Nice to see that. That's it makes me happier. What was all that "Wow all this money, i haven't even noticed!". "Oh, I don't care about it!". "Oh don't ask for it, don't call me. No matter what: famine, illnesses, religion, whatever yada, I am busy!". "Oh, pay me when I give a conference, I am rich my time is now more valuable". "I may do some charity conferences though but they have to pay me the hotel".
Sorry, this does not intend to be flamefait, it's only that I can't believe that last post...
(Pd: VALinux was nice for hardware, I own some VA servers. After closing the hardware biz, I have no other biz with VA to do. I would have paid a premium for their servers...)
"...and thus every pirated copy really is considered lost revenue"
Yeah it's lost revenue, right. But here's the exact lost revenue we are talking about: lost revenue for a competitor. Why? Because who would voluntarily pay for a price-performance compromise solution when you can get away with the no-compromise thing for FREE. That's how a pirate thinks and we have at least once been pirates. For that to work you need some people to pay. Who then? Companies or no-choice OEM bundles. And that's where most MS revenues come from.
Pretty easy, let people pirate and the established monopoly wins all battles (when they want to fight them, like Browser war, Office war and now may the "war against cyberterror" (Palladium)).
Well, if you missuse your car, you license to use it is revoked. If you pirated MS stuff in the past, you should be prohibited to use it in the future. Wouldn't it be nice? MS would have like 10% market share by now...
Now, getting serious, this is what microsoft has always done to promote their monopoly. If you can pirate microsoft stuff why would you want to use anything else? So small competitors have a hard time.
If only the antitrust could see that piracy is Microsoft #1 allie, they'd see how to end the monopoly: a _flat_ price for EVERYONE. And _strong_ antipiracy from "day 1".
It's so cheap that it works. They let you get away on porpuse for some time and then, when everyone uses it, they claim "oh, look how much harm piracy is doing us, all this lost revenue!". Well, if you wouldn't have let them pirate your stuff in the first place, then COMPETITION could have taken place, and low cost alternativs would have appeared.
God, it's so simple. I guess MS and the goverment must have some kind of secret deal. But the rest of the world is beggining to suspect so they are in trouble.
I'd have a better alternative. Why not make the vendor configure the drivers for your hardware and have the kernel people extend the menuconfig so that you can load a "drivers config set" without altering all other options that you chose?
Then, they hardware vendor could provide an util to autodetec what kernel version you are using and tada. You could even make a "Wizard" (hehe) that you mama could use.
That should take care. Of course, the unsolvable problem is not this one, but the cases where some companies don't want to provide the sources. It's not Linux fault.
Well I don't agree. If it was a trade secret then you are not supposed to be using the idea, and they would have surely make sure you signed all the requiered contracts protect themselves. This is obvious.
If the filed a patent, even a 4 year old kid would know he can't use it. It's somebody elses property. This is obvious.
If "the solution is obvious" to someone in the field then the reply is ALSO obvious.
So, as you can see now, the question is valid and is asking about when you have done some work in the past that fits into what you are doing now, and they don't have a patent, it's not a trade business, you haven't signed anything preventing you from reusing these ideas, but your employer is unsure.
The post is getting the people to discuss the "grey line" between what's ok and what's not and why.
Maybe it's just a teaser to see if anyone finds a hole without having to give a prize:-) The will search for exploits for free, but this "mistery" call for much more attention (and rooting a BSD is actually more like a contest)
(disclaimer: this post is supposed to be mosly humorous...)
Moderation is not a measure of how much you agree with someone's post.
I know, that's true. But then what does insightfull mean? Or interesting? If you don't agree something is interesting then why should it be? If you don't think it's insightfull (and you actually think it's real bullshit) how can you leave it like that?
It's very difficult to walk the thin line between:
Ok, i don't agree or find it usefull, but maybe someone else does so i don't metamod
Mh, it's full of crap (or trivial)
Anyway, i guess modding up and only ridicule cases down is what's best (for me)...
