Now, normally people do not put up with poor quality crap, and the producers go out of business, and the economy is better for it.
Unless there is a monopoly market on that product.
In the world of software, however, for whatever reason, people are willing to pay for this crap.
Go figure, the government has granted a 95 year monopoly on software.
The absolutely mind boggling thing is that people actually are willing and do pay to have things done over and over and over until it is "right" in the software world. Go figure.
Well, I think this is somewhat true, because software is a monopoly product, so it's illegal to fix it yourself. But, I also think that there is a point where the cost to fix the next bug exceeds the value of fixing that bug. Because the market for software is skewed, and the laws of supply and demand do not work as intended, this point is rarely met. I'm not sure how exactly to go about fixing it, though, at least without abandoning software copyright.
The difference is that this money is spent to no productive end.
I wonder how many billion slashdot costs the economy, then:).
I dunno, it's just playing games with numbers as far as I'm concerned. We could easily have a 10 hour work week if we stopped spending time working to no productive end. But of course our competitive nature would make that into 75% unemployment instead.
You may argue about the numbers and whatnot, but bugs in software are definitely a subtle form of the broken window fallacy, and that very definitely is a drag on the economy.
Software bugs are very different from breaking windows. When you break a window, the window was already there. When you create software with bugs, you are creating something new.
When you said "There probably wouldn't be a need for a second coder to "translate" the ideas" I thought you were disagreeing that a clean-room implementation was the only way to technically comply with the law.
No, but large amounts of similarities in problem-solving methods do not automatically equal copyright infringement either.
I didn't mean to imply it did. You can have exactly the same code and still not be guilty of copyright infringement if the code was created independently. However, looking at a copyrighted work, waiting for a year, and then rewriting that work is still technically copying. Sure, you won't get caught, but it seems that Daniel was too paranoid than to accept that answer.
Clean-room design and implementation would secure this.
Isn't that exactly what evilpaul13 was suggesting?
However, if he hadn't thrown the brick, the grocer would have both a window and $100, which he would spend on something that actually did help the economy
So at the very least then the GDP would break even. But what if instead of spending the $100, the grocer lowers prices in the store. Now you not only have $100 less going to the windowmaker (who would have used it to buy something), but you also have lower sales for the store. So you've cost the GDP twice (admittedly, you've also caused deflation, so the inflation-adjusted GDP hasn't changed).
My point is not the software bugs are a good thing. It's that the statement that they cost the economy $60 billion is meaningless.
Money payed to programmers to fix bugs is money that isn't being used more productively somewhere else.
This story wasn't talking about money being paid to programmers to fix bugs. But in any case, the U.S. economy is almost exclusively based on nonsense like this. My statement that software bugs help the economy by $60 billion is ludicrous, but so is the statement that it costs the economy $60 billion.
You have realize that the figure we're looking at likely includes the cost of lost productivity for the poor sole who found the bug, and now has to re-type their entire report, re-enter their entire manufacturing design, etc..
As opposed to sitting at his/her desk doing nothing? I'm not so sure that should be counted as a loss. Or would s/he be doing something else, in which case someone new has to fill in, causing increased employment and ultimately increasing the economy tenfold when you consider the trickle-down effect.
Wouldn't bugs tend to increase the U.S. economy? Yes, someone has to pay, but that means someone is getting paid. So actually software bugs increase the GDP by $59.5 billion each year.
After a few hours he returns telling me that he'd solved a very similar problem a previous place of employment and that they had developed a "neat" solution.
At which point you should have covered your ears and said "la la la la la I can't hear you".
That auction better give the government a whole lot of money (which they'll probably waste on crap like DMCA enforcement). These are my airwaves, and while I have access to television programming free of charge, I'm sure this high-speed wireless internet access isn't going to be free.
Physically preventing kernel level debuggers? Surely thats fair use of your hardware.
I don't have any intention of running a kernel level debugger, and certainly not on Windows. As long as this isn't legislated Linux will continue to thrive in the server and hobby markets.
VCRs were never banned because, although they can be put to misuse their main purpose is fair.
Legislation is a completely different thing. The CBDTPA is a horrible law. You don't have any argument with me there.
At least one of which (Intel) has directly critisized the SSSCA.
Even if this bill comes to nothing (as we all hope it will) this is still a prophecy which could well come true.
I guess I'm just an all-or-nothing kind of guy. If I'm not given permission to copy and distribute content, I don't really care if there are technical measures to stop me. In fact, I'd actually prefer it, because then at least I don't have to worry about others who do circumvent the technology driving up the prices for me.
