Or maybe they'll figure that the vast majority of their customers won't know and they'll pocket the savings.
That would only work if there was a monopoly on image editing applications. Otherwise, if one company tried to pocket the savings, another would undercut that company and take all its customers.
For instance, if Hatch suggested a law allowing you to destroy the computers of spammers, he'd be a hero. If he suggested being able to destroy the computers of anti-trust violators, Slashdotters would be singing his praises. But instead he talks about music piracy, so out comes the tar and the feathers.
Otherwise we just sound silly, claiming that Dimitry was not a pirate, but Orrin Hatch suddenly is. Please don't be so inconsistent. Pirate is a pirate. A person guilty of copyright infringement is a person guilty of copyright infringement.
And Dmitry was not guilty of copyright infringement. The charges were dropped, and his employer was found not guilty.
I went to check some regular IDE drives just for comparison, and they were rated at 500,000 hours (57 years). Now, as I understand it, this is supposed to be the average time that you can expect the drive to last before failures. I rarely have an IDE drive last more than 4 years, and my record is 10 years, so what is the deal?
Let's say I have a drive that has a 99% chance of failing after 10 years, and a 1% chance of failing after 4710 years. The MTBF is 57 years.
In fact, with the proper distribution (think 2^n) you could have an infinite MTBF, but still have a 99% chance of failure within 10 years. See for example the St. Petersburg paradox.
Yeah, but the total operating time for each drive is 20 years if you fix them and they last. What I'm saying is, one drive breaks after 1 year, you fix it and it lasts the next 19, one drive breaks after 2 years, you fix it and it lasts the next 18, etc.
Alternatively, you could have 19 of the drives last 20 years, and the other one break once a year.
Actually, you wouldn't even have to fix them, if you replace them. If you keep 20 drives for 20 years, and one breaks every year, if you replace the one that breaks (immediately), that's an MTBF of 20 years.
So it's possible (though unlikely) that the person who wrote the original post was right, but just was talking about a different scenario than I thought.
Hmm... Actually I just thought of something. If you have 20 hard drives, and one fails each year, but you fix it immediately after failure and then put it into service again, then the MTBF would be 20 years.
I guess that's why the term is the mean time between failures rather than the mean time before failure. Back when the term was invented it probably made economic sense to fix a hard drive when it breaks. Nowadays we're more likely to just throw it away.
If I have twenty drives, each of which is estimated to fail once in a twenty-year period, then in such a twenty-year period every one of those disks is estimated to fail once.
No, you're wrong. The average time to failure is 20 years, not the maximum.
The average of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 is 10.5.
I understand that Slashdot is a hydra when it comes to points of view, but the overwhelming theme of this site's comments are in support of the GPL and against the enforcement of copyright law.
I think you're mistaken. The majority of people on Slashdot seem to support a limited form of copyright law. Most seem to be under the delusion that P2P networks don't hurt sales. And many who aren't under that delusion believe that a one-line disclaimer saying "don't use this software for copyright infringement" is plausible deniability.
Personally, yes, I'm against copyright law, and I'm against the GPL. I don't think you should be able to force people to share their source code any more than you should be able to force them to pay royalties. But I'm certainly in the minority here on Slashdot with that point of view.
It's not bad, but your contribution to change the world is not as big as it could be.
I disagree. You contribution to change the world is bigger if you give away your contribution to more people, not fewer.
If you put software under GPL, only the free software community can use it.
Only part of the free software community can use it.
If you put software under BSD, you give it to vendors of proprietary applications as well.
Why is this a bad thing?
So if your goal is to help free software to replace proprietary software (and thus to lead to a world where the software infrastructure is free), the GPL is the right choice.
But what if I don't think people should be forced to release their source code? Then the GPL is the wrong choice.
Putting software under BSD won't help you to achieve this goal.
Sure it will.
It has other effects, like decreasing the value of software in general and providing *one* free implementation.
Why only *one* free implementation? The BSD license allows all the free implementations that the GPL allows, plus it allows other free implementations that the GPL doesn't allow.
But only software under GPL, especially if there is no proprietary equvalent, gives the free software world a technical advantage over the proprietary competition.
The free software world always has a technical advantage over the proprietary competition. That's why we want free software in the first place, remember?
So wait a second. Giving something away is a bad thing? If I write something and let others use it that's bad, because some of those people might use it for bad purposes? I don't buy it.
If you release under BSD anybody can take your source to improve closed software.
Or they could take it to improve open source software which just happens to not be GPLed.
it doesn't make sense to waste space if you can come up with a reasonably efficiant alternative.
