"I do have a problem with RMS's comments. He is saying things to people that are ludicrous. He is saying the West does not understand what he is trying to do, whereas India does. He does all of this from his "comfy" home. It reminds me when the Sun King's wife said "Why do they need bread when they can eat cake"."
No what he actualy said was this and there is a big difference in what he actualy said and what you say he said.
"In India there are a number of people who are capable of seeing free software as an ethical and social issue, whereas in many parts of the world very few people recognize the ethical and social issues, and they are more interested in the practical benefits of today's free software,"
Also you said,"He does all of this from his "comfy" home".Which is again untrue,he said this in an interview in India.
I agree with stallman I think The west is in general alot more interested in only the practical benefits of free software and tends to ignore the ethical and social issues assossiated with it.I think you are a bit confused .
Ok,I admit the linux kernel is under the gpl,(sorry if I gave thge impression that it was not), but I still feal that my point about Hurd is valid and that Hurd is not merly about revenge.My point was that Hurd was something which was intended to be developed and released regardless of linux right from the begining.When linux came about Hurd got sidelined and attention was focused else where I am glad to hear that Hurd is about to be released and I will be happy to install and use it.
"I would like the FSF to consider the fact that people have mortgages, children and college. "
How is that a problem? YOU do not HAVE to write free software, no one is making you.
"Philosphical arguments are easy when you are feed, clothed and have a roof over your head"
So what are you saying? Are you saying that people who CAN and are in a postion to write free software should stop so that people in india or else where for that matter can write non free equivelents of what the fsf write presumebly on propritory expensive non free alternatives which would cost the Indians alot more.Should soup kitchens which feed the poor stop so that the poor man who runs a soup shop in the slums can have more business?
I would say that free software is more of a benifit to india than a hinderance because it gives indians tha ability to write and hence sell that ability to write software. If all os's and software development enviroments were propriatory the indians would not be able to afford to pay for them.I think your argument and your logic is silly and not well thought out, explain to me How india would benifit more from there not being freesoftware in the world as oppossed to how it is benifting right now from freesoftware being available.
You can give a man a free meal and he will not be hungry for a day,teach him to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime.
I think the point of this excersise is,(and was), to build a 100% free,(as in speech), os.
"Welcome to the GNU Project web server, www.gnu.org. The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system. (GNU is a recursive acronym for ``GNU's Not Unix''; it is pronounced "guh-NEW".) Variants of the GNU operating system, which use the kernel Linux, are now widely used; though these systems are often referred to as ``Linux'', they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems. "
This was stallman's intention right from the begining,When the linux kernel came along this got side tracked.I am glad Hurd is near completion as I will soon be able to work and play on a completely free os.
This is not about revenge.I will be very happy to use a,"..less mature, and less feature rich proejct..",which is free,(as in speech),than a feature filled os which is not 100% free.
For quite some time a trend has been worrying me.That trend is the internet turning into tv.I have always believed that How this phenomenon would occur is through a massive centralisation of isps.How I believed this centralisation would happen was through people like aol/time warner and sony who would start selling large chunks of there content,(movies games tv/whatever),bundeled with net access and offered exclusively to there customers and that this would lead over time to people thinking about the internet along the same lines as tv and not as something new.I also believed that to compete the small isps would have to buy the rights to the content of big content companies and accept all of the strings that these content companies should choose to attach and hence that the internet would be controlled by about 5,(probably less),big isps.
This story makes me a little more optimistic that the whole internet wiil = tv phenomenon does not have to happen.I also think that this would if adapted by alot of people make the internet alot harder to control and more competitive in terms of pricing.Also the whole concept of selling off ones bandwith to to help pay for the connection appeals to me,as it stands over here in ireland monthly net connections for dsl are way way to much for me to afford and the prospect of selling on some of the bandwith which I would not be using is very appealing to me, If something like this existed over here i would support it.
The only doughts I have about all of this is that a),it will not make money and b) eventualy some big company will take over and subvert the whole thing to its own ends.All in all thow I am very interested to see how this goes.It reminds me in some ways of a co-op only for bandwith.
I agree with the point you are making,but look at the big emulator scene,look at roms ripped from old arcade machines and put up on the net.They have emulators made for them by communities of fans who are often impeded by companies and copy protection,(capcom).
"the method of encoding and even the physical mediums change very quickly, in years, or sometimes even months, and when they do change, the new forms are almost always completely different and incompatible with the old. A reasonably intelligent person could probably read, or at least puzzle out, a document written centuries ago, but this digital copy of the Domesday Book, created just 15 years ago, cannot be read by 99.9% of the population in its present form"
I think a more apt discription of the problem is not that we could not puzzle out how to read these old mediums,(I am sure some sort of reader for the domesday book could be jury rigged together and its image copied on to a more recent digital medium),but rather that we would not want to,(we have the original domesday book),or that we would be prevented from doing so by silly laws,(dmca).
However I think you realy do have a point when you say,"think of all the work done *today* that exists only on some transitory digital medium or another...",specificaly in reference to transitory digital medium's,I think that is a real problem with the internet,but what is also o a big problem in my view,is that there is no cheap long term storage medium for digital media,(>100 years),.cds are affected by light and moisture and magnetic tape is affected by magnetic feilds,while in optimum coditions these formats may last for a while but how many of us keep our cds/magtape in a air tight metal box which allows no light/water / whatever in.The big problem I would say is not being 'able',(ability wise ),to read the mediums but that we will not be able to read them for legal reasons or that we will not have a medium to read?
"With more and more of our culture being created and stored exclusively on digital media, there is a real danger that future generations may have little, or even nothing, to tell them what our lives were like, because everything we've left behind is inaccessible."
With more and more of our culture being controled and confined,music,literature,film,art and Ideas, These important things which underpin and define our culture and hence our society.I wonder what the future will be like for our culture.But what ever happens,I would say,as long as the content industries can make a buck from films or books or whatever they will keep updating the content.
"Trying to "protect" your companies interests by suing potential customers is a *real* good way to piss off most of the rest."
The guy Xybernaut are suing did not sound like a potential customer to me,all though I am sure that this is not the best pr for the company seing as most of there customers are probably geeks .