Which is not to say that I like the CBDTPA. I want the choice to use non-DRM protected content, and the ability to buy a system which isn't filled with expensive DRM technologies which I don't plan to use. If the TCPA drives the proprietary content (like slashdot) away from Windows products, so much the better.
No, it's purely rumor. Some guy wrote an email to some other guy saying that a dead bill might do something which we all knew it was designed to do anyway (take away our computing freedom, not necessarily enable the TCPA).
bands and artists with more tech-savvy fans sell fewer albums than those with less tech-savvy fans, as the techies will disproportionately get their copies of the album from friends with CD burners or P2P services rather than from record stores.
Sounds like a good reason to eliminate copyright law: it is doing exactly the opposite of it's purpose - to encourage science and useful arts.
The opposite has already been proven, and the hard evidence is available to anyone who can work a search engine.
That's simply not true. In a well controlled environment, when used along with a some form of identification swipe-card, this technology is much faster and more accurate than the alternative of checking a photo ID card.
Where did you get the idea that biometric technology is reliable, accurate, or secure?
That's why they want to test it... To prove that it is reliable, accurate, and secure.
Where did you get the idea that being falsely identified as a criminal or as a terrorist was safe for the innocent victim?
That's not what this system is designed to do. It's designed to verify the identity of frequent flyers. The worst that can happen to a law-abiding citizen who uses this is that the system is unable to positively identify them and they have to show their identity in some other way.
If you're content to have what passes for your thinking done for you by the mass media, that is necessarily your problem.
Oh yeah, I'd much rather have you and Timothy do my thinking for me. I think for myself.
We are afraid of being attacked by uniformed thugs at airports and soon, bus stations and shopping malls because the biometric system came up with yet another false positive.
That's called paranoia.
We are concerned about our privacy being invaded (ever been stalked?) for personal or political reasons.
What does this have to do with this? It's voluntary, first of all. But more importantly, if the government wants to stalk you, how does this help? If there's an entire organization out there to secretly track you, why would they obtain your retinal scans in an open manner with your permission. It doesn't make any sense.
America is now a land where the government can take anyone, declare that person a "terrorist", and detain that person indefinitely without a trial or even an attorney.
Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
Should we want that government to know where we are at all times?
This has absolutely nothing to do with the government knowing where we are at all times. You already have to prove your identity when you fly on a plane.
We are concerned because we know that this stuff is NOT ready for prime time but is being sold to PHB types who can easily be scammed and to journalists who don't have the tech skills or knowledge to be know when they're being snowed as a "solution" to protect us from terrorists and criminals.
This is a trial run. It's not ready for prime time precisely because it hasn't been tested in a real world scenario. Further, what does this have to do with protecting us from terrorists? Are you saying retinal scans are easier to defeat than licenses?
Which category do you fall into? PHB? Tech-illiterate journalist? Or are you a shill for a biometrics company?
You figured me out. I fall into all three categories. Now let me guess your category. Little green men talk to you, don't they?
More than five years ago, the German zine 'Radikal' published instructions on preventing nuclear-waste transport by rail, which have since been placed onto the internet. Deutsche Bahn, the German rail operator has responded with lawsuits against the original host, search engines, and Indymedia-NL. Indymedia-NL had links to mirrors of the zine, indirectly linking to the instructions, which were published as a comment on its open-publishing newswire.
On June 20, a Dutch judge ordered Indymedia-NL to remove the links, requiring "Indymedia immediately after receiving this sentence to remove and to keep removed the hyperlinks, which are placed on (a) website(s) under the control of Indymedia, if those hyperlinks lead directly or indirectly to the Radikal article."
Indymedia-NL has responded with a press release, stating that they consider "the ruling a dramatic limitation of the possibilities of the Internet and the freedom of speech."
(c) Independent Media Center. All content is free for reprint and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere, for non-commercial use, unless otherwise noted by author.
Their web server can be configured to use the referrer tag to allow whatever deep linking they accept, and reject everything else.
Should they reject hits from anonymizer.com, or from browsers not sending referrers, or from broken browsers which send referrers when the address is typed in, or from links made from randomly generated URLs?
Why do we need anti-spam laws? Wouldn't it be nicer if we paid our programmers instead of our lawyers?
Slashdot Mirror
Now, normally people do not put up with poor quality crap, and the producers go out of business, and the economy is better for it.
Unless there is a monopoly market on that product.
In the world of software, however, for whatever reason, people are willing to pay for this crap.
Go figure, the government has granted a 95 year monopoly on software.
The absolutely mind boggling thing is that people actually are willing and do pay to have things done over and over and over until it is "right" in the software world. Go figure.
