Vivendi, by destroying the music, is pretty much acknowledging that they have no legal right to do anything else with it.
Once upon a time there was a nifty place called amp3.com -- they tagged commercials on the beginning of any songs you uploaded and gave the artist 5 cents per download. They got into a legal dispute with their ISP, who took all their servers offline.
Unfortunately, ISP would not allow the *artists* to get their music off the servers -- the ISP had hijacked the music of a thousand musicians (and wouldnt' give it back -- because the music was, after all, the draw at amp3.com).
Vivendi is buying MP3.com -- ok -- and they are apparently not interested in going the same route mp3.com did. SO what will they do?
They SHOULDN'T do what michael robertson is asking, and give the mp3s to the internet archive -- that's not Vivendi's call to make, and MP3.com didn't really have the right to do that based on the agreements the musicians signed up for.
So Vivendi is being responsible, as far as I can tell, by respecting the authorship and copyright of the musicians who have uploaded their music. They're guaranteeing to the artists that their mp3's wont wind up being used in a way that WASN'T AGREED TO ON THE ARTIST AGREEMENT FOR MP3.COM.
Personally, and this is kind of sad, but I would tend to trust Vivendi more than Michael Robertson, who has proven himself over and over again to be nothing more than a mercenary opportunist who is, to quote from high-brow literature, all about the benjamins, baby.
they don't mention my name once. I mean, REALLY. Sooner or later I will force those fools to recognize my contributions. Ohhhhh, yesss, they laugh now, but someday... SOMEDAY...
Well, when a gif is interlaced it is often smaller than a non-interlaced gif. The opposite is true with png -- interlace a png and the file becomes larger. So that's a difference there.
On the other hand, interlacing was created back when we were all trucking around on 9600 baud modems, to give people something to look at while waiting for the page to load. Even on a 28.8 modem, it's not needed as much these days, unless the web designer has created horribly large and unweildy graphics, in which case the lack of a gif is the least of your problems.
I simply don't interlace the pngs on my site. None of my vistors have ever complained.
If you're getting larger file sizes with PNG, then you're using a program that creates PNG poorly.
When I converted all the graphics on my site over from GIF to PNG, I saved bandwidth. If I did my comic in GIF instead of PNG, the graphics would be much larger than they are now.
use pngcrush or some other kind of tool to optimize them if your stuck using an older version of Photoshop (some versions of photoshop have lousy PNG support) or get some shareware or free software program that supports PNG properly.
JPEGS will still be better for 24 bit color images, but with the right program PNGs will beat out GIFs.
The folks who started Handspring were the ones who invented the Palm Pilot. Then they went off to invent the Handspring. Then they got bought out by the company that sells the original thing they invented.
If this were a study in genetics, their next product would be born with webbed feet and flippers.
ARM, Gil Hamilton, and Dystopian Futures
on
Ask Larry Niven
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
My favorite stories of yours are the series of short stories you wrote about Gil Hamilton, the ARM agent with "invisible hand." Aside from the interesting character, what fascinated me was the strange, nearly dystopian world where a good thing (amazing advances in the science of organ transplants) led to a world so desperate for organs that you could get the death penalty for almost every crime in the books.
In an essay, you mentioned you'd written those stories at a time when you were very concerned about the possibility of that future actually coming to pass -- that the convenience of a technology would make the general population so rabid for it that they would become more tolerant of things we would find excessive and cruel in today's world. You also mentioned that you were less concerned about that specific future coming to pass.
If you were to write the Gil Hamilton stories today, what would be the technology you would be concerned about *instead* of organ transplants? What convenience would you see as the basis and rationalization for receiving the death penalty for breaking the speed limit more than three times?
but really, don't they have better things to do than to help large corporations buy the rest of the internet?
I'm sure Esther Dyson (genuflects) is a very smart person and all that, but I shudder to think what will happen if governments and corporations are the only people left with any say on how the internet, and the web in particular, is run. I fully expect the world wide web to become just another string of TV stations with really lousy reception. Sort of like the cable access channel, only with product placements.
Perhaps Esther Dyson (genuflects) should think twice before auctioning off the rest of the public commons... again.