That's true. It's a usability thing. Downloading and inding stuff you don't even know exist is a real problem. Like if the kernel didn't include most of the drivers Linux would be unusable for the great mayority.
That's not really an XMMS problem but it could be adressed by them or the distros. It should be easy to fix. Someone could volunteer to make a bundle of the usefull plugins and to make a single installer for all of them.
No you can't put opera really. Well, you can, but you will not know how long they will last. Nobody wants to pay for what they have ALREADY PAYED for. When you buy Windows this years, it means funding.net, in 1998 you where funding IE. In 1992, you where funding Office. In 1993, Windows 95.
The fact is that Microsoft is a funding system for total world domination. It works, because we want compatibility. But what price do we pay for it? You are contantly replaying everything and you don't own any of it. A new version will force you to update sooner or later due to "compatibility braking". Of course, competition can only exist where Microsoft wants.
They only have 1 single restriction: they can release everything they want for free as long as they can at least sell 1 product _everyone_ (90% of the market) needs. If they want to kill you it will be plain easy: let's make this new free product (and your business is dead after the press release).
"3. The quickest method to do configuration is to modify the configuration file, isn't it? Are you newbie?"
Woah, hold on a bit. That is nonsense. This is desktop enviroment. Doesn't matter if you can grow flowers from the command line, the GUI and specially the control center is really important (though i use the command line for a lot of thing, and specially when the GUI lacks. ex: file manager. I can't use Nautilus).
That is, i law grants you the right to import such pirate friendly devices (this is how they will see it). Piracy is what got Microsoft to the top, they now really care, because it's the only way they can profit from the recording and movie industries. And finaly, they can control the hardware market. Now they are dictating what hardware must be built (at a legal and technical ground).
How long until we have to move to signapur, malasia or other countries that care a dime about competition and/or consumers?
They have already told you what modification they recomend. Go make them and patch them yourselve:) That'sanother bonus of open source. You don't have to wait for someone else, you can do it yourself.
But SSH is fine, nobody will steal your password unless they know they can profit well from it. (Furthermore, plain bugs are more easily exploitable than cryptography weaknesess).
"So the government likes to watch... so do we, and who the hell cares?"
Well, if it's _wanting_ to watch...who the hell cares. If it's actually just _watching_ (as in everything I say or do) and also having some _extra_ powers ("power that be") then it gets a little worst as someone else has already pointed out.
Would you like the gov to have microphones in you bath, your kitchen and you bedroom? Why should you care? After all, they are probably not interested in your buffzz, your boiled eggs or your "in bed" activities. Only if you talking about killing someone, etc. you should care.
I wouldn't like it. And I don't like it when they tap my emails either (why should it be different?). I have nothing to hide yet I value my privacy. If it's needed for survival then go ahead... but I STILL DONT LIKE IT.
The problem is many american always think people will be in a Z company, saving cash and not spending a dime to ad to the product, yet getting the benefit.
Well, they are partially correct only. X and Y know the product better and can better use it. They can plan of modification best suited for THEIR needs. They also have their own additions sooner than their competition. They probably also hold some parts of patches inhouse for a fair time (4 months or so, untill a further keeping may turn it unmaintainable or out of sync with the branch).
As an example, you can see IBM and many other taking avantage of Linux and contributing to it. They like it free they like it open, the know it well and it works for them. The work with open source. If it's working for this big monsters and for many small companies.
I think we should not worry much about the Z companies. They will be just hurting themselves in the long run. They will be always following the trend and losing the competitive edge.
You are right about the road example! It's not the best example one can make. I could name a few better ones like a canal or river for traveling boats (to many the analogy better you'll have to imagine that any number of boats can accopy the same space at the same time).
But I don't agree with your other thoughts...
When was the last time Microsoft offered you a discount for downloading Windows instead of buying the CD? Or Office, for instance. Do you know how much a 200MB download costs? If not, you wouldn't be saying all this nonsense. Slakware was making a profit for selling CDs at u$s 10 or less. Wow they must have had some special CD burner or something.
