Southwest policy (in addtion to NWA), states that those with disabilities that use the call center do NOT get charged the surcharge that you or I would.
Will they also respect "Internet Special" fares if someone with disabilities calls up?
(Note to self: next time I call an airline to make a reservation, tell them I'm blind to save money.)
Getting back to the plaintiff described in the article, I'd think
an easier solution would be to call 1 800 555-1212, get Southwest's toll-free
number from them, and then call that number. I'd think the same information is
available that way as is available through their website (probably more info,
in fact, such as information on what flights are on
time/delayed/etc.).
I actually tried to make some airline reservations over the phone recently.
Pretty universally you'll pay more for your tickets. These days, "internet
only specials" really are.
And really, it's quite easy to make your web site screen reader or braille
console friendly. Use ALT="" attributes in your IMG tags. Prefer CSS over
HTML formatting. As a bonus, your web site will display better on all sorts
of less capable software, including lynx, WebTV, wireless Palm VIIs, and cell
phones. The only reason to not do the right thing is if your web designer is
clueless or lazy.
The major point is, while much information is being presented in a textual format, the internet is moving towards towards a more visually stimulating form of presentation.
The problem with the Southwest Airlines web site was that there was too much porn? I'm totally changing my airline preferences.:-)
Can we really expect that text-based support is going to be around forever?
Yeah, like that archaic text-basic support for news media. What were they called? Mewspapers and Nagazines? Something like that. I even faintly remember text-based movies. Books, I think they were called.
More seriously, most of the web is likely to remain text. It's easy to create, cheap to replicate, and efficent to gain information from. If most of the content is going to stay text anyway, it's really quite easy to keep that text friendly to a wide variety of situations (screen readers for the blind, braille consoles, the cruddy interface on my cell phone, lynx when I need simple browser in a pinch). Putting text only in a graphic or in a flash applet is just silly and harmful.
That would suit me fine. Those features on a website that are most likely to break screen readers tend to be the exact same features that are the most annoying, unnecessary and browser incompatible.
Damn straight! I sometimes use Lynx (a text only, console browser) for a quick browser. Any ADA compliant site will work great with Lynx and other alternative browsers (like maybe the one in your phone), giving everyone more options. A win for everyone!
It's very similar to the benefits everyone enjoys from the ADA. Wide hallways and wheelchair ramps make moving furniture easier. Big, easy to grab handles make it easy to elbow open a door when both hands are full of groceries.
That's why they can CALL 1-800-IFLYSWA.... The *only* caveat I would make is that if they show they are blind, they should be able to get the double-points and internet-only fares afforded to those who frequent the site.
I'm kinda curious how someone would go about showing that they were blind over the phone...
Let me know when we finally win, because right now I feel like the loser.
My brother recently went looking for a cell phone. He lives in a reasonably sized size (Madison, Wisconsin), we have several competing carriers, but service isn't perfect. Getting good coverage at home and at work is naturally essential, so he went shopping around. He inquired about various possibilies of trying a phone to test for dead zones before commiting to a two year contract. Could he just pay for a month and return the phone if dissatisfied? No. Could he take the two year contract and pay for the phone and return both for refund if dissatisfied? No. Was there any way he could try the phone for a few days and return it if dissatisfied, costing him only one or two months service? No. A key element of selecting a provider is the actual coverage you experience. Everyone has dead zones, but only you can determine if the dead zones are acceptable for you. US mobile phone providers are doing their damnest to limit proper competition by making it practically impossible for people to shop around.
Relatedly, I invested in a slightly higher end phone instead of getting the nearly free one that came with my contract. It's a nice phone, but it also represents a doorstop if I chose to change providers. Carriers refuse to support each others phones, sometimes for technical reasons, but mostly because it gives them a chance to sell me a new phone. Not willing to spend the money on the new phone? Phone, meet your owner. Owner, meet your ball and chain. I'm deeply jealous of the easy phone and provider swapping that can be done in Europe.
Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, we're paying to receive calls. While I do understand that sending a call to my cell phone costs money, sending a call to my land line phone also costs money. The land line phone companies figured out a billing structure so that receiving a call is free. Cell phone service in many foreign countries has figured out how to only charge for making a call, not receiving one. Why isn't this the rule in the U.S. yet?
If Bob steals your copy of Photoshop, you can normally contact Adobe for a free/low cost replacement, after proving ownership. It will cost, let's say around $1.00 in production and shipping for them to send you a free CD. But let's say they charge you $5 S&H to send the replacement out.
I must say I'm impressed if this is true, it's certainly not the standard for most of the software industry. In general, if my media fails or is stolen, I'm out of luck and have to purchase an entire new copy. I personally don't have much use for Photoshop (I'm a programmer, not an artist), so I don't have a copy sitting around.
It does raise the question of how do you prove that you own a copy. If I bought a copy at Best Buy, then threw away the receipt and box, never bothered to register, and shoved the license in the CD case so I didn't lose it (the same CD case that was stolen), I'd be hard pressed to prove my ownership. This is typical behavior for me and many other people. I've got enough things to worry about to not bother keeping my licenses carefully filed away.
Anyway, in either case Bob will not be buying a legal version of the software. Let's use your 50% number to represent the likelihood that Bob would have purchased the software if here were honest. The total societal impact of theft is $255, whereas the impact of the copyright violation is $250. This is a 2% difference.
Even if accept that logic, 2% is still a difference.:-)
But I don't agree. For most software I purchase, if it's stolen, I'm out of luck. I'll have to foot the entire replacement bill for $500. Life sucks.
I suppose it is a statement of how much I'm not an artist. One of my favorite anime series appears to have been inspired by one of my least favorite comics. I'm still failing to understand the appeal. Ah well. Thanks for the info.
(To make this perfectly clear: I'm against copyright infringement. I'm a
software engineer by trade and have several products I've developed on store
shelves. However, copyright infringment is not the horrible monster it's made
out to be.)
Would we argue the nature of this if someone had broken in an electronics warehouse or a bookstore or a Costco and taken an equivalent dollar amount of goods and given them out to their friends?
I doubt it.
However, because software is "intangible" in nature compared to a frozen cheese pizza or bottle of Jack or Sony Walkman, some of us look at it differently.
Perhaps we look at it different because we're capable of noticing the
differences. If you break into a store and steal something you 1) damage the
value of the property you broke into when you damange windows, locks, and other
things, and 2) remove property so that the store no longer has a copy.
Copyright infringment is illegal and immoral, but it's not physical theft.
if you break into my car and steal my CDs, I'll be pretty angry because I can
no longer enjoy the CDs I paid for. The original copyright holder doesn't care
because he already has my money. If you make a copy of my CDs, I'm out nothing
and don't really care. The original copyright holder might have lost
a sale, but you can never be sure. They are very different cases and deserve
to be treated differently.
It's a ***FELONY*** because it's a combination of a variety of
PROPERTY crimes, including THEFT, FRAUD and DISTRIBUTION of stolen
property.
Interesting. I thought it was a felony because the law says, in summary,
"redistributing copyright protected works is a felony." It doesn't say
anything like, "redistributing copyright protected works is a form of theft,
fraud, and distribution of stolen property and should prosecuted as such." There are plenty of felonies that have nothing to do with property (rape, murder, assault, negligence). Our
politicians (not always the smartest beings on the planet) manage to identify
the difference and legislate that they be treated differently, why can't you?
Most s/w companies are much smaller and are fighting for their
survival on a daily basis.
Most software companies are doing contract work and don't really rely on
copyright, but instead on contract law. "Yes, we'll write an accounting system
for your bank and give you the source if you'll give us $X". Most software
companies (and more programmers) wouldn't see noticable changes if illegal copying was stamped out.