I had it worked out so that when I wanted to play U7, I used a specialized config.sys that would load a bare-bones OS so I could have the memory I needed to play, and when I was doing work I'd boot to the "regular" config.sys, which gave me access to all my stuff.
Does anyone know where one can actually buy the game these days? I think I still have the disks around, but I don't know where they are.:(
You mean it'll show up in the mirrors first? I didn't mean I couldn't get into the directories, I meant there were no files listed in those directories.
Well, not exactly true -- the release statement contains links where you can (supposedly) download the pre-compiled RPMs, but the directories they link to are empty, empty, empty.
At no point did anyone say they'd done any testing. In fact, the people in the article stressed that it was only a theory, but it was one they wanted to test.
Where are you reading where the guy who proposed this idea is absolutely confident it will work? I read it more as if he was saying "hey, this is kind of cool. I'd like to see if it actually works out..."
I'm not an astronomer, but if I recall correctly, most of the reasons scientists theorize the existence of a "Planet X" have to do with anomalies in the rest of the planetary orbits that aren't cleared up by factoring in the gravitational pulls of all the planets we know about. I think people knew that Pluto existed well before it was discovered because it was obvious something was affecting Neptune's orbit -- it was "just" a matter of finding it after that. However, Pluto proved not large enough to account for _all_ the irregularities in Neptune's orbit -- it didn't mass enough.
Does this mini-planet have enough mass to affect Neptune? If so, I'd consider it a full fledged planet and leave it at that. As if I have any say at all in the process.:)
I'm talking about the way he INTERACTS with the rest of the community. I've used emacs, I've even used gcc... but I never saw him write them... I do see how he communicates to and relates with the rest of the free software world, though...
You're right, of course, and the reasons why RMS does not compromise where the GPL are concerned are very valid ones. But, and this is a problem where RMS is concerned, revolutions are as much about co-existing with your fellow revolutionaries as they are advancing your ideology.
RMS is a really smart and dedicated guy, but all I've ever seen from him are missives about what everyone should be doing. Even if he's right, he's going to piss people off to the extent where he will make people want to disagree with him on principle, no matter how correct he is.
His latest KDE article thing is a perfect example. TrollTech finally releases QT as GPLd software, and what does he do? Point out that all the old stuff is probably incompatible, and mention that because of that they've lost their right to redistribute their software unless they beg everyone for forgiveness.
That is an example of an unwillingness to compromise endangering his revolution... and if it should ever fail, he'd only have himself to blame for it.
There is a danger in branding one person the "final and sole authority" in any revolution. And make no mistake, Free Software is a revolution.
Yes, RMS wrote the license. But if he remains the only authority on the interpretation of that license, then what does any other participant have? Basically, they have what RMS lets them have, and nothing more.
If Richard Stallman is not willing to let other people participate in his revolution -- as equals, not as subordinates -- then they'll go off and start their own. That's precisely what the XEmacs people did, and that's precisely what the KDE people did... and that's what Eric Raymond did. And that's what a lot of people are doing. They're going their own way because the Old Guard won't give an inch.
Simply because companies don't want people "banned from the net" -- that means people won't buy online... and believe me, they want people buying online.
They don't care about netiquitte or responsibility, they care about dollar signs.
Mind you, I don't know that I agree with your idea anyway. How is a person supposed to KNOW they have a virus on their system. Even when you're careful you can still get stuck...
before you start making those accusations. It's only fair.
After all, companies that license UF characters need to know what they're getting into. It's not like Illiad keeps his opinions to himself, or anything.
Here's another example: I do a comic strip on my own (not to plug my own strip, but hey, the opportunities there) called Help Desk. Help Desk is a member of Keenspot, a (consortium? collective?) group of online comics that sort of pool our resources (and audiences). We now use banner advertising, and we've recently switched over to Sonar/Doubleclick ads (I protested. I was overruled. That's life.)
I'll be doing a Doubleclick parody in a month or so. I'm planning on making it reasonably vicious. Doubleclick might not like it. Tough.
The only way not to be endanger of compromise is to not try and make any money at all off anything you do. As soon as you try and make any kind of living off your work, you compromise. It's unavoidable. I didn't used to display banner ads, but I do now. That's certainly a compromise. I don't quite think it's selling out.
