Copies of copies isn't stealing, either. Stealing involve directly depriving somebody of something. Illegal copying (no matter the number of "levels" of copying) may be neutral to, may deprive and may enrich the content owner, depending on what happens in related activity. As a such, it is very different from stealing.
I perfectly agree with your sentiment as to region coding, I just don't agree that was what I and the guy I replied to was talking about. Well, I can't really know what *he* was talking about, but it didn't seem to be region coding, and I know I wasn't:)
According to what I know and what mozilla.org claims, they mainly coordinate volunteers now. The staff was laid off.
OpenOffice is still fed by Sun, and I suspect that is holding it back.
Also, I didn't claim that there were nobody that got paid for time spent on the FreeBSD kernel - there is, I've gotten money to spend time on it myself. Just that feeding more money into the process is/was difficult.
I believe there will be similar problems with a bunch of other projects - because organizing money is hard, and organizing money to help open source is even more difficult.
I know the real cost isn't integrated anywhere. I'm saying I think it should be. And yes, I know the price would be fairly high - I don't think anybody know how high, as there's significant variation involved, and a bunch of stuff we don't know. This means, in my opinion, that we should err on the safe side, at least as far as we are able to.
Moving towards a correct price would let us use markets to move towards a sustainable economy. As it is, we're basically stealing from our kids to have a convenient time now. I find that to suck.
Is you not having thought things through reason enough for you to post ridicilous implications to Slashdot, as if there was a sizable fraction here stealing anything?
Obviously, it is. It is "illegal copying", not stealing. These are materially different. These are so materially different that you should sit down and think carefully through why I'm saying the following until you get it (and shut up about the topic until you have gotten it): When you are labelling illegal copying as stealing, you cannot think clearly about it.
See my previous comments on Slashdot if you need hints. Oh, and I'm one of those "content creators" you want to "protect".
Well, I'm from Norway - I think we have the highest gasoline price in the world. I just believe it is STILL underpriced, and that the correct thing to do would be to make the price real - in other words, include the cost of cleaning up after negative sides of the gas. Markets are very very good at optimizing, but they have to have the correct input price. The price of a resource isn't the cost of getting it out of the ground - it's the cost of getting it out of the ground plus the cost of cleaning up afterwards.
As an OSS developer, I can say that 1 billion dollar would make fairly little difference, and might make a negative difference. People seem to believe that open source software would be tremendously helped by money. I've worked with a very large open source project (FreeBSD), and have seen how we fairly often have had problems with spending money. Anyway, before, we had the problem of vetting the people that worked on things. We tried just hiring people to do a project for us a few times, and got so-so results in many of the cases. Fortunately, we also had a lot of people that worked as consultants and did FreeBSD stuff in their spare time. So we tried paying one of those to spend more of his time on FreeBSD.
Oops. Bad plan. We got a time disparity: He had lots of time for FreeBSD, and the volunteers didn't have time to catch up...
We seem to have learned a bunch about how to spend money since - there's been pushed some amounts of money through the project (many scales down from a billion dollars, though) and it doesn't seem to mess thing up. However, we spent years learning how to do that, and there's still clear limits on how much money we would be able to spend positively. I suspect Google understands this. Through their Summer of Code projects they seem to be pushing about the right amount of money that open source can gracefully accept. Pushing another billion dollar into the open source economy in a sudden fashion would in my opinion most likely destroy large parts of the Open Source world.
Gas should be insured against future pollution cleanup costs, in order to have a realistic pricing. With that, and suitable requirements for the companies doing the insuring (no "We're just going to set it up so we go bankrupt the day we have to handle things, and take the profit now"), the market could take care of optimizing *including* pollution handling...
You are assuming an infinite market with no cultural feedback effects/lock in. This assumption is false. As a such, it's necessary with regulation to actually preserve a working market.
That's in the latter half of the Free Markets 101 class, maybe you fell asleep?
Since always. In various forms, this has always been allowed in all jurisdictions I've ever checked it for. And it has always been cases where breaking this is morally fair.
So, let me throw it back in your face: Since when is it your right to post bullshit to the public without having taken the time to learn or think about the area? ("Bill of rights" and freedom of speech is irrelevant - I'm talking about the moral issue, where you should be self-censoring out of a combination of responsibility and pride in yourself.)
There are several alternatives, including a multi-dimensional moderation system - where it would be possible to mark how correct information is. There's a lot that can be done with various analyzes to personalize to the people that have the same tastes as you, too.
The moderation system is sort of successful, but it is FAR from ideal.
