They are getting "lucrative OEM deals" which means something like $0.50/copy to put Tux Racer on a million demo disks bundled with video cards.
They will probably also offer to let retailers put Tux Racer, Linux or Windows version, up on shelves to gather dust with a $40 price tag between Final Fantasy 27 and Quake 5. Maybe a handful will even order some, maybe even the Linux version. It will probably be available by mail-order from the company web-site. Making up a small run of boxed versions will probably lose money.
So why will they do this? So the package retailers can advertise "$200 video card, with $800 worth of software!" (which cost $5 in licensing fees) It's not cheesy free software, it's Real Commercial Software that you'd have to pay for otherwise!
Let's face it. Tux Racer is a great little graphics demo, and a fun little toy, but it's not (and won't be) serious competition against what you'd normally lay down cash for.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with what they are doing (morally and ethically... there may be legal complications with seperating the software from even a small number of contributed bug fixes, though I doubt anyone will be willing to take it to court), but don't kid yourselves, Tux Racer 1.0 isn't "coming to Linux box near you" any time soon. This is about a little polish for a little money to sell video cards for Windows. I wish them well at cashing in on their own hard work.
I don't believe that her family should be compensated for the use of her tissue sample, but I object to the "filthy money" reasoning.
Money is the reason grocer bothers stocking the shelves you buy from, and the reason the farmer bothers growing a thousand times more food than his family can eat. Money is the bond that holds ten thousand individuals in cooperation long enough to produce something as insanely complicated as a computer in quantities that allow you to own one. Money makes us turn a blind eye to race, religion, and nationality, to help more than the handful of people we know and like.
Money makes you a hundred times wealthier than you would be in a non-monetary system and keeps you from starving during local crop failures. Don't knock the lucre.
People who misuse or misinterpret "pi", "turbocharger", and "URL" generally have a very fuzzy concept of those terms, hesitate to define them, and are ready to defer to some authority. The popular conception of "turbocharger" is, "Something that makes the car go faster, that I don't really understand." and the popular consensus is to defer to industry experts on the precise definition. There is a consensus of authority as valid as any consensus of definition. Put simply, they know who to ask for a definition, and that makes the definition valid.
People who "misuse" or "misinterpret" "...begs the question...", on the other hand, generally wouldn't hesitate to give a definition, and dismiss self-proclaimed "experts" as pedants. The same goes for "millennium" (or "millenium" for that matter).
The "language lawyers" like to imagine themselves authorities, but they are not because they are popularly rejected.
Thus, it is not a case of argumentum ad populum as a logical error to consider common usage.
Now, there are different levels of consensus, and one can argue that consensus among professional writers or among "educated men" is more important than in the general population. Regardless, that ridiculous literal translation is only known to a handful of language pedants and debate geeks, a minority among college-educated people or even professional writers. It is jargon at best.
If not even 10% of the population recognizes an idiom, it is not part of standard English, and it's fair game for literal interpretation.
It is used far more commonly as "leads to the question" than as the literally nonsensical debate formalism you suggest. It makes sense as "leads to the question" when interpretted normally (compare "This movie is just begging for a brutal review!"), whereas it only works for your preferred purpose when memorized as an obscure set-phrase (where the hell did it come from, anyway? A literal translation of a Latin idiom?).
"Begging the question" should <i>never</i> be used to mean a logical error, because it is obscure, completely misleading in a literal sense, and thus will be usually be misinterpreted by the vast majority of your audience. Simply say it plain English: "You're giving your belief as evidence that you're right." or "That's not evidence, you're just asserting your claim!" or even "That's circular logic."
Such a term is just an archaic excuse for pseudointellectual snobs to roll their eyes at their opponents and dismiss them because they haven't learned the same jargon. IOW, outside of the debating club, it's a vehicle for an ad hominem attack.;-)
I didn't say I necessarily agreed with protectionist policies. My point was that any deception would be aimed primarily at the government.
If someone is ready to work for 50% of the nation wide median salary it's his goddamn right to use that to make himself attractive to the potential employer.
The relevant question, though, is: if someone from outside the nation is ready to work for 50% of your salary, having never paid taxes to your country or contributed to it in any way, lacking the debts of your country's high-priced university system, is it his "goddamn right" to be given a work visa and let into the country to compete for your job?
Note: I am not an American, and I don't live or work in the USA.
It's not supposed to be about tricking foreign workers, it's about tricking government into loosening protectionist restrictions on foreign workers so people like you who have lower salary expectations than US citizens will drive down salaries.
