The point would seem to be- have Linux, or open systems in general, positioned to be the DVD in the equation... and then let Windows go to hell and collapse from its own weight. Remember, Microsoft cannot afford to just let people keep using its products without continuing to upgrade and pay! They will shift people off older Windowses FOR you. Just intercept those people as they're unwillingly shifted off to something newer, and get 'em them...
This business of cloning the Windows look and feel is a bit silly because most people don't fully understand Windows either- they dig out a Dummies book, or get someone to help them.
I sympathise with John Gilmore. As it happens, I am flying out of Logan for a con over Labor Day Weekend. Before then, I am going to need to get current photo ID, because I haven't driven for years and my driver's license is old and expired.
I can only imagine the kind of searches and obstacles I will incur, showing up with a NEW photo ID, and one that is not a driver's license! Perhaps they'll just drag me off and shoot me for being too weird. How much more suspicious could you get?
Furthermore I'll be travelling with plastic tubs and a carry-on. I intend to have the tubs containing no metallic items at all, and where that's not possible, a manifest of exactly what is supposed to be in them. In addition, they'll be sealed with cable-ties and I will be travelling without any means of cutting the cable ties when I get to my destination- not even nail clippers.
I am sure this too is so suspicious they'll shoot me twice O_O
Have at 'em, John. Unfortunately, next month when I fly, I won't really have an option to stand on principle. Gotta get to my con, and so I will be compelled to get the photo ID and present it regardless of how reasonable that is, and I shall comply with any searches or interrogations they feel like hitting me with, to any extent.
It's nice that SOME people have the freedom to protest this sort of crap. I won't. I won't have the flexibility to have my travel totally disrupted for a matter of principle. So, I will depend on people like John who do have that flexibility.
You can do just as impressive demos with other sorts of tools in other sorts of contexts.
On the Mac, for light-duty applications with extensive GUI widget use, the development tool REALbasic is like that. You can drag controls onto a window and build working 'mockup' applications without even writing code, even to the point that they will have tabbing between windows, drag and drop, etc... if you can program well using widgets and an object model you can knock out functional apps absurdly fast.
I'm of the mind that what needs to happen is Microsoft needs to be clubbed over the head until dead, because if not for them, LOTS of people would be making IDEs and tools like this. The way things stand, you have to have a product as great as REALbasic, AND you have to have it on an alternate platform like the Mac, in order to get anywhere with it. And since there's lots of gearheads programming Linux, they're not racing to develop this sort of thing... not their style or their culture...
"Why do I feel like many of the highly-moderated posts on this thread were written by people on Microsoft's payroll? Has Slashdot been highjacked?"
(quoted, because the same kind of people seem to have at least one 'Troll' moderation on this guy- starting from 2 I can make it a bit more difficult for 'em to suppress this meme)
Slashdot has not been hijacked. Slashdot is, and has always been, open to astroturfing just as it is to genuine feedback. Nothing is stopping anyone from astroturfing Slashdot: they can do it on company time for all _I_ care, and welcome to it. We know Microsoft has people do this: they've been caught doing it before. It's not even some evil plot from Bill Gates: the company culture so strongly reinforces that type of behavior that it's like a negative value system- what would seem bad to you (astroturfing, putting up fake positive posts professing to be not Microsoft PR but real users and fellow slashdotters) would be seen as totally good and loyal and clever and virtuous, within Microsoft.
Besides, everybody knows Microsoft ARE geeks, so why wouldn't they be reading Slashdot?
You just have to learn to identify when they are doing their thing, that's all. Just because someone is a geek, or smart, doesn't mean they are honest. Some of the MS slashdotters are very open about where they're from. Because, WITHIN Microsoft, that is not as good as laying down some astroturf to compete harder, some of the MS slashdotters are taking nicks and astroturfing their little hearts out, probably to show their bosses in hopes of looking more Microsoftish to the boss. This is just the way the world works.
