Nobody ever said it was 'wrong' to use proprietary software. What is wrong is to do what Microsoft does, which is to use bullying, cheating, lying, strongarming, and monopolization as regular business strategies. And it's even more wrong done on such a large scale. Which makes it 'right,' in a way, to refuse to support them.
This is why governments are turning away from MS to open source and Free software. Not just because of the initial cash savings, but because they know they won't be at the mercy of Microsoft's draconian licensing practices in the long term, which is where the real cost shows up. If you've ever been in charge of purchasing software for a large organization as I have, you probably know what I'm talking about. They literally act like heroin pushers to get their claws into your company, and they're just as sleazy.
Sure, Open Office is not as polished as MS Office - yet. It will be better in time. But here's something you and the grandparent don't appear to understand. Most Free software is publically developed. If you don't like it, don't bitch and complain about it, contribute to making it better. If you're not willing to do that, then you don't really have any place to say crap like "It gives people the general idea that open source = inferior." Either use it, help to fix it, or just shut up.
IT WAS A JOKE! maybe not a good joke, but jeez. the car in the picture i linked, if you will note, has a FLAT. flat tire. airless tire. get it?
so now i've been scolded for assumptively not knowing that wooden wheels existed AND had the concept of inner tubes (which i already understood, as i'm not from MARS, for god's sake) explained to me in full.
next time i try to make a joke on slashdot, i'll remember to just explain the whole thing in completely literal terms.
Hmm, I seem to remember you saying something like: They can play it smart and evolve or they can die, and that's the way it should be.
i did say that, and it does not conflict with the fact that i don't think they're going to be destroyed. they're married to the profits. they will be forced to evolve. again, that's the way it should be.
If the industry isn't there, there is simply less music out there.
that is a fallacy. the music created the industry. the industry did not and does not create the music. (ac/dc said it best - "who made who?") if people want to hear the music, if it deserves to be heard, people will find a way to hear it. if the record companies disappear, and then x music still manages to reach my ears, then x music has won by way of virtue and not by way of propaganda, which is the preferable way to win, isn't it? more music does NOT necessarily mean more good music, because when the "superstardom" lure vanishes, most of the crap music vanishes with it.
think about who you are defending - the artists? no, because many (i don't know if it's most) artists have no problem with their music being copied and shared. in fact they often encourage it, and that is becoming more and more common. if their heads are on right, sharing their musical creativity comes before profiting. that is also the way it should be.
so it is the record conglomerates' and the riaa's profit-motivated version of "ethics" which you are really protecting.
i'm not asking for preferential treatment because i'm an "ethical file sharer". in my opinion, the RIAA are greedy scum, by and large, and they don't deserve to write the laws that govern me or you or the 80 million christina aguilera distributors out there. (and by the way, what part of those people do you suppose are attempting to hijack the record companies' profits by reselling the music they download? almost none, but shouldn't that be the issue?)
what the RIAA aren't realizing as they try to close the curtains tighter is that the "window" is magically growing wider. plus more "windows" are appearing all the time. they're fighting a losing battle, and it's for the reason of DOLLARS, not morals, that they're fighting so hard. screw them.
Just because they are successful dooesn't mean they deserve to be ripped off.
who's ripping them off? the people who share their music? or the record company leech-people who take most all of their profits and the best part of their creative lives away from them? i really, really suggest you read Fair Use by Negativland. it's an excellent book that could very well change your opinion about this whole thing. here's a very good link: http://www.deuceofclubs.com/write/negativl.htm
ok... this is rich. 1) the music industry is going to be *destroyed* by this and 2) the music industry makes it easy for me to find good music.
neither of those statements are believable to me, sorry.
what makes it okay to do just because you can? that's an interesting question. it depends on your personal morals. i don't see anything particularly reprehensible about making a copy of a song. i would see something wrong with selling that copy. but that's just me. i'm not going to try to force someone else to bend to my morals for something as trivial as this.
furthermore, i download music and i do buy it if i think it's worth it, and almost all my friends do the same. that's not a lie. maybe it's because we're a little older than your average teenage kazaa user, but we live on this planet too. we also buy a lot more music from independent artists than the kids do, go to shows, give word of mouth , and otherwise support deserving musicians.
look at the what comprises the huge majority of p2p shared music. it's large scale, mainstream pablum music, made by artists and record companies who are not hurting financially. the megastars are getting richer all the time, in fact. i have no reason to feel sympathy for them because their albums are being downloaded.
and as far as the naked pictures of my wife on the internet, hey, be my guest. if we're irresponsible enough to leave the curtains open when she's naked, then in fact, it's not even illegal. that's why people don't leave their curtains open.