Also, when was the last time you read a Windows manual? They don't even come with manuals anymore (at least the version I paid when I bought my IBM notebook and it's bundled Windows).
Also, AFAIK Open Source is NOT necesarily about sharing source. GPL and some other licenses are. Open Source is about allowing people to see the source of a given program, and giving them the ability to modify it , at least for private use.
Windows comotidizes the OS and nobody can customize it, so nobody can hve a competitive edge while using Windows. Everyone has the same unmodified thing.
And software really has zero marginal cost of production. It really does no matter how hard you try to hide that fact, it be trueby definition (of software).
One last thought. When you buy Office, you really are paying 3% for developement, 10% for marketing expenses, 2% for buying lawers and the rest if just profits. That's why Microsoft never publishes a per-product income statement. This is arguable, but i'd bet my sisters it's not far from true, at least as of now.
"Posting a link to a book for sale habitually is advertising."
Not if it's on topic. And believe me this "zero marginal cost" stuff you probably think it's some new invention is the _basis_ of traditional economics. Traditional economics means that to produce 1 more item, not only you have a COST, but actually, that you have increasing costs. As more is bought, the price goes UP. UP in what amount? Well, in the amount that covers production costs. In software, the MORE you produce, the LESS it costs. So once a company has reached a dominant position, there is NO WAY a firm can compete. It's always the winner takes it all scenario.
With software, it gets even worst, because you have standalone compatibility issues (your computer) and shared compatibility issues (intercomunication, networking). Once a party reaches the top, there's NO going down.
It's predicted in every single economics introduction textbook. There's no discussion about it.
Of course they don't deal about the decresing costs of production with scale, as in the past (1800-1950) theses cases where very rare. Now they are very common.
If you read the "monopoly" chapter, you'll see how firm can leverage the monopoly to maximize revenue as he sees fit. That is, they can CHOOSE the price to sell, and people have to accept it. In a competitive scenario no single player can chose a price by itself. They can't even MOVE the price.
You can still think this is best for your country (world, universe, whatever) and, in this case, you are talking about "corporate economics". Corporations dominating the political agenda and foreign policy (and everything). This might be good or bad i don't discuss it. But this kind of economy is not "capitalism" for sure.
"...intellectual [link] osmosis [link]."
You are posting a link twice to the same exact document. I mean, you don't like people double linking unless you are the one doing it, right?
"If that's not trolling, it's so mind-numbingly stupid that I'm afraid to discuss..."
Why trolling? It's what he thinks. It may not be a perfect example (i think no analogy is needed to understand the "zero marginal cost" statement), but it may be usefull for someone to realize some times rules work differenty.
"... advocating government confiscation of others' money to support your preferred projects is as wicked as stealing it with your own hands."
Now you are _really_ trolling. First of all, the goverment charges taxes, no matter on what they plan to use that money for. You think it's great to have your mom charged taxes while buying food (sales tax, income tax, etc) and that the gov. then surrenders that money to Microsoft. And that she now owns nothing at all. Then again, using tax money to fund a company to help produce any application (same as paying to Microsoft, because they are funding Microsft in the same exact amount) is stealing. WAIT A SECOND. You are the one paying, so how can you be stealing?? Also, it's better to receive something from that money than NOTHING AT ALL.
Well, i would't have worried to answer you post, but you really really insisted on misinforming yourself and everyone else reading the thread. I couldn't resist.
Slashdot Mirror
He is talking about _his_ machine.
Nice to see that. That's it makes me happier. What was all that "Wow all this money, i haven't even noticed!". "Oh, I don't care about it!". "Oh don't ask for it, don't call me. No matter what: famine, illnesses, religion, whatever yada, I am busy!". "Oh, pay me when I give a conference, I am rich my time is now more valuable". "I may do some charity conferences though but they have to pay me the hotel".
Sorry, this does not intend to be flamefait, it's only that I can't believe that last post...
(Pd: VALinux was nice for hardware, I own some VA servers. After closing the hardware biz, I have no other biz with VA to do. I would have paid a premium for their servers...)