Get used to not believing everything you see, hear or read- even on Slashdot. ESPECIALLY on Slashdot. Half the time if you see a 'voice of reason', especially if it's pushing for things like leniency towards Microsoft, acceptance of non-YRO-friendly stuff and so on... it's probably a plant.
Yes, Virginia, people on Microsoft's payroll and people of Microsoft's corporate culture ARE still permitted to post things to Slashdot. Even if it's propaganda. Even if it's flat-out lies.
Or are you saying you can be certain they do not have submarine patents they can use against that situation, despite years of evidence that MS does appraise threats, and despite the fact MS is well stocked with crazed piranha lawyers?
Funny, BBEdit Lite handles enormous files, word counts, paginates, does regular and GREP search and replace, and basically does pretty much anything an author could want for reliably recording lots and lots of words.
Oh, or did you mean 'most viable cheesy bloated desktop publisher to set everything in Comic Sans with 72 point Vivaldi headings and Zapf Dingbats strewn all over the place? Yeah, that's Word:D
Writers write. You may be thinking of graphics designers or desktop flyer and brochure publishers... particularly for the type of writing Piers does, it makes more sense than you'd think to go with a hardcore pure text editor.
1: nope, Marathon is 2.5d like Doom. This does mean you get to have 5D space (overlapping geometry)
2: "Frog blast the vent core!":D
3: That's an understatement- Bungie's use of terminal text and the insane mindfsck plot twist have never been equalled
4: You think that's fun? Try two shotguns one in each hand. No, I'm not making that up:) now, if only you could have two fletchette guns... or two Spankers...
No way- it's true! Big thanks. Now I have sold 3 CDs instead of 1. This is the right direction to be going in! Hope you like them. Whatcha think of the 'Wounded Skies' inner gatefold? (ah, if only I could release vinyl 12" records with full size covers)
Some of that percussion clarity on 'Koala' is from Open Source (GPL) digital audio mastering software:D
Heh. Yeah, like Janis Ian made a fortune. Another example: Roger McGuinn (The Byrds, 'Eight Miles High', 'Mr. Tambourine Man') never got paid anything either.
You are right that his back catalogue makes up a sizeable portion of record company revenue.
The trouble is... take another example, John Fogerty with the Creedence back catalog. He got a hosing that was unusually bad even for the record industry. The tune 'Vanz Kant Danz' was originally 'Zanz Kant Danz' (but he steal yo money..), about Zaentz (sp?) the head of Fantasy records. You'd think he'd be raring to fight the music industry... but his experiences hurt him SO bad that he eventually had to let it go, give up and stop caring about it. He probably lost years off his life because of the rage and betrayal and the emotional toll of it all. It is just too high a price to pay, and he should be left alone if he doesn't want to fight.
How many of the favorite aging rockers have been hosed that badly and ended up just giving up and writing it off? You really can't fight forever. Eventually people have to turn the fight over to others, and rest, or they just plain burn out and die. I'm just glad some of their stories are on record...
You have to succeed on your own initiative before a major label will get behind you.
Period.
Ask Metallica- few bands ever worked harder to get in a position to get signed. They may have worked so hard that they've been paid royalties- Janis Ian has never been paid one cent in royalties over her entire career.
Which raises the question, if you have to succeed on your own initiative in order to get signed and do serious tonnage of shipped CDs, but you won't get paid even if you do, then what is the point? Is it really all about wanting to play star for a month or a year? Is that enough? How hosed will you be when the month or year is up and the record company is not 'behind' you (if indeed they ever were)?
At my URL above, I have some rather uncommercial music. It's mostly just downloadable. I put a lot of effort into making CDs, though- they're 12$, which gets me a couple bucks over and above the cost of making it (I chose a pretty slick packaging, which is more costly).
I've sold one, for two bucks in 'royalties'.
That's two bucks more in royalties than Janis Ian has ever been paid for her entire major label career, by her own account. "In 37 years as a recording artist, I've created 25+ albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money." I'm not even 37 years OLD, myself...