Illiad is successful enough that he'd have leverage when it comes to licensing. I doubt very much a sotware company is going to try and bring out the heavies on him -- he's got enough of an audience so that if he parodied them on it, they'd be pretty embarrassed.
So again, I feel the need to say, don't prejudge the guy.
I'm just suprised at all negative reactions from this post. I mean, I know a lot of people who don't care for User Friendly the comic strip. I know a few people who really dislike some of the jokes Illiad tells. But I never expected this amount of heat concerning Illiad's strip... it really does leave me feeling bewildered.
Glad you like Help Desk... you'll be happy to know I have no plans to license my characters out to computer companies.:)
If Illiad suddenly started hawking Microsoft, plugging Microsoft on his strip, and the Dust Puppy suddenly appeared on Microsoft software boxes, that would be selling out.
I don't see what's wrong with Illiad merchandising his strip. It is, after all, his, and if he wants to license Pitr out to companies, what's wrong with it?
Why do people resent success? Illiad worked pretty hard to get where he is today, why are you dragging him down for it?
Why do people resent the fact that Illiad is successful? I love it -- I enjoy User Friendly as a comic strip, and it's great to see an online comic artist actually supporting himself (and supporting himself well) on his work. It gives the rest of us hope, let me tell you...
The thing I've never understood about this kind of hate mail is that if you really dislike the strip, all you have to do is NOT GO TO USERFRIENDLY.ORG. It's not like Illiad spams the net with his strip or anything like that.
Perhaps you're just unable to allow other people to appreciate what you don't? Only explanation that makes sense to me...
I do my own comic strip. It's called Help Desk. Illiad is a success story that has encouraged a lot of us... even some of the online comic strip artists who don't like Illiad are still spurred by his success. More power to him!
It doesn't matter if they've heard of copyleft or not... Patent Law and Copyright Law are two different beasts. Patented things may be copyrighted... maybe... but copyrighting (more likely trademarking) something you've patented would simply be a trademark of the product you've created based on a patent.
As far as I know the idea of copyleft doesn't translate well into the world of patents. Which is not a good thing...
Slashdot Mirror
Vivendi, by destroying the music, is pretty much acknowledging that they have no legal right to do anything else with it.
Once upon a time there was a nifty place called amp3.com -- they tagged commercials on the beginning of any songs you uploaded and gave the artist 5 cents per download. They got into a legal dispute with their ISP, who took all their servers offline.
Unfortunately, ISP would not allow the *artists* to get their music off the servers -- the ISP had hijacked the music of a thousand musicians (and wouldnt' give it back -- because the music was, after all, the draw at amp3.com).
Vivendi is buying MP3.com -- ok -- and they are apparently not interested in going the same route mp3.com did. SO what will they do?
They SHOULDN'T do what michael robertson is asking, and give the mp3s to the internet archive -- that's not Vivendi's call to make, and MP3.com didn't really have the right to do that based on the agreements the musicians signed up for.
So Vivendi is being responsible, as far as I can tell, by respecting the authorship and copyright of the musicians who have uploaded their music. They're guaranteeing to the artists that their mp3's wont wind up being used in a way that WASN'T AGREED TO ON THE ARTIST AGREEMENT FOR MP3.COM.
Personally, and this is kind of sad, but I would tend to trust Vivendi more than Michael Robertson, who has proven himself over and over again to be nothing more than a mercenary opportunist who is, to quote from high-brow literature, all about the benjamins, baby.
they don't mention my name once. I mean, REALLY. Sooner or later I will force those fools to recognize my contributions. Ohhhhh, yesss, they laugh now, but someday... SOMEDAY...
muah. a. hah. ah.
Well, when a gif is interlaced it is often smaller than a non-interlaced gif. The opposite is true with png -- interlace a png and the file becomes larger. So that's a difference there.
On the other hand, interlacing was created back when we were all trucking around on 9600 baud modems, to give people something to look at while waiting for the page to load. Even on a 28.8 modem, it's not needed as much these days, unless the web designer has created horribly large and unweildy graphics, in which case the lack of a gif is the least of your problems.