I agree with you in the sense that I think that this case is ridiculus and should not be in the courts,(message boards are not by and large,havens of solid facts and should be treated as such),but obviously they can and have done this.What should be clear is the fact that this case realy seems to have nothing to do with a,"..BUSINESS basis", and was/is specificaly about the comments the guy made about the Managment,(i.e calling them stupid and saying they were liars),this point is important as the basis of the case would seem to be to defend the reputation of the managment,(which does granted have a signifigant baring on the companys reputation),and not nessecarily the,"..company's interests",and we realy should move on and start looking at the details of the case,(i.e Did the guy get the letter,does the person suing have to show that the defendant got some form of warning before the case can be awarded in favor of the person suing in the absense of the defendant,)and learn from it.
Also I would like to see more on the specifics of the case so as to find out how it warrents a slapp case specificly and more on cases like this , any one got any good links?
"3) As for the letter, it's too late, he'll have to hire a lawyer to even raise the issue, but now he has no opportunity for a pretrial dismissal, this will get really expensive. He has to appeal this. If he ignored the letter it was the dumbest thing he ever did. "
But Can they realy do that ?do they not have to prove that the guy got the letter and hence was aware of the trial ? And if he wins the appeal who pays the legal fee's for both sides?
Wait and see if it is recorded that he signed for the letter,(informing him of the slapp),before jumping on the corperate hate band wagon.No one here has posted the specifics of the case yet,as in if there was evidence or not that he recieved the letter.
""The postings (in question) are full of hyperbole, invective, short-hand phrases and language not generally found in fact-based documents, such as corporate press releases or SEC filings," Judge David O. Carter wrote.
That's a pretty good description of the postings Xybernaut sued Dan Whatley over, according to a copy of the suit. The suit lists posts in which Whatley berates Xybernaut chairman and CEO Edward Newman and his brother Steve Newman, who is the vice-chairman. "
Having said all that , what they seem to be suing the guy over seems to be ridiculus, basicly saying the managment of the company was incompetent and accusing the company of lying on a message board which every one knows are havens of 'truth and 'facts'.
"There are so many people out there sharing music and other files, that it would be difficult to actually stop them. "
Difficult but not impossible or completly improbable for that matter.The question is can the content industrises make it more trouble than it is worth for the majority,(and remeber in there minds that is the market which counts),to download music from a non content industry controled source.I believe that they may be able to do this.
The majority of people are not that computer savy,if some thing is to difficult to use they will not use it.If some thing is difficult to find they will probably not try to find it.Through legal harrassment p2p network programs can be kept under control,to a certain extent, and there growth and content,(and quality of content), can be curtailed and hence there usefullness limited.
How I could see drm really working is in a senario where the internet was treated like tv.For this to happen what you would need to see is the close intergaration of content providers and isp's,where internet usage and special content are sold as one packet, i.e pay 30 bucks a month and get access to our drm film / tv / music network as well as firewalled internet access.
Aol/time warner and sony are the only two players that come to mind who have the ability to do this at the moment.It would not be very difficult to get people to think of the internet along the same lines as tv,where you chose your provider by what content it offers.This would up the ante in the isp business , people would start demanding exclusive content bundeled with there internet connection and the majority of small isps would not be able to afford this and in turn this would probably lead to a drop of in there customer base.Aol/time warner and say for example other big content providers would then be in a position to sell access to there drm networks to the small isps with plenty of strings attached,(i.e put lots of restrictions on your users), and if they did not play by the rules the isps acces to the content would be revoked.
Independent Isp's who refused to play along could be harrassed by legal means and eventualy the majority of them would close shop or intergrate with one of the few big players. What this sort of senario would lead to is a very centeralised internet which would be alot easier to control.
The next step in this plan would be to start brining out drm media players at a cheap price and to keep the cost of the net/drm content bundel low until the majority of people had accepted it then when that has occured you can rachet up the price as much as you like.Hell you could even trow in a free drm media player to people who sighn up for the 30 buck a month content + net plan, that would be a quick way toget people to use the format.
obviously people could convert the drm files to mp3/whatever and obviously there would be ways around the fire wall, but this does not matter if the majority of people can not do these things.All the isp/content providers would have to do is maintain a unified firewall position of blocking anything which made 'piracy' simple and potentialy easy to use and even if alot of sites mirroring special p2p networks which would work behind the fire wall could get through via special sites/programs that would not matter much as the majority of people could be prevented from finding them and using them.
Now this is the strategy, which i think will be attempted and here is why I think it will ultimately fail.First off , there is no major drm which has been universaly accepted by all the big player,they are all trying to push there own formats and this is going to be a big problem in terms of getting people to use there drm content , music specificaly,as if there is no big all ecompassing drm format which is widely used,(mp3 for example),then people will not buy the drm players and people will continue buying mp3 players.
Secondly all of the players in this drm game have different agendas and visions and alot of the time they are odds with one another.For example microsoft and aol/time warner or microsoft and sony. If all 3 of these big players sat down and agreed on a drm format , it would more likely than not be accepted, but all 3 have different formats and different agendas as regards drm and the future of there business.This conflict of interests will prevent there being a single widely used drm format coming about any time soon.
Thirdly drm is completly anti the consumer.No matter what way the big players try and phrase it the deal always comes out the same.We sell you less for more.This is not the right way to make money and to encourage customers to spend money with you and as long as there is an easy alternative to the customers using your drm technology they will use it and not your product.
Drm could work , it may not be uncrackable, but under the right conditions and in the right enviroment it could stop the majority of money spending individual from getting what the content industry see as a,'free lunch'.However for drm to work the content making industrys would have to play there cards right and cooperate alot more as well as be perfect in there timing.I do not think they will do this and therefore I do not think drm will be successfull,my point is that it does have the potential to be successfull and be adopted by the masses andthat is something which worries me.
"My point is this: no matter what they do, people will find a way around it"
And my point is that it is not every person that the content industries care about but the majority of people.So long as they can keep the majority of people and convince them to use there drm enabeled files and keep them under control then they will be happy.I am not defending the content industries but what I am saying is it is naieve to think that something like this in some shape or form 'Can not happen',I think it can probably be made to work with the majority and this and the implications it could have for the internet as a whole makes me sad. I think this quote from the story on politech says it all,(The guy was attending a workshop of the European Commision on Digital Rights Management Systems ).
