Those examples are ridiculous, and are not analogous to hopping on an open wifi link. I think you're confused by the difference between "illegal" and "wrong."
Stealing someone's purse is wrong and illegal. I cannot think of a situation where stealing something from someone would be considered a good thing (Robin Hood was a crook, even if his motives were noble).
Entering someone's how to cause "trubble" is wrong and illegal, because its causing "trubble."
Hopping on an open Wifi link is, perhaps illegal according to the law, but not necessarily wrong. For example, if you were lost on your way to meet someone, found an open wireless and used it to look up directions, you're not really doing anything wrong, though it is technically illegal. If you check your email while you're at it, its still probably no big deal.
On the other hand, if you decided to "whip it out" while you're there and check out the new child-pr0n links, you're doing something wrong. Or if you ran tcpdump and started sniffing packets, that's probably bad, too.
If someone has a closed network, and put a lame WEP password on it, and you use tools to crack it and access their network, you're doing something wrong. Someone went through enough effort to say "this link is not public" and you got on it anyway. Even though the manufacturer's security systems are weak, it doesn't mean you should circumvent them.
Just because something is on the lawbooks, it doesn't necessarily mean its wrong, and it doesn't necessarily mean that its a good law.
There needs to be a distinction between discovering loopholes/bugs/flaws and exploiting them.
Luigi merely discovered the flaws. He pointed them out to the manufacturer. Other people have probably discovered them as well, and others will exploit them. But Luigi did not do anything wrong. It may be "illegal" according to some interpretation of the DMCA, but he did the right thing.
Lawyers, on the other hand, find and exploit loopholoes. They interpret poorly written laws in whatever the most convenient meaning is, and they use that interpretation to use laws in ways they were not intended.
As an example, there was soem guy a while back (can't find the link) who was busted for making Meth. Instead of the 6-year jail term he probably deserves under the drug laws, the prosecuters managed to use the PATRIOT Act against him, and he gets a bigger penalty as a chemical weapons manufacturer.
Yes he was a bad guy. Yes he got caught. Yes he should be punished. But a law allegedly designed to protect us from terrorists was interpreted to include him, because of a loophole. That is wrong.
In this case, Luigi has commited no criminal acts, but he is being threatened because he discovered something that others might exploit anyway.
I have yet to hear a rational argument as to why they would want to give it away without the protection of the GPL.
I think its just up to the individual (or business). I have written software (mainly small stuff) that I give away, but I have yet to put the GPL on anything. For me its more along the lines of "I don't care what people do with this software", in which case the GPL is more restrictive than necessary.
It may be true that as more people use it, more exploits might be found. But at the same time, as exploits are found, there will be a larger number of users who can investigate and fix them.
The real advantage to Open Source is that if you discover something, you can look at the code and figure out what is wrong. If you discover a bug in Windows, you have to just deal with it until someone else fixes it.
Dude. That's not a "diff". That's the bits of those files that are the SAME. All the "***" means areas that DID NOT MATCH.
In other words, the few instances where the code appears to be copied are a couple of methods having to do with Logs. Those methods (at least the similar parts) also seem to be little more than wrapping a call to an apache library function.
So... The wrappers probably use the same parameter names as the apache function they are calling. So they should be pretty similar. The method names are [something]Log, following the normal conventions of adding "Log" as a suffix to "something" when you're making the method that Log stuff.
Further, the "copied" bits of similarity have enough differences in them to render it completely moronic. The entire thing is basically a template. The few chances the authors have to alter the template (variable names, and the (brief) comments) were different, but given the limited scope of those bits, they were still similar.
A better question: Where can I get one before everyone else does. As long as you're the only one with the device, it will probably be useful. What happens whtn you and another "ambulence" are heading towards the same intersection? What happens when 20 people coming from all different directions have the device?
I just want to point out that exploitability is not solely confined to proprietary software. While I firmly believe in Open Source, I don't want to see someone making an argument on a false premise on either side.
The reason the exploit can be widespread is because of widespread use of MT. That MT is proprietary is irrelevant.
Apache is the most popular web server. If it has an exploitable bug, then lots and lots of web servers could be compromised. The advantage with Open Source software, though, is that if someone discovers a bug, they can look in the source code and fix it. Then they can send apache a patch which can be rolled in quickly.
