suggesting has already been tried in the communist states.
The whole goal with communism is that the individual should abandod his property (both fysical things and intellectual property) for the good of the community (therefore the word communism). Most important of those are IP actually, to do the hard work they forced people, you can't force people into inventing.
It really didn't work that good. People didn't invent, not much medicines where developed because it didn't gave anything to the inventor.
Without IP we wouldn't have aids medicine, we wouldn't have cancer medicine, we wouldn't have much progress.
You point at people who did create without beeing paid and thats right, some development would be made but it would be very very slow.
Say i go the the store to buy a radio, how much do you think the material inside the radio costs. Some plastics and silicon. Not much.
The value is in it's development, in the engineering that produced it.
Say I go to a car-dealer to buy a new car. How much do the material for the car cost. Also not much.
The value it in it's engineering, testing for safety etc.
To make a car costs about 1/10 of it's saleprice.
Do you think for example ford can spend the enourmous amount of money developing more safe cars and testing it for also huge amounts of money if volvo can grab the blueprints right away? Ford must sell the car for a price high enough to cover the development cost while volvo can dump the price since they didn't spend the money in the development phase.
Wake up of your dreamworld!
A houndred years ago the value was in the material, nowadays most value in all products are in intellectual property, in the people that makes up the company. A houdred years ago manwork wasn't worth much, you should be GLAD that it value are alot higher today. It makes YOU valuable!
I'm not saying that IP owners should have rights to do whatever they want to but IP rights are an important part of the western worlds economy and has given the broad majority of people great welth. Compare our living standard with the third world where man is just a tool for producing material that we (in the western world) make into products.
It's not us who should become third world economies, it's the third world that needs to get closer to us!
"Dmitri Sklyarov are tossed into jail because they criticized the code, "
God, I'm tired of this old hacker retoric. If it's simple to hack something it should be legal. "I hacked the site because it was lousy security, whats wrong with that?"
With this reasoning it should be allowed to rob old defenseless ladies because it's easy.
He did after all sell software that cracked adobes propietary format.
If a bunch of people don't pay for a product and the product costs X amount of money to make the other bunch who DO pay has to pay more. As simple as that.
If the prices are still up there is a cartell, and thats illegal and means prison for whoever doing it.
Good competition always drives prices to market level, they wont stay to high in the long run.
There is a difference between this case (witch falls under fair use) and putting up stuff on Napster so houndreds of thousands of strangers can download it (not fair use).
"the human spirit of innovation and creativity"
...I guess they with this mean that people should be allowed to take other peoples work without paying.
Thats what usually is called innovation and creativity here on slashdot.
We are not talking about a change in businessmodel, we are talking about giving things away for free here.
Show me any working company that gives it work away for free who don't go bankrypsy.
"That's like saying the deployment of the cotton gin cost jobs. "
What you describe is jobs replaced by other jobs. When the products are given away jobs really disappear.
It's not at all about "protect programmers' jobs". It's about people getting paid just like everybody else.
"That leads to the most efficient utilization of resources in that economy"
We aren't talking about a working economy here, we are talking about giving things away.
I would love to play it, bought it on the day it was possible to buy it.
I have tried it on two computers, one win98+static ip and one win2k+dhcp. It don't work on either of them.
No patches helps.
:-(
What do you think of the current situation with IP rights in the free software movement?
The individual gives up his IP rights but companies still uses them.
You don't control the software you have written but big companies like redhat and IBM is using their trademarked brands to associate Linux products with them in the pulics eyes.
One recent example of this is when Redhat grabbed postgresql and just changed its name to Redhat DB without compensating great bridge (that makes postgresql) for their hard work.
It seems to me that capital strong companies are playing by entire different rules than the people who are developing free software.
Different people have different views on what defines freedom.
---
1) On one hand we have the traditional western view that people should have freedom to trade property, there among others intellectual property is an important concept that in these days makes up most of the value in most businessess.
This freedom restricts the publics freedom to use the result of other peoples work.
---
2) On the other hand we have the view that people should be free from the control owners have over them. This is the fundamental idea of socialism and also the free software foundations view on freedom.