"..how the workshop was compiled by the EC (95% content industry, 5% consumer rights organizations) and the fact that many people there were so naive in terms of DRMs, their implications and their implementations. Example: everyone was talking about a common standard for DRM systems to support many platforms, but no one was talking about the implications of (software)patents on it."
It is looking more and more likely that One day there will be a common drm system and that is some thing to,"get overly depressed about".
"even if they win the battle of legislation, we are still able to continue the war.",but the question remains , will the majority of people not just a small minority want to even fight the battle let alone the war.I think the whole issue of content control could swing either way at this point in time and that now more than ever is the time for people to stand up for what they belive in and not to allow big companys to piss all over there rights,How long do we have left? How long will it be before the majority accept drm in some form or another.I could see drm hardware,(not nessecarily pc's on a hardware level any way ),being the norm in 2 years time,(probably less).
"The other companies which try to keep Microsoft in the courts all the time would be better off if they spent their time trying to develop some new & innovative systems & playing the game fairly."
This must be a joke.
" We have never heard of any company that gives other companies the secrets of their business practices & allows them access to their innovative methods which (sad to say) earn money for THEM, and lessen the profits of their competitors, HAVE YOU?"
Microsoft is a unique case and There is no point in comparing apple's to oranges.Windows is more of a standard than a traditional product and Microsoft did use an advantage it had in one market to undermine competition in another, that is the bottom line and I can think of no other business which is in the same unique position that microsoft is in and so comparing microsoft to say a car company,(like ford for example),is completly ridiculus and unrealistic.
"Once a single instance is broken, all instances are broken because the newly discovered way of circumventing can be encoded in a piece of software and thus be used by everyone. "
You have to hear about that piece of software and be able to obtain it before this comes into effect. Also if the majority of people are to use this program it must be simple to use and not involve user x jumping through to many hoops.
"That's why they need another legal hammer, a DMCA-like one that makes it illegal to talk about circumvention"
Not neccessarily,(although I am sure they would love something like that),What they,(the content industries in question), need to do is present an easier option for most people at a price which,(initialy cheap,later expensive),they,(most people),will be willing to pay and which incorperates the drm of choice.The problem these content producers incounter is that there is no main drm and that there are to many big players pushing in different directions.In the right enviroment drm can achieve its primary goal,stopping the majority of people copying files that the content industry does not want copied,The question is can the big content holders create that enviroment?
On a side point what do you mean when you say,"The argument of keeping the honest people honest is therefore kind of invalid"?
The point of drm is not to stop Every one copying a file illegaly, but to stop the majority of people and this is something which could be achieved.
How this could be achieved is through making it more hassel than it is worth to get the file. First of Programs like napster which are not controled by The music industry or the people who manufacture the content in question need to be eliminated or taken over.
The reason for this is that downloading and finding a song is made way to easy for the average person by these programs and these programs distribute content in a format which enabels the user to make say for example,mp3 / ogg/whatever cds, and give them to there friends. These programs cause further redistribution through other means and encourage a snowball like effect in terms of distrbuting.
So the first step to making Drm work is to use a legal hammer to smash the main and hence most populised file trading networks,(you do not need to get them all just the main and hence most popular ones), and to put out your own content networks which distribute at say a set monthly fee your content in your format,(i.e drm enabeled),which may not completly stop the snow ball effect but will minimise the damage.
The majority of people are not that computer savy,if some thing is to difficult to use they will not use it.If some thing is difficult to find they will probably not try to find it.Through legal harrassment p2p network programs can be kept under control,to a certain extent and there growth can be curtailed.
However at the end of the day the question must be asked , how long can they keep this up ? This strategy is short term at best , a more long term game plan is needed.
How I could see drm really working is in a senario where the internet was treated like tv.For this to happen what you would need to see is the close intergaration of content providers and isp's,where internet usage and special content are sold as one packet, i.e pay 30 bucks a month and get access to our drm film/tv/music network as well as firewalled internet access.
Aol/time warner and sony are the only two players that come to mind who have the ability to do this at the moment.It would not be very difficult to get people to think of the internet along the same lines as tv,where you chose your provider by what content it offers.This would up the ante in the isp business , people would start demanding exclusive content bundeled with there internet connection and the majority of small isps would not be able to afford this and in turn this would probably lead to a drop of in there customer base.Aol/time warner and say for example other big content providers would then be in a position to sell access to there drm networks to the small isps with plenty of strings attached,(i.e put lots of restrictions on your users), and if they did not play by the rules the isps acces to the content would be revoked.
Independent Isp's who refused to play along could be harrassed by legal means and eventualy the majority of them would close shop or intergrate with one of the few big players. What this sort of senario would lead to is a very centeralised internet which would be alot easier to control.
The next step in this plan would be to start brining out drm media players at a cheap price and to keep the cost of the net/drm content bundel low until the majority of people had accepted it then when that has occured you can rachet up the price as much as you like.Hell you could even trow in a free drm media player to people who sighn up for the 30 buck a month content + net plan, that would be a quick way toget people to use the format.
obviously people could convert the drm files to mp3/whatever and obviously there would be ways around the fire wall, but this does not matter if the majority of people can not do these things.All the isp/content providers would have to do is maintain a unified firewall position of blocking anything which made 'piracy' simple and potentialy easy to use and even if alot of sites mirroring special p2p networks which would work behind the fire wall could get through via special sites/programs that would not matter much as the majority of people could be prevented from finding them and using them.
Now this is the strategy, which i think will be attempted and here is why I think it will ultimately fail.First off , there is no major drm which has been universaly accepted by all the big player,they are all trying to push there own formats and this is going to be a big problem in terms of getting people to use there drm content , music specificaly,as if there is no big all ecompassing drm format which is widely used,(mp3 for example),then people will not buy the drm players and people will continue buying mp3 players.
Secondly all of the players in this drm game have different agendas and visions and alot of the time they are odds with one another.For example microsoft and aol/time warner or microsoft and sony. If all 3 of these big players sat down and agreed on a drm format , it would more likely than not be accepted, but all 3 have different formats and different agendas as regards drm and the future of there business.This conflict of interests will prevent there being a single widely used drm format coming about any time soon.
Thirdly drm is completly anti the consumer.No matter what way the big players try and phrase it the deal always comes out the same.We sell you less for more.This is not the right way to make money and to encourage customers to spend money with you and as long as there is an easy alternative to the customers using your drm technology they will use it and not your product.