"...and thus every pirated copy really is considered lost revenue"
Yeah it's lost revenue, right. But here's the exact lost revenue we are talking about: lost revenue for a competitor. Why? Because who would voluntarily pay for a price-performance compromise solution when you can get away with the no-compromise thing for FREE. That's how a pirate thinks and we have at least once been pirates. For that to work you need some people to pay. Who then? Companies or no-choice OEM bundles. And that's where most MS revenues come from.
Pretty easy, let people pirate and the established monopoly wins all battles (when they want to fight them, like Browser war, Office war and now may the "war against cyberterror" (Palladium)).
Well, if you missuse your car, you license to use it is revoked. If you pirated MS stuff in the past, you should be prohibited to use it in the future. Wouldn't it be nice? MS would have like 10% market share by now...
Now, getting serious, this is what microsoft has always done to promote their monopoly. If you can pirate microsoft stuff why would you want to use anything else? So small competitors have a hard time.
If only the antitrust could see that piracy is Microsoft #1 allie, they'd see how to end the monopoly: a _flat_ price for EVERYONE. And _strong_ antipiracy from "day 1".
It's so cheap that it works. They let you get away on porpuse for some time and then, when everyone uses it, they claim "oh, look how much harm piracy is doing us, all this lost revenue!". Well, if you wouldn't have let them pirate your stuff in the first place, then COMPETITION could have taken place, and low cost alternativs would have appeared.
God, it's so simple. I guess MS and the goverment must have some kind of secret deal. But the rest of the world is beggining to suspect so they are in trouble.
Just ask a 4 year old kind and you'll see most of the time they KNOW the answer...
Rounding is part of the problem. The important stuff nontheless is how much precision to use and where, and not how to be the "rounding hero".
2939485093480583498509384095.102325 ^ 0.00005
You'd be better of not rounding the second exponent. The base...who cares? So, be carefull!
Well, it wasn't random then :) unless you where playing Quake or something like that.
I'd have a better alternative. Why not make the vendor configure the drivers for your hardware and have the kernel people extend the menuconfig so that you can load a "drivers config set" without altering all other options that you chose?
Then, they hardware vendor could provide an util to autodetec what kernel version you are using and tada. You could even make a "Wizard" (hehe) that you mama could use.
That should take care. Of course, the unsolvable problem is not this one, but the cases where some companies don't want to provide the sources. It's not Linux fault.
Well I don't agree. If it was a trade secret then you are not supposed to be using the idea, and they would have surely make sure you signed all the requiered contracts protect themselves. This is obvious.
If the filed a patent, even a 4 year old kid would know he can't use it. It's somebody elses property. This is obvious.
If "the solution is obvious" to someone in the field then the reply is ALSO obvious.
So, as you can see now, the question is valid and is asking about when you have done some work in the past that fits into what you are doing now, and they don't have a patent, it's not a trade business, you haven't signed anything preventing you from reusing these ideas, but your employer is unsure.
The post is getting the people to discuss the "grey line" between what's ok and what's not and why.
Just a though.
Holy god, this does then mean that we pay them a lot more so that they can can actually make that sale? It's something like:
company: The product costs $10. Ordering?
client: For that cheapo non-brand crap? NO WAY
company: Ok, REMEBER, YOU BROGHT THIS ON YOURSELF!! [Marketing expense increase. Price goes to $15]
company: So? You buying?
client: nope.
company: Whaaaa?! You don't want to pay the now $15 bucks? You ASKED FOR IT ASSH^H^H^H^HDAMNIT!! [HUGE Marketing expense increase, price goes to $70]
client: please charge mi credit card!! (man, it's only $70...! I saw it at $80 at some other shop!)
...
Maybe it's just a teaser to see if anyone finds a hole without having to give a prize :-) The will search for exploits for free, but this "mistery" call for much more attention (and rooting a BSD is actually more like a contest)
(disclaimer: this post is supposed to be mosly humorous...)