Yeah. I've kind of always thought in the back of my head that ESR was just an arrogant asshole, but having never read his article about flea markets (or whatever), I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt.
But this clinches it. This is HIS emblem. He's trying to further his cause (whatever that is) in the same sort of was as adding his own personal terms to the Jargon file. Yeah, he maintains the Jargon file, so he can put whatever he wants in it, but one would hope for some amount of integrity from a self-proclaimed "resident historian."
Then again, I prefer to let history speak for itself. If I'm a part of it, that's fine. If I'm not, I won't be going out of my way to impose emblems and dictionary entries on my peers in order to make myself relevant.
What a jackass.
(and this is NOT a troll. Any mod who labels it as such better have ESR's dick in his or her mouth when they click the button.)
I would hardly equate downloading music with drug pushing. That's the sort of FUD that got the DMCA and PATRIOT Acts passed in this country. Don't be so quick to piss away your rights.
Some people like to get comments about their blog entries. My mom actually asked if I could set up mine so she could leave comments. I'm still, uh, working on it.
With the massive adoption of programs like Moveable Type, the spammer's jobe becomes easier, since they only have to locate a new MT site and point their bots at it. Its pretty pathetic that they're even doing this, but not more than I'd expect from a bunch of bottom-feeders.
I think the ads in the blogs are going for better Google PageRank scores, rather than for direct exposure. Most blogs don't get a whole lot of traffic, mostly just family and friends, if even that much. Only a very small percentage of that audience will click, and they surely won't fall for it more than once.
But google reads a lots of blogs. If a spammer gets their link onto a whole lot of blogs, Google PageRank would see hundreds or thousands of links to their site and bump up its rank. They exploit everyone's blog in order to improve their score on searches.
That's the theory anyway. Whether or not it works is another story.
The thing with good reference books is that they're REALLY, REALLY expensive. The price is justified, since they're chock full of information. LOTS of information. WAY MORE information than you actually need (unless you happen to be in the field to which the book is relevant, in which case you probably already have it).
Its all supply and demand. Reference books have a high price because the have relatively low demand, compared to a New York Times Bestseller. They don't expect everyone to own a copy.
The people who would buy a reference book will still buy it. Maybe if their lab has a tight budget they might not buy it right away and this service can help them get by for a while, but if they start finding the answers they want in the same book over and over again on Amazon (ie. the book is worth it), they will buy it sooner or later.
Ever remember a really great line from some movie but can't remember where it was from? There's like radio giveaways for stuff like that. Its pretty common, and I think its the same for books. Look at some of the quotations in people's slashdot sigs. Lots of them are book quotes, but I have no idea what book they came from. Now I could figure it out.
Granted, the previous poster's suggestion that he doesn't remember a quote from some book that he read himself is perhaps far fetched. But its definitely reasonable that he could quote something from the book to his friends, and they might want to go looking.
Futher, everyone knows the real reason for this service is that Amazon can do it technically, and they think that somehow they'll make money off it. The real reason for it is to let people find things in books.
Some people will use it to look up a recipe. Some will look up medical facts. Some will do vanity searches for themselves or their quotes. And some might even look up some famous quote to find what book it came from.
All are legitimate uses, could lead to book purchases (if the "Dirty Hippie's Lazy Vegan Cookbook" consistenlty has good recipes, you'll probably end up buying it), and in the end will most likely benefit the print world.
The problem here isn't really that people are going to start using this service instead of buying books.
The real problem is that the next oldest media industry is starting to get scared of the Internet. They see what the RIAA is claiming to suffer from. They see the movie industry starting to take precautionary measures in case any of what the RIAA turns out to be even remotely truthful. And they're getting scared.
Its stupid. People are still buying lots and lots of music. People are still going to see movies in theaters. And people are still buying books so they can turn the actual pages, dog-ear some corners, and snuggle up with it in bed to get through those cold, lonely nights in their poor miserable lives. Or whatever that nonsense the book people like to spread...
If they'd just get a grip, and not make any more stupid moves, they might be able to stop this nonsense before people get really annoyed and start turning up the juice on Project Gutenberg.
On the other hand, if someone were to use this method to download and print, say, all 900 billion pages of the latest Neal Stephenson novel, they'd wind up spending more on paper and toner than to buy it from the store.
And they could probably easily read it at least once while waiting for the century-long download to finish.