Drm could work , it may not be uncrackable, but under the right conditions and in the right enviroment it could stop the majority of money spending individual from getting what the content industry see as a,'free lunch'.However for drm to work the content making industrys would have to play there cards right and cooperate alot more as well as be perfect in there timing.I do not think they will do this and therefore I do not think drm will be successfull,my point is that it does have the potential to be successfull and be adopted by the masses andthat is something which worries me.
The question you have to ask you're self is where is a company making there money , that is there product,not neccesarily what they give away for free. A company can spend alot of time developing something,(say a an audio codex), and then give away that codex then sell hardware/special software to stream it/some other thing to take advantadge of it in some way.The point is that 90 percent of the work may go into the codex which is given away freely and only ten percent into the thing which makes the money.
However according to www.dictionary.com i.e is a product.
"\Prod"uct\, n. [L. productus, p. pr. of producere. See Produce.] 1. Anything that is produced, whether as the result of generation, growth, labor, or thought, or by the operation of involuntary causes; as, the products of the season, or of the farm; the products of manufactures; the products of the brain."
It is the purpose of Ie that is called in to question by microsofts comment,"The states' call for an open-source version of Internet Explorer would destroy "any incentive for Microsoft to invest in the creation of such new versions,"",It is a product not intended to make money but to hold other browsers at bay, it is a tool of control for microsoft, if it were open source it would lose value as a tool of control.
In my mind a,'company's products',are the things which make it capital or profit, all other things which the company gives away merly assist this process and in my opinion ie is more of a tool than a product, and it was produced with this aim in mind .
To hell with the consumer and to hell with What,'we',the people who pay the bills want.What we want is a closed circle , one golden ring of friends where to play you have to pay us loads of money.No sorry we wont sell you the right to decode format,x,mr small eastern company , we do not like you and you might offer features which would be of more benifit to the user than we offer and we would not want that, you might sell a superior product at a higher price and we definitly would not want that,what ? , competition you say? why the public has loads of choice they can buy off me or my 5 big friends who jointly own the format but not you or anyone else who we do not like.
To hell with you mr small artist,to make it big these days you must sighn up with label x or label y,why well we can not have the public making illegal backups of our songs so we have to be carefull who we let use our encoders and our technology.
A closed system is a better system for all and provides a nice illusion of competition.Is it just me or is any one else getting realy realy tired of companies treating there custemers like criminals and trying to lock them into a system they do not want to have in place.What ever happened to the custemer is king.
What the music industry and the hardware industry want is a windows type senario where users are locked in to buying there products, there is off course severly limited competition and people do offcorse have the right Not to use there hardware but then they must sacrifice the right to listen to or view the music which these copyright horders own and that just happens to be a great big chunk of whats being released and old songs who's copyright they have bought up.This whole senario is a disgrace and goes against the whole idea of competiton and does not in any way serv the consumer.
Do not get me wrong,For some things the connection I have is grand, I can play magband and other nethacks/muds just fine.Dark reighn , my favorite rts and hmm3 run just fine.doom is ok , but what I want is a nice game of q3 urban terror,(outside of a lan party and outside of lugging my pc up to my friends house),and which I do not have to leave my house to play at acceptabel speeds.
"Most people seem to be missing two important distinctions here. You pay for commercial software, but not for free software."
Not nessecarily, what about distributions where there exists a pay version and a free version.What you are paying for with the paid distribution is not the distribution par se but the extra features such as phone/web tech support nice packaging and a manul/what ever.The os and accompanying software are the same for both pay and non paying users.Now my question is if , the instant I actively charge people for this, even if it's a token amount, I become a "paid" for os and am required to obey a large number of laws.Does the software become liabel or am I just liabel for tech support/what ever extra which I offer the users, or more to the point,will any law passed with regards to software and liability accept this distinction?
"In the software realm, I would expect to see a similiar difference in the treatment of amateur efforts (where people develop software for the love of the craft) and commercial
efforts. If someone is grossly negligent, it won't matter whether they're compensated or not. But for routine oversights, I would expect to see far more severe penalties for
commercial vendors than OSS providers."
My point is that , number one,the line between commercial vendors and amateur efforts, especialy in linux, can become very blurred and number two, that the people who draft the legislation desiding liability may not take into account what you would expect and make a clear and fair distinction and even if they did I could see certain cases where the whole issue could become very messy and regretably damaging to linux.
I hope that this is not the case and I hope that what you," would expect (,)to see a similiar difference in the treatment of amateur efforts", does happen in a fair,clear and concise manor.
"but even with peer to peer mirroring of content you still have the reliability and convenience that being an aggregator of that content provides... i would rather go to slashdot where i dont have to hunt down the content i want than go searching for it."
I agree with you're point , it would be easier,(less hassel and inconvenience), for a person,(who has paid), to go to slashdot than to go out and try and find that content on a present day model p2p network,But imagine a future enviroment where a large amount of sites are subscription based,In that world I would say that you would be more likely to see p2p networks or freenet sites specificaly devoted and properly geared up for mirroring web pages perfectly,you do not see this sort of thing now as there is not much demand for it.
For example,it would not be that hard for me to write a script which would download a complete web page strip out the adds and mirror it on some sort of p2p network or for example freenet,( although I am not to sure about the freenet example due to freenets current state of development).Opera allows you to save an entire webpage it even gives you an option to do it with or without images and to set the link depth and There are quite alot of free programs which can save a page perfectly links and all.
My point is that we do not see alot of this now because there really is not alot of sites which are subscription based , bar porn sites and with them it is the pure content(video/pic/txt/ whatever),which the majority of people want and not the web desighn, also there is a large community of people at the moment who share and trade passwords to these sites.
Also privacy programs such as peek a booty which use routing to hide a persons identity show another way which subscription sites could be viewed.If the ip is the same and if the pwd is the same how would the website know that the user was not the same? (i.e)A friend or multiple friends could go through one person to view the content on a site.
Slashdot Mirror
"I do have a problem with RMS's comments. He is saying things to people that are ludicrous. He is saying the West does not understand what he is trying to do, whereas India does. He does all of this from his "comfy" home. It reminds me when the Sun King's wife said "Why do they need bread when they can eat cake"."