And we all have to wonder what would have happened to our entire marketplace, if their had been less piracy.
It's an interesting question. On one hand, perhaps more sales would have
resulted as people chose to purchase instead of illegally copying. On the
other hand, many people who copy would not have purchased the product, so not
all illegal copies represent lost sales. Also, some of those people using
illegal copies went on to purchase legal copies, or to work for companies which
purchased them legal copies.
What would have been the fate of WordPerfect Corp, Lotus, Novell,
and many other dead products if there had been less piracy?
Erm, to take a wild guess, they still would have suffered at the hands of
more successfully companies. Software exhibits the network effort (more users
== more valuable to users), so there is a natural tendency for a single product
to rise to the top. These companies didn't go out of business because of
illegal copies, they went out of business because a competing product trounced
them.
There have been many jobs lost, products destroyed and careers sidetracked in our industry by sales declines.
And yet dispite rampant illegal copying, the software industry has managed
to grow every year. The sales declines tend to be by specific companies or
specific sectors, suggesting changing market forces and competition. Nothing
that illegal copying has anything to do with.
...but JASC loses $90 on Paint Shop Pro the kid could have bought.
Apparently allowances have gone up. When I was a kid, $90 would have represented my major purchase for the year (even adjusted for inflation). Hell, even in college $90 was pretty hard to scrape together.
Now then, if you drive on the toll road and you don't
pay are you stealing? Yes. What are you stealing? The money that
you were supposed to pay for the use of the service.
Erm, you didn't steal that money any more than shoplifters are
stealing money that they should have paid for the product. If
you fail to pay tolls on a toll road you're stealing a service,
in this case access to the road. You're causing wear and tear on
the road, congesting the highway (requiring more to be built),
and increasing the risk of accidents (requiring more police and
paramedics to be hired).
Why should you buy software that you use? Because
people spent time writing it and a company paid them to write
it.
So far, so good...
That company raised capital to build the software
(road) and if you use it without paying for it then you are
gaining the benefit of the service without paying what the
builder is asking for.
...and then this logical error. I'm not paying for a service
when I buy software, I'm paying for a product.
When I pay a toll, I am paying for the service of using the road. I don't get to take anything home with me. When I purchase a book, I'm not paying for the service of the
author writing the book, I'm paying to take a book home. When I purchase a car I'm not paying
for the service of my car being designed and manufactured, I'm paying to take a car home. When I purchase software I'm not paying for the service of the software being developed, I'm paying to end up with my very own copy. When
I purchase a product, I am paying for that particular instance of
the product. Previously the supplier had the product and I had
money. The supplier wants my money and I want the product. We
trade and are both happy. I don't care that the supplier needs
to recoup his investment to create the product, that's his
problem. I don't care if he spent the effort to create the
product himself, purchased it from someone else, it from the
future and matter replicated it, or it magically appeared in his
stockroom for no reason.
(That said, copyright infringement is harmful to
society and should be fought against. I just want to clarify
that copyright infringment is different from theft of service.)
You are implying that copyright violation does a significantly
smaller amount of damage to society than theft. Can you support this assertion?
I implied no such thing. I simply said that they are different, not that
one is less harmful than the other. Sometimes crimes have similar levels of
harm of society, but are treated different (manslaughter versus murder).
That said, you're basically right.:-) I definately think that copyright
infringement is less harmful than theft. So I'll take your challenge...
Namely, can you explain the significant difference in societal damage between these two:
downloading an illegal copy of Photoshop, and
stealing a CD with Photoshop on it?
Sure enough.
If Bob steals my copy of Photoshop from my desk, there is real and certain
loss. Previously I had a copy of Photoshop that I could use. Now I no longer
do. Photoshop costs about $650, I presumably valued Photoshop at $650 (since I paid that much for it). My loss is $650. My local software store would suffer similar losses if the copy was shoplifted from the store.
If Bob downloads an illegal copy of Photoshop no one lost existing money or
property. The only loss that we can be certain of is that Adobe's exclusive
right of copying has been infringed upon. The only loss is that Adobe
might fail to make a sale that otherwise would have. Let's say that
99% of all illegal copies lead to a failure to purchase a legal copy. So,
averaged between all of the illegal copies, the potential lost sales will work
out to about $650 *.99 = $643.50.
If you assume that a lost sale is equivalent to actual loss, copyright
infringment in this case is about $6.50 less damaging to society than theft.
That number grows if you believe an even larger number of illegal copies do not
replace legitimate copies. My personal experience suggests that many illegal
copies are either never used (and so would never have been sales) or are made
by people who simply don't have the money to pay for the legal version (and so
would never have been sales). I'm not saying that this is acceptable,
legal, or moral! "Collectors" should get a real hobby (like writing Free
Software), and people who can't afford it should find other options (Like Free
Software.:-). I'm saying that I believe that many (maybe 50%) of infringing
software copies do not represent a lost sale. If no sale was lost, the damange
to society is greatly reduced. If we go with 50% instead of 99%, the damage is $325 less.
Theft takes propetry away from it's lawful owner. The lawful owner can not
longer use (or resell, or whatever) the item. Copyright infringment leaves the
owner with a perfectly fine item, but potentially deprives the copyright holder
of sales.
Rationalize all you want. Maybe it all depends on
what your definition of 'is' is? You can trot out the dictionary
all you want. Stealing is a crime. Copyright infringment is a
crime. Call it whatever you wish. Its still a crime.
I would be no more rationalizing if I insisted
on a clear distinction between manslaughter and murder. However,
the copyright industries are working to set up such a virulent
attitude against copyright infringment that it cannot be
discussed rationally.
Copyright infringment is a crime and (to my beliefs) immoral,
but copyright infringment is not theft of property. Referring to
copyright infringment as piracy or theft confuses very different
crimes with different levels of harm of society and different
laws governing them. The copyright industries want to confuse
the issues and portray copyright infringment as far worse than it
actually is. Once armed with the public attitude that copyright
infringment is far worse than it is, they can more easily justify
taking rights we do have away ("Sorry, you can't record this
show, we have to stop the pirates." "Sorry, you can't have your
computer read this e-book aloud even if you're blind, otherwise
thieves would take our money away.") I refuse to let copyright
industries manipulate the discussion by manipulating the words
used. They make inaccurate analogies like comparing my making an
illegal copy of a CD (potentially, but not certainly, eliminating
a sale) with my stealing a CD (taking a produced product away
from someone who has paid for it, leaving them without access to
their property).
I'm against copyright infringment. Copyright is a value tool
for encouraging the creation of new works. I purchase my music,
movies, books, and video games. That said, you're playing into
the hands of copyright based industries. You're using inaccurate
and dangerous sounding words. This sort of dialogue is giving
the RIAA, the MPAA, and other copyright based industries
ammunition to take our fair use rights away. Copyright is a
balance, not a one way street.
Nice rationalization. You most definitely are
removing something from someone. The work is copyrighted....not
the medium.
If I engage in illegal copying, I have engaged in illegal
copying, nothing more. Illegal copying is very distinct from
theft of physical objects. "You most definately are removing
something from someone." And what would that something be? The
original author still has all of his copies of the work. The
record store still has all their copies. The person I copied it
from still has their copy. I have not taken something from
anyone. I have infringed upon the copyright holders exclusive
right to distribute copies, but that's different. I
might have eliminated the sale of a legal copy, but it's
hard to know.
Walking into a Virgin store and stealing the cd is
stealing twice....the medium and the work.