(Hmmm... If I start now, I might be finished with Cryptonomicon by the time its ready... Its a great story so far, but damn this is a long, long, long book.)
Whether or not the artists are right on this, what does Amazon have to gain from this?
If they start just giving away every book, they don't earn anything, and get hit with a HUGE bandwidth bill. I don't understand why the artists think they're going to lose out.
In addition, I'm amazed at the speed in which the authors have managed to get me annoyed. The RIAA started out. The MPAA is starting to follow suit. I was just starting to accept the idea that I'd actually have to start buying and reading books. And they go and pull this crap....
Have the students divide into groups and produce CDs. Same game so far. But now have them try to get a deal with the RIAA. Have them find out that they don't get squat for all their hard earned work. Maybe they're CD will make it to a few shelves, but they won't see a cent, since all of the RIAA promotional budget goes to "sure things" like Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake's R&B career, and Metallica.
Then tell them that they can't distribute their music online since the RIAA now owns the copyrights to their songs. So they can't get any exposure. Next, tell them that their sales didn't recoup the advance they got from the studios to record the album, so they actually owe money back.
That's some of it. I know that as a programmer I consider myself more of a hobbyist than a professional, even though every job I've had has been in the software industry.
The problem I had at work was that once my projects got beyond a certain point (ie. the parts I found interesting, or the point where I've solved the "hard" problem, or a proof-of-concept of an idea I was trying to push), I lost all interest in working on it further. It was like pulling teeth to get me to finish anything. My co-workers were frustrated, and I was frustrated. Eventually I quit.
As a hobbyist, that's not a problem. I can develop something until I get bored with it and stop. While that doesn't necessarily seem productive in the normal economic sense, that's how I operate. If I find a piece of an open source project that interests me, I can work on it, no matter how small it is. Once that piece is done, I'm done. I don't have to work on other bits that don't interest me.
But here's the best part: If I don't finish, no one loses. If the feature is important to someone else, it will get done. If not, no one will miss it. In a commercial setting, I would have been forced to finish, which would probably involve some half-assed implementation where my motivation is getting my boss off my case, rather than producing a quality product.
I'm not saying that's how all commercial software efforts are done, but I'm sure that's how some of them go.
Or in other words, just because you get paid to do something, it doesn't automatically mean you're good at it (look at Britney Spears, for an example from another industry).
Yes, and that's precisely why Cringley wrote his response. Posting it on slashdot points it out to us technical types, and we can pass it along to our non-techie friends, who probably don't have Cringley in their bookmarks and wouldn't otherwise see it.
As for the parent, I have a suggestion: If there is an open source software package that you use and want to help improve the quality, do your own testing and send feedback. Or write some tests and send them to the developer as a patch.
One thing Cringley didn't really hit on is that many open source projects are just personal projects that someone happened to put online to share. That person will do some limited testing to make sure it does what they want, but probably not an exhaustive test, since they'd rather spend time developing once it "works." (I don't think that's something unique to open source. Commercial software often gets developed to the point that it "works", even though it might not work perfectly... take Windows, for example. It works, though it has its share of bugs and flaws which don't always get fixed.)
The goal of open source developers isn't necessarily to gain market share or visibility, or to produce a perfect product. A lot of it is done to fill the needs of an individual developer, and the non-selfish idea that "if its useful to me, it might be useful to others" gets it released to the public.
What happens in the case of some of the bigger projects (Linux, OpenOffice, etc) is that a huge number of interested users start lending a hand. Some write code. Some write documentation. Some do testing. Some give money.
The really great thing about open source projects is that if you see a weakness, you can do something about it. You don't have to ask for anyone's permission first. You don't have to wait around for a patch. You can make your own and send it back to the developer. You become part of the project.
Open Source doesn't need centralization in order to develop quality tests. It just needs people to understand that fact, and then jump on board and make it happen.
Uh, did you see the article about the "Broadcast Flag"? (If not, i'm sure CmdrTaco will repost it in a few hours;)
So far movie downloads haven't "caused" as much of a "problem" as music downloads have. The MPAA is a few steps behind the RIAA because online movie trading is still a relatively small "problem" (primarily, they say, because of limited bandwidth... even over a cablemodem, it could take, perhaps, days to download a movie, or so i've heard or whatever).