I simply don't interlace the pngs on my site. None of my vistors have ever complained.
If you're getting larger file sizes with PNG, then you're using a program that creates PNG poorly.
When I converted all the graphics on my site over from GIF to PNG, I saved bandwidth. If I did my comic in GIF instead of PNG, the graphics would be much larger than they are now.
use pngcrush or some other kind of tool to optimize them if your stuck using an older version of Photoshop (some versions of photoshop have lousy PNG support) or get some shareware or free software program that supports PNG properly.
JPEGS will still be better for 24 bit color images, but with the right program PNGs will beat out GIFs.
The folks who started Handspring were the ones who invented the Palm Pilot. Then they went off to invent the Handspring. Then they got bought out by the company that sells the original thing they invented.
If this were a study in genetics, their next product would be born with webbed feet and flippers.
My favorite stories of yours are the series of short stories you wrote about Gil Hamilton, the ARM agent with "invisible hand." Aside from the interesting character, what fascinated me was the strange, nearly dystopian world where a good thing (amazing advances in the science of organ transplants) led to a world so desperate for organs that you could get the death penalty for almost every crime in the books.
In an essay, you mentioned you'd written those stories at a time when you were very concerned about the possibility of that future actually coming to pass -- that the convenience of a technology would make the general population so rabid for it that they would become more tolerant of things we would find excessive and cruel in today's world. You also mentioned that you were less concerned about that specific future coming to pass.
If you were to write the Gil Hamilton stories today, what would be the technology you would be concerned about *instead* of organ transplants? What convenience would you see as the basis and rationalization for receiving the death penalty for breaking the speed limit more than three times?
but really, don't they have better things to do than to help large corporations buy the rest of the internet?
I'm sure Esther Dyson (genuflects) is a very smart person and all that, but I shudder to think what will happen if governments and corporations are the only people left with any say on how the internet, and the web in particular, is run. I fully expect the world wide web to become just another string of TV stations with really lousy reception. Sort of like the cable access channel, only with product placements.
Perhaps Esther Dyson (genuflects) should think twice before auctioning off the rest of the public commons... again.
that by that time, someone will have come up with a converter that makes those previously purchased HDTV sets compatible?
I had it worked out so that when I wanted to play U7, I used a specialized config.sys that would load a bare-bones OS so I could have the memory I needed to play, and when I was doing work I'd boot to the "regular" config.sys, which gave me access to all my stuff.
:(
Does anyone know where one can actually buy the game these days? I think I still have the disks around, but I don't know where they are.
Where are you reading where the guy who proposed this idea is absolutely confident it will work? I read it more as if he was saying "hey, this is kind of cool. I'd like to see if it actually works out..."
I'm not an astronomer, but if I recall correctly, most of the reasons scientists theorize the existence of a "Planet X" have to do with anomalies in the rest of the planetary orbits that aren't cleared up by factoring in the gravitational pulls of all the planets we know about. I think people knew that Pluto existed well before it was discovered because it was obvious something was affecting Neptune's orbit -- it was "just" a matter of finding it after that. However, Pluto proved not large enough to account for _all_ the irregularities in Neptune's orbit -- it didn't mass enough.
:)
Does this mini-planet have enough mass to affect Neptune? If so, I'd consider it a full fledged planet and leave it at that. As if I have any say at all in the process.
I'm talking about the way he INTERACTS with the rest of the community. I've used emacs, I've even used gcc... but I never saw him write them... I do see how he communicates to and relates with the rest of the free software world, though...
You're right, of course, and the reasons why RMS does not compromise where the GPL are concerned are very valid ones. But, and this is a problem where RMS is concerned, revolutions are as much about co-existing with your fellow revolutionaries as they are advancing your ideology.
RMS is a really smart and dedicated guy, but all I've ever seen from him are missives about what everyone should be doing. Even if he's right, he's going to piss people off to the extent where he will make people want to disagree with him on principle, no matter how correct he is.
His latest KDE article thing is a perfect example. TrollTech finally releases QT as GPLd software, and what does he do? Point out that all the old stuff is probably incompatible, and mention that because of that they've lost their right to redistribute their software unless they beg everyone for forgiveness.