,"He does all of this from his "comfy" home".Which is again untrue ,he said this in an interview in India.
No what he actualy said was this and there is a big difference in what he actualy said and what you say he said.
"In India there are a number of people who are capable of seeing free software as an ethical and social issue, whereas in many parts of the world very few people recognize the ethical and social issues, and they are more interested in the practical benefits of today's free software,"
Also you said
I agree with stallman I think The west is in general alot more interested in only the practical benefits of free software and tends to ignore the ethical and social issues assossiated with it.I think you are a bit confused .
Ok,I admit the linux kernel is under the gpl,(sorry if I gave thge impression that it was not), but I still feal that my point about Hurd is valid and that Hurd is not merly about revenge.My point was that Hurd was something which was intended to be developed and released regardless of linux right from the begining.When linux came about Hurd got sidelined and attention was focused else where I am glad to hear that Hurd is about to be released and I will be happy to install and use it.
"I would like the FSF to consider the fact that people have mortgages, children and college. "
.Should soup kitchens which feed the poor stop so that the poor man who runs a soup shop in the slums can have more business?
,teach him to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime.
How is that a problem? YOU do not HAVE to write free software, no one is making you.
"Philosphical arguments are easy when you are feed, clothed and have a roof over your head"
So what are you saying? Are you saying that people who CAN and are in a postion to write free software should stop so that people in india or else where for that matter can write non free equivelents of what the fsf write presumebly on propritory expensive non free alternatives which would cost the Indians alot more
I would say that free software is more of a benifit to india than a hinderance because it gives indians tha ability to write and hence sell that ability to write software. If all os's and software development enviroments were propriatory the indians would not be able to afford to pay for them.I think your argument and your logic is silly and not well thought out, explain to me How
india would benifit more from there not being freesoftware in the world as oppossed to how it is benifting right now from freesoftware being available.
You can give a man a free meal and he will not be
hungry for a day
I think the point of this excersise is,(and was), to build a 100% free,(as in speech), os.
,When the linux kernel came along this got side tracked.I am glad Hurd is near completion as I will soon be able to work and play on a completely free os.
,"..less mature, and less feature rich proejct ..",which is free,(as in speech),than a feature filled os which is not 100% free.
"Welcome to the GNU Project web server, www.gnu.org. The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system. (GNU is a recursive acronym for ``GNU's Not Unix''; it is pronounced "guh-NEW".) Variants of the GNU operating system, which use the kernel Linux, are now widely used; though these systems are often referred to as ``Linux'', they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems. "
This was stallman's intention right from the begining
This is not about revenge.I will be very happy to use a
good point .
For quite some time a trend has been worrying me.That trend is the internet turning into tv .I have always believed that How this phenomenon would occur is through a massive centralisation of isps.How I believed this centralisation would happen was through people like aol/time warner and sony who would start selling large chunks of there content ,(movies games tv/whatever),bundeled .I also believed that to compete the small isps would have to buy the rights to the content of big content companies and accept all of the strings that these content companies should choose to attach and hence that the internet would be controlled by about 5 ,(probably less),big isps.
.Also the whole concept of selling off ones bandwith to to help pay for the connection appeals to me ,as it stands over here in ireland monthly net connections for dsl are way way to much for me to afford and the prospect of selling on some of the bandwith which I would not be using is very appealing to me, If something like this existed over here i would support it.
.All in all thow I am very interested to see how this goes.It reminds me in some ways of a co-op only for bandwith.
with net access and offered exclusively to there customers and that this would lead over time to people thinking about the internet along the same lines as tv and not as something new
This story makes me a little more optimistic that the whole internet wiil = tv phenomenon does not have to happen.I also think that this would if adapted by alot of people make the internet alot harder to control and more competitive in terms of pricing
The only doughts I have about all of this is that
a),it will not make money and b) eventualy some big company will take over and subvert the whole thing to its own ends
I agree with the point you are making,but look at the big emulator scene ,look at roms ripped from old arcade machines and put up on the net.They have emulators made for them by communities of fans who are often impeded by companies and copy
,(we have the original domesday book),or that we would be prevented from doing so by silly laws,(dmca).
,"think of all the work done *today* that exists only on some transitory digital medium or another...",specificaly in reference to transitory digital medium's,I think that is a real problem with the internet,but what is also o a big problem in my view ,is that there is no cheap long term storage medium for digital media,(>100 years),.cds are affected by light and moisture and magnetic tape is affected by magnetic feilds,while in optimum coditions these formats may last for a while but how many of us keep our cds/magtape in a air tight metal box which allows no light /water / whatever in.The big problem I would say is not being 'able',(ability wise ),to read the mediums but that we will not be able to read them for legal reasons or that we will not have a medium to read?
protection,(capcom).
"the method of encoding and even the physical mediums change very quickly, in years, or sometimes even months, and when they do change, the new forms are almost always completely different and incompatible with the old. A reasonably intelligent person could probably read, or at least puzzle out, a document written centuries ago, but this digital copy of the Domesday Book, created just 15 years ago, cannot be read by 99.9% of the population in its present form"
I think a more apt discription of the problem is not that we could not puzzle out how to read these old mediums,(I am sure some sort of reader for the domesday book could be jury rigged together and its image copied on to a more recent digital medium),but rather that we would not want to
However I think you realy do have a point when you say
"With more and more of our culture being created and stored exclusively on digital media, there is a real danger that future generations may have little, or even nothing, to tell them what our lives were like, because everything we've left behind is inaccessible."
,music ,literature,film ,art and Ideas, These important things which underpin and define our culture and hence our society.I wonder what the future will be like for our culture.But what ever happens ,I would say ,as long as the content industries can make a buck from films or books or whatever they will keep updating the content.
With more and more of our culture being controled and confined
How do non us people stand in these cases?
"Trying to "protect" your companies interests by suing potential customers is a *real* good way to piss off most of the rest."
,all though I am sure that this is not the best pr for the company seing as most of there customers are probably geeks .
The guy Xybernaut are suing did not sound like a potential customer to me
"I see no BUSINESS basis for this suit,..."