Well, I think this is somewhat true, because software is a monopoly product, so it's illegal to fix it yourself. But, I also think that there is a point where the cost to fix the next bug exceeds the value of fixing that bug. Because the market for software is skewed, and the laws of supply and demand do not work as intended, this point is rarely met. I'm not sure how exactly to go about fixing it, though, at least without abandoning software copyright.
The difference is that this money is spent to no productive end.
I wonder how many billion slashdot costs the economy, then :).
I dunno, it's just playing games with numbers as far as I'm concerned. We could easily have a 10 hour work week if we stopped spending time working to no productive end. But of course our competitive nature would make that into 75% unemployment instead.
You may argue about the numbers and whatnot, but bugs in software are definitely a subtle form of the broken window fallacy, and that very definitely is a drag on the economy.
Software bugs are very different from breaking windows. When you break a window, the window was already there. When you create software with bugs, you are creating something new.
When you said "There probably wouldn't be a need for a second coder to "translate" the ideas" I thought you were disagreeing that a clean-room implementation was the only way to technically comply with the law.
Please read the link [progress.org] I gave you in another comment [slashdot.org] before you comment further.
I have. It does not at all refute what I am saying.
No, but large amounts of similarities in problem-solving methods do not automatically equal copyright infringement either.
I didn't mean to imply it did. You can have exactly the same code and still not be guilty of copyright infringement if the code was created independently. However, looking at a copyrighted work, waiting for a year, and then rewriting that work is still technically copying. Sure, you won't get caught, but it seems that Daniel was too paranoid than to accept that answer.
Clean-room design and implementation would secure this.
Isn't that exactly what evilpaul13 was suggesting?
That's like saying vandalism helps the economy.
That's as true as saying it hurts it.
However, if he hadn't thrown the brick, the grocer would have both a window and $100, which he would spend on something that actually did help the economy
So at the very least then the GDP would break even. But what if instead of spending the $100, the grocer lowers prices in the store. Now you not only have $100 less going to the windowmaker (who would have used it to buy something), but you also have lower sales for the store. So you've cost the GDP twice (admittedly, you've also caused deflation, so the inflation-adjusted GDP hasn't changed).
My point is not the software bugs are a good thing. It's that the statement that they cost the economy $60 billion is meaningless.
Money payed to programmers to fix bugs is money that isn't being used more productively somewhere else.
This story wasn't talking about money being paid to programmers to fix bugs. But in any case, the U.S. economy is almost exclusively based on nonsense like this. My statement that software bugs help the economy by $60 billion is ludicrous, but so is the statement that it costs the economy $60 billion.
You have realize that the figure we're looking at likely includes the cost of lost productivity for the poor sole who found the bug, and now has to re-type their entire report, re-enter their entire manufacturing design, etc..
As opposed to sitting at his/her desk doing nothing? I'm not so sure that should be counted as a loss. Or would s/he be doing something else, in which case someone new has to fill in, causing increased employment and ultimately increasing the economy tenfold when you consider the trickle-down effect.
Wouldn't bugs tend to increase the U.S. economy? Yes, someone has to pay, but that means someone is getting paid. So actually software bugs increase the GDP by $59.5 billion each year.
After a few hours he returns telling me that he'd solved a very similar problem a previous place of employment and that they had developed a "neat" solution.
At which point you should have covered your ears and said "la la la la la I can't hear you".
The code doesn't have to be identical for it to be copyright infringement.
Wouldn't the equivalent of forcing them to open the code be to force them to hand over the patents and specifications on their assembly equipment?
That auction better give the government a whole lot of money (which they'll probably waste on crap like DMCA enforcement). These are my airwaves, and while I have access to television programming free of charge, I'm sure this high-speed wireless internet access isn't going to be free.
Physically preventing kernel level debuggers? Surely thats fair use of your hardware.
I don't have any intention of running a kernel level debugger, and certainly not on Windows. As long as this isn't legislated Linux will continue to thrive in the server and hobby markets.
VCRs were never banned because, although they can be put to misuse their main purpose is fair.
Legislation is a completely different thing. The CBDTPA is a horrible law. You don't have any argument with me there.
Companies like MS, Intel, Compaq etc.
At least one of which (Intel) has directly critisized the SSSCA.
Even if this bill comes to nothing (as we all hope it will) this is still a prophecy which could well come true.
I guess I'm just an all-or-nothing kind of guy. If I'm not given permission to copy and distribute content, I don't really care if there are technical measures to stop me. In fact, I'd actually prefer it, because then at least I don't have to worry about others who do circumvent the technology driving up the prices for me.
