P.S. I mean there is lots of WORK left in businesses like service and support, health care and education. If the work becomes actual JOBS depends on how society's resources are used or mis-used.
That's completely false. Small business aren't blocked. some go on to become huge. By you logic, Google couldn't exist.
Google was one of the first in its market and didn't have much to compete against. Altavista and Lycos hardly put up a fight.
If you want to see anti-competitive behaviour, look at Microsoft's and Intel's deals with hardware vendors, or the trust between memory chip makers, or the diamond industry.
First off, people didn't go looking for jobs outside of agriculture because off efficiency. Agriculture efficiency came about because the work sucks and people left for the city.
You're right. Perhaps a better example is the replacement of horses by cars. A single driver with a car could replace the work of many horse carts, but still, we don't mourn the loss of horse-related jobs.
Meaning that 1 operator id replacing several crews of people.
Even if robots take over all manual labour, there are still lots of jobs left for actual humans in businesses like service and support, health care and education. The main problem, as I see it, is if the new jobs don't fit everyone.
I'm not sure if you're being ironic, and towards whom, but large corporations are in no way essential to productivity increases. There are advantages to economy of scale, but on the other hand, small companies on competitive markets tend to be better at coming up with innovations that improve efficiency.
I think you're comparing apples and oranges (no pun intended). In the situations you describe, Apple and Google are trying to control their business partners, not their competitors.
I still doubt that anyone would go to the trouble of disassembling and fully comment commercial software. It would probably take less time to just write it from scratch.
And even if someone did, you would still have a freaking asembly language program. Who would want to maintain a medium-sized application in assembly language?
I agree with the main point, I'd just like to point out that being homeless is in many aspects worse than being, say, a farmer in 17th century Europe. You're much more likely to be the victim of violence. You lack protection from the elements. You are looked down upon and ignored by the people around you. You're likely aware that you are a failure in the society in which you live. As a poor farmer you at least had social standing among your peers.
In addition, many or most of the homeless also suffer from some kind of mental illness, which in itself is worse than being poor.
Yes, without copyright, you could make people agree to a contract before handing over the source code. But once a copy of the source code leaked out, you'd be helpless. David, Eric and Fiona wouldn't be bound by the contract, even if Alice violated your agreement when she handed over the source code to them.
It would work if you gave the source code to a limited number of people/companies and made all of them sign a contract. But if you want to release something as FOSS, you want it to be available to as many people as possible, and it would be practically impossible to keep it from leaking out.
Sure, with computer graphics you could make the sky look *exactly* like an analog television tuned to a dead channel, but that would be missing the point. It wouldn't necessarily capture the feel of the writing.
There is no reason better production methods should lead to unemployment in the long run. When production becomes more efficient, resources (like labour, capital and natural resources) are freed up to do other things, and so far, humanity has showed an incredible ingenuity in coming up with new things to produce and consume.
Three or four hundred years ago, the majority of the population worked in agriculture. Today, we produce more food than ever, with only a few percent of the population tied up in agriculture. If we had said back then, "We must stop the industrialisation of agriculture, or the farmers will lose their jobs!", there would have been no one to work in the factories and produce the cars, toys, medical equipment, cheap clothes and furniture, and all the other things we have become used to today.
The problem with unemployment is not that we have become too efficient in producing goods and services, but rather, that we have become worse at letting new, innovative providers of goods and services establish themselves on the market. Large corporations effectively block out competitors through patents, anti-competitive behaviour and friends in high places. Governments watch the backs of large corporations because they are afraid that they will go out of business and a large portion of their voters would lose their jobs - not realising they are at the same time helping the corporations stunt the growth of new businesses and new jobs.
I'd like to object to what seems to be an underlying assumption: that economic growth is equivalent to material growth.
Economic growth means that the total value of what is produced increases. That does not necessarily mean that we produce more and more energy or consume more and more natural resources. We can produce goods and services of higher value using the same amount of natural resources, by using more sophisticated methods (like better technology, or recycling). Even the development of more sophisticated artistic techniques fosters economic growth, since it allows the production of more pleasing works of art that are valued higher by those who enjoy them.
It's possible that sophistication can't go on forever either, and that we will one day hit a cap for economic growth, but that's not the point. The point is that it is not economic growth we want to curb, it's abuse of the environment and natural resources. It would be unwise and counter-productive to try to limit economic growth, since it would stunt the development of more efficient production methods. If it is abuse of the environment and natural resources we want to prevent, then tax those things, and let people be as efficient as they can with the natural resources at their disposal.
I'm not familiar with "high-frequency algorithmic trading", but let's not be too quick to assume that it is a zero-sum game that only enriches some traders at the expense of others. A trader performs a useful service to society by buying low and selling high, since he helps the seller and buyer to find each other. It allows goods to be used by the one who can use them most efficiently, and thus is prepared to pay the highest price. Quicker and more efficient trading means there is less waste - goods lie unused for a shorter period of time, and are more rarely used for a sub-optimal purpose.