I know, that's true. But then what does insightfull mean? Or interesting? If you don't agree something is interesting then why should it be? If you don't think it's insightfull (and you actually think it's real bullshit) how can you leave it like that?
It's very difficult to walk the thin line between:
Ok, i don't agree or find it usefull, but maybe someone else does so i don't metamod
Mh, it's full of crap (or trivial)
Anyway, i guess modding up and only ridicule cases down is what's best (for me)...
That's true. It's a usability thing. Downloading and inding stuff you don't even know exist is a real problem. Like if the kernel didn't include most of the drivers Linux would be unusable for the great mayority.
That's not really an XMMS problem but it could be adressed by them or the distros. It should be easy to fix. Someone could volunteer to make a bundle of the usefull plugins and to make a single installer for all of them.
Fede
Cloads are sometimes white...SO? You are complainng about not being in by default? That's the beaty of plugins...you can customize everything.
No you can't put opera really. Well, you can, but you will not know how long they will last. Nobody wants to pay for what they have ALREADY PAYED for. When you buy Windows this years, it means funding .net, in 1998 you where funding IE. In 1992, you where funding Office. In 1993, Windows 95.
The fact is that Microsoft is a funding system for total world domination. It works, because we want compatibility. But what price do we pay for it? You are contantly replaying everything and you don't own any of it. A new version will force you to update sooner or later due to "compatibility braking". Of course, competition can only exist where Microsoft wants.
They only have 1 single restriction: they can release everything they want for free as long as they can at least sell 1 product _everyone_ (90% of the market) needs. If they want to kill you it will be plain easy: let's make this new free product (and your business is dead after the press release).
I know, that's written on porpuse. Read it with a bit of imagination and you'll get the meaning. I was about to write China (but it was too much)...
"3. The quickest method to do configuration is to modify the configuration file, isn't it? Are you newbie?"
Woah, hold on a bit. That is nonsense. This is desktop enviroment. Doesn't matter if you can grow flowers from the command line, the GUI and specially the control center is really important (though i use the command line for a lot of thing, and specially when the GUI lacks. ex: file manager. I can't use Nautilus).
That is, i law grants you the right to import such pirate friendly devices (this is how they will see it). Piracy is what got Microsoft to the top, they now really care, because it's the only way they can profit from the recording and movie industries. And finaly, they can control the hardware market. Now they are dictating what hardware must be built (at a legal and technical ground).
How long until we have to move to signapur, malasia or other countries that care a dime about competition and/or consumers?
They have already told you what modification they recomend. Go make them and patch them yourselve :) That'sanother bonus of open source. You don't have to wait for someone else, you can do it yourself.
But SSH is fine, nobody will steal your password unless they know they can profit well from it. (Furthermore, plain bugs are more easily exploitable than cryptography weaknesess).
"So the government likes to watch... so do we, and who the hell cares?"
Well, if it's _wanting_ to watch...who the hell cares. If it's actually just _watching_ (as in everything I say or do) and also having some _extra_ powers ("power that be") then it gets a little worst as someone else has already pointed out.
Would you like the gov to have microphones in you bath, your kitchen and you bedroom? Why should you care? After all, they are probably not interested in your buffzz, your boiled eggs or your "in bed" activities. Only if you talking about killing someone, etc. you should care.
... but I STILL DONT LIKE IT.
I wouldn't like it. And I don't like it when they tap my emails either (why should it be different?). I have nothing to hide yet I value my privacy. If it's needed for survival then go ahead
The problem is many american always think people will be in a Z company, saving cash and not spending a dime to ad to the product, yet getting the benefit.
Well, they are partially correct only. X and Y know the product better and can better use it. They can plan of modification best suited for THEIR needs. They also have their own additions sooner than their competition. They probably also hold some parts of patches inhouse for a fair time (4 months or so, untill a further keeping may turn it unmaintainable or out of sync with the branch).
As an example, you can see IBM and many other taking avantage of Linux and contributing to it. They like it free they like it open, the know it well and it works for them. The work with open source. If it's working for this big monsters and for many small companies.