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They are getting "lucrative OEM deals" which means something like $0.50/copy to put Tux Racer on a million demo disks bundled with video cards.
They will probably also offer to let retailers put Tux Racer, Linux or Windows version, up on shelves to gather dust with a $40 price tag between Final Fantasy 27 and Quake 5. Maybe a handful will even order some, maybe even the Linux version. It will probably be available by mail-order from the company web-site. Making up a small run of boxed versions will probably lose money.
So why will they do this? So the package retailers can advertise "$200 video card, with $800 worth of software!" (which cost $5 in licensing fees) It's not cheesy free software, it's Real Commercial Software that you'd have to pay for otherwise!
Let's face it. Tux Racer is a great little graphics demo, and a fun little toy, but it's not (and won't be) serious competition against what you'd normally lay down cash for.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with what they are doing (morally and ethically... there may be legal complications with seperating the software from even a small number of contributed bug fixes, though I doubt anyone will be willing to take it to court), but don't kid yourselves, Tux Racer 1.0 isn't "coming to Linux box near you" any time soon. This is about a little polish for a little money to sell video cards for Windows. I wish them well at cashing in on their own hard work.
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I don't believe that her family should be compensated for the use of her tissue sample, but I object to the "filthy money" reasoning.
Money is the reason grocer bothers stocking the shelves you buy from, and the reason the farmer bothers growing a thousand times more food than his family can eat. Money is the bond that holds ten thousand individuals in cooperation long enough to produce something as insanely complicated as a computer in quantities that allow you to own one. Money makes us turn a blind eye to race, religion, and nationality, to help more than the handful of people we know and like.
Money makes you a hundred times wealthier than you would be in a non-monetary system and keeps you from starving during local crop failures. Don't knock the lucre.
---
People who misuse or misinterpret "pi", "turbocharger", and "URL" generally have a very fuzzy concept of those terms, hesitate to define them, and are ready to defer to some authority. The popular conception of "turbocharger" is, "Something that makes the car go faster, that I don't really understand." and the popular consensus is to defer to industry experts on the precise definition. There is a consensus of authority as valid as any consensus of definition. Put simply, they know who to ask for a definition, and that makes the definition valid.
People who "misuse" or "misinterpret" "...begs the question...", on the other hand, generally wouldn't hesitate to give a definition, and dismiss self-proclaimed "experts" as pedants. The same goes for "millennium" (or "millenium" for that matter).
The "language lawyers" like to imagine themselves authorities, but they are not because they are popularly rejected.
---
Thus, it is not a case of argumentum ad populum as a logical error to consider common usage.
Now, there are different levels of consensus, and one can argue that consensus among professional writers or among "educated men" is more important than in the general population. Regardless, that ridiculous literal translation is only known to a handful of language pedants and debate geeks, a minority among college-educated people or even professional writers. It is jargon at best.
If not even 10% of the population recognizes an idiom, it is not part of standard English, and it's fair game for literal interpretation.
---
It is used far more commonly as "leads to the question" than as the literally nonsensical debate formalism you suggest. It makes sense as "leads to the question" when interpretted normally (compare "This movie is just begging for a brutal review!"), whereas it only works for your preferred purpose when memorized as an obscure set-phrase (where the hell did it come from, anyway? A literal translation of a Latin idiom?).
;-)
"Begging the question" should <i>never</i> be used to mean a logical error, because it is obscure, completely misleading in a literal sense, and thus will be usually be misinterpreted by the vast majority of your audience. Simply say it plain English: "You're giving your belief as evidence that you're right." or "That's not evidence, you're just asserting your claim!" or even "That's circular logic."
Such a term is just an archaic excuse for pseudointellectual snobs to roll their eyes at their opponents and dismiss them because they haven't learned the same jargon. IOW, outside of the debating club, it's a vehicle for an ad hominem attack.
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"ARRRR you fully licenced?"
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I didn't say I necessarily agreed with protectionist policies. My point was that any deception would be aimed primarily at the government.
If someone is ready to work for 50% of the nation wide median salary it's his goddamn right to use that to make himself attractive to the potential employer.
The relevant question, though, is: if someone from outside the nation is ready to work for 50% of your salary, having never paid taxes to your country or contributed to it in any way, lacking the debts of your country's high-priced university system, is it his "goddamn right" to be given a work visa and let into the country to compete for your job?
Note: I am not an American, and I don't live or work in the USA.
---
It's not supposed to be about tricking foreign workers, it's about tricking government into loosening protectionist restrictions on foreign workers so people like you who have lower salary expectations than US citizens will drive down salaries.
---