That's just surreal. Copyright does not grant the author any
sort of control over legally made copies. The CD in the store is
legal. If someone steals the CD, they have stolen that copy,
nothing more. The copyright holder has lost nothing, only the
copies own (the store) has lost anything. Copyright law is
completely irrelevant, the thief will be charged with good old
fashioned shoplifting.
If you download an mp3 file that you don't own the cd
for you are stealing. Pure and simple. That form of copying
isn't covered under fair use.
If you download an mp3 file that you don't own the CD for, you
are infringing copyright. Pure and simple. The copyright holder
has lost nothing. He might fail to sell CD that he
otherwise would have, but you're not allowed to count potential
failed sales as a loss. Things are all the more complicated by
people who sample CDs through MP3 and end up purchasing the CD.
Over my career I've worked with a number of people I'll
unhelpfully lump together as artists. Graphic artists, web
designers, would-be comic book artists, 3-D modellers and
animators, 2-d artists. Great people, generally very sane. Of these artists, a significant number
have owned and decorated their offices with McFarlane's Spawn
figurines. And never just plain old Spawn.
Spawn
the Bloodaxe,
Alien Spawn,
Pirate Spawn,
Raven Spawn,
She Spawn,
Wings of Redemption Spawn,
Spawn VII,
Dark Ages Spawn - Samurai Wars,
Techno Spawn, or
Spawn the Bloodaxe and Thunderhoof.
Each and every one more EXTREME than the last. There have been 22 different series of figurines.
By my back of the envelope calculation,
there are approximately seventy billion distinct Spawn variants.
What's the point? The character is alien and pointless. A
friend at one point suggested that the Spawn comic books were for
teenagers who found Batman not gritty enough and too realistic. Grade school kids who need something more EXTREME to try and shock their parents.
The figurines may be very distinct, but they certainly are all EXTREME. Multiple layers of billowing clothing,
draped in chains, with random pipes and hoses stuck in various
unlikely places. Sure, they're detailed, but they're just
random. The effect isn't cool, just busy. They certainly never
approach the real creepiness of a master like H.R. Giger. They're not shocking, just childish. What exactly is
the appeal of Spawn?
McFarlane really bothers me, his work (assuming the things
coming out with his name all over them are his work) is
disassociated with reality. Spawn is inane. McFarlane can even
taint unrelated works.
http://trigunner.giborama.com/trigunner/merchandis e/mcvash.html">McFarlane's interpretation of Vash from Trigun was needlessly
draped in chains, just like Vash never was in the series, turning Vash into some bizarre bondage version of himself.
So what exactly is the draw of McFarlane and his work, especially Spawn? I certainly don't see it.
Is Developer X going to spend 5 million making a game
that can be pirated with ease because someone can goto
lik-sang.com and get a modchip?
Yeah, that would be just like Developer X spending 5 million
to develop a PC game that can be pirated with ease because
someone can download a
crack online. Or a music publishing company spending 5
million to contract a music star to record CDs that can the
pirated with ease because some can easily download it online. Or a
movie company spending 50 million to make a movie that can be
pirated with ease because someone can easily purchase
illegal DVD copies throughout the world.
Oh, wait. All of these things happen. Repeatedly. And most
of them are far easier and cheaper than purchasing a mod chip
online and soldering it into your case.
Dispite the ease of copyright infringement, these industries
survive. It's not necessary to completely destroy copyright
infringement, it's probably not even possible. (We work even
harder at eliminating murder and illegal drugs, and yet both
continue to happen.) Only fools think it's possible to perfectly
protect content shipped to millions of people. Instead, work to
minimize copyright infringment, prosecute the worst offenders of
copyright infringment (people selling copied DVDs), and learn to
live with the rest. When you have the effort of finding, purchasing, and installing a mod chip as a prerequisite, you're
going to keep illegal copies to a bare minimum. The people willing to spend the effort to make the copies generally wouldn't have purchased a copy in the first place. Actual sales lost: minimal.
(Please don't take this as a defense of making illegal copies. I'm against copyright infringment. I'm for purchasing video games. I'm arguing that the problem isn't so bad that publishers should run around screaming that the sky is falling.)
What is the value of hacking a system to use it for
purposes of which it isn't intended or designed
for...?
What is the value in installing various performance enhancing
modifications on my car that it wasn't intended or designed for?
The value of overclocking my processor to a speed it wasn't
intended or designed for? Answer: it's none of the fscking
manufacturer's concern. How I chose to treat the physical things
I purchase is my business, not the manufacturers. I obviously
find value in the modification, so clearly there is value for me.
That's all that matters.
Even though i modded my dreamcast and could play
pirated games, i didn't consider this a value add. For one, i
couldn't read the japanese games and often times it wasn't worth
the effort and for pirated games they were ripped, chunked, slow
and missing features.
So it's of no value to you. That's fine. But a modchip in my
PlayStation 2 is of value to me. I want access to the editions
of Dance Dance Revolution released in Asia, the U.S.
releases are inferior. Sure, I can't read the text, but I don't
need to (I do just fine at the Korean DDR arcade machine next
door). I'm not getting illegally copied games since I want to
support the publisher, I'm interested in importing legally
produced copies. So I don't need to worry about low quality
illegal copies. I'd rather not have a second PS2 occupying
space. This adds value for me. A similar set of reasons might
create value for someone with an X-Box.
it was the "value add" of the modchips and ripped DC
games that ended the life of that console. (and the ps2.. but
sega cited the loss of software sales because of rampant piracy
and loss of developers because of rampant piracy to be a big
factor)
Well, gosh, if Sega said if was piracy, that must be
the problem. The fact that they were competing with two very
powerful, established competitors (Nintendo and Sony) certainly
doesn't have anything to do with it. My many friends who all
chose to wait for the PS2 instead of getting a Dreamcast clearly
don't represent the typical population. There is certainly no
chance that Sega misrepresented the reason they left the market
to pin the blame on someone other than themselves. (I'm having
problems finding articles were they actually blamed piracy...
could you point me to a few?)
I'm a Dreamcast owner. I love the machine and I mourn its
passing.uy the argument that illegal copying killed
the Dreamcast. The millions of people who said, "well, it looks
nice, but I'm waiting for the PS2" killed the Dreamcast. I
encouraged all of my friends to buy Dreamcasts. None did. Yet
Personally, I almost solely use the keyboard as input device
Even for web surfing??
Is it so shocking? I often use Links, w3m, or even the old standby Lynx for browsing. These fine console
browsers have almost no mouse support and are plenty usable.
All of the major browsers support full navigation with the keyboard, and I
use them frequently. (Galeon even
supports vi-like keybindings, bringing me endless glee.)
For various reasons it sometimes makes sense to keep your fingers on your
keyboard. If I'm in the middle of hard core coding, it's faster to Alt+Tab to
Galeon to reference something, scroll down the page, and chase a link than it
is to grab the mouse. Grabbing the mouse can break my concentration, my zone,
when deeply engaged in code. For skilled users who are familiar with the
system, a keyboard can be a significant speed win, even when referencing
something on the web.
(Yes, yes, yes, the all knowing Tognazzini has told you that the mouse is
always faster. Unfortunately Tog has only shown this for novice or adequately
skilled users. He doesn't seem interested in studying heavy duty users. If
I'm going to be using a piece of software for eight hours a day, five days a
week, fifty weeks per year, perhaps it makes some sense to investigate an
interface that keeps your hands on a keyboard. I was particularlly struck by
the importanance of this while checking into a convention several years ago.
Each attendee gave several pieces of information to a staff member which the
staff member entered into a form on screen. After each piece of information,
each staff member would cast about for their mouse, slowly navigate to the next
entry, click, then slowly reset their hands on the home row. Repeat this for
10,000 attendees and you have some serious time wasted. Teen years ago every
one of those staff members would have been familiar with using Tab to switch
between fields and would have been able to enter information limited by their
typing speed. Wow, this parenthetical comment really got off track, huh?)