As if that's not enough, I can get CDs made pretty cheaply if I made 1000 or so, and can get them one at a time back from Ampcast for 7-10 bucks- and even at that, it's a better deal than BMG artists can get on their own CDs, should they wish to sell 'em at shows: "BMG has a strict policy for artists buying their own CDs to sell at concerts - $11 per CD."
This article is even more damning than the Courtney Love article. My jaw is just dropping, and I was far from uninformed to start with... and I never knew how well off I was as a starving indie with no sales. Funny how I'm owed more royalties than a multiple Grammy winner...
Re:Cracksmoke Detected! Send moderation reinforcem
on
MS Palladium Patent
·
· Score: 2
Your faith that Microsoft will NOT pull an 'Enron' or 'WorldCom' is touching- but possibly misplaced.
Not that any corporation would EVER LIE about how much money it REALLY has! Gee, that would be dishonest:D
I'm with you on the panic and all, but you're in for some very big surprises. To you, they will be pleasant surprises. To others, maybe not-so.
Maybe you can do something comparable- sit on the beach and throw rocks into a lake. For every three rocks you throw, when they splash into the lake, say that rocks fall down.
The fourth time, claim that rocks fall up:D
If there isn't anything good about Microsoft, or cancer, or nuclear war, or Enron, or WorldCom, etc etc, then it is honest to say nothing good about them, and to make up good stuff isn't 'balanced', it's just stupid. Might as well say rocks fall up.
Next time you develop repetitive stress injuries from typing pro-Microsoft posts on Slashdot, how about you balance out the advice to slow down and save your wrists, with the counterpoint view, that you should type twice as much until your hands are permanently destroyed and you can no longer use them? Then, not only would you be representing all viewpoints (even the stupid ones), but you wouldn't be posting anymore and we'd all be happier;)
Sorry, got a little carried away there. ow, my wrists!;)
No no no;) the GPL is chaotic good, because it makes a point of breaking down control situations! It specifically undercuts attempts at using code in proprietary, controlled situations.
The BSD licenses are the lawful good, because they are for the good of cooperation, but they like working within controlled situations too, and they coexist well with the proprietary. Hell, they help it out, happily. TCP/IP stack? With our blessing, go out and get 'em tiger.;)
Public Domain would be true neutral- making no demands in any direction and having no agenda whatsoever.
You can't look at the terms of these licenses for their 'alignments'- you have to look at their agendas and the situations they want to work with. Unless your take on a chaotic good person is someone who sits there twitching a lot;) order and organization are tools, and chaos is using localized order to further general chaos.
The GPL is down with the chaotic good;) you simply can't further as much happy, productive chaos any other way:D
If Microsoft has earned your distrust, isn't it wrong of you to always try and give them a fair shake? It sounds as though you are actively trying to not learn from experience. For instance, by trying to support what they want to do with Palladium, on the principle that they haven't shown malice THIS time and their plans could be construed as nicey nicey.
Or something.
Don't ask me, it's not like _I_ make a point of giving them a fair shake with their new proposals. I feel I understand their motives and behavior patterns well enough by now, and that I know what to expect from them.
After all, these are the people who came up with a twist on 'open source' that, far from being unencumbered, is just as viral as the GPL but carries an opposite payload- namely, legally binding admissions that could be used against undesired software projects for the life of the programmer.
Now you Linux guys know what we musicians were talking about when we warned you about Michael Robertson:D
I love the removing lots of useful programs and trying to charge $99 for them. So cute. What a slime:D he's not changed a bit! I wonder if Wal-Mart will figure out they're being conned. Imagine the word on the street being 'oh, you should try Linux- wait, but for God's sake not Wal-Mart Linux! Don't do that, do this instead...'
"Don't ask me why I play this music It's my culture, so naturally I use it..."
*sound of plug being pulled*
*sound of jump into future to 2069*
Culture? What's a 'culture'? Oh, you mean those things people used to have back when they had the amazing and unthinkable technology to *gasp* play one tape and record it onto another, thereby making what's