This freedom restricts peoples freedom to control the result of their work.
---
Do you think different views on what freedom is should be respected?
..."If you can't do the time, don't do the crime"?
But the platform itself is propietary.
I read most of the posts above and it's just amazing what people are willing to say to try to justify that they take other peoples work (music and others) without paying for it.
Mod this guy up, right at the spot.
"So, a reasonable extrapolation says that Michaelangelo was not the only artist around at the time. "
Thats right, but he was one of very few.
Couldn't agree more.
"Or imagine being a famous artist like Michaelangelo, or a famous writer like Shakespeare or a famous composer like Bach or... oh wait, none of them had copyright protections. "
Thats right. And thats exactly why they where so few throughout history. Lack of protection.
Compare those quite rare artist at those times with the enourmous production of content today.
"extras, for much less"
Yes, and do you know why they can do this?
IT'S BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T SPEND MILLIONS ON ITS PRODUCTIONS.
Really, how hard can it be to understand that its the production that costs money, not the media!
What you a suggesting has already been tried in the communist states.
The whole goal with communism is that the individual should abandod his property (both fysical things and intellectual property) for the good of the community (therefore the word communism). Most important of those are IP actually, to do the hard work they forced people, you can't force people into inventing.
It really didn't work that good. People didn't invent, not much medicines where developed because it didn't gave anything to the inventor.
Without IP we wouldn't have aids medicine, we wouldn't have cancer medicine, we wouldn't have much progress.
You point at people who did create without beeing paid and thats right, some development would be made but it would be very very slow.
Say i go the the store to buy a radio, how much do you think the material inside the radio costs. Some plastics and silicon. Not much.
The value is in it's development, in the engineering that produced it.
Say I go to a car-dealer to buy a new car. How much do the material for the car cost. Also not much.
The value it in it's engineering, testing for safety etc.
To make a car costs about 1/10 of it's saleprice.
Do you think for example ford can spend the enourmous amount of money developing more safe cars and testing it for also huge amounts of money if volvo can grab the blueprints right away? Ford must sell the car for a price high enough to cover the development cost while volvo can dump the price since they didn't spend the money in the development phase.
Wake up of your dreamworld!
A houndred years ago the value was in the material, nowadays most value in all products are in intellectual property, in the people that makes up the company. A houdred years ago manwork wasn't worth much, you should be GLAD that it value are alot higher today. It makes YOU valuable!
I'm not saying that IP owners should have rights to do whatever they want to but IP rights are an important part of the western worlds economy and has given the broad majority of people great welth. Compare our living standard with the third world where man is just a tool for producing material that we (in the western world) make into products.
It's not us who should become third world economies, it's the third world that needs to get closer to us!
"Who needs commercialism. "
:)
Well, everyone that needs to pay their bills. Whats...well...about everyone.
If the software doesn't cost anything people are NOT going to pay that kind of money for support.
Low price indicating low budget, it's a psykological thing.
"Dmitri Sklyarov are tossed into jail because they criticized the code, "
God, I'm tired of this old hacker retoric. If it's simple to hack something it should be legal. "I hacked the site because it was lousy security, whats wrong with that?"
With this reasoning it should be allowed to rob old defenseless ladies because it's easy.
He did after all sell software that cracked adobes propietary format.
The problem is that those laws are hard to enforce.
I agree that those new laws (DMCA and alike) is unfortune and it would be better if they was not needed.
The problem is that copyright law are so horrible abused by huge amounts of people that the situation just has to be dealt with.
I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those pesky, meddling kids and their van!
:)
I'm certainly not naive.
If a bunch of people don't pay for a product and the product costs X amount of money to make the other bunch who DO pay has to pay more. As simple as that.
If the prices are still up there is a cartell, and thats illegal and means prison for whoever doing it.
Good competition always drives prices to market level, they wont stay to high in the long run.
Because people are giving away peoples work to houndreds of thousands of others (napster for example). Something has to be done, thats why.
I'm sick of paying more to make up for all the freeloaders!
There is a difference between this case (witch falls under fair use) and putting up stuff on Napster so houndreds of thousands of strangers can download it (not fair use).