Metatags are still useful, just less so on the public internet. Like all information retrieved from the public internet, metatag keyword and description information must be considered suspect. It's useless for search engines that index arbitrary pages. So what good is metatag information? At the very least, local site searching. If you add a simple search engine to your web site, the keyword and description information is very likely to be valid (after all, it's your site). It's also useful for external sites that might index you specifically. For example, when Google decides to index the University of Wisconsin at Madison web sites, the metadata information isn't perfect, but relatively trustworthy.
I also wish that Google would show the page's metatag description in addition to the text in the displayed page. Sure, you need to also show the displayed page matches to help quickly identify liars, but Google could easily show the description as well. For many sites the description is an excellent summary useful for filtering out bad hits.
I love having access to the GIMP for Windows when I'm stuck on a Windows box. My decidedly non-technical reporter friend who uses Photoshop to clean up photos for newspapers found the GIMP to be every bit as usable and capable as Photoshop for her needs. (Some graphic artists and other sorts will probably be horrified to discover that many newspapers have never bothered with "color correction" or "48 bit images", yet manage to reproduce fine images in their papers.)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER is part of your roaming profile. Everything is
hierarchicaly stored within it. If you ever want to transfer settings, just export a.REG file... and re-import it whereever you want.
While it's a nice theory, it fails in practice. Perhaps if every machine you roam between is configured identically with the same operating system and the same software installed in the same locations, moving HKEY_CURRENT_USER around might work. Not all information you will want to carry from machine to machine is is in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Want your file associations? They're in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Some program settings? HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. (In theory programs shouldn't save information there, in practice too many do because most Windows user have read/write access to the entire registry.) Paths in the registry will almost universally be absolute, so they fail if your home directory moves (c:\WinNT\users\bob.smith vs c:\Documents and Settings\bob.smith). Importing your full HKEY_CURRENT_USER has a good chance of clobbering important settings on a new machine. Exporting specific chunks to minimize this risk (and avoid bringing along useless settings) is a significant pain. Like the rest of the registry it's easy for HKEY_CURRENT_USER to become full of old cruft from programs you no longer use.
Storing your settings in program specific files makes it easier to pick and chose which ones to take with you. Given a sane system where all programs assume they can only write to your home directory (say, any Unix-like system), you can be confident that a tarball of your home directory contains every tweak, change, and option you've selected.
The registry is a nice idea, but in practice it turns into an unportable mess. The registry is a big part of the reason why many Windows users reinstall every year or so, "so it works better."
Linux... can't even open a simple Word
document without formatting errors.
OpenOffice and AbiWord both open simple Word documents
without formatting errors just fine. AbiWord will even open
moderately complex Word documents accurately. OpenOffice
has proven itself to be extremely accurate on fairly complex
Word documents, certainly everything that floats by me.
Linux stills falls short of Windows when playing
Quake.
And to think that I was running Quake III on Linux faster
that my dual boot to Windows...
Star Office, KOffice, Applix....XFree86, MetroX,
XiG
Interesting that you chose to include commercial software
in your list. Are you suggesting that the commercial
software folks just give up thier goals of making money and
help the open source folks? I don't think so.
Don't give me the old "competition" argument
either. There is only one Linux kernel, which seems to
progress just fine without another competing project nipping
at its feet and instigating flamewars.
Even if you ignore competition like Microsoft Windows and
MacOS X, Linux still faces from stiff competition from
OpenBSD and FreeBSD. The Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD camps
regularlly have political disagreements and regularlly race
to be the first with hot new features.
It's also worthing noting that in general the people
doing real coding tend to avoid flamewars. The real flamers
and trolls tend to be armchair coders and overly enthusiatic
users. Relatively little work is lost in these fights. If
these people really wanted to work, they know where the code
is.
You're missing the real point: most of these people are
working for free on software that they enjoy
working on. Complaining that they aren't working as
efficiently as possible is going to fall on deaf ears.
(I believe "you" in this case is Joe Ottinger, since it
appears that Real World Stuff has reproduced Joe's work
here.)
I thought the FSF rocked until I had to deal
with them directly...
...because I apparently never actually listened to their
message. It's pretty simple, they believe that all software
should be Free Software. No exceptions. Maybe you
disagree, but don't be surprised that they refuse when you ask them to help
you release proprietary software.
Instead, RMS refused outright to sign the
affadavit, and suggested quite bluntly that ProductManager
(which costed IBM millions to develop, and was a pretty
vertical product) should be open source...
How rude of him! You asked him to support work that he
finds morally reprehensible, and he refused!
Instead, he came across as a complete
hypocrite...
How so? Because he refused to do you favor? He didn't
agree with what you were doing (releasing closed source
software) and declined to help.
If he was a hypocrite, he would have helped you spread
proprietary software.
He was effectively implying that he'd stolen the
code...
Sorry, try again. How did he imply this? Because he
refused to sign the affadavit? He doesn't have anything to
prove to you, failure to provide proof doesn't mean that he
stole it. He doesn't owe you any evidence.
The FSF...actively supports piracy, offering
this newspeak as a replacement. "Use neutral terms to
describe piracy," they suggest, offering "unauthorized
copying" as well as "sharing information with your
neighbor." Pardon me, fellows, for actually setting the
price I want as recompense for my effort.
The FSF has never supported piracy. They support a
reevaluation of copyright laws. It's hard to have this
discussion about copyright laws when we're using words like
piracy. "Piracy" sounds unnecessarily threatening,
not-suprising given its historical meaning of boarding ships
by force, killing if necessary, and stealing physical
property. "Unauthorized copying" is newspeak? No, it's
accurate. Copyright infringement and unauthorized copying
are nice and specific. "Sharing information with your
neighbor" is also accurate, if a little manipulative, but
"piracy" is just as manipulative.
Pardon me, fellows, for actually setting the
price I want as recompense for my effort.... The GPL is a
viral license, requiring programs that use GPLed code to be
under the GPL themselves.
Actually, it's pretty simple. Authors who chose the GPL
have set a price to be able to redistribute their work: You
need to distribute the derived work under acceptable terms.
I doubt I'll get such a generous offer from IBM when I try
to include ProductManager in my program. Yes, it's
irritating, but that's the price, take it or leave it. You
don't have any fundamental right to use someone elses
software in your software.
In a way, that makes sense, although most other
similar licenses are less militaristic;most of them respect
the right of authors to keep their code proprietary, usually
requesting links to the source of licensed
software.
Great, other people are more generous! How about a deal,
the FSF will be BSD style generous with their software as
soon as IBM makes all their software BSD style generous?
In other words, all the truly useful stuff they
have (and there's a good bit of it) is basically bait for
the GPL; "use GetOpt, and we have you!"
Yup, just like Microsoft says, "Use MFC and we have
you!", Oracle says, "Use Oracle specific remote procedures
and we have you!", IBM says, "Use DB2 specific functionality
and we have you!". Any number of software companies
explicitly entice you to use their sourcecode and charge
you.
Commercial software companies try to entice you to
purchase products and bind yourself to restrictive EULAs.
The FSF tries to entice you to resuse their code and bind
yourself to their license. That's not a position of
weakness and cowardess, that's a simple trade, just like a
commericial software company.
People want web-filters to block "unsuitable"
sites as well. Does that mean we should support
web-blocking, since the blocking only happens by request of
the end-user? Perhaps.
Sounds good to me. If you want to run a web filter on
your machine for your own use that filters "unsuitable"
sites, enjoy!