Well that comes back to the slow growth/fast growth argument. Some of us would prefer to waste space and have a solution rather than spend years and years solving the problem.
Of course, in this case a medium growth solution would probably be even better, such as the one you presented in your last paragraph.
The idea was that a software system could be defined in 'Z', and then that system could be mathematically proven to be 100% correct (in other words, zero defects).
I've heard of a different idea. Once you define the problem in this language called "C", the software is automatically written by this device called a "compiler", and it is already proven to be 100% correct.
We have talked to Vivendi (The current owners of Sierra) about using their trademarks, and we're hopeful that we will be able to reach an agreement. In the meantime, the project will continue, in the hope that by its completion a deal can be forged.
Yeah, 'cause once you get all those volunteers knocking down your doors to code for $100/week, Vivendi is going to hand over the license to their trademark for another $100/week.
I went to the site because I was thinking about volunteering. Then I saw the copyright/trademark problems and started to hesitate. Then I read that, and bolted.
Not to mention overtime, workers compensation, unemployment compensation, etc. You better be really really careful about how you phrase things to make sure this person really is an "independent contractor."
Sucks that we have to have such stupid laws in the first place.
If it can be shown that there is a link between the advertiser and the spammer (with the onus on the prosecutor), then I stand by my post.
What kind of link? Obviously there's a link, if the advertiser is advertising the spammers product. That's a link.
In reality, there needs to be mens rea, not just a link.
If spamming is illegal, and the customers don't subsequently go after the spammers for illegally advertising their products (brand defamation?), then surely this makes them an accessory after the fact.
Go after? Only the police can "go after" criminals. Do you know what an accessory after the fact is? It's not someone who fails to "go after" a criminal. It's someone who helps a criminal escape from justice.
Slashdot Mirror
No, like the way the price of domain names dropped when the Network Solutions monopoly was taken away.
Or maybe they'll figure that the vast majority of their customers won't know and they'll pocket the savings.
That would only work if there was a monopoly on image editing applications. Otherwise, if one company tried to pocket the savings, another would undercut that company and take all its customers.
For instance, if Hatch suggested a law allowing you to destroy the computers of spammers, he'd be a hero. If he suggested being able to destroy the computers of anti-trust violators, Slashdotters would be singing his praises. But instead he talks about music piracy, so out comes the tar and the feathers.
Otherwise we just sound silly, claiming that Dimitry was not a pirate, but Orrin Hatch suddenly is. Please don't be so inconsistent. Pirate is a pirate. A person guilty of copyright infringement is a person guilty of copyright infringement.
And Dmitry was not guilty of copyright infringement. The charges were dropped, and his employer was found not guilty.
if it fails after a year, and you fix it and it lasts another 19 years, MTBF is (1+19)/2 = 10. Its failed twice on you.
No, I never said it failed a second time. I said it failed after a year, then it lasted another 19 years. Then you stopped the experiment.
I went to check some regular IDE drives just for comparison, and they were rated at 500,000 hours (57 years). Now, as I understand it, this is supposed to be the average time that you can expect the drive to last before failures. I rarely have an IDE drive last more than 4 years, and my record is 10 years, so what is the deal?
Let's say I have a drive that has a 99% chance of failing after 10 years, and a 1% chance of failing after 4710 years. The MTBF is 57 years.
In fact, with the proper distribution (think 2^n) you could have an infinite MTBF, but still have a 99% chance of failure within 10 years. See for example the St. Petersburg paradox.
Yeah, but the total operating time for each drive is 20 years if you fix them and they last. What I'm saying is, one drive breaks after 1 year, you fix it and it lasts the next 19, one drive breaks after 2 years, you fix it and it lasts the next 18, etc.
Alternatively, you could have 19 of the drives last 20 years, and the other one break once a year.
Actually, you wouldn't even have to fix them, if you replace them. If you keep 20 drives for 20 years, and one breaks every year, if you replace the one that breaks (immediately), that's an MTBF of 20 years.
So it's possible (though unlikely) that the person who wrote the original post was right, but just was talking about a different scenario than I thought.
Sonny Bono's wife also stated she would like copyright to last forever.
Hmm... Actually I just thought of something. If you have 20 hard drives, and one fails each year, but you fix it immediately after failure and then put it into service again, then the MTBF would be 20 years.
I guess that's why the term is the mean time between failures rather than the mean time before failure. Back when the term was invented it probably made economic sense to fix a hard drive when it breaks. Nowadays we're more likely to just throw it away.
I would have called your average "mean time to failure" vs. "mean time between failures."
Or better yet, "mean time before failure," thus preserving the acronym.
If I have twenty drives, each of which is estimated to fail once in a twenty-year period, then in such a twenty-year period every one of those disks is estimated to fail once.