The MPAA is trying to "nip it in the bud" by using some sort of "technology" that will make it "impossible" to record an HDTV stream (or something very close to that). They're punishing end-user-type consumers (ie. you and me) as a preemptive strike against a non-existant problem (see VCRs, the associated disputed, and the ultimate lack of any negative impact to the movie industry as a market precedence).
The real pirates (Yaaaarrrrr!) don't care what is legal and what is not. They'll create HDTV receivers that ignore the broadcast flag and record stuff anyway. Or they'll just keep doing the the "old fashioned" way and put a video camera (or vcr or capture card) in front of their TV (or from a video out), record a mediocre to decent to pretty much good enough copy that they'll mass produce in some foreign country and sell anyway.
What the MPAA, RIAA and the lawmakers that "support" them, don't seem to understand is that a good portion of the law abiding, happy, wanting-so-hard-to-be-cool public is going to buy their CDs and DVDs and pay their exhorbitant ticket prices (i can almost guarantee i'll be there midnight or whatever is the first showing of the Matrix 3, even though I fully expect it to suck.. no way those guys can nail it 3 times!) no matter what.
They need to suck it up, return one of their Bentley's and get a grip. Look how many Britney Spears albums sell, and she has next to no talent (and any "talent" she has now will surely be sagging 10 years from now). Eminem sells a zillion albums and gets away with making fun of his high school bullys. The RIAA's "losses" have been traced back to their own issues: fewer new releases, more focus on formulaic pop crap, payola-esque payments to ClearChannel for playing, i mean "promoting," songs on the (get this!) radio, and probably more issues unrelated to mass piracy by the american public.
The MPAA is currently (very short term, it seems) still being consumer friendly, but they're definitely walking that line pretty tightly right now. They'll be consumer friendly only as long as they don't (wrongly) perceive the consumer as the threat.
Econ 101: Your consumer IS your market, no matter what your business is. You are supply, they are demand. Piss off demand, and it will find another supply, even if it takes a long, long time.
But you probably still have time to buy that Bentley.
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Those examples are ridiculous, and are not analogous to hopping on an open wifi link. I think you're confused by the difference between "illegal" and "wrong."
Stealing someone's purse is wrong and illegal. I cannot think of a situation where stealing something from someone would be considered a good thing (Robin Hood was a crook, even if his motives were noble).
Entering someone's how to cause "trubble" is wrong and illegal, because its causing "trubble."
Hopping on an open Wifi link is, perhaps illegal according to the law, but not necessarily wrong. For example, if you were lost on your way to meet someone, found an open wireless and used it to look up directions, you're not really doing anything wrong, though it is technically illegal. If you check your email while you're at it, its still probably no big deal.
On the other hand, if you decided to "whip it out" while you're there and check out the new child-pr0n links, you're doing something wrong. Or if you ran tcpdump and started sniffing packets, that's probably bad, too.
If someone has a closed network, and put a lame WEP password on it, and you use tools to crack it and access their network, you're doing something wrong. Someone went through enough effort to say "this link is not public" and you got on it anyway. Even though the manufacturer's security systems are weak, it doesn't mean you should circumvent them.
Just because something is on the lawbooks, it doesn't necessarily mean its wrong, and it doesn't necessarily mean that its a good law.
There needs to be a distinction between discovering loopholes/bugs/flaws and exploiting them.
Luigi merely discovered the flaws. He pointed them out to the manufacturer. Other people have probably discovered them as well, and others will exploit them. But Luigi did not do anything wrong. It may be "illegal" according to some interpretation of the DMCA, but he did the right thing.
Lawyers, on the other hand, find and exploit loopholoes. They interpret poorly written laws in whatever the most convenient meaning is, and they use that interpretation to use laws in ways they were not intended.
As an example, there was soem guy a while back (can't find the link) who was busted for making Meth. Instead of the 6-year jail term he probably deserves under the drug laws, the prosecuters managed to use the PATRIOT Act against him, and he gets a bigger penalty as a chemical weapons manufacturer.
Yes he was a bad guy. Yes he got caught. Yes he should be punished. But a law allegedly designed to protect us from terrorists was interpreted to include him, because of a loophole. That is wrong.
In this case, Luigi has commited no criminal acts, but he is being threatened because he discovered something that others might exploit anyway.
I have yet to hear a rational argument as to why they would want to give it away without the protection of the GPL.
I think its just up to the individual (or business). I have written software (mainly small stuff) that I give away, but I have yet to put the GPL on anything. For me its more along the lines of "I don't care what people do with this software", in which case the GPL is more restrictive than necessary.