I think that is a quirk in the King James translation. In the New International Version it says "Hades" instead of Hell (the greek word Hades stands for the realm of death, the place where souls go after death, both the good and the bad.)
And reverse-engineering is very time-consuming and therefore expensive. It's usually easier to just write your own software. The main reason to reverse-engineer is to make your own software compatible (for example, to make identical APIs).
What I think Stallman really wants is not how things are right now, or how things are right now minus copyright, but something like: how things are right now, minus copyright, plus copyleft for everything.
Good point.
I've had an idea along these lines: abolish the current copyright, but give software a very limited copyright protection, say, three years, on the condition that the source code is released to the public. After the three years are up, anyone can copy, modify, distribute and sell the program.
Companies would still get most of the return on their investment (since computer programs tend to generate the most of their revenue in the first few years), and at the same time be given a very strong incentive to innovate and not rest on their laurels.
It would lower what economists call "the barrier of entry to the market", since a competitor could take a three-year-old version of the leading software on the market and add their own features to become competitive.
I assume you mean "would not necessarily be available", since obviously one could still release source code he/she creates.
Correct.
Couldn't there be a sort of contract to which you have to agree before you can use the software, that could exist without copyright?
It wouldn't be possible to bind anyone to the contract. With copyright, anyone who wants to release a modified version of the software needs permission from the original author, and thus, has to agree to the contract in the license agreement. Without copyright, anyone could just do what they want without agreeing to any contract.
In a copyright-free world, software crackers would be making fully-commented disassemblies and trading them openly on the Internet.
I doubt that. It's a very ardous and time-consuming task. Crackers could do it today if they wanted, since they already break the law by trading the software itself.
Slashdot Mirror
I do agree there are many flaws with the health care system, though.
We have new diseases, but we have gotten rid of old ones which were much worse, like pneumonia, tuberculosis and scoliosis.
Old game ROMs are small and simple compared to a modern application program.
Do the hackers at romhacking.net do fully commented disassmblies, or do they just change parts of the ROM?
I've written a proposal for an alternative to software copyright, which I believe would solve that problem.
Of course, it will take very, very long to actually change copyright laws, since most countries are tied up in international copyright agreements.
P.S. I mean there is lots of WORK left in businesses like service and support, health care and education. If the work becomes actual JOBS depends on how society's resources are used or mis-used.
That's completely false. Small business aren't blocked. some go on to become huge. By you logic, Google couldn't exist.
Google was one of the first in its market and didn't have much to compete against. Altavista and Lycos hardly put up a fight.
If you want to see anti-competitive behaviour, look at Microsoft's and Intel's deals with hardware vendors, or the trust between memory chip makers, or the diamond industry.
First off, people didn't go looking for jobs outside of agriculture because off efficiency. Agriculture efficiency came about because the work sucks and people left for the city.
You're right. Perhaps a better example is the replacement of horses by cars. A single driver with a car could replace the work of many horse carts, but still, we don't mourn the loss of horse-related jobs.
Meaning that 1 operator id replacing several crews of people.
Even if robots take over all manual labour, there are still lots of jobs left for actual humans in businesses like service and support, health care and education. The main problem, as I see it, is if the new jobs don't fit everyone.
Yes, there are many problems with today's society, but we are still healthier and live longer than a hundred years ago.
I'm not sure if you're being ironic, and towards whom, but large corporations are in no way essential to productivity increases. There are advantages to economy of scale, but on the other hand, small companies on competitive markets tend to be better at coming up with innovations that improve efficiency.
I think you're comparing apples and oranges (no pun intended). In the situations you describe, Apple and Google are trying to control their business partners, not their competitors.
I still doubt that anyone would go to the trouble of disassembling and fully comment commercial software. It would probably take less time to just write it from scratch.
And even if someone did, you would still have a freaking asembly language program. Who would want to maintain a medium-sized application in assembly language?
I agree with the main point, I'd just like to point out that being homeless is in many aspects worse than being, say, a farmer in 17th century Europe. You're much more likely to be the victim of violence. You lack protection from the elements. You are looked down upon and ignored by the people around you. You're likely aware that you are a failure in the society in which you live. As a poor farmer you at least had social standing among your peers.
In addition, many or most of the homeless also suffer from some kind of mental illness, which in itself is worse than being poor.
True.
Yes, without copyright, you could make people agree to a contract before handing over the source code. But once a copy of the source code leaked out, you'd be helpless. David, Eric and Fiona wouldn't be bound by the contract, even if Alice violated your agreement when she handed over the source code to them.
