Seriously: is this a reaction to Mastercard's decision to make things a lot more difficult for Paypal users?
Re:Need to do more than complain
on
CFP 2002 Wrapup
·
· Score: 1
This and all the other attacks on my original posting miss the point. Existing technologies - VCRs etc - were attacked by the industry and, yes, the industry had to learn to live with it.
But the difference this time is that hackers and users are demanding the right to copy these things for free and pass them on to whomever (see RMS's comments on MP3s in the O'Reilly Free as in freedom).
Who is going to make Star Wars if it is legal and moral for one person to buy the DVD and rip it and distribute it to all their friends?
As for the comment that legislators don't have a role in ensuring that any particular industry does or doesn't make a profit - who are you kidding? What are the laws on dumping all about then? And drugs? All drugs...
It's fair enough for the so-called libertarians to advocate anarchy but that is not the society that most people want to live in.
Oh, and by the way, if you were going hungry you'd pretty soon revise your view on what constituted freedom...
Need to do more than complain
on
CFP 2002 Wrapup
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Hackers/computer users need to remember that Hollywood and the entertainment industry employ thousands - if not millions - and generate huge revenues for the US.
If we want to complain about the media industries taking away our freedoms then we have to have an alternative business plan that will assure John and Joanna Doe that we are not destroying their livlihood in the name of our freedom.
For them, freedom from want and hunger is pretty important too.
And what are these networks going to, er, network?
Where is the content coming from? I am not interested in what the basket weaving hippies nextdoor are up to - I want to interact with the real world.
I have just ordered the equipment and I intend to become a node on consume.net.
Yes, I like the idea of the freedom it will give me (if a real node ever appears near me - the nearest is more than 5000 metres away) - but that is because it allows new ways of transmitting and receiving real world content, not because I am interested in some sort of dole cheats paradise or the latest news from the nappy recycling convention.
The argument that because MS paid some taxes it should a right to anything paid for by taxpayers' money is so dumb it hardly merits a response - but here goes:
* Taxpayers' help fund the universities - so why don't we have a right to anything produced by graduates?
* Taxpayers fund defence - so why can't we all use defence secrets?
Gates's attempts to turn this into some sort of moral argument are clearly tripe - as the above points demonstrate.
It's about policy - governments should choose an approach that delivers the policy outcoem they want.
As an alternative to the monopoly seems to be in the interests of all governments everywhere, that seems a pretty good argument for using GPLed stuff.
Yes - you geddit now, Bill - governments want to screw you, because you've been screwing them for years!
Ha ha.
Those of use old enough to remember these things will know that just over 20 years ago, MS really were a hardware company.
Their biggest seller back then was an expansion board for the Apple II that allowed users to run z80 (CP/M type stuff) on that machine.
Then some d0rk from IBM came along and offered them a software contract... and you know the rest.
Slashdot Mirror
...about this one being called Linux and not GNU/Linux as it seems stuffed full of very unfree software.
Seriously: is this a reaction to Mastercard's decision to make things a lot more difficult for Paypal users?
This and all the other attacks on my original posting miss the point. Existing technologies - VCRs etc - were attacked by the industry and, yes, the industry had to learn to live with it.
But the difference this time is that hackers and users are demanding the right to copy these things for free and pass them on to whomever (see RMS's comments on MP3s in the O'Reilly Free as in freedom).
Who is going to make Star Wars if it is legal and moral for one person to buy the DVD and rip it and distribute it to all their friends?
As for the comment that legislators don't have a role in ensuring that any particular industry does or doesn't make a profit - who are you kidding? What are the laws on dumping all about then? And drugs? All drugs...
It's fair enough for the so-called libertarians to advocate anarchy but that is not the society that most people want to live in.
Oh, and by the way, if you were going hungry you'd pretty soon revise your view on what constituted freedom...
Hackers/computer users need to remember that Hollywood and the entertainment industry employ thousands - if not millions - and generate huge revenues for the US. If we want to complain about the media industries taking away our freedoms then we have to have an alternative business plan that will assure John and Joanna Doe that we are not destroying their livlihood in the name of our freedom. For them, freedom from want and hunger is pretty important too.
And what are these networks going to, er, network? Where is the content coming from? I am not interested in what the basket weaving hippies nextdoor are up to - I want to interact with the real world. I have just ordered the equipment and I intend to become a node on consume.net. Yes, I like the idea of the freedom it will give me (if a real node ever appears near me - the nearest is more than 5000 metres away) - but that is because it allows new ways of transmitting and receiving real world content, not because I am interested in some sort of dole cheats paradise or the latest news from the nappy recycling convention.
The argument that because MS paid some taxes it should a right to anything paid for by taxpayers' money is so dumb it hardly merits a response - but here goes:
* Taxpayers' help fund the universities - so why don't we have a right to anything produced by graduates?
* Taxpayers fund defence - so why can't we all use defence secrets?
Gates's attempts to turn this into some sort of moral argument are clearly tripe - as the above points demonstrate.
It's about policy - governments should choose an approach that delivers the policy outcoem they want.
As an alternative to the monopoly seems to be in the interests of all governments everywhere, that seems a pretty good argument for using GPLed stuff.
Yes - you geddit now, Bill - governments want to screw you, because you've been screwing them for years!
The real question is: will the DVD be CSSed?
Ha ha. Those of use old enough to remember these things will know that just over 20 years ago, MS really were a hardware company. Their biggest seller back then was an expansion board for the Apple II that allowed users to run z80 (CP/M type stuff) on that machine. Then some d0rk from IBM came along and offered them a software contract... and you know the rest.