It's your money. The problem with filters isn't that they
exist, it's that 1) they refuse to tell us what they are
specifically filtering and 2) they want to enforce these
filters on other people (like adults at a library. Oops, I
guess the page on breast cancer you were interested in is
prohibited by the filter, too bad. Oops, no translation
services so you can read the article in a foriegn
language, too bad.)
Myself, I'll continue to enjoy the un-cut, pure internet.
What about a bookstore with "sanitized" versions of popular works?
Well, I'd never use such a store, and neither would any
of my friends. But so long as I have access to other
bookstores that will sell the full versions, I don't care.
I think you'll find the market for "sanitized" media is
pretty small. Americans may talk puritan values, but we
like our filth.
Would you support that, even though it violates
the writer's moral rights (after all, you have changed their
work WITHOUT their permission.)
The United States have never formally recognized an
author's moral rights. I think we're better for it. Moral
rights would significantly restrict my ability to use things
I've paid for. Right now the only thing I can't do with a
book is make copies and redistribute them. I can
redistribute the original. I can make copies for personal
use. I can do anything else I want. Moral rights gives
the author the right to restrict what I do with the book I
paid for.
Furthermore, moral rights are harder to nail down. US
copyright restricts copies for X years. At the end of the X
years, we assume you've made "enough" money to justify your
creation and it goes public domain. We made a trade off
between our ability to copy things and incentive for authors
to create originals. What about moral rights? How many
years must go by before you've enjoyed your moral rights
enough? Can you really say that after X years you no longer
deserve them?
This service takes that control away, and puts
it in the hands of a third party censor, who then
effectively controls the vision of what is seen by this
particular population.
This particular population specifically chose this
option. It's their choice to make. And if they want, the
uncut version is certainly available to them.
It's the kind of attitude, I want to consume all
I want, but I don't want to deal with the consequences of my
consumption.
I'll agree with you here. I don't understand this
mindset of "I want to see such-and-such a movie, but I don't
want to see certain parts of it." But would you force these
people to see the full movies? It's their choice. Why take
choices away from them?
What you describe is exactly what copyright is
designed to prevent. Modifieing a copyrighted work for
profit.
Sorry, but copyright doesn't place any restrictions on
modification of a work. Copyright (in it's purest form) is
pretty uncaring to the non-profit or for-profit nature of
what you're doing.
At its core, copyright is about giving an author the
exclusive right to make a copy. Making copies is exactly what copyright is designed to prevent.
Once I've
obtained a legally made copy of such a work, I'm allow to do
whatever I want to the copy I want. The only restriction is
that I cannot distribute copies.
"Adding value" to an original copyright work is
not covered under fair use.
Can I write in the margins of a book I own? Yup. Can I
sell a book I own? You bet. Do I need "fair use" to do
either one of these things? Nope. This is simple doctrine
of first sale. You sold me something, I'm free to mangle it
and transfer ownership of the original to my heart's
content.
The automotive example earlier in this thread is pretty
good. Despite some silly comments to the contrary,
automobile designs are copyright protected (if they weren't,
we'd be seeing a glut of cheap, low-quality but extremely
similar looking car knock-offs). There are many businesses
which specialize in modifying automobiles and reselling them
(hot-rodders, companies that do the "stretching" of stretch
limos). Almost none of these companies bother talking to
the original manufacturer because they don't need to.
Real science fiction fans deride the use of Sci-Fi as a moniker, I guess it is becoming obvious why.
Real science fiction fans just relax and don't worry about it. They spend their time reading, watching, and listening to things they enjoy, be it labelled science fiction, sci-fi, sf, speculative fiction, fantasy, or children's stories.
The Sci-Fi Channel appears to please many people who identify with much of its programming and goals. What's the harm in it?
Slashdot Mirror
Will they also respect "Internet Special" fares if someone with disabilities calls up? (Note to self: next time I call an airline to make a reservation, tell them I'm blind to save money.)
I actually tried to make some airline reservations over the phone recently. Pretty universally you'll pay more for your tickets. These days, "internet only specials" really are.
And really, it's quite easy to make your web site screen reader or braille console friendly. Use ALT="" attributes in your IMG tags. Prefer CSS over HTML formatting. As a bonus, your web site will display better on all sorts of less capable software, including lynx, WebTV, wireless Palm VIIs, and cell phones. The only reason to not do the right thing is if your web designer is clueless or lazy.
The problem with the Southwest Airlines web site was that there was too much porn? I'm totally changing my airline preferences. :-)
Yeah, like that archaic text-basic support for news media. What were they called? Mewspapers and Nagazines? Something like that. I even faintly remember text-based movies. Books, I think they were called.
More seriously, most of the web is likely to remain text. It's easy to create, cheap to replicate, and efficent to gain information from. If most of the content is going to stay text anyway, it's really quite easy to keep that text friendly to a wide variety of situations (screen readers for the blind, braille consoles, the cruddy interface on my cell phone, lynx when I need simple browser in a pinch). Putting text only in a graphic or in a flash applet is just silly and harmful.
Damn straight! I sometimes use Lynx (a text only, console browser) for a quick browser. Any ADA compliant site will work great with Lynx and other alternative browsers (like maybe the one in your phone), giving everyone more options. A win for everyone!
It's very similar to the benefits everyone enjoys from the ADA. Wide hallways and wheelchair ramps make moving furniture easier. Big, easy to grab handles make it easy to elbow open a door when both hands are full of groceries.
I'm kinda curious how someone would go about showing that they were blind over the phone...
Let me know when we finally win, because right now I feel like the loser.
My brother recently went looking for a cell phone. He lives in a reasonably sized size (Madison, Wisconsin), we have several competing carriers, but service isn't perfect. Getting good coverage at home and at work is naturally essential, so he went shopping around. He inquired about various possibilies of trying a phone to test for dead zones before commiting to a two year contract. Could he just pay for a month and return the phone if dissatisfied? No. Could he take the two year contract and pay for the phone and return both for refund if dissatisfied? No. Was there any way he could try the phone for a few days and return it if dissatisfied, costing him only one or two months service? No. A key element of selecting a provider is the actual coverage you experience. Everyone has dead zones, but only you can determine if the dead zones are acceptable for you. US mobile phone providers are doing their damnest to limit proper competition by making it practically impossible for people to shop around.
Relatedly, I invested in a slightly higher end phone instead of getting the nearly free one that came with my contract. It's a nice phone, but it also represents a doorstop if I chose to change providers. Carriers refuse to support each others phones, sometimes for technical reasons, but mostly because it gives them a chance to sell me a new phone. Not willing to spend the money on the new phone? Phone, meet your owner. Owner, meet your ball and chain. I'm deeply jealous of the easy phone and provider swapping that can be done in Europe.
Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, we're paying to receive calls. While I do understand that sending a call to my cell phone costs money, sending a call to my land line phone also costs money. The land line phone companies figured out a billing structure so that receiving a call is free. Cell phone service in many foreign countries has figured out how to only charge for making a call, not receiving one. Why isn't this the rule in the U.S. yet?
I must say I'm impressed if this is true, it's certainly not the standard for most of the software industry. In general, if my media fails or is stolen, I'm out of luck and have to purchase an entire new copy. I personally don't have much use for Photoshop (I'm a programmer, not an artist), so I don't have a copy sitting around.
It does raise the question of how do you prove that you own a copy. If I bought a copy at Best Buy, then threw away the receipt and box, never bothered to register, and shoved the license in the CD case so I didn't lose it (the same CD case that was stolen), I'd be hard pressed to prove my ownership. This is typical behavior for me and many other people. I've got enough things to worry about to not bother keeping my licenses carefully filed away.
