We all do chemistry on a daily basis, the difference is that we usually don't do it as our daily plan. Brush your teeth, take a bath and even breathing. Cooking is actually an advanced version of chemistry.
Macrovision a little scared by this? From the article:
Says CEO Bill Krepick: "Effective immediately, Macrovision's licensing policy (requires that) 100% of the title must be copy protected in a geographic territory or, if less than 100% of the title is copy-protected, then a Macrovision copy protection logo must be included in the exterior packaging of those units that are copy protected."
I say this is excellent news. Now I can make sure I only buy DVDs *without* Macrovision protection. Not because I want to pirate them (I own almost 300 DVDs now), but because Macrovision deteriorates the video signal. Don't "protect" your product by lowering the quality.
I don't mean to be a pain in the ass, but if you and Taco profess to know nothing about the money aspect of things on Slashdot, then why in hell are you guys designing/deciding on a revenue system!?
It makes no sense whatsoever.
How can you, with any hope of being successful, design a subscription system when you have no idea how much money you need? Really, I'm at a loss here.
Frog
Just read the entire IRC log...
on
Slashdot IRC Forum
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Some observations/questions which I found interesting (TI = Time Index):
TI 15:12 - Someone asks about the costs of running Slashdot. Lots of "it's hard to tell", "hard to calculate", etc from the Slashdot crew. CmdrTaco says they have 12 servers + test boxes and stuff.
TI 15:43 - Again someone asks how much is costs to keep/. going. And again we get "It's not that simple", "There's no easy answer", etc. Hemos mentions 30 servers. Hemos and Taco start throwing out numbers, and seem to agree that it's "about" $1.5 million per year.
TI 16:14 - Someone asks if the money from subscriptions will go to help improve infrastructure, bandwidth, costs, etc. Hemos says the money will go into the OSDN bank account. He then says "But the money for Slashdot is tracked". Taco says "The thing is we don't need *more* we just need to keep what we have".
TI 16:15 - A question is asked about how long/. can keep going at current funding levels, and what happens when the funding runs out. Taco says "I really don't know what happens", "If I were to *guess* I would say VA would sell Slashdot". Hemos says "Basically, VA has 18-24 months, OSDN is near cash flow positive".
TI 17:16 - Someone asks how much bandwidth/. uses per day. Taco responds "12-20 megabits on the main box, probably half that on the images box", "we were spiking at like 35 (megabits) total".
Is it just me, or does it seem profoundly odd to anyone that the people who run Slashdot have no idea how much money it costs? Maybe this is the reason they're in financial trouble? They say that/. is part of OSDN, fine. But in *my* company, I know how much money each separate *division* is costing me, and how much revenue it's bringing in. Isn't OSDN a real business with accountants that figure this stuff out and produce quarterly reports and all that other accounting stuff? And if you're a division/section head, like CmdrTaco and/or Hemos are, I find it very hard to believe they don't know how much money they're spending/taking in.
Slashdot of course has absolutely no obligation to reveal their costs to their users, whether they're subscription based or not. But answering as they did above really makes them look unprofessional IMO. If they don't want to answer, or are prohibited from answering, they should simply state that.
Personally, I won't pay for a subscription. I'll likely install JunkBuster or something similar. As someone posted on another thread, it's *my* right to choose what's displayed on *my* computer, and if I don't want to see ads, I won't. Just like it's the choice of Slashdot to remove itself as a freely accessible site and become completely closed and subscription only based if they want. If that happens, then I have a choice to pay, or not pay and get my news on the multitude of other tech news sites. It's all about choices, as it should be.
So exactly how much DOES it cost to run Slashdot per year?:)
I found this link by searching Google for "index of/password" (from a previous post in this topic):
http://www.centurionsoft.com/password/
It's a small page that asks for your name and email before downloading the trial version of their software. Clicking "pass_down2.html" using the above link bypasses this requirement. While not a huge security risk, it does show laziness.
Slashdot Mirror
We all do chemistry on a daily basis, the difference is that we usually don't do it as our daily plan. Brush your teeth, take a bath and even breathing. Cooking is actually an advanced version of chemistry.
You're new here, aren't you?
If God didn't want us to eat cows, he wouldn't have made them out of meat.
Seems the link in the article is incorrect (or has changed). Correct link is: MS to nuke music DRM
Frog
I like to use the following sentence to illustrate the proper use of 3 sets of often-confused words (there/they're/their, two/too/to and your/you're).
You're taking your dog, and they're taking their two dogs to there too.
While the sentence isn't exactly grammatically correct (I wanted it to be short), it shows the proper use of the words in question.
FrozenFrog
What if all Slashdot readers seeded a universally accessible random number generator with the number of times they've had sex (with another person).
I'll start.
0 (Zero)
Frog
Razor911 wants to be a legal distributor for the PC Gaming industry.
Frog
Macrovision a little scared by this? From the article:
Says CEO Bill Krepick: "Effective immediately, Macrovision's licensing policy (requires that) 100% of the title must be copy protected in a geographic territory or, if less than 100% of the title is copy-protected, then a Macrovision copy protection logo must be included in the exterior packaging of those units that are copy protected."
I say this is excellent news. Now I can make sure I only buy DVDs *without* Macrovision protection. Not because I want to pirate them (I own almost 300 DVDs now), but because Macrovision deteriorates the video signal. Don't "protect" your product by lowering the quality.
Frog
Hemos,
I don't mean to be a pain in the ass, but if you and Taco profess to know nothing about the money aspect of things on Slashdot, then why in hell are you guys designing/deciding on a revenue system!?
It makes no sense whatsoever.
How can you, with any hope of being successful, design a subscription system when you have no idea how much money you need? Really, I'm at a loss here.
Frog
Some observations/questions which I found interesting (TI = Time Index):
TI 15:12 - Someone asks about the costs of running Slashdot. Lots of "it's hard to tell", "hard to calculate", etc from the Slashdot crew. CmdrTaco says they have 12 servers + test boxes and stuff.
TI 15:43 - Again someone asks how much is costs to keep
TI 16:14 - Someone asks if the money from subscriptions will go to help improve infrastructure, bandwidth, costs, etc. Hemos says the money will go into the OSDN bank account. He then says "But the money for Slashdot is tracked". Taco says "The thing is we don't need *more* we just need to keep what we have".
TI 16:15 - A question is asked about how long
TI 17:16 - Someone asks how much bandwidth
Is it just me, or does it seem profoundly odd to anyone that the people who run Slashdot have no idea how much money it costs? Maybe this is the reason they're in financial trouble? They say that
Slashdot of course has absolutely no obligation to reveal their costs to their users, whether they're subscription based or not. But answering as they did above really makes them look unprofessional IMO. If they don't want to answer, or are prohibited from answering, they should simply state that.
Personally, I won't pay for a subscription. I'll likely install JunkBuster or something similar. As someone posted on another thread, it's *my* right to choose what's displayed on *my* computer, and if I don't want to see ads, I won't. Just like it's the choice of Slashdot to remove itself as a freely accessible site and become completely closed and subscription only based if they want. If that happens, then I have a choice to pay, or not pay and get my news on the multitude of other tech news sites. It's all about choices, as it should be.
So exactly how much DOES it cost to run Slashdot per year?
Frog
I found this link by searching Google for "index of
http://www.centurionsoft.com/password/
It's a small page that asks for your name and email before downloading the trial version of their software. Clicking "pass_down2.html" using the above link bypasses this requirement. While not a huge security risk, it does show laziness.
What does the company sell? Security software.