No, you're wrong. The average time to failure is 20 years, not the maximum.
The average of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 is 10.5.
A mean is an average. The average of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 is 10.5.
I understand that Slashdot is a hydra when it comes to points of view, but the overwhelming theme of this site's comments are in support of the GPL and against the enforcement of copyright law.
I think you're mistaken. The majority of people on Slashdot seem to support a limited form of copyright law. Most seem to be under the delusion that P2P networks don't hurt sales. And many who aren't under that delusion believe that a one-line disclaimer saying "don't use this software for copyright infringement" is plausible deniability.
Personally, yes, I'm against copyright law, and I'm against the GPL. I don't think you should be able to force people to share their source code any more than you should be able to force them to pay royalties. But I'm certainly in the minority here on Slashdot with that point of view.
Actually, you are wrong... If you have one drive fail per year for 20 years, then the mean time between failures is 10.5 years.
Sure. If you don't care whether a few proprietary vendors control all information, then BSD is certainly the right license for you.
I didn't say anything about proprietary vendors. I said vendors who don't release their source code. There's a big difference.
It's not bad, but your contribution to change the world is not as big as it could be.
I disagree. You contribution to change the world is bigger if you give away your contribution to more people, not fewer.
If you put software under GPL, only the free software community can use it.
Only part of the free software community can use it.
If you put software under BSD, you give it to vendors of proprietary applications as well.
Why is this a bad thing?
So if your goal is to help free software to replace proprietary software (and thus to lead to a world where the software infrastructure is free), the GPL is the right choice.
But what if I don't think people should be forced to release their source code? Then the GPL is the wrong choice.
Putting software under BSD won't help you to achieve this goal.
Sure it will.
It has other effects, like decreasing the value of software in general and providing *one* free implementation.
Why only *one* free implementation? The BSD license allows all the free implementations that the GPL allows, plus it allows other free implementations that the GPL doesn't allow.
But only software under GPL, especially if there is no proprietary equvalent, gives the free software world a technical advantage over the proprietary competition.
The free software world always has a technical advantage over the proprietary competition. That's why we want free software in the first place, remember?
It's usually quite a few orders of magnitude easier to write correct yet slow code than it is to write correct and optimized code.
So wait a second. Giving something away is a bad thing? If I write something and let others use it that's bad, because some of those people might use it for bad purposes? I don't buy it.
If you release under BSD anybody can take your source to improve closed software.
Or they could take it to improve open source software which just happens to not be GPLed.
it doesn't make sense to waste space if you can come up with a reasonably efficiant alternative.
Well that comes back to the slow growth/fast growth argument. Some of us would prefer to waste space and have a solution rather than spend years and years solving the problem.
Of course, in this case a medium growth solution would probably be even better, such as the one you presented in your last paragraph.
Releasing stuff under a BSD-like license gives a short-term benefit to society
So release stuff under the BSD license and the GPL! Then you get a long-term benefit and a short-term benefit, right?
The idea was that a software system could be defined in 'Z', and then that system could be mathematically proven to be 100% correct (in other words, zero defects).
I've heard of a different idea. Once you define the problem in this language called "C", the software is automatically written by this device called a "compiler", and it is already proven to be 100% correct.
Yeah, 'cause once you get all those volunteers knocking down your doors to code for $100/week, Vivendi is going to hand over the license to their trademark for another $100/week.
I went to the site because I was thinking about volunteering. Then I saw the copyright/trademark problems and started to hesitate. Then I read that, and bolted.
Not to mention overtime, workers compensation, unemployment compensation, etc. You better be really really careful about how you phrase things to make sure this person really is an "independent contractor."
Sucks that we have to have such stupid laws in the first place.
If it can be shown that there is a link between the advertiser and the spammer (with the onus on the prosecutor), then I stand by my post.
What kind of link? Obviously there's a link, if the advertiser is advertising the spammers product. That's a link.
In reality, there needs to be mens rea, not just a link.
If spamming is illegal, and the customers don't subsequently go after the spammers for illegally advertising their products (brand defamation?), then surely this makes them an accessory after the fact.
Go after? Only the police can "go after" criminals. Do you know what an accessory after the fact is? It's not someone who fails to "go after" a criminal. It's someone who helps a criminal escape from justice.
You are OK with enforcing you to have auto-insurance, right?
Absolutely not.
And nothing wrong with enforcing you to use your seat belts.
Yes there is.
And only a criminal will be against enforcing to drive having proper ID (driver license).
I belive that driving is a right, not a privilege. No license should be necessary (though your right could be taken away under certain circumstances).