His analogy is flawed, yes, but that doesn't mean that copying is equal to stealing. Copying is not stealing, it's copying. The original still exists after being copied, and so, therefore, does its saleability and its profit potential. If someone wants to buy it, they will buy it, regardless of whether they have also downloaded it or plan to. It may be "more ethical" to buy it first, but the internet is a public and anonymous medium, and people don't just turn into despicable criminals for using what they find on it, you included.
If the record companies are being hurt by the way the new world works then it's up to them to devise new profit models, because this cat can't be litigated back into the bag. The world has changed again, like it or not. They can play it smart and evolve or they can die, and that's the way it should be. People will still make music either way.
(If they choose not to evolve, then I personally say "good riddance," because I happen to think they're a bunch of noisome, greedy, bloated parasites, but that really is beside the point.)
Though the "right to privacy" is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, it is has been established as a Constitutional right and upheld as one numerous times by the Supreme Court.
Give it enough time and someone will create the technology to fix this with no government intervention.
...and the spammers will create new methods to get around that technology, costing businesses more resources to combat those methods, and so on.
If the majority of the public wants this kind of advertising stopped, then someone with authority has to step in and stop it, because the advertisers won't stop it -- because they have no ethics, or rather their ethics are defined by whatever they can get away with, as they have shown time and time again.
That doesn't make his post untrue... studying and loving business administration is equivalent to studying and loving money. "Where does the money come from? Where does the money go? How are we losing money? How can we give employees the illusion of satisfaction while keeping as much money as possible away from them?" etc.
Taiwanese companies, including BenQ and LiteOn Technology, shipped around 1 million DVD recorders--including DVD+RW drives, DVD-RW drives, and DVD-RAM drives--worth $220 million during the first half of 2004, MIC says.
the dvd recorder (nec nd-1300) that i bought last year for $130 is now selling for $65. i am pretty sure that 1) that difference came out of the retailer's massively inflated markup, and 2) that nec's manufacturing costs have also been reduced by a comparable amount in the time since.
nec (or whomever) is not ever going to make a habit of selling the hardware for less than what it costs to make (unlike microsoft, they're not selling software for the DVD burner to make up the loss).
the market will dictate where the prices can go. if prices drop too low, then the companies that can't manage to sell the hardware for those prices will have to adapt or get out of the way. that's obviously good for consumers, but also good for companies, which are forced to operate economically to stay viable and hence are better primed to evolve when the opportunity comes. a company that's too fat and slow to be competitive doesn't deserve to win in this kind of race.
The fact that Stalin was a communist doesn't preclude him from being able to point out the built-in structural faults of capitalist democracies. In fact, he thought enough about their inherent problems that he rejected the system entirely. I'm not defending Stalin, just pointing out that he was not at all ignorant of politics. He was certainly much less so, in fact, than the average U.S. citizen.
Thanks. That's cool, but it would require a separate, wired NAS. I'd like a completely standalone wireless NAS box. A few have been discussed on/., but none seem completely viable yet, as I recall.
Network attached storage with the Linksys NSLU Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives:
- Creates an Ethernet network connection for USB devices
- Supports external USB hard drives and Memory Sticks
- Connects to wired LAN (not wireless)
Too bad, because wireless NAS options are few right now.
How do you know? Are you a lawyer? Do you know which laws are applicable? Have you read the entire texts of all the applicable laws? Do you know every way in which these laws can be interpreted (not just how the RIAA's lawyers choose to interpret them)?
If you answered "no" to any of those, you're not in a position to tell anyone what's illegal and what's not.
All versions of Windows since 2000 have supported them. They're known as Layered Windows and are manipulated through the SetLayeredWindowAttributes API.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody ever said it was 'wrong' to use proprietary software. What is wrong is to do what Microsoft does, which is to use bullying, cheating, lying, strongarming, and monopolization as regular business strategies. And it's even more wrong done on such a large scale. Which makes it 'right,' in a way, to refuse to support them.