,havens of solid facts and should be treated as such),but obviously they can and have done this.What should be clear is the fact that this case realy seems to have nothing to do with a ,"..BUSINESS basis", and was/is specificaly about the comments the guy made about the Managment,(i.e calling them stupid and saying they were liars),this point is important as the basis of the case would seem to be to defend the reputation of the managment ,(which does granted have a signifigant baring on the companys reputation),and not nessecarily the ,"..company's interests" ,and we realy should move on and start looking at the details of the case,(i.e Did the guy get the letter,does the person suing have to show that the defendant got some form of warning before the case can be awarded in favor of the person suing in the absense of the defendant,)and learn from it.
I agree with you in the sense that I think that this case is ridiculus and should not be in the courts,(message boards are not by and large
Also I would like to see more on the specifics of the case so as to find out how it warrents a slapp case specificly and more on cases like this , any one got any good links?
"3) As for the letter, it's too late, he'll have to hire a lawyer to even raise the issue, but now he has no opportunity for a pretrial dismissal, this will get really expensive. He has to appeal this. If he ignored the letter it was the dumbest thing he ever did. "
But Can they realy do that ?do they not have to prove that the guy got the letter and hence was aware of the trial ? And if he wins the appeal who pays the legal fee's for both sides?
Wait and see if it is recorded that he signed for the letter ,(informing him of the slapp),before jumping on the corperate hate band wagon.No one here has posted the specifics of the case yet,as in if there was evidence or not that he recieved the letter.
""The postings (in question) are full of hyperbole, invective, short-hand phrases and language not generally found in fact-based documents, such as corporate press releases or SEC filings," Judge David O. Carter wrote.
That's a pretty good description of the postings Xybernaut sued Dan Whatley over, according to a copy of the suit. The suit lists posts in which Whatley berates Xybernaut chairman and CEO Edward Newman and his brother Steve Newman, who is the vice-chairman. "
Having said all that , what they seem to be suing the guy over seems to be ridiculus, basicly saying the managment of the company was incompetent and accusing the company of lying on a message board which every one knows are havens of 'truth and 'facts'.
"There are so many people out there sharing music and other files, that it would be difficult to actually stop them. "
,to a certain extent, and there growth and content,(and quality of content), can be curtailed and hence there usefullness limited.
/time warner and sony are the only two players that come to mind who have the ability to do this at the moment.It would not be very difficult to get people to think of the internet along the same lines as tv,where you chose your provider by what content it offers.This would up the ante in the isp business , people would start demanding exclusive content bundeled with there internet connection and the majority of small isps would not be able to afford this and in turn this would probably lead to a drop of in there customer base.Aol/time warner and say for example other big content providers would then be in a position to sell access to there drm networks to the small isps with plenty of strings attached,(i.e put lots of restrictions on your users), and if they did not play by the rules the isps acces to the content would be revoked .
.Hell you could even trow in a free drm media player to people who sighn up for the 30 buck a month content + net plan, that would be a quick way toget people to use the format.
,as if there is no big all ecompassing drm format which is widely used ,(mp3 for example),then people will not buy the drm players and people will continue buying mp3 players.
,'free lunch'.However for drm to work the content making industrys would have to play there cards right and cooperate alot more as well as be perfect in there timing .I do not think they will do this and therefore I do not think drm will be successfull ,my point is that it does have the potential to be successfull and be adopted by the masses andthat is something which worries me.
,(The guy was attending a workshop of the European Commision on Digital Rights Management Systems ).
,"get overly depressed about".
.I think the whole issue of content control could swing either way at this point in time and that now more than ever is the time for people to stand up for what they belive in and not to allow big companys to piss all over there rights ,How long do we have left? How long will it be before the majority accept drm in some form or another.I could see drm hardware ,(not nessecarily pc's on a hardware level any way ),being the norm in 2 years time,(probably less).
Difficult but not impossible or completly improbable for that matter.The question is can the content industrises make it more trouble than it is worth for the majority,(and remeber in there minds that is the market which counts),to download music from a non content industry controled source.I believe that they may be able to do this.
The majority of people are not that computer savy,if some thing is to difficult to use they will not use it.If some thing is difficult to find they will probably not try to find it.Through legal harrassment p2p network programs can be kept under control
How I could see drm really working is in a senario where the internet was treated like tv.For this to happen what you would need to see is the close intergaration of content providers and isp's,where internet usage and special content are sold as one packet, i.e pay 30 bucks a month and get access to our drm film / tv / music network as well as firewalled internet access.
Aol
Independent Isp's who refused to play along could be harrassed by legal means and eventualy the majority of them would close shop or intergrate with one of the few big players. What this sort of senario would lead to is a very centeralised internet which would be alot easier to control.
The next step in this plan would be to start brining out drm media players at a cheap price and to keep the cost of the net/drm content bundel low until the majority of people had accepted it then when that has occured you can rachet up the price as much as you like
obviously people could convert the drm files to mp3/whatever and obviously there would be ways around the fire wall, but this does not matter if the majority of people can not do these things.All the isp/content providers would have to do is maintain a unified firewall position of blocking anything which made 'piracy' simple and potentialy easy to use and even if alot of sites mirroring special p2p networks which would work behind the fire wall could get through via special sites/programs that would not matter much as the majority of people could be prevented from finding them and using them.
Now this is the strategy, which i think will be attempted and here is why I think it will ultimately fail.First off , there is no major drm which has been universaly accepted by all the big player,they are all trying to push there own formats and this is going to be a big problem in terms of getting people to use there drm content , music specificaly
Secondly all of the players in this drm game have different agendas and visions and alot of the time they are odds with one another.For example microsoft and aol/time warner or microsoft and sony. If all 3 of these big players sat down and agreed on a drm format , it would more likely than not be accepted, but all 3 have different formats and different agendas as regards drm and the future of there business.This conflict of interests will prevent there being a single widely used drm format coming about any time soon.
Thirdly drm is completly anti the consumer.No matter what way the big players try and phrase it the deal always comes out the same.We sell you less for more.This is not the right way to make money and to encourage customers to spend money with you and as long as there is an easy alternative to the customers using your drm technology they will use it and not your product.
