It seems to me that it would be a whole lot cheaper then 500M to just fix IE. Besides Gator isn't the only spyware. There are lots more where that came from.
Not saying your example isn't good, but in Shanghai China they in fact often have to pay to go to so called public parks (I would know, my wife's from Shanghai). Here there are a lot more areas where people COULD go for free, but in places where such does not exist, etc. So.. supply, demand...
I would argue that its more about price point for software. Many people just don't feel that every piece of software is worth the 40-60$, or more, that companies want for their product.
There is a group of MacOSX shareware programmers which I think really get this. Many of their software is under 15$, and some of their best stuff is priced at 5-10$
No one is defending the virus/worm writers. The security holes that virus/worm writers are taking advantage of are defects in the software. You wouldn't accept it if GM sold you a car that would unlock the door if you removed one of the hubcaps, nor should you accept software that doesn't bother to check the validity of input. All software should be run in "taint" mode.
Even if some external means of verification exists that a program is authentic, it adds a layer of complexity to using the system that most average people, given the choice, simply won't use.
Then I guess Debian, Ubuntu, OSX(using Fink), Gentoo etc etc etc, don't use MD5 checksums on every package you download do they? In fact they already do and if the mirror you download from doesn't match the checksum from the master server the package won't install. Nor do these groups allow spyware or adware (whatever) to be added to their install list. So unless you downloaded a binary from the net instead of apt-get/emerge/fink then you aren't going to have those problems.
And lets not even get into the fact that on windows 90% of users are running as admin and can install to anywhere. Which of course everyone knows would require root on any UNIX system.
I agree, peer review falls apart almost immediately. But a peer review doesn't have to be run by a static set of board members. Call it "Peer Review by Jury". Suppose you submit a patent, you now can be called up for jury duty for that patent type (obviously, you would need a great deal of topic separation). If a company is limited to one representative, and the people are selected by random from the pool, we'd get a very diverse group of people that know something about the field. Nor do they all need to sit down in a single conference room (more on that later).
The rules then would state that all of the jury needs to agree or disagree on the choice to allow the patent. If the patent becomes hung, then a moderator (judge) has to come in, and determine if something can be done to un-hang the jury or if a new jury needs to be selected. More over, the patent in quest should be handled by this jury, in the same way that essay works get considered by exam groups (such as the GRE), where the patent is double blind on who is reviewing it.
Considering how beneficial the internet has proven to be for cheep business operations, do you think that Chinese policy makers would actually do that? I find it pretty unlikely. It seems to me that if anything their filters will just become more intelligent about eliminating content they disagree with. Especially as meta-information becomes used in more places allowing their filters to more effectively filter.
The problem I see with any of these tax systems is that they dramatically affect OSS licenses. The GPL for example might have to add a mandatory phrase that code submitted to the project to also assign copyright to the project. Otherwise each developer would be required to continually pay for each piece of code he writes to a project... That's a pretty high price to pay for a bug fix or small patch!
Its an interesting idea, but there seems to be some flaws.
For example:
Now suppose your million dollar seller isn't selling anymore, and you decide to take it out of print. Then you'd have to decide whether it was worth it to you to keep paying the annual ten grand or to let the work go public domain.
By your rules they wouldn't be paying anything, because 1% of zero is still zero. So unless you took the maximum of the entire period, or something like that, you'd loose your reason for authors to allow their matterial to become public domain.
The other issue is that what happens to the GPL under a system like this? Now since there are many authors, and many people possibly making money of your copyright you've got a horrible mess. In fact, this is the primary problem with a lot of suggested copyright fixes posted to slashdot, they often would break the GPL pretty badly.
Of course some people might like seeing the GPL go down in a ball of flame, but I'm not one of them.
::nervous laugh::
That's all we really need, a proprietary internet controlled by M$. Then they can charge us whatever they want on a per machine basis to login and while their at it, see everything we do so that information can be sold to the highest bidder. Not to mention spying on inovations by competitors.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that it would be a whole lot cheaper then 500M to just fix IE. Besides Gator isn't the only spyware. There are lots more where that came from.