I think we should not worry much about the Z companies. They will be just hurting themselves in the long run. They will be always following the trend and losing the competitive edge.
You are right about the road example! It's not the best example one can make. I could name a few better ones like a canal or river for traveling boats (to many the analogy better you'll have to imagine that any number of boats can accopy the same space at the same time).
But I don't agree with your other thoughts...
When was the last time Microsoft offered you a discount for downloading Windows instead of buying the CD? Or Office, for instance. Do you know how much a 200MB download costs? If not, you wouldn't be saying all this nonsense. Slakware was making a profit for selling CDs at u$s 10 or less. Wow they must have had some special CD burner or something.
Also, when was the last time you read a Windows manual? They don't even come with manuals anymore (at least the version I paid when I bought my IBM notebook and it's bundled Windows).
Also, AFAIK Open Source is NOT necesarily about sharing source. GPL and some other licenses are. Open Source is about allowing people to see the source of a given program, and giving them the ability to modify it , at least for private use.
Windows comotidizes the OS and nobody can customize it, so nobody can hve a competitive edge while using Windows. Everyone has the same unmodified thing.
And software really has zero marginal cost of production. It really does no matter how hard you try to hide that fact, it be trueby definition (of software).
One last thought. When you buy Office, you really are paying 3% for developement, 10% for marketing expenses, 2% for buying lawers and the rest if just profits. That's why Microsoft never publishes a per-product income statement. This is arguable, but i'd bet my sisters it's not far from true, at least as of now.
"Posting a link to a book for sale habitually is advertising."
Not if it's on topic. And believe me this "zero marginal cost" stuff you probably think it's some new invention is the _basis_ of traditional economics. Traditional economics means that to produce 1 more item, not only you have a COST, but actually, that you have increasing costs. As more is bought, the price goes UP. UP in what amount? Well, in the amount that covers production costs. In software, the MORE you produce, the LESS it costs. So once a company has reached a dominant position, there is NO WAY a firm can compete. It's always the winner takes it all scenario.
With software, it gets even worst, because you have standalone compatibility issues (your computer) and shared compatibility issues (intercomunication, networking). Once a party reaches the top, there's NO going down.
It's predicted in every single economics introduction textbook. There's no discussion about it.
Of course they don't deal about the decresing costs of production with scale, as in the past (1800-1950) theses cases where very rare. Now they are very common.
If you read the "monopoly" chapter, you'll see how firm can leverage the monopoly to maximize revenue as he sees fit. That is, they can CHOOSE the price to sell, and people have to accept it. In a competitive scenario no single player can chose a price by itself. They can't even MOVE the price.
You can still think this is best for your country (world, universe, whatever) and, in this case, you are talking about "corporate economics". Corporations dominating the political agenda and foreign policy (and everything). This might be good or bad i don't discuss it. But this kind of economy is not "capitalism" for sure.
"...intellectual [link] osmosis [link]."
You are posting a link twice to the same exact document. I mean, you don't like people double linking unless you are the one doing it, right?
"If that's not trolling, it's so mind-numbingly stupid that I'm afraid to discuss..."
Why trolling? It's what he thinks. It may not be a perfect example (i think no analogy is needed to understand the "zero marginal cost" statement), but it may be usefull for someone to realize some times rules work differenty.
"... advocating government confiscation of others' money to support your preferred projects is as wicked as stealing it with your own hands."
Now you are _really_ trolling. First of all, the goverment charges taxes, no matter on what they plan to use that money for. You think it's great to have your mom charged taxes while buying food (sales tax, income tax, etc) and that the gov. then surrenders that money to Microsoft. And that she now owns nothing at all. Then again, using tax money to fund a company to help produce any application (same as paying to Microsoft, because they are funding Microsft in the same exact amount) is stealing. WAIT A SECOND. You are the one paying, so how can you be stealing?? Also, it's better to receive something from that money than NOTHING AT ALL.
Well, i would't have worried to answer you post, but you really really insisted on misinforming yourself and everyone else reading the thread. I couldn't resist.
GL!