Even if accept that logic, 2% is still a difference. :-)
But I don't agree. For most software I purchase, if it's stolen, I'm out of luck. I'll have to foot the entire replacement bill for $500. Life sucks.
I suppose it is a statement of how much I'm not an artist. One of my favorite anime series appears to have been inspired by one of my least favorite comics. I'm still failing to understand the appeal. Ah well. Thanks for the info.
(To make this perfectly clear: I'm against copyright infringement. I'm a software engineer by trade and have several products I've developed on store shelves. However, copyright infringment is not the horrible monster it's made out to be.)
Perhaps we look at it different because we're capable of noticing the differences. If you break into a store and steal something you 1) damage the value of the property you broke into when you damange windows, locks, and other things, and 2) remove property so that the store no longer has a copy.
Copyright infringment is illegal and immoral, but it's not physical theft. if you break into my car and steal my CDs, I'll be pretty angry because I can no longer enjoy the CDs I paid for. The original copyright holder doesn't care because he already has my money. If you make a copy of my CDs, I'm out nothing and don't really care. The original copyright holder might have lost a sale, but you can never be sure. They are very different cases and deserve to be treated differently.
Interesting. I thought it was a felony because the law says, in summary, "redistributing copyright protected works is a felony." It doesn't say anything like, "redistributing copyright protected works is a form of theft, fraud, and distribution of stolen property and should prosecuted as such." There are plenty of felonies that have nothing to do with property (rape, murder, assault, negligence). Our politicians (not always the smartest beings on the planet) manage to identify the difference and legislate that they be treated differently, why can't you?
Most software companies are doing contract work and don't really rely on copyright, but instead on contract law. "Yes, we'll write an accounting system for your bank and give you the source if you'll give us $X". Most software companies (and more programmers) wouldn't see noticable changes if illegal copying was stamped out.
It's an interesting question. On one hand, perhaps more sales would have resulted as people chose to purchase instead of illegally copying. On the other hand, many people who copy would not have purchased the product, so not all illegal copies represent lost sales. Also, some of those people using illegal copies went on to purchase legal copies, or to work for companies which purchased them legal copies.
Erm, to take a wild guess, they still would have suffered at the hands of more successfully companies. Software exhibits the network effort (more users == more valuable to users), so there is a natural tendency for a single product to rise to the top. These companies didn't go out of business because of illegal copies, they went out of business because a competing product trounced them.
And yet dispite rampant illegal copying, the software industry has managed to grow every year. The sales declines tend to be by specific companies or specific sectors, suggesting changing market forces and competition. Nothing that illegal copying has anything to do with.
Apparently allowances have gone up. When I was a kid, $90 would have represented my major purchase for the year (even adjusted for inflation). Hell, even in college $90 was pretty hard to scrape together.
Erm, you didn't steal that money any more than shoplifters are stealing money that they should have paid for the product. If you fail to pay tolls on a toll road you're stealing a service, in this case access to the road. You're causing wear and tear on the road, congesting the highway (requiring more to be built), and increasing the risk of accidents (requiring more police and paramedics to be hired).
So far, so good...
...and then this logical error. I'm not paying for a service when I buy software, I'm paying for a product.
When I pay a toll, I am paying for the service of using the road. I don't get to take anything home with me. When I purchase a book, I'm not paying for the service of the author writing the book, I'm paying to take a book home. When I purchase a car I'm not paying for the service of my car being designed and manufactured, I'm paying to take a car home. When I purchase software I'm not paying for the service of the software being developed, I'm paying to end up with my very own copy. When I purchase a product, I am paying for that particular instance of the product. Previously the supplier had the product and I had money. The supplier wants my money and I want the product. We trade and are both happy. I don't care that the supplier needs to recoup his investment to create the product, that's his problem. I don't care if he spent the effort to create the product himself, purchased it from someone else, it from the future and matter replicated it, or it magically appeared in his stockroom for no reason.
(That said, copyright infringement is harmful to society and should be fought against. I just want to clarify that copyright infringment is different from theft of service.)
I implied no such thing. I simply said that they are different, not that one is less harmful than the other. Sometimes crimes have similar levels of harm of society, but are treated different (manslaughter versus murder).
That said, you're basically right. :-) I definately think that copyright
infringement is less harmful than theft. So I'll take your challenge...
Sure enough.
If Bob steals my copy of Photoshop from my desk, there is real and certain loss. Previously I had a copy of Photoshop that I could use. Now I no longer do. Photoshop costs about $650, I presumably valued Photoshop at $650 (since I paid that much for it). My loss is $650. My local software store would suffer similar losses if the copy was shoplifted from the store.
If Bob downloads an illegal copy of Photoshop no one lost existing money or property. The only loss that we can be certain of is that Adobe's exclusive right of copying has been infringed upon. The only loss is that Adobe might fail to make a sale that otherwise would have. Let's say that 99% of all illegal copies lead to a failure to purchase a legal copy. So, averaged between all of the illegal copies, the potential lost sales will work out to about $650 * .99 = $643.50.
If you assume that a lost sale is equivalent to actual loss, copyright infringment in this case is about $6.50 less damaging to society than theft. That number grows if you believe an even larger number of illegal copies do not replace legitimate copies. My personal experience suggests that many illegal copies are either never used (and so would never have been sales) or are made by people who simply don't have the money to pay for the legal version (and so would never have been sales). I'm not saying that this is acceptable, legal, or moral! "Collectors" should get a real hobby (like writing Free Software), and people who can't afford it should find other options (Like Free Software. :-). I'm saying that I believe that many (maybe 50%) of infringing
software copies do not represent a lost sale. If no sale was lost, the damange
to society is greatly reduced. If we go with 50% instead of 99%, the damage is $325 less.
Theft takes propetry away from it's lawful owner. The lawful owner can not longer use (or resell, or whatever) the item. Copyright infringment leaves the owner with a perfectly fine item, but potentially deprives the copyright holder of sales.
I would be no more rationalizing if I insisted on a clear distinction between manslaughter and murder. However, the copyright industries are working to set up such a virulent attitude against copyright infringment that it cannot be discussed rationally.
Copyright infringment is a crime and (to my beliefs) immoral, but copyright infringment is not theft of property. Referring to copyright infringment as piracy or theft confuses very different crimes with different levels of harm of society and different laws governing them. The copyright industries want to confuse the issues and portray copyright infringment as far worse than it actually is. Once armed with the public attitude that copyright infringment is far worse than it is, they can more easily justify taking rights we do have away ("Sorry, you can't record this show, we have to stop the pirates." "Sorry, you can't have your computer read this e-book aloud even if you're blind, otherwise thieves would take our money away.") I refuse to let copyright industries manipulate the discussion by manipulating the words used. They make inaccurate analogies like comparing my making an illegal copy of a CD (potentially, but not certainly, eliminating a sale) with my stealing a CD (taking a produced product away from someone who has paid for it, leaving them without access to their property).
I'm against copyright infringment. Copyright is a value tool for encouraging the creation of new works. I purchase my music, movies, books, and video games. That said, you're playing into the hands of copyright based industries. You're using inaccurate and dangerous sounding words. This sort of dialogue is giving the RIAA, the MPAA, and other copyright based industries ammunition to take our fair use rights away. Copyright is a balance, not a one way street.
If I engage in illegal copying, I have engaged in illegal copying, nothing more. Illegal copying is very distinct from theft of physical objects. "You most definately are removing something from someone." And what would that something be? The original author still has all of his copies of the work. The record store still has all their copies. The person I copied it from still has their copy. I have not taken something from anyone. I have infringed upon the copyright holders exclusive right to distribute copies, but that's different. I might have eliminated the sale of a legal copy, but it's hard to know.