This is why governments are turning away from MS to open source and Free software. Not just because of the initial cash savings, but because they know they won't be at the mercy of Microsoft's draconian licensing practices in the long term, which is where the real cost shows up. If you've ever been in charge of purchasing software for a large organization as I have, you probably know what I'm talking about. They literally act like heroin pushers to get their claws into your company, and they're just as sleazy.
Sure, Open Office is not as polished as MS Office - yet. It will be better in time. But here's something you and the grandparent don't appear to understand. Most Free software is publically developed. If you don't like it, don't bitch and complain about it, contribute to making it better. If you're not willing to do that, then you don't really have any place to say crap like "It gives people the general idea that open source = inferior." Either use it, help to fix it, or just shut up.
you brew beer in your coffee maker?
IT WAS A JOKE! maybe not a good joke, but jeez. the car in the picture i linked, if you will note, has a FLAT. flat tire. airless tire. get it?
so now i've been scolded for assumptively not knowing that wooden wheels existed AND had the concept of inner tubes (which i already understood, as i'm not from MARS, for god's sake) explained to me in full.
next time i try to make a joke on slashdot, i'll remember to just explain the whole thing in completely literal terms.
way to totally miss a joke! and try to be condescending about it, too! good job!
Airless tires have been around since the 1920s, at least... here's proof.
Now wait a minute here.
...oh, shit, you're right.
8 GB = 8000000000 bytes.
8000000000 bytes * 8 bits/byte = 64000000000 bits.
64000000000 bits / 1500000 bits/second = 42667 seconds.
42667 seconds / 3600 seconds/hour =
(and i'm glad i've got a 6 Mb/s cable modem!)
Here come 400,000 votes for "C0wb0y N3al!!!1"
Hmm, I seem to remember you saying something like:
They can play it smart and evolve or they can die, and that's the way it should be.
i did say that, and it does not conflict with the fact that i don't think they're going to be destroyed. they're married to the profits. they will be forced to evolve. again, that's the way it should be.
If the industry isn't there, there is simply less music out there.
that is a fallacy. the music created the industry. the industry did not and does not create the music. (ac/dc said it best - "who made who?") if people want to hear the music, if it deserves to be heard, people will find a way to hear it. if the record companies disappear, and then x music still manages to reach my ears, then x music has won by way of virtue and not by way of propaganda, which is the preferable way to win, isn't it? more music does NOT necessarily mean more good music, because when the "superstardom" lure vanishes, most of the crap music vanishes with it.
think about who you are defending - the artists? no, because many (i don't know if it's most) artists have no problem with their music being copied and shared. in fact they often encourage it, and that is becoming more and more common. if their heads are on right, sharing their musical creativity comes before profiting. that is also the way it should be.
so it is the record conglomerates' and the riaa's profit-motivated version of "ethics" which you are really protecting.
i'm not asking for preferential treatment because i'm an "ethical file sharer". in my opinion, the RIAA are greedy scum, by and large, and they don't deserve to write the laws that govern me or you or the 80 million christina aguilera distributors out there. (and by the way, what part of those people do you suppose are attempting to hijack the record companies' profits by reselling the music they download? almost none, but shouldn't that be the issue?)
what the RIAA aren't realizing as they try to close the curtains tighter is that the "window" is magically growing wider. plus more "windows" are appearing all the time. they're fighting a losing battle, and it's for the reason of DOLLARS, not morals, that they're fighting so hard. screw them.
Just because they are successful dooesn't mean they deserve to be ripped off.
who's ripping them off? the people who share their music? or the record company leech-people who take most all of their profits and the best part of their creative lives away from them? i really, really suggest you read Fair Use by Negativland. it's an excellent book that could very well change your opinion about this whole thing. here's a very good link: http://www.deuceofclubs.com/write/negativl.htm
ok... this is rich. 1) the music industry is going to be *destroyed* by this and 2) the music industry makes it easy for me to find good music.
neither of those statements are believable to me, sorry.
what makes it okay to do just because you can? that's an interesting question. it depends on your personal morals. i don't see anything particularly reprehensible about making a copy of a song. i would see something wrong with selling that copy. but that's just me. i'm not going to try to force someone else to bend to my morals for something as trivial as this.
furthermore, i download music and i do buy it if i think it's worth it, and almost all my friends do the same. that's not a lie. maybe it's because we're a little older than your average teenage kazaa user, but we live on this planet too. we also buy a lot more music from independent artists than the kids do, go to shows, give word of mouth , and otherwise support deserving musicians.
look at the what comprises the huge majority of p2p shared music. it's large scale, mainstream pablum music, made by artists and record companies who are not hurting financially. the megastars are getting richer all the time, in fact. i have no reason to feel sympathy for them because their albums are being downloaded.
and as far as the naked pictures of my wife on the internet, hey, be my guest. if we're irresponsible enough to leave the curtains open when she's naked, then in fact, it's not even illegal. that's why people don't leave their curtains open.