But I'm starting to come around.
It may be true that as more people use it, more exploits might be found. But at the same time, as exploits are found, there will be a larger number of users who can investigate and fix them.
The real advantage to Open Source is that if you discover something, you can look at the code and figure out what is wrong. If you discover a bug in Windows, you have to just deal with it until someone else fixes it.
Dude. That's not a "diff". That's the bits of those files that are the SAME. All the "***" means areas that DID NOT MATCH.
In other words, the few instances where the code appears to be copied are a couple of methods having to do with Logs. Those methods (at least the similar parts) also seem to be little more than wrapping a call to an apache library function.
So... The wrappers probably use the same parameter names as the apache function they are calling. So they should be pretty similar. The method names are [something]Log, following the normal conventions of adding "Log" as a suffix to "something" when you're making the method that Log stuff.
Further, the "copied" bits of similarity have enough differences in them to render it completely moronic. The entire thing is basically a template. The few chances the authors have to alter the template (variable names, and the (brief) comments) were different, but given the limited scope of those bits, they were still similar.
If that's all they have, this is just silly.
Ha!
A better question: Where can I get one before everyone else does. As long as you're the only one with the device, it will probably be useful. What happens whtn you and another "ambulence" are heading towards the same intersection? What happens when 20 people coming from all different directions have the device?
Chaos anyone?
Dammit. I really wanted to mod this "+1 Redundant", but I can't. (and, in fact, I'm giving up my ability to moderate this thread in order to say that)
I just want to point out that exploitability is not solely confined to proprietary software. While I firmly believe in Open Source, I don't want to see someone making an argument on a false premise on either side.
The reason the exploit can be widespread is because of widespread use of MT. That MT is proprietary is irrelevant.
Apache is the most popular web server. If it has an exploitable bug, then lots and lots of web servers could be compromised. The advantage with Open Source software, though, is that if someone discovers a bug, they can look in the source code and fix it. Then they can send apache a patch which can be rolled in quickly.
Yeah. I've kind of always thought in the back of my head that ESR was just an arrogant asshole, but having never read his article about flea markets (or whatever), I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt.
But this clinches it. This is HIS emblem. He's trying to further his cause (whatever that is) in the same sort of was as adding his own personal terms to the Jargon file. Yeah, he maintains the Jargon file, so he can put whatever he wants in it, but one would hope for some amount of integrity from a self-proclaimed "resident historian."
Then again, I prefer to let history speak for itself. If I'm a part of it, that's fine. If I'm not, I won't be going out of my way to impose emblems and dictionary entries on my peers in order to make myself relevant.
What a jackass.
(and this is NOT a troll. Any mod who labels it as such better have ESR's dick in his or her mouth when they click the button.)
I would hardly equate downloading music with drug pushing. That's the sort of FUD that got the DMCA and PATRIOT Acts passed in this country. Don't be so quick to piss away your rights.
Some people like to get comments about their blog entries. My mom actually asked if I could set up mine so she could leave comments. I'm still, uh, working on it.
With the massive adoption of programs like Moveable Type, the spammer's jobe becomes easier, since they only have to locate a new MT site and point their bots at it. Its pretty pathetic that they're even doing this, but not more than I'd expect from a bunch of bottom-feeders.
I think the ads in the blogs are going for better Google PageRank scores, rather than for direct exposure. Most blogs don't get a whole lot of traffic, mostly just family and friends, if even that much. Only a very small percentage of that audience will click, and they surely won't fall for it more than once.
But google reads a lots of blogs. If a spammer gets their link onto a whole lot of blogs, Google PageRank would see hundreds or thousands of links to their site and bump up its rank. They exploit everyone's blog in order to improve their score on searches.
That's the theory anyway. Whether or not it works is another story.
"Oh yeah. And we need some hostages, too."
The thing with good reference books is that they're REALLY, REALLY expensive. The price is justified, since they're chock full of information. LOTS of information. WAY MORE information than you actually need (unless you happen to be in the field to which the book is relevant, in which case you probably already have it).
Its all supply and demand. Reference books have a high price because the have relatively low demand, compared to a New York Times Bestseller. They don't expect everyone to own a copy.