That is an example of an unwillingness to compromise endangering his revolution... and if it should ever fail, he'd only have himself to blame for it.
He should write code less and study history more.
There is a danger in branding one person the "final and sole authority" in any revolution. And make no mistake, Free Software is a revolution.
Yes, RMS wrote the license. But if he remains the only authority on the interpretation of that license, then what does any other participant have? Basically, they have what RMS lets them have, and nothing more.
If Richard Stallman is not willing to let other people participate in his revolution -- as equals, not as subordinates -- then they'll go off and start their own. That's precisely what the XEmacs people did, and that's precisely what the KDE people did... and that's what Eric Raymond did. And that's what a lot of people are doing. They're going their own way because the Old Guard won't give an inch.
I think that's what it was called...
That's why I used the !@#$ smiley
because I don't see any Internet Explorer integration ANYWHERE. :)
Simply because companies don't want people "banned from the net" -- that means people won't buy online... and believe me, they want people buying online.
They don't care about netiquitte or responsibility, they care about dollar signs.
Mind you, I don't know that I agree with your idea anyway. How is a person supposed to KNOW they have a virus on their system. Even when you're careful you can still get stuck...
before you start making those accusations. It's only fair.
After all, companies that license UF characters need to know what they're getting into. It's not like Illiad keeps his opinions to himself, or anything.
Here's another example: I do a comic strip on my own (not to plug my own strip, but hey, the opportunities there) called Help Desk. Help Desk is a member of Keenspot, a (consortium? collective?) group of online comics that sort of pool our resources (and audiences). We now use banner advertising, and we've recently switched over to Sonar/Doubleclick ads (I protested. I was overruled. That's life.)
I'll be doing a Doubleclick parody in a month or so. I'm planning on making it reasonably vicious. Doubleclick might not like it. Tough.
The only way not to be endanger of compromise is to not try and make any money at all off anything you do. As soon as you try and make any kind of living off your work, you compromise. It's unavoidable. I didn't used to display banner ads, but I do now. That's certainly a compromise. I don't quite think it's selling out.
Illiad is successful enough that he'd have leverage when it comes to licensing. I doubt very much a sotware company is going to try and bring out the heavies on him -- he's got enough of an audience so that if he parodied them on it, they'd be pretty embarrassed.
So again, I feel the need to say, don't prejudge the guy.
I'm just suprised at all negative reactions from this post. I mean, I know a lot of people who don't care for User Friendly the comic strip. I know a few people who really dislike some of the jokes Illiad tells. But I never expected this amount of heat concerning Illiad's strip... it really does leave me feeling bewildered.
:)
Glad you like Help Desk... you'll be happy to know I have no plans to license my characters out to computer companies.
If Illiad suddenly started hawking Microsoft, plugging Microsoft on his strip, and the Dust Puppy suddenly appeared on Microsoft software boxes, that would be selling out.
I don't see what's wrong with Illiad merchandising his strip. It is, after all, his, and if he wants to license Pitr out to companies, what's wrong with it?
Why do people resent success? Illiad worked pretty hard to get where he is today, why are you dragging him down for it?
Why do people resent the fact that Illiad is successful? I love it -- I enjoy User Friendly as a comic strip, and it's great to see an online comic artist actually supporting himself (and supporting himself well) on his work. It gives the rest of us hope, let me tell you...
The thing I've never understood about this kind of hate mail is that if you really dislike the strip, all you have to do is NOT GO TO USERFRIENDLY.ORG. It's not like Illiad spams the net with his strip or anything like that.
Perhaps you're just unable to allow other people to appreciate what you don't? Only explanation that makes sense to me...
I do my own comic strip. It's called Help Desk. Illiad is a success story that has encouraged a lot of us... even some of the online comic strip artists who don't like Illiad are still spurred by his success. More power to him!
It doesn't matter if they've heard of copyleft or not... Patent Law and Copyright Law are two different beasts. Patented things may be copyrighted... maybe... but copyrighting (more likely trademarking) something you've patented would simply be a trademark of the product you've created based on a patent.
As far as I know the idea of copyleft doesn't translate well into the world of patents. Which is not a good thing...