Which is not to say that I like the CBDTPA. I want the choice to use non-DRM protected content, and the ability to buy a system which isn't filled with expensive DRM technologies which I don't plan to use. If the TCPA drives the proprietary content (like slashdot) away from Windows products, so much the better.
No, it's purely rumor. Some guy wrote an email to some other guy saying that a dead bill might do something which we all knew it was designed to do anyway (take away our computing freedom, not necessarily enable the TCPA).
And the LA Times, trying to cop a pose from the NY Times, reqs a login.
Would you rather they post a policy against linking directly to their articles?
bands and artists with more tech-savvy fans sell fewer albums than those with less tech-savvy fans, as the techies will disproportionately get their copies of the album from friends with CD burners or P2P services rather than from record stores.
Sounds like a good reason to eliminate copyright law: it is doing exactly the opposite of it's purpose - to encourage science and useful arts.
The opposite has already been proven, and the hard evidence is available to anyone who can work a search engine.
That's simply not true. In a well controlled environment, when used along with a some form of identification swipe-card, this technology is much faster and more accurate than the alternative of checking a photo ID card.
Where is the word "retinal" used in the article?
My bad.
Where did you get the idea that biometric technology is reliable, accurate, or secure?
That's why they want to test it... To prove that it is reliable, accurate, and secure.
Where did you get the idea that being falsely identified as a criminal or as a terrorist was safe for the innocent victim?
That's not what this system is designed to do. It's designed to verify the identity of frequent flyers. The worst that can happen to a law-abiding citizen who uses this is that the system is unable to positively identify them and they have to show their identity in some other way.
If you're content to have what passes for your thinking done for you by the mass media, that is necessarily your problem.
Oh yeah, I'd much rather have you and Timothy do my thinking for me. I think for myself.
So fuck off.
We are afraid of being attacked by uniformed thugs at airports and soon, bus stations and shopping malls because the biometric system came up with yet another false positive.
That's called paranoia.
We are concerned about our privacy being invaded (ever been stalked?) for personal or political reasons.
What does this have to do with this? It's voluntary, first of all. But more importantly, if the government wants to stalk you, how does this help? If there's an entire organization out there to secretly track you, why would they obtain your retinal scans in an open manner with your permission. It doesn't make any sense.
America is now a land where the government can take anyone, declare that person a "terrorist", and detain that person indefinitely without a trial or even an attorney.
Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
Should we want that government to know where we are at all times?
This has absolutely nothing to do with the government knowing where we are at all times. You already have to prove your identity when you fly on a plane.
We are concerned because we know that this stuff is NOT ready for prime time but is being sold to PHB types who can easily be scammed and to journalists who don't have the tech skills or knowledge to be know when they're being snowed as a "solution" to protect us from terrorists and criminals.
This is a trial run. It's not ready for prime time precisely because it hasn't been tested in a real world scenario. Further, what does this have to do with protecting us from terrorists? Are you saying retinal scans are easier to defeat than licenses?
Which category do you fall into? PHB? Tech-illiterate journalist? Or are you a shill for a biometrics company?
You figured me out. I fall into all three categories. Now let me guess your category. Little green men talk to you, don't they?
Oops, I guess it shows I haven't been reading the site lately. Sorry.
More than five years ago, the German zine 'Radikal' published instructions on preventing nuclear-waste transport by rail, which have since been placed onto the internet. Deutsche Bahn, the German rail operator has responded with lawsuits against the original host, search engines, and Indymedia-NL. Indymedia-NL had links to mirrors of the zine, indirectly linking to the instructions, which were published as a comment on its open-publishing newswire.
On June 20, a Dutch judge ordered Indymedia-NL to remove the links, requiring "Indymedia immediately after receiving this sentence to remove and to keep removed the hyperlinks, which are placed on (a) website(s) under the control of Indymedia, if those hyperlinks lead directly or indirectly to the Radikal article."
Indymedia-NL has responded with a press release, stating that they consider "the ruling a dramatic limitation of the possibilities of the Internet and the freedom of speech."
(c) Independent Media Center. All content is free for reprint and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere, for non-commercial use, unless otherwise noted by author.
Their web server can be configured to use the referrer tag to allow whatever deep linking they accept, and reject everything else.
Should they reject hits from anonymizer.com, or from browsers not sending referrers, or from broken browsers which send referrers when the address is typed in, or from links made from randomly generated URLs?
Why do we need anti-spam laws? Wouldn't it be nicer if we paid our programmers instead of our lawyers?