Prison starts a slippery slope.. Once you've been there, you are forever branded a criminal and it becomes far more difficult to find a job. You also meet lots of new criminal contacts in prison.
So ask yourself, once you're released you can't get a decent job anywhere and you know lots of criminals... What's the obvious course of action in order to make money?
The problem with fines is that they disproportionately punish the poor, while the rich just consider them a cost of doing business. Around here you see a lot of very expensive cars parked in handicap spaces, because to someone driving a 500k+ car the cost of the fine is cheaper than the inconvenience of having to park further away. The exact same thing would happen with drugs, only those who are already having to commit other crimes in order to fund their habit will now need to commit more crime in order to pay for the fines as well.
The problem is that the current system is tilted so heavily in favor of the distributors... The consumers get totally shafted, and often the initial producers do too.
The numbers are based on an older copyright term, which existed in the days of the printing press and distribution by horseback and sail ship... Terms of 5-7 years are reasonable if even a bit long considering today's technology. Most media makes the vast majority of its money in the first years anyway, and modern technology allows content to be released worldwide in a matter of minutes.
And time to recoup costs is irrelevant, if you produce garbage then you may never recoup the costs, if you produce something good you might recoup your costs in hours.
Release it when its ready, don't arbitrarily delay the release... If the finished code can be made available on a torrent site, then why cant it be made available for purchase?
And don't be so greedy... The more you try to screw people, the more they will bite back. Stop screwing the public domain, and charge reasonable prices.
Accept that the very nature of a trivially copied product means that there will always be some who copy it.
Stop screwing paying customers with "copy protection" schemes, those who want to copy the work invariably crack these schemes so they only hurt the paying customers. Many people explicitly choose to download cracked copies *BECAUSE* these onerous schemes have been removed.
Stop screwing the public domain with ridiculously long copyright terms that mean all of us will be dead before anything released today enters the public domain.
Make money from support, it works for redhat, ibm etc... Many people resent handing over money for a trivially produced copy of some digital data, but are quite happy to pay for someone's time to help them with a problem. People like to see you *ACTUALLY WORKING* to earn money, not simply knocking out infinite copies of something that was written years ago.
It all boils down to respect, if you screw your customers they won't think twice about screwing you back. If you treat people with respect, the vast majority will do the same back.
Removing direct links is something that REALLY annoys me... I have never liked downloading within the browser, especially in the days of dialup and netscape 4.x which always seemed to crash at 95% and didn't support resume.
Also what they fail to consider is who downloads open source code... A lot of users have hosted linux servers and will install various things onto them, and most home users have connections where the upstream is significantly slower than the downstream. If i'm setting something up on a colocated linux box i want a link that i can paste into an ssh session and download with wget so the (presumably well connected) colo box can download the file quickly. I don't want to slowly download it to my own machine, and then even more slowly upload it again.
And the root cause of these problems is the crude way applications are obtained and installed on windows... Users who are running a full open source stack will generally just choose their apps from the package manager and have them installed automatically from a clean source.
As you said it's considered unsupported therefore it will never be updated or bugfixed, so you'd better be sure you completely trust every file you open with it... Adobe don't exactly have a good reputation for writing secure software.
Adblock, removes all the bullshit ads and leaves only the real download button... If ads are intentionally trying to mislead then i have absolutely no intention of supporting them.
I can't say i've ever downloaded an "installer" from sourceforge, usually i just download actual source code...
On the other hand i always hated how the download link goes to another page which then performs the download in the background on a timer, i have always hated pages like this and its especially bad for something like sourceforge.
I want a link i can cut+paste into wget, i DO NOT want anything to start downloading in my browser unless i explicitly tell it to. Given the nature of sourceforge, many users of the site will be downloading something not to their local box where their browser is running but to a server of some kind. And i would much rather download a file direct to a gigabit colocated box than first download it to my workstation over DSL and then upload it back to the colo box using the pitiful upstream connection we have here.
Copyright has become controversial because as technology has improved making it easier and faster to copy and distribute works than ever before, the copyright terms have only grown longer and longer. Terms of 20 years made sense in the days of the printing press and distribution of printed works by horse drawn cart and sailing ships, but today when its possible to distribute work instantly around the whole world using readily available equipment such terms are ridiculous. Most media makes the majority of its profit in the first year, and software usually becomes obsolete and stops being sold within 5 years or so.
Copyright terms need to be shorter, to reflect the realities of modern technology.
The problem is that if MS did not have a monopoly over desktop computers, its highly unlikely anyone would ever want to implement FAT... There are countless other filesystems out there which are not only better than FAT in many ways but also royalty free. The only reason anyone ever implements FAT is because MS refuse to support anything else, which should be a clear case of illegally abusing a monopoly position.
Not so much that users are fickle, more to do with the fact that here is very little lock-in on games consoles... Each generation tends to be incompatible with the previous, and most games run on all the major consoles so there is very little to stop you from choosing a different brand of console when you move on to the next generation.
With the original xbox, online play was often added as an afterthought to many games... For many games on the 360, online play is an integral part of the game and in many games online is the only way to play multiplayer, direct lan connections and split screen are often not supported.
As a gentoo user i don't particularly care about compile times either, i have both ccache and distcc set up to speed up compilation, i build binary packages where i have a large number of identical machines. I can always let compiles run over night and have them ready by the morning, and even that isn't usually necessary with modern hardware.
On the other hand, having the resulting binaries run faster and use less memory either because of better compiler options, or more efficient compile time flags (eg disabling unwanted features) is a fairly significant benefit. When you have a large number of vm images running, small gains in each one soon add up.
And how often will nothing else be running on the machine? These days a large proportion of servers run under hypervisors, and that 80% of idle time will be used by other virtual machines running on the same physical hardware. If you make your code more efficient, then you can consolidate more functions onto the same hardware which could result in significant cost savings.
And even on single standalone machines, modern powersaving functions will mean that far less power is used during the 80% idle periods, and more efficient code could potentially result in 90% idle or more... This translates to lower power usage, and subsequently longer battery life.
Who's to say you have to recompile everything? Surely if your making a small bugfix you just recompile the files which have changed... Plus you have tools like distcc, ccache etc
There's no central telephone or email directory either... The audio quality on my sip phones is much better than i've ever heard from people calling me through skype... Although obviously the quality can differ depending on provider, client, configuration etc. I actually like having the choice between various providers like that, even if some of them are poor.
The problem with hosting locally is the way most ISPs are setup... You typically have pitiful upstream bandwidth, making uploading painful, and if your neighbors use a different isp they could actually be a large number of hops away, via whatever peering centers the isps both use. Even if they use the same isp, your connection could terminate far away causing a several hundred mile round trip before it reaches the guy next door.
Ideally you'd have local peering so you can get gigabit speeds or faster to those in your local area, and only depend on the isp for things further away.
Perhaps in future you shouldn't recommend people use a proprietary service then, because this was bound to happen. Have people use an open communication protocol, where there are multiple providers to choose from. Email, telephone, SMS etc, all have plenty of interoperable providers to choose from. Skype has always been a huge step backwards to the days of monopoly telcos.
Honestly what did anyone expect? Getting themselves dependent on a proprietary service from a single provider. This is why i have always avoided Skype and used SIP based providers.
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Prison starts a slippery slope..
Once you've been there, you are forever branded a criminal and it becomes far more difficult to find a job. You also meet lots of new criminal contacts in prison.
So ask yourself, once you're released you can't get a decent job anywhere and you know lots of criminals... What's the obvious course of action in order to make money?
The problem with fines is that they disproportionately punish the poor, while the rich just consider them a cost of doing business.
Around here you see a lot of very expensive cars parked in handicap spaces, because to someone driving a 500k+ car the cost of the fine is cheaper than the inconvenience of having to park further away.
The exact same thing would happen with drugs, only those who are already having to commit other crimes in order to fund their habit will now need to commit more crime in order to pay for the fines as well.
The problem is that the current system is tilted so heavily in favor of the distributors... The consumers get totally shafted, and often the initial producers do too.
The numbers are based on an older copyright term, which existed in the days of the printing press and distribution by horseback and sail ship...
Terms of 5-7 years are reasonable if even a bit long considering today's technology. Most media makes the vast majority of its money in the first years anyway, and modern technology allows content to be released worldwide in a matter of minutes.
And time to recoup costs is irrelevant, if you produce garbage then you may never recoup the costs, if you produce something good you might recoup your costs in hours.
Release it when its ready, don't arbitrarily delay the release...
If the finished code can be made available on a torrent site, then why cant it be made available for purchase?
And don't be so greedy... The more you try to screw people, the more they will bite back. Stop screwing the public domain, and charge reasonable prices.
Accept that the very nature of a trivially copied product means that there will always be some who copy it.
Stop screwing paying customers with "copy protection" schemes, those who want to copy the work invariably crack these schemes so they only hurt the paying customers. Many people explicitly choose to download cracked copies *BECAUSE* these onerous schemes have been removed.
Stop screwing the public domain with ridiculously long copyright terms that mean all of us will be dead before anything released today enters the public domain.
Make money from support, it works for redhat, ibm etc... Many people resent handing over money for a trivially produced copy of some digital data, but are quite happy to pay for someone's time to help them with a problem. People like to see you *ACTUALLY WORKING* to earn money, not simply knocking out infinite copies of something that was written years ago.
It all boils down to respect, if you screw your customers they won't think twice about screwing you back. If you treat people with respect, the vast majority will do the same back.
Most public wifi is hanging off the end of a DSL line and has really poor upstream, you wouldn't want to be using that to upload large files.
Removing direct links is something that REALLY annoys me... I have never liked downloading within the browser, especially in the days of dialup and netscape 4.x which always seemed to crash at 95% and didn't support resume.
Also what they fail to consider is who downloads open source code... A lot of users have hosted linux servers and will install various things onto them, and most home users have connections where the upstream is significantly slower than the downstream. If i'm setting something up on a colocated linux box i want a link that i can paste into an ssh session and download with wget so the (presumably well connected) colo box can download the file quickly. I don't want to slowly download it to my own machine, and then even more slowly upload it again.
And the root cause of these problems is the crude way applications are obtained and installed on windows... Users who are running a full open source stack will generally just choose their apps from the package manager and have them installed automatically from a clean source.
As you said it's considered unsupported therefore it will never be updated or bugfixed, so you'd better be sure you completely trust every file you open with it... Adobe don't exactly have a good reputation for writing secure software.
No community is unbiased...
Adblock, removes all the bullshit ads and leaves only the real download button...
If ads are intentionally trying to mislead then i have absolutely no intention of supporting them.
I can't say i've ever downloaded an "installer" from sourceforge, usually i just download actual source code...
On the other hand i always hated how the download link goes to another page which then performs the download in the background on a timer, i have always hated pages like this and its especially bad for something like sourceforge.
I want a link i can cut+paste into wget, i DO NOT want anything to start downloading in my browser unless i explicitly tell it to. Given the nature of sourceforge, many users of the site will be downloading something not to their local box where their browser is running but to a server of some kind. And i would much rather download a file direct to a gigabit colocated box than first download it to my workstation over DSL and then upload it back to the colo box using the pitiful upstream connection we have here.
Official package repositories are far better than arbitrary websites...
Copyright has become controversial because as technology has improved making it easier and faster to copy and distribute works than ever before, the copyright terms have only grown longer and longer.
Terms of 20 years made sense in the days of the printing press and distribution of printed works by horse drawn cart and sailing ships, but today when its possible to distribute work instantly around the whole world using readily available equipment such terms are ridiculous. Most media makes the majority of its profit in the first year, and software usually becomes obsolete and stops being sold within 5 years or so.
Copyright terms need to be shorter, to reflect the realities of modern technology.
The problem is that if MS did not have a monopoly over desktop computers, its highly unlikely anyone would ever want to implement FAT... There are countless other filesystems out there which are not only better than FAT in many ways but also royalty free. The only reason anyone ever implements FAT is because MS refuse to support anything else, which should be a clear case of illegally abusing a monopoly position.
Not so much that users are fickle, more to do with the fact that here is very little lock-in on games consoles...
Each generation tends to be incompatible with the previous, and most games run on all the major consoles so there is very little to stop you from choosing a different brand of console when you move on to the next generation.
With the original xbox, online play was often added as an afterthought to many games...
For many games on the 360, online play is an integral part of the game and in many games online is the only way to play multiplayer, direct lan connections and split screen are often not supported.
As a gentoo user i don't particularly care about compile times either, i have both ccache and distcc set up to speed up compilation, i build binary packages where i have a large number of identical machines. I can always let compiles run over night and have them ready by the morning, and even that isn't usually necessary with modern hardware.
On the other hand, having the resulting binaries run faster and use less memory either because of better compiler options, or more efficient compile time flags (eg disabling unwanted features) is a fairly significant benefit. When you have a large number of vm images running, small gains in each one soon add up.
And how often will nothing else be running on the machine?
These days a large proportion of servers run under hypervisors, and that 80% of idle time will be used by other virtual machines running on the same physical hardware. If you make your code more efficient, then you can consolidate more functions onto the same hardware which could result in significant cost savings.
And even on single standalone machines, modern powersaving functions will mean that far less power is used during the 80% idle periods, and more efficient code could potentially result in 90% idle or more... This translates to lower power usage, and subsequently longer battery life.
Who's to say you have to recompile everything? Surely if your making a small bugfix you just recompile the files which have changed...
Plus you have tools like distcc, ccache etc
There's no central telephone or email directory either...
The audio quality on my sip phones is much better than i've ever heard from people calling me through skype... Although obviously the quality can differ depending on provider, client, configuration etc. I actually like having the choice between various providers like that, even if some of them are poor.
The problem with hosting locally is the way most ISPs are setup...
You typically have pitiful upstream bandwidth, making uploading painful, and if your neighbors use a different isp they could actually be a large number of hops away, via whatever peering centers the isps both use. Even if they use the same isp, your connection could terminate far away causing a several hundred mile round trip before it reaches the guy next door.
Ideally you'd have local peering so you can get gigabit speeds or faster to those in your local area, and only depend on the isp for things further away.
Perhaps in future you shouldn't recommend people use a proprietary service then, because this was bound to happen.
Have people use an open communication protocol, where there are multiple providers to choose from. Email, telephone, SMS etc, all have plenty of interoperable providers to choose from. Skype has always been a huge step backwards to the days of monopoly telcos.
Honestly what did anyone expect? Getting themselves dependent on a proprietary service from a single provider.
This is why i have always avoided Skype and used SIP based providers.
Obviously depends on how *well* it does those things...