It's correct that it can only be distributed pursuant to the GPL. The problem is that the GPL prohibits distribution for binaries linked from both BSD and GPLed code, due to the additional restrictions added by the BSD license (license reproduction).
As the restrictive license, GPL is what sets the terms here - it's just that these terms are "can't include anything but GPL". There's been some rethorical moves to try to argue around this (e.g, saying that the GPL requires attribution anyway and the BSD license reproduction is just a form of attribution). Having experience with creating products based on free software, I'll say that my estimation is that there is NO WAY that will stand up in a court of law. License reproduction is a major hassle when you create products, and as a such it is a notable extra restriction.
Actually, creating a desktop system fits well with the goals of the FreeBSD project - I'm just not sure it fits well with the culture at this point.
I like your goals. I'd like to have a talk with you abot aspects of the system - I've been thinking very much along the same lines for 6-7 years now, I've just decided that my personal situation/energy level hasn't been right for starting a fork. I have, however, thought a lot about how to do these things so they could work.
I'll pop you a mail, and we can go further from there.
Porting *BSD kernel stuff to Linux is usually not a problem for legal reasons, but the other way around might well be if it is to be integrated into a *BSD kernel.
This is the general perception, yet I believe it is wrong. The BSD license place specific reproduction limits on the license itself, this is in conflict with the GPL "no further restrictions" clause.
The argument that the people that believe this is legal use is that the GPL already requires reproduction of copyright. However, the reproduction of many different copyright clauses/licenses is in itself a further restriction in practice. This is why both NetBSD and FreeBSD have done active work to limit the number of licenses.
Yes, we really want people without credentials to be contributing. There's a bunch of work that people without credentials can do perfectly well, and there's some of those without credentials that are more competent in the field than those that DO have credentials. This is especially obvious in the computing/programming area.
We also want those with credentials to be able to contribute without the hassle of having to prove their credentials, as that would cut off 90%.
No. Different distributions have different startup systems, they have different applications included, they have different locations for various files, etc. And they have differently patched kernels.
Different Linux "distributions" are different operating systems. Linuxites have some weird kernel fetish that I, as a kernel hacker and operating systems maintainer, do not get. Sure, different kernels are different kernels and have different pros and cons. However, they express their differences in different handling of load patterns etc, and a fairly narrow API. Other parts of an OS add up to much, much more.
He could not commit the code himself unless he expressly promised not to be abusive and held that promise. This was, in my opinion, a reasonable reaction to unreasoanble behaviour from Theo, and was followed with more unreasonable behaviour from Theo.
I see where you're coming from, alas, there's some assumptions underpinning your argument which you may not even be aware of - and that I disagree with.
You're assuming the content providers are perfectly informed and perfectly rational in their actions, so their policy will be in their own best interest. I see them as emotionally driven by fear, and irrational. This has borne out in all their previous actions, where they've been opposing new technology (cassette tapes, video), and when the technology has been allowed through by the courts anyway, they've suddenly had a larger market.
You're further assuming that "content providers" acts as one entity. They don't. It's a group of different providers, and from game theory we know that there could be forced to a lower equlibrium by "grabby" behaviour by individuals. Example: Trees. Overall, trees would have more energy to run their immune system, produce seeds, and other really essential tasks if they didn't grow so tall. However, each individual tree has to compete with the other trees, and the individual tree has an advantage by growing a little taller than its neighbours - which force the neighbours to grow, negating its advantage.
As for evil: Isn't self-interest without regards to how you affect others more or less the definition of evil?
Slashdot Mirror
Eivind.
Eivind.
I perfectly agree with your sentiment as to region coding, I just don't agree that was what I and the guy I replied to was talking about. Well, I can't really know what *he* was talking about, but it didn't seem to be region coding, and I know I wasn't :)
OpenOffice is still fed by Sun, and I suspect that is holding it back.
Also, I didn't claim that there were nobody that got paid for time spent on the FreeBSD kernel - there is, I've gotten money to spend time on it myself. Just that feeding more money into the process is/was difficult.
I believe there will be similar problems with a bunch of other projects - because organizing money is hard, and organizing money to help open source is even more difficult.
Eivind.
Moving towards a correct price would let us use markets to move towards a sustainable economy. As it is, we're basically stealing from our kids to have a convenient time now. I find that to suck.
Obviously, it is. It is "illegal copying", not stealing. These are materially different. These are so materially different that you should sit down and think carefully through why I'm saying the following until you get it (and shut up about the topic until you have gotten it): When you are labelling illegal copying as stealing, you cannot think clearly about it.