Not saying your example isn't good, but in Shanghai China they in fact often have to pay to go to so called public parks (I would know, my wife's from Shanghai). Here there are a lot more areas where people COULD go for free, but in places where such does not exist, etc. So.. supply, demand...
I would argue that its more about price point for software. Many people just don't feel that every piece of software is worth the 40-60$, or more, that companies want for their product.
There is a group of MacOSX shareware programmers which I think really get this. Many of their software is under 15$, and some of their best stuff is priced at 5-10$
No one is defending the virus/worm writers. The security holes that virus/worm writers are taking advantage of are defects in the software. You wouldn't accept it if GM sold you a car that would unlock the door if you removed one of the hubcaps, nor should you accept software that doesn't bother to check the validity of input. All software should be run in "taint" mode.
Then I guess Debian, Ubuntu, OSX(using Fink), Gentoo etc etc etc, don't use MD5 checksums on every package you download do they? In fact they already do and if the mirror you download from doesn't match the checksum from the master server the package won't install. Nor do these groups allow spyware or adware (whatever) to be added to their install list. So unless you downloaded a binary from the net instead of apt-get/emerge/fink then you aren't going to have those problems.
And lets not even get into the fact that on windows 90% of users are running as admin and can install to anywhere. Which of course everyone knows would require root on any UNIX system.
Its probably a screw-on attachment. Its not like he can take his pants off after all... OK, I'm disturbed by my own mind now, thanks.
I agree, peer review falls apart almost immediately. But a peer review doesn't have to be run by a static set of board members. Call it "Peer Review by Jury". Suppose you submit a patent, you now can be called up for jury duty for that patent type (obviously, you would need a great deal of topic separation). If a company is limited to one representative, and the people are selected by random from the pool, we'd get a very diverse group of people that know something about the field. Nor do they all need to sit down in a single conference room (more on that later).
The rules then would state that all of the jury needs to agree or disagree on the choice to allow the patent. If the patent becomes hung, then a moderator (judge) has to come in, and determine if something can be done to un-hang the jury or if a new jury needs to be selected. More over, the patent in quest should be handled by this jury, in the same way that essay works get considered by exam groups (such as the GRE), where the patent is double blind on who is reviewing it.
Considering how beneficial the internet has proven to be for cheep business operations, do you think that Chinese policy makers would actually do that? I find it pretty unlikely. It seems to me that if anything their filters will just become more intelligent about eliminating content they disagree with. Especially as meta-information becomes used in more places allowing their filters to more effectively filter.
The problem I see with any of these tax systems is that they dramatically affect OSS licenses. The GPL for example might have to add a mandatory phrase that code submitted to the project to also assign copyright to the project. Otherwise each developer would be required to continually pay for each piece of code he writes to a project... That's a pretty high price to pay for a bug fix or small patch!
Its an interesting idea, but there seems to be some flaws.
For example: Now suppose your million dollar seller isn't selling anymore, and you decide to take it out of print. Then you'd have to decide whether it was worth it to you to keep paying the annual ten grand or to let the work go public domain. By your rules they wouldn't be paying anything, because 1% of zero is still zero. So unless you took the maximum of the entire period, or something like that, you'd loose your reason for authors to allow their matterial to become public domain.
The other issue is that what happens to the GPL under a system like this? Now since there are many authors, and many people possibly making money of your copyright you've got a horrible mess. In fact, this is the primary problem with a lot of suggested copyright fixes posted to slashdot, they often would break the GPL pretty badly.
Of course some people might like seeing the GPL go down in a ball of flame, but I'm not one of them.
::nervous laugh::
That's all we really need, a proprietary internet controlled by M$. Then they can charge us whatever they want on a per machine basis to login and while their at it, see everything we do so that information can be sold to the highest bidder. Not to mention spying on inovations by competitors.
Pete