Drm could work , it may not be uncrackable, but under the right conditions and in the right enviroment it could stop the majority of money spending individual from getting what the content industry see as a
"My point is this: no matter what they do, people will find a way around it"
And my point is that it is not every person that the content industries care about but the majority of people.So long as they can keep the majority of people and convince them to use there drm enabeled files and keep them under control then they will be happy.I am not defending the content industries
but what I am saying is it is naieve to think that something like this in some shape or form 'Can not happen',I think it can probably be made to work
with the majority and this and the implications it could have for the internet as a whole makes me sad. I think this quote from the story on politech says it all
"..how the workshop was compiled by the EC (95% content industry, 5% consumer rights organizations) and the fact that many people there were so naive in terms of DRMs, their implications and their implementations. Example: everyone was talking about a common standard for DRM systems to support many platforms, but no one was talking about the implications of (software)patents on it."
It is looking more and more likely that One day there will be a common drm system and that is some thing to
"even if they win the battle of legislation, we are still able to continue the war.",but the question remains , will the majority of people not just a small minority want to even fight the battle let alone the war
"The other companies which try to keep Microsoft in the courts all the time would be better off if
,(like ford for example) ,is completly ridiculus and unrealistic.
they spent their time trying to develop some new & innovative systems & playing the game fairly."
This must be a joke.
" We have never heard of any company that gives other companies the secrets of their business practices & allows them access to their innovative methods which (sad to say) earn money for THEM, and lessen the profits of their competitors, HAVE YOU?"
Microsoft is a unique case and There is no point in comparing apple's to oranges.Windows is more of a standard than a traditional product and Microsoft did use an advantage it had in one market to undermine competition in another, that is the bottom line and I can think of no other business which is in the same unique position that microsoft is in and so comparing microsoft to say a car company
i agree with you.I am not defending the industry What I am saying is that drm could be made to work and people should be worried about it.
To stop the snowball effect and prevent casual mp3 /file trading that occurs bettween consenting adults.
"Once a single instance is broken, all instances are broken because the newly discovered way of circumventing can be encoded in a piece of software and thus be used by everyone. "
,(most people),will be willing to pay and which incorperates the drm of choice.The problem these content producers incounter is that there is no main drm and that there are to many big players pushing in different directions.In the right enviroment drm can achieve its primary goal ,stopping the majority of people copying files that the content industry does not want copied,The question is can the big content holders create that enviroment?
,"The argument of keeping the honest people honest is therefore kind of invalid"?
You have to hear about that piece of software and be able to obtain it before this comes into effect. Also if the majority of people are to use this program it must be simple to use and not involve user x jumping through to many hoops.
"That's why they need another legal hammer, a DMCA-like one that makes it illegal to talk about circumvention"
Not neccessarily,(although I am sure they would love something like that),What they,(the content industries in question), need to do is present an easier option for most people at a price which,(initialy cheap,later expensive),they
On a side point what do you mean when you say
The point of drm is not to stop Every one copying a file illegaly, but to stop the majority of people and this is something which could be achieved.
,to a certain extent and there growth can be curtailed.
/time warner and sony are the only two players that come to mind who have the ability to do this at the moment.It would not be very difficult to get people to think of the internet along the same lines as tv,where you chose your provider by what content it offers.This would up the ante in the isp business , people would start demanding exclusive content bundeled with there internet connection and the majority of small isps would not be able to afford this and in turn this would probably lead to a drop of in there customer base.Aol/time warner and say for example other big content providers would then be in a position to sell access to there drm networks to the small isps with plenty of strings attached,(i.e put lots of restrictions on your users), and if they did not play by the .
.Hell you could even trow in a free drm media player to people who sighn up for the 30 buck a month content + net plan, that would be a quick way toget people to use the format.
,as if there is no big all ecompassing drm format which is widely used ,(mp3 for example),then people will not buy the drm players and people will continue buying
,'free lunch'.However for drm to work the content making industrys would have to play there cards right and cooperate alot more as well as be perfect in there timing .I do not think they will do this and therefore I do not think drm will be successfull ,my point is that it does have the potential to be successfull and
How this could be achieved is through making it more hassel than it is worth to get the file. First of Programs like napster which are not controled by The music industry or the people who manufacture the content in question need to be eliminated or taken over.
The reason for this is that downloading and finding a song is made way to easy for the average person by these programs and these programs distribute content in a format which enabels the user to make say for example,mp3 / ogg/whatever cds, and give them to there friends. These programs cause further redistribution through other means and encourage a snowball like effect in terms of distrbuting.
So the first step to making Drm work is to use
a legal hammer to smash the main and hence most populised file trading networks,(you do not need to get them all just the main and hence most popular ones), and to put out your own content networks which distribute at say a set monthly fee your content in your format,(i.e drm enabeled),which may not completly stop the snow ball effect but will minimise the damage.
The majority of people are not that computer savy,if some thing is to difficult to use they will not use it.If some thing is difficult to find they will probably not try to find it.Through legal harrassment p2p network programs can be kept under control
However at the end of the day the question must be asked , how long can they keep this up ? This strategy is short term at best , a more long term game plan is needed.
How I could see drm really working is in
a senario where the internet was treated like tv.For this to happen what you would need to see is the close intergaration of content providers and isp's,where internet usage and special content
are sold as one packet, i.e pay 30 bucks a month and get access to our drm film/tv/music network
as well as firewalled internet access.
Aol
rules the isps acces to the content would be revoked
Independent Isp's who refused to play along could be harrassed by legal means and eventualy the majority of them would close shop or intergrate with one of the few big players. What this sort of senario would lead to is a very centeralised internet which would be alot easier to control.
The next step in this plan would be to start brining out drm media players at a cheap price and to keep the cost of the net/drm content bundel low until the majority of people had accepted it then when that has occured you can rachet up the price as much as you like
obviously people could convert the drm files to mp3/whatever and obviously there would be ways around the fire wall, but this does not matter if the majority of people can not do these things.All the isp/content providers would have to do is maintain a unified firewall position of blocking anything which made 'piracy' simple and potentialy easy to use and even if alot of sites mirroring special p2p networks which would work behind the fire wall could get through via special sites/programs that would not matter much as the majority of people could be prevented from finding them and using them.
Now this is the strategy, which i think will be attempted and here is why I think it will ultimately fail.First off , there is no major drm which has been universaly accepted by all the big player,they are all trying to push there own formats and this is going to be a big problem in terms of getting people to use there drm content , music specificaly
mp3 players.