That's just surreal. Copyright does not grant the author any sort of control over legally made copies. The CD in the store is legal. If someone steals the CD, they have stolen that copy, nothing more. The copyright holder has lost nothing, only the copies own (the store) has lost anything. Copyright law is completely irrelevant, the thief will be charged with good old fashioned shoplifting.
If you download an mp3 file that you don't own the CD for, you are infringing copyright. Pure and simple. The copyright holder has lost nothing. He might fail to sell CD that he otherwise would have, but you're not allowed to count potential failed sales as a loss. Things are all the more complicated by people who sample CDs through MP3 and end up purchasing the CD.
Over my career I've worked with a number of people I'll unhelpfully lump together as artists. Graphic artists, web designers, would-be comic book artists, 3-D modellers and animators, 2-d artists. Great people, generally very sane. Of these artists, a significant number have owned and decorated their offices with McFarlane's Spawn figurines. And never just plain old Spawn. Spawn the Bloodaxe, Alien Spawn, Pirate Spawn, Raven Spawn, She Spawn, Wings of Redemption Spawn, Spawn VII, Dark Ages Spawn - Samurai Wars, Techno Spawn, or Spawn the Bloodaxe and Thunderhoof. Each and every one more EXTREME than the last. There have been 22 different series of figurines. By my back of the envelope calculation, there are approximately seventy billion distinct Spawn variants.
What's the point? The character is alien and pointless. A friend at one point suggested that the Spawn comic books were for teenagers who found Batman not gritty enough and too realistic. Grade school kids who need something more EXTREME to try and shock their parents. The figurines may be very distinct, but they certainly are all EXTREME. Multiple layers of billowing clothing, draped in chains, with random pipes and hoses stuck in various unlikely places. Sure, they're detailed, but they're just random. The effect isn't cool, just busy. They certainly never approach the real creepiness of a master like H.R. Giger. They're not shocking, just childish. What exactly is the appeal of Spawn?
McFarlane really bothers me, his work (assuming the things coming out with his name all over them are his work) is disassociated with reality. Spawn is inane. McFarlane can even taint unrelated works. http://trigunner.giborama.com/trigunner/merchandis e/mcvash.html">McFarlane's interpretation of Vash from Trigun was needlessly
draped in chains, just like Vash never was in the series, turning Vash into some bizarre bondage version of himself.
So what exactly is the draw of McFarlane and his work, especially Spawn? I certainly don't see it.
Yeah, that would be just like Developer X spending 5 million to develop a PC game that can be pirated with ease because someone can download a crack online. Or a music publishing company spending 5 million to contract a music star to record CDs that can the pirated with ease because some can easily download it online. Or a movie company spending 50 million to make a movie that can be pirated with ease because someone can easily purchase illegal DVD copies throughout the world.
Oh, wait. All of these things happen. Repeatedly. And most of them are far easier and cheaper than purchasing a mod chip online and soldering it into your case.
Dispite the ease of copyright infringement, these industries survive. It's not necessary to completely destroy copyright infringement, it's probably not even possible. (We work even harder at eliminating murder and illegal drugs, and yet both continue to happen.) Only fools think it's possible to perfectly protect content shipped to millions of people. Instead, work to minimize copyright infringment, prosecute the worst offenders of copyright infringment (people selling copied DVDs), and learn to live with the rest. When you have the effort of finding, purchasing, and installing a mod chip as a prerequisite, you're going to keep illegal copies to a bare minimum. The people willing to spend the effort to make the copies generally wouldn't have purchased a copy in the first place. Actual sales lost: minimal.
(Please don't take this as a defense of making illegal copies. I'm against copyright infringment. I'm for purchasing video games. I'm arguing that the problem isn't so bad that publishers should run around screaming that the sky is falling.)
What is the value in installing various performance enhancing modifications on my car that it wasn't intended or designed for? The value of overclocking my processor to a speed it wasn't intended or designed for? Answer: it's none of the fscking manufacturer's concern. How I chose to treat the physical things I purchase is my business, not the manufacturers. I obviously find value in the modification, so clearly there is value for me. That's all that matters.
So it's of no value to you. That's fine. But a modchip in my PlayStation 2 is of value to me. I want access to the editions of Dance Dance Revolution released in Asia, the U.S. releases are inferior. Sure, I can't read the text, but I don't need to (I do just fine at the Korean DDR arcade machine next door). I'm not getting illegally copied games since I want to support the publisher, I'm interested in importing legally produced copies. So I don't need to worry about low quality illegal copies. I'd rather not have a second PS2 occupying space. This adds value for me. A similar set of reasons might create value for someone with an X-Box.
Well, gosh, if Sega said if was piracy, that must be the problem. The fact that they were competing with two very powerful, established competitors (Nintendo and Sony) certainly doesn't have anything to do with it. My many friends who all chose to wait for the PS2 instead of getting a Dreamcast clearly don't represent the typical population. There is certainly no chance that Sega misrepresented the reason they left the market to pin the blame on someone other than themselves. (I'm having problems finding articles were they actually blamed piracy... could you point me to a few?)
I'm a Dreamcast owner. I love the machine and I mourn its passing.uy the argument that illegal copying killed the Dreamcast. The millions of people who said, "well, it looks nice, but I'm waiting for the PS2" killed the Dreamcast. I encouraged all of my friends to buy Dreamcasts. None did. Yet
Is it so shocking? I often use Links, w3m, or even the old standby Lynx for browsing. These fine console browsers have almost no mouse support and are plenty usable.
All of the major browsers support full navigation with the keyboard, and I use them frequently. (Galeon even supports vi-like keybindings, bringing me endless glee.)
For various reasons it sometimes makes sense to keep your fingers on your keyboard. If I'm in the middle of hard core coding, it's faster to Alt+Tab to Galeon to reference something, scroll down the page, and chase a link than it is to grab the mouse. Grabbing the mouse can break my concentration, my zone, when deeply engaged in code. For skilled users who are familiar with the system, a keyboard can be a significant speed win, even when referencing something on the web.
(Yes, yes, yes, the all knowing Tognazzini has told you that the mouse is always faster. Unfortunately Tog has only shown this for novice or adequately skilled users. He doesn't seem interested in studying heavy duty users. If I'm going to be using a piece of software for eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks per year, perhaps it makes some sense to investigate an interface that keeps your hands on a keyboard. I was particularlly struck by the importanance of this while checking into a convention several years ago. Each attendee gave several pieces of information to a staff member which the staff member entered into a form on screen. After each piece of information, each staff member would cast about for their mouse, slowly navigate to the next entry, click, then slowly reset their hands on the home row. Repeat this for 10,000 attendees and you have some serious time wasted. Teen years ago every one of those staff members would have been familiar with using Tab to switch between fields and would have been able to enter information limited by their typing speed. Wow, this parenthetical comment really got off track, huh?)
Metatags are still useful, just less so on the public internet. Like all information retrieved from the public internet, metatag keyword and description information must be considered suspect. It's useless for search engines that index arbitrary pages. So what good is metatag information? At the very least, local site searching. If you add a simple search engine to your web site, the keyword and description information is very likely to be valid (after all, it's your site). It's also useful for external sites that might index you specifically. For example, when Google decides to index the University of Wisconsin at Madison web sites, the metadata information isn't perfect, but relatively trustworthy.
I also wish that Google would show the page's metatag description in addition to the text in the displayed page. Sure, you need to also show the displayed page matches to help quickly identify liars, but Google could easily show the description as well. For many sites the description is an excellent summary useful for filtering out bad hits.