The people who would buy a reference book will still buy it. Maybe if their lab has a tight budget they might not buy it right away and this service can help them get by for a while, but if they start finding the answers they want in the same book over and over again on Amazon (ie. the book is worth it), they will buy it sooner or later.
Nothing but good can come of this.
Dude, you are so wrong.
Ever remember a really great line from some movie but can't remember where it was from? There's like radio giveaways for stuff like that. Its pretty common, and I think its the same for books. Look at some of the quotations in people's slashdot sigs. Lots of them are book quotes, but I have no idea what book they came from. Now I could figure it out.
Granted, the previous poster's suggestion that he doesn't remember a quote from some book that he read himself is perhaps far fetched. But its definitely reasonable that he could quote something from the book to his friends, and they might want to go looking.
Futher, everyone knows the real reason for this service is that Amazon can do it technically, and they think that somehow they'll make money off it. The real reason for it is to let people find things in books.
Some people will use it to look up a recipe. Some will look up medical facts. Some will do vanity searches for themselves or their quotes. And some might even look up some famous quote to find what book it came from.
All are legitimate uses, could lead to book purchases (if the "Dirty Hippie's Lazy Vegan Cookbook" consistenlty has good recipes, you'll probably end up buying it), and in the end will most likely benefit the print world.
The problem here isn't really that people are going to start using this service instead of buying books.
The real problem is that the next oldest media industry is starting to get scared of the Internet. They see what the RIAA is claiming to suffer from. They see the movie industry starting to take precautionary measures in case any of what the RIAA turns out to be even remotely truthful. And they're getting scared.
Its stupid. People are still buying lots and lots of music. People are still going to see movies in theaters. And people are still buying books so they can turn the actual pages, dog-ear some corners, and snuggle up with it in bed to get through those cold, lonely nights in their poor miserable lives. Or whatever that nonsense the book people like to spread...
If they'd just get a grip, and not make any more stupid moves, they might be able to stop this nonsense before people get really annoyed and start turning up the juice on Project Gutenberg.
On the other hand, if someone were to use this method to download and print, say, all 900 billion pages of the latest Neal Stephenson novel, they'd wind up spending more on paper and toner than to buy it from the store.
And they could probably easily read it at least once while waiting for the century-long download to finish.
(Hmmm... If I start now, I might be finished with Cryptonomicon by the time its ready... Its a great story so far, but damn this is a long, long, long book.)
Whether or not the artists are right on this, what does Amazon have to gain from this?
If they start just giving away every book, they don't earn anything, and get hit with a HUGE bandwidth bill. I don't understand why the artists think they're going to lose out.
In addition, I'm amazed at the speed in which the authors have managed to get me annoyed. The RIAA started out. The MPAA is starting to follow suit. I was just starting to accept the idea that I'd actually have to start buying and reading books. And they go and pull this crap....
Dude... they spent more than that photoshopping J-Lo's bootie (smaller) and boobies (bigger) for the Gigli poster.
They "forgot" to do the other part of that RPG:
Have the students divide into groups and produce CDs. Same game so far. But now have them try to get a deal with the RIAA. Have them find out that they don't get squat for all their hard earned work. Maybe they're CD will make it to a few shelves, but they won't see a cent, since all of the RIAA promotional budget goes to "sure things" like Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake's R&B career, and Metallica.
Then tell them that they can't distribute their music online since the RIAA now owns the copyrights to their songs. So they can't get any exposure. Next, tell them that their sales didn't recoup the advance they got from the studios to record the album, so they actually owe money back.
Then ask them how they feel about it.
That's some of it. I know that as a programmer I consider myself more of a hobbyist than a professional, even though every job I've had has been in the software industry.
The problem I had at work was that once my projects got beyond a certain point (ie. the parts I found interesting, or the point where I've solved the "hard" problem, or a proof-of-concept of an idea I was trying to push), I lost all interest in working on it further. It was like pulling teeth to get me to finish anything. My co-workers were frustrated, and I was frustrated. Eventually I quit.
As a hobbyist, that's not a problem. I can develop something until I get bored with it and stop. While that doesn't necessarily seem productive in the normal economic sense, that's how I operate. If I find a piece of an open source project that interests me, I can work on it, no matter how small it is. Once that piece is done, I'm done. I don't have to work on other bits that don't interest me.