Secondly all of the players in this drm game have different agendas and visions and alot of the time they are odds with one another.For example microsoft and aol/time warner or microsoft and sony. If all 3 of these big players sat down and agreed on a drm format , it would more likely than not be accepted, but all 3 have different formats and different agendas as regards drm and the future of there business.This conflict of interests will prevent there being a single widely used drm format coming about any time soon.
Thirdly drm is completly anti the consumer.No matter what way the big players try and phrase it the deal always comes out the same.We sell you less for more.This is not the right way to make money and to encourage customers to spend money with you and as long as there is an easy alternative to the customers using your drm technology they will use it and not your product.
Drm could work , it may not be uncrackable, but under the right conditions and in the right enviroment it could stop the majority of money spending individual from getting what the content industry see as a
be adopted by the masses andthat is something which worries me.
Ok.thank you for the english lesson
The question you have to ask you're self is where is a company making there money , that is there product ,not neccesarily what they give away for free. A company can spend alot of time developing something ,(say a an audio codex), and then give away that codex then sell hardware/special software to stream it /some other thing to take advantadge of it in some way.The point is that 90 percent of the work may go into the codex which is given away freely and only ten percent into the thing which makes the money.
.
,'company's products',are the things which make it capital or profit, all other things which the company gives away merly assist this process and in my opinion ie is more of a tool than a product, and it was produced with this aim in mind .
However according to www.dictionary.com i.e is a product.
"\Prod"uct\, n. [L. productus, p. pr. of producere. See Produce.] 1. Anything that is produced, whether as the result of generation, growth, labor, or thought, or by the operation of involuntary causes; as, the products of the season, or of the farm; the products of manufactures; the products of the brain."
It is the purpose of Ie that is called in to question by microsofts comment,"The states' call for an open-source version of Internet Explorer would destroy "any incentive for Microsoft to invest in the creation of such new versions,"",It is a product not intended to make money but to hold other browsers at bay, it is a tool of control for microsoft, if it were open source it would lose value as a tool of control
In my mind a
To hell with the consumer and to hell with What ,'we',the people who pay the bills want.What we want is a closed circle , one golden ring of friends where to play you have to pay us loads of money.No sorry we wont sell you the right to decode format ,x,mr small eastern company , we do not like you and you might offer features which would be of more benifit to the user than we offer and we would not want that, you might sell a superior product at a higher price and we definitly would not want that,what ? , competition you say? why the public has loads of choice they can buy off me or my 5 big friends who jointly own the format but not you or anyone else who we do not like.
,why well we can not have the public making illegal backups of our songs so we have to be carefull who we let use our encoders and our technology.
To hell with you mr small artist,to make it big these days you must sighn up with label x or label y
A closed system is a better system for all and provides a nice illusion of competition.Is it just me or is any one else getting realy realy tired of companies treating there custemers like criminals and trying to lock them into a system they do not want to have in place.What ever happened to the custemer is king.
What the music industry and the hardware industry want is a windows type senario where users are locked in to buying there products, there is off course severly limited competition and people do offcorse have the right Not to use there hardware but then they must sacrifice the right to listen to or view the music which these copyright horders own and that just happens to be a great big chunk
of whats being released and old songs who's copyright they have bought up.This whole senario
is a disgrace and goes against the whole idea of
competiton and does not in any way serv the consumer.
Do not get me wrong,For some things the connection I have is grand, I can play magband and other nethacks/muds just fine.Dark reighn , my favorite rts and hmm3 run just fine.doom is ok , but what I want is a nice game of q3 urban terror ,(outside of a lan party and outside of lugging my pc up to my friends house),and which I do not have to leave my house to play at acceptabel speeds.
"Most people seem to be missing two important distinctions here. You pay for commercial software, but not for free software."
.Now my question is if , the instant I actively charge people for this, even if it's a token amount, I become a "paid" for os and am required to obey a large number of laws.Does the software become liabel or am I just liabel for tech support/what ever extra which I offer the users, or more to the point ,will any law passed with regards to software and liability accept this distinction?
,the line between commercial vendors and amateur efforts, especialy
,clear and concise manor.
Not nessecarily, what about distributions where there exists a pay version and a free version.What you are paying for with the paid distribution is not the distribution par se but the extra features such as phone/web tech support nice packaging and a manul/what ever.The os and accompanying software are the same for both pay and non paying users
"In the software realm, I would expect to see a similiar difference in the treatment of amateur efforts (where people develop software for the love of the craft) and commercial
efforts. If someone is grossly negligent, it won't matter whether they're compensated or not. But for routine oversights, I would expect to see far more severe penalties for
commercial vendors than OSS providers."
My point is that , number one
in linux, can become very blurred and number two, that the people who draft the legislation desiding
liability may not take into account what you would expect and make a clear and fair distinction and even if they did I could see certain cases where the whole issue could become very messy and regretably damaging to linux.
I hope that this is not the case and I hope that what you," would expect (,)to see a similiar difference in the treatment of amateur efforts", does happen in a fair
"but even with peer to peer mirroring of content you still have the reliability and convenience that being an aggregator of that content provides... i would rather go to slashdot where i dont have to hunt down the content i want than go searching for it."
,In that world I would say that you would be more likely to see p2p networks or freenet sites specificaly devoted and properly geared up for mirroring web pages perfectly ,you do not see this sort of thing now as there is not much demand for it .
,it would not be that hard for me to write a script which would download a complete web page strip out the adds and mirror it on
/pic /txt/ whatever),which the majority of people want and not the web desighn, also there is a large community of people at the moment who share and trade passwords to these sites.
I agree with you're point , it would be easier,(less hassel and inconvenience), for a person,(who has paid), to go to slashdot than to go out and try and find that content on a present day model p2p network,But imagine a future enviroment where a large amount of sites are subscription based
For example
some sort of p2p network or for example freenet,( although I am not to sure about the freenet example due to freenets current state of development).Opera allows you to save an entire webpage it even gives you an option to do it with or without images and to set the link depth and There are quite alot of free programs which can save a page perfectly links and all.
My point is that we do not see alot of this now because there really is not alot of sites which are subscription based , bar porn sites and with them it is the pure content(video
Also privacy programs such as peek a booty which use routing to hide a persons identity show another way which subscription sites could be viewed.If the ip is the same and if the pwd is the same how would the website know that the user was not the same? (i.e)A friend or multiple friends could go through one person to view the content on a site.