It would work if you gave the source code to a limited number of people/companies and made all of them sign a contract. But if you want to release something as FOSS, you want it to be available to as many people as possible, and it would be practically impossible to keep it from leaking out.
Sure, with computer graphics you could make the sky look *exactly* like an analog television tuned to a dead channel, but that would be missing the point. It wouldn't necessarily capture the feel of the writing.
Maybe it's a scam to increase the stock value of the article author's ordinal collapsing functions short-term stock market trading software company :)
There is no reason better production methods should lead to unemployment in the long run. When production becomes more efficient, resources (like labour, capital and natural resources) are freed up to do other things, and so far, humanity has showed an incredible ingenuity in coming up with new things to produce and consume.
Three or four hundred years ago, the majority of the population worked in agriculture. Today, we produce more food than ever, with only a few percent of the population tied up in agriculture. If we had said back then, "We must stop the industrialisation of agriculture, or the farmers will lose their jobs!", there would have been no one to work in the factories and produce the cars, toys, medical equipment, cheap clothes and furniture, and all the other things we have become used to today.
The problem with unemployment is not that we have become too efficient in producing goods and services, but rather, that we have become worse at letting new, innovative providers of goods and services establish themselves on the market. Large corporations effectively block out competitors through patents, anti-competitive behaviour and friends in high places. Governments watch the backs of large corporations because they are afraid that they will go out of business and a large portion of their voters would lose their jobs - not realising they are at the same time helping the corporations stunt the growth of new businesses and new jobs.
I'd like to object to what seems to be an underlying assumption: that economic growth is equivalent to material growth.
Economic growth means that the total value of what is produced increases. That does not necessarily mean that we produce more and more energy or consume more and more natural resources. We can produce goods and services of higher value using the same amount of natural resources, by using more sophisticated methods (like better technology, or recycling). Even the development of more sophisticated artistic techniques fosters economic growth, since it allows the production of more pleasing works of art that are valued higher by those who enjoy them.
It's possible that sophistication can't go on forever either, and that we will one day hit a cap for economic growth, but that's not the point. The point is that it is not economic growth we want to curb, it's abuse of the environment and natural resources. It would be unwise and counter-productive to try to limit economic growth, since it would stunt the development of more efficient production methods. If it is abuse of the environment and natural resources we want to prevent, then tax those things, and let people be as efficient as they can with the natural resources at their disposal.
I'm not familiar with "high-frequency algorithmic trading", but let's not be too quick to assume that it is a zero-sum game that only enriches some traders at the expense of others. A trader performs a useful service to society by buying low and selling high, since he helps the seller and buyer to find each other. It allows goods to be used by the one who can use them most efficiently, and thus is prepared to pay the highest price. Quicker and more efficient trading means there is less waste - goods lie unused for a shorter period of time, and are more rarely used for a sub-optimal purpose.
I think that is a quirk in the King James translation. In the New International Version it says "Hades" instead of Hell (the greek word Hades stands for the realm of death, the place where souls go after death, both the good and the bad.)
And reverse-engineering is very time-consuming and therefore expensive. It's usually easier to just write your own software. The main reason to reverse-engineer is to make your own software compatible (for example, to make identical APIs).
It's not unlikely he got the idea from the gospel according to Matthew.
What I think Stallman really wants is not how things are right now, or how things are right now minus copyright, but something like: how things are right now, minus copyright, plus copyleft for everything.
Good point.
I've had an idea along these lines: abolish the current copyright, but give software a very limited copyright protection, say, three years, on the condition that the source code is released to the public. After the three years are up, anyone can copy, modify, distribute and sell the program.
Companies would still get most of the return on their investment (since computer programs tend to generate the most of their revenue in the first few years), and at the same time be given a very strong incentive to innovate and not rest on their laurels.
It would lower what economists call "the barrier of entry to the market", since a competitor could take a three-year-old version of the leading software on the market and add their own features to become competitive.
I assume you mean "would not necessarily be available", since obviously one could still release source code he/she creates.
Correct.
Couldn't there be a sort of contract to which you have to agree before you can use the software, that could exist without copyright?
It wouldn't be possible to bind anyone to the contract. With copyright, anyone who wants to release a modified version of the software needs permission from the original author, and thus, has to agree to the contract in the license agreement. Without copyright, anyone could just do what they want without agreeing to any contract.
Companies would withhold the source code so they would be the only ones who could sell upgrades to the software.
In a copyright-free world, software crackers would be making fully-commented disassemblies and trading them openly on the Internet.
I doubt that. It's a very ardous and time-consuming task. Crackers could do it today if they wanted, since they already break the law by trading the software itself.
Aren't point 1, 2 and 3 pretty obvious? I just don't see the point of performing this experiment, except as a way to satisfy one's gadget fetish.