But here's the best part: If I don't finish, no one loses. If the feature is important to someone else, it will get done. If not, no one will miss it. In a commercial setting, I would have been forced to finish, which would probably involve some half-assed implementation where my motivation is getting my boss off my case, rather than producing a quality product.
I'm not saying that's how all commercial software efforts are done, but I'm sure that's how some of them go.
Or in other words, just because you get paid to do something, it doesn't automatically mean you're good at it (look at Britney Spears, for an example from another industry).
Yes, and that's precisely why Cringley wrote his response. Posting it on slashdot points it out to us technical types, and we can pass it along to our non-techie friends, who probably don't have Cringley in their bookmarks and wouldn't otherwise see it.
Heh. Right on!
As for the parent, I have a suggestion: If there is an open source software package that you use and want to help improve the quality, do your own testing and send feedback. Or write some tests and send them to the developer as a patch.
One thing Cringley didn't really hit on is that many open source projects are just personal projects that someone happened to put online to share. That person will do some limited testing to make sure it does what they want, but probably not an exhaustive test, since they'd rather spend time developing once it "works." (I don't think that's something unique to open source. Commercial software often gets developed to the point that it "works", even though it might not work perfectly... take Windows, for example. It works, though it has its share of bugs and flaws which don't always get fixed.)
The goal of open source developers isn't necessarily to gain market share or visibility, or to produce a perfect product. A lot of it is done to fill the needs of an individual developer, and the non-selfish idea that "if its useful to me, it might be useful to others" gets it released to the public.
What happens in the case of some of the bigger projects (Linux, OpenOffice, etc) is that a huge number of interested users start lending a hand. Some write code. Some write documentation. Some do testing. Some give money.
The really great thing about open source projects is that if you see a weakness, you can do something about it. You don't have to ask for anyone's permission first. You don't have to wait around for a patch. You can make your own and send it back to the developer. You become part of the project.
Open Source doesn't need centralization in order to develop quality tests. It just needs people to understand that fact, and then jump on board and make it happen.
Uh, did you see the article about the "Broadcast Flag"? (If not, i'm sure CmdrTaco will repost it in a few hours ;)
So far movie downloads haven't "caused" as much of a "problem" as music downloads have. The MPAA is a few steps behind the RIAA because online movie trading is still a relatively small "problem" (primarily, they say, because of limited bandwidth... even over a cablemodem, it could take, perhaps, days to download a movie, or so i've heard or whatever).
The MPAA is trying to "nip it in the bud" by using some sort of "technology" that will make it "impossible" to record an HDTV stream (or something very close to that). They're punishing end-user-type consumers (ie. you and me) as a preemptive strike against a non-existant problem (see VCRs, the associated disputed, and the ultimate lack of any negative impact to the movie industry as a market precedence).
The real pirates (Yaaaarrrrr!) don't care what is legal and what is not. They'll create HDTV receivers that ignore the broadcast flag and record stuff anyway. Or they'll just keep doing the the "old fashioned" way and put a video camera (or vcr or capture card) in front of their TV (or from a video out), record a mediocre to decent to pretty much good enough copy that they'll mass produce in some foreign country and sell anyway.
What the MPAA, RIAA and the lawmakers that "support" them, don't seem to understand is that a good portion of the law abiding, happy, wanting-so-hard-to-be-cool public is going to buy their CDs and DVDs and pay their exhorbitant ticket prices (i can almost guarantee i'll be there midnight or whatever is the first showing of the Matrix 3, even though I fully expect it to suck.. no way those guys can nail it 3 times!) no matter what.
They need to suck it up, return one of their Bentley's and get a grip. Look how many Britney Spears albums sell, and she has next to no talent (and any "talent" she has now will surely be sagging 10 years from now). Eminem sells a zillion albums and gets away with making fun of his high school bullys. The RIAA's "losses" have been traced back to their own issues: fewer new releases, more focus on formulaic pop crap, payola-esque payments to ClearChannel for playing, i mean "promoting," songs on the (get this!) radio, and probably more issues unrelated to mass piracy by the american public.
The MPAA is currently (very short term, it seems) still being consumer friendly, but they're definitely walking that line pretty tightly right now. They'll be consumer friendly only as long as they don't (wrongly) perceive the consumer as the threat.
Econ 101: Your consumer IS your market, no matter what your business is. You are supply, they are demand. Piss off demand, and it will find another supply, even if it takes a long, long time.
But you probably still have time to buy that Bentley.