See my previous comments on Slashdot if you need hints. Oh, and I'm one of those "content creators" you want to "protect".
Well, I'm from Norway - I think we have the highest gasoline price in the world. I just believe it is STILL underpriced, and that the correct thing to do would be to make the price real - in other words, include the cost of cleaning up after negative sides of the gas. Markets are very very good at optimizing, but they have to have the correct input price. The price of a resource isn't the cost of getting it out of the ground - it's the cost of getting it out of the ground plus the cost of cleaning up afterwards.
Oops. Bad plan. We got a time disparity: He had lots of time for FreeBSD, and the volunteers didn't have time to catch up...
We seem to have learned a bunch about how to spend money since - there's been pushed some amounts of money through the project (many scales down from a billion dollars, though) and it doesn't seem to mess thing up. However, we spent years learning how to do that, and there's still clear limits on how much money we would be able to spend positively. I suspect Google understands this. Through their Summer of Code projects they seem to be pushing about the right amount of money that open source can gracefully accept. Pushing another billion dollar into the open source economy in a sudden fashion would in my opinion most likely destroy large parts of the Open Source world.
Eivind.
Eivind.
Read and enjoy!
That's in the latter half of the Free Markets 101 class, maybe you fell asleep?
Eivind.
So, let me throw it back in your face: Since when is it your right to post bullshit to the public without having taken the time to learn or think about the area? ("Bill of rights" and freedom of speech is irrelevant - I'm talking about the moral issue, where you should be self-censoring out of a combination of responsibility and pride in yourself.)
Eivind.
I'd just like to say Thank you! for your efforts. :)
Basically, they improve the engineering rather than just add more features. Good call, in my book.
Eivind.
Become a suicide bomber, with the RIAA headquarters as your target.
There are several alternatives, including a multi-dimensional moderation system - where it would be possible to mark how correct information is. There's a lot that can be done with various analyzes to personalize to the people that have the same tastes as you, too.
The moderation system is sort of successful, but it is FAR from ideal.
As the restrictive license, GPL is what sets the terms here - it's just that these terms are "can't include anything but GPL". There's been some rethorical moves to try to argue around this (e.g, saying that the GPL requires attribution anyway and the BSD license reproduction is just a form of attribution). Having experience with creating products based on free software, I'll say that my estimation is that there is NO WAY that will stand up in a court of law. License reproduction is a major hassle when you create products, and as a such it is a notable extra restriction.
Eivind.
I like your goals. I'd like to have a talk with you abot aspects of the system - I've been thinking very much along the same lines for 6-7 years now, I've just decided that my personal situation/energy level hasn't been right for starting a fork. I have, however, thought a lot about how to do these things so they could work.
I'll pop you a mail, and we can go further from there.
Eivind.
Eivind, FreeBSD developer who may or may not be interested in another project, depending.
The argument that the people that believe this is legal use is that the GPL already requires reproduction of copyright. However, the reproduction of many different copyright clauses/licenses is in itself a further restriction in practice. This is why both NetBSD and FreeBSD have done active work to limit the number of licenses.
Eivind.
We also want those with credentials to be able to contribute without the hassle of having to prove their credentials, as that would cut off 90%.
Eivind.
Different Linux "distributions" are different operating systems. Linuxites have some weird kernel fetish that I, as a kernel hacker and operating systems maintainer, do not get. Sure, different kernels are different kernels and have different pros and cons. However, they express their differences in different handling of load patterns etc, and a fairly narrow API. Other parts of an OS add up to much, much more.
Eivind.
Eivind.
You're in a funny place to complain when you have hundreds of operating systems to your camp, all called "distros"...
You're assuming the content providers are perfectly informed and perfectly rational in their actions, so their policy will be in their own best interest. I see them as emotionally driven by fear, and irrational. This has borne out in all their previous actions, where they've been opposing new technology (cassette tapes, video), and when the technology has been allowed through by the courts anyway, they've suddenly had a larger market.
You're further assuming that "content providers" acts as one entity. They don't. It's a group of different providers, and from game theory we know that there could be forced to a lower equlibrium by "grabby" behaviour by individuals. Example: Trees. Overall, trees would have more energy to run their immune system, produce seeds, and other really essential tasks if they didn't grow so tall. However, each individual tree has to compete with the other trees, and the individual tree has an advantage by growing a little taller than its neighbours - which force the neighbours to grow, negating its advantage.
As for evil: Isn't self-interest without regards to how you affect others more or less the definition of evil?
Eivind.