His analogy is flawed, yes, but that doesn't mean that copying is equal to stealing. Copying is not stealing, it's copying. The original still exists after being copied, and so, therefore, does its saleability and its profit potential. If someone wants to buy it, they will buy it, regardless of whether they have also downloaded it or plan to. It may be "more ethical" to buy it first, but the internet is a public and anonymous medium, and people don't just turn into despicable criminals for using what they find on it, you included.
If the record companies are being hurt by the way the new world works then it's up to them to devise new profit models, because this cat can't be litigated back into the bag. The world has changed again, like it or not. They can play it smart and evolve or they can die, and that's the way it should be. People will still make music either way.
(If they choose not to evolve, then I personally say "good riddance," because I happen to think they're a bunch of noisome, greedy, bloated parasites, but that really is beside the point.)
From the first, fourth, and fourteenth amendments, specifically.
Though the "right to privacy" is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, it is has been established as a Constitutional right and upheld as one numerous times by the Supreme Court.
Give it enough time and someone will create the technology to fix this with no government intervention.
...and the spammers will create new methods to get around that technology, costing businesses more resources to combat those methods, and so on.
If the majority of the public wants this kind of advertising stopped, then someone with authority has to step in and stop it, because the advertisers won't stop it -- because they have no ethics, or rather their ethics are defined by whatever they can get away with, as they have shown time and time again.
i wish i had mod points right now. absolutely right.
That doesn't make his post untrue... studying and loving business administration is equivalent to studying and loving money. "Where does the money come from? Where does the money go? How are we losing money? How can we give employees the illusion of satisfaction while keeping as much money as possible away from them?" etc.
But... Slashdot only has one page...
No. From the article:
Taiwanese companies, including BenQ and LiteOn Technology, shipped around 1 million DVD recorders--including DVD+RW drives, DVD-RW drives, and DVD-RAM drives--worth $220 million during the first half of 2004, MIC says.
the dvd recorder (nec nd-1300) that i bought last year for $130 is now selling for $65. i am pretty sure that 1) that difference came out of the retailer's massively inflated markup, and 2) that nec's manufacturing costs have also been reduced by a comparable amount in the time since.
nec (or whomever) is not ever going to make a habit of selling the hardware for less than what it costs to make (unlike microsoft, they're not selling software for the DVD burner to make up the loss).
the market will dictate where the prices can go. if prices drop too low, then the companies that can't manage to sell the hardware for those prices will have to adapt or get out of the way. that's obviously good for consumers, but also good for companies, which are forced to operate economically to stay viable and hence are better primed to evolve when the opportunity comes. a company that's too fat and slow to be competitive doesn't deserve to win in this kind of race.
The fact that Stalin was a communist doesn't preclude him from being able to point out the built-in structural faults of capitalist democracies. In fact, he thought enough about their inherent problems that he rejected the system entirely. I'm not defending Stalin, just pointing out that he was not at all ignorant of politics. He was certainly much less so, in fact, than the average U.S. citizen.
back in my day, that's how we did things! and we liked it!
Thanks. That's cool, but it would require a separate, wired NAS. I'd like a completely standalone wireless NAS box. A few have been discussed on /., but none seem completely viable yet, as I recall.
From the linked article:
Network attached storage with the Linksys NSLU Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives:
- Creates an Ethernet network connection for USB devices
- Supports external USB hard drives and Memory Sticks
- Connects to wired LAN (not wireless)
Too bad, because wireless NAS options are few right now.
...And the Google cache as well
How do you know? Are you a lawyer? Do you know which laws are applicable? Have you read the entire texts of all the applicable laws? Do you know every way in which these laws can be interpreted (not just how the RIAA's lawyers choose to interpret them)?
If you answered "no" to any of those, you're not in a position to tell anyone what's illegal and what's not.
I didn't read the article thoroughly enough. This is not the same thing.
All versions of Windows since 2000 have supported them. They're known as Layered Windows and are manipulated through the SetLayeredWindowAttributes API.
For example, see this article.