That said, the original porter of the GIMP for Windows makes it available for free. No need to link to a commercial version. Go and get it.
While it's a nice theory, it fails in practice. Perhaps if every machine
you roam between is configured identically with the same operating system and
the same software installed in the same locations, moving HKEY_CURRENT_USER
around might work. Not all information you will want to carry from
machine to machine is is in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Want your file associations?
They're in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Some program settings? HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. (In
theory programs shouldn't save information there, in practice too many do
because most Windows user have read/write access to the entire registry.) Paths
in the registry will almost universally be absolute, so they fail if your home
directory moves (c:\WinNT\users\bob.smith vs c:\Documents and
Settings\bob.smith). Importing your full HKEY_CURRENT_USER has a good chance
of clobbering important settings on a new machine. Exporting specific chunks
to minimize this risk (and avoid bringing along useless settings) is a
significant pain. Like the rest of the registry it's easy for
HKEY_CURRENT_USER to become full of old cruft from programs you no longer use.
Storing your settings in program specific files makes it easier to pick and
chose which ones to take with you. Given a sane system where all programs
assume they can only write to your home directory (say, any Unix-like system),
you can be confident that a tarball of your home directory contains every
tweak, change, and option you've selected.
The registry is a nice idea, but in practice it turns into an unportable
mess. The registry is a big part of the reason why many Windows users
reinstall every year or so, "so it works better."
OpenOffice and AbiWord both open simple Word documents without formatting errors just fine. AbiWord will even open moderately complex Word documents accurately. OpenOffice has proven itself to be extremely accurate on fairly complex Word documents, certainly everything that floats by me.
And to think that I was running Quake III on Linux faster that my dual boot to Windows...
Interesting that you chose to include commercial software in your list. Are you suggesting that the commercial software folks just give up thier goals of making money and help the open source folks? I don't think so.
Even if you ignore competition like Microsoft Windows and MacOS X, Linux still faces from stiff competition from OpenBSD and FreeBSD. The Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD camps regularlly have political disagreements and regularlly race to be the first with hot new features.
It's also worthing noting that in general the people doing real coding tend to avoid flamewars. The real flamers and trolls tend to be armchair coders and overly enthusiatic users. Relatively little work is lost in these fights. If these people really wanted to work, they know where the code is.
You're missing the real point: most of these people are working for free on software that they enjoy working on. Complaining that they aren't working as efficiently as possible is going to fall on deaf ears.
(I believe "you" in this case is Joe Ottinger, since it appears that Real World Stuff has reproduced Joe's work here.)
...because I apparently never actually listened to their message. It's pretty simple, they believe that all software should be Free Software. No exceptions. Maybe you disagree, but don't be surprised that they refuse when you ask them to help you release proprietary software.
How rude of him! You asked him to support work that he finds morally reprehensible, and he refused!
How so? Because he refused to do you favor? He didn't agree with what you were doing (releasing closed source software) and declined to help.
If he was a hypocrite, he would have helped you spread proprietary software.
Sorry, try again. How did he imply this? Because he refused to sign the affadavit? He doesn't have anything to prove to you, failure to provide proof doesn't mean that he stole it. He doesn't owe you any evidence.
The FSF has never supported piracy. They support a reevaluation of copyright laws. It's hard to have this discussion about copyright laws when we're using words like piracy. "Piracy" sounds unnecessarily threatening, not-suprising given its historical meaning of boarding ships by force, killing if necessary, and stealing physical property. "Unauthorized copying" is newspeak? No, it's accurate. Copyright infringement and unauthorized copying are nice and specific. "Sharing information with your neighbor" is also accurate, if a little manipulative, but "piracy" is just as manipulative.
Actually, it's pretty simple. Authors who chose the GPL have set a price to be able to redistribute their work: You need to distribute the derived work under acceptable terms. I doubt I'll get such a generous offer from IBM when I try to include ProductManager in my program. Yes, it's irritating, but that's the price, take it or leave it. You don't have any fundamental right to use someone elses software in your software.
Great, other people are more generous! How about a deal, the FSF will be BSD style generous with their software as soon as IBM makes all their software BSD style generous?
Yup, just like Microsoft says, "Use MFC and we have you!", Oracle says, "Use Oracle specific remote procedures and we have you!", IBM says, "Use DB2 specific functionality and we have you!". Any number of software companies explicitly entice you to use their sourcecode and charge you.
Commercial software companies try to entice you to purchase products and bind yourself to restrictive EULAs. The FSF tries to entice you to resuse their code and bind yourself to their license. That's not a position of weakness and cowardess, that's a simple trade, just like a commericial software company.
Sounds good to me. If you want to run a web filter on your machine for your own use that filters "unsuitable" sites, enjoy! It's your money. The problem with filters isn't that they exist, it's that 1) they refuse to tell us what they are specifically filtering and 2) they want to enforce these filters on other people (like adults at a library. Oops, I guess the page on breast cancer you were interested in is prohibited by the filter, too bad. Oops, no translation services so you can read the article in a foriegn language, too bad.)
Myself, I'll continue to enjoy the un-cut, pure internet.
Well, I'd never use such a store, and neither would any of my friends. But so long as I have access to other bookstores that will sell the full versions, I don't care. I think you'll find the market for "sanitized" media is pretty small. Americans may talk puritan values, but we like our filth.
The United States have never formally recognized an author's moral rights. I think we're better for it. Moral rights would significantly restrict my ability to use things I've paid for. Right now the only thing I can't do with a book is make copies and redistribute them. I can redistribute the original. I can make copies for personal use. I can do anything else I want. Moral rights gives the author the right to restrict what I do with the book I paid for.
Furthermore, moral rights are harder to nail down. US copyright restricts copies for X years. At the end of the X years, we assume you've made "enough" money to justify your creation and it goes public domain. We made a trade off between our ability to copy things and incentive for authors to create originals. What about moral rights? How many years must go by before you've enjoyed your moral rights enough? Can you really say that after X years you no longer deserve them?
This particular population specifically chose this option. It's their choice to make. And if they want, the uncut version is certainly available to them.
I'll agree with you here. I don't understand this mindset of "I want to see such-and-such a movie, but I don't want to see certain parts of it." But would you force these people to see the full movies? It's their choice. Why take choices away from them?
Sorry, but copyright doesn't place any restrictions on modification of a work. Copyright (in it's purest form) is pretty uncaring to the non-profit or for-profit nature of what you're doing.
At its core, copyright is about giving an author the exclusive right to make a copy. Making copies is exactly what copyright is designed to prevent. Once I've obtained a legally made copy of such a work, I'm allow to do whatever I want to the copy I want. The only restriction is that I cannot distribute copies.
Can I write in the margins of a book I own? Yup. Can I sell a book I own? You bet. Do I need "fair use" to do either one of these things? Nope. This is simple doctrine of first sale. You sold me something, I'm free to mangle it and transfer ownership of the original to my heart's content.
The automotive example earlier in this thread is pretty good. Despite some silly comments to the contrary, automobile designs are copyright protected (if they weren't, we'd be seeing a glut of cheap, low-quality but extremely similar looking car knock-offs). There are many businesses which specialize in modifying automobiles and reselling them (hot-rodders, companies that do the "stretching" of stretch limos). Almost none of these companies bother talking to the original manufacturer because they don't need to.
Real science fiction fans just relax and don't worry about it. They spend their time reading, watching, and listening to things they enjoy, be it labelled science fiction, sci-fi, sf, speculative fiction, fantasy, or children's stories.
The Sci-Fi Channel appears to please many people who identify with much of its programming and goals. What's the harm in it?
(That said, John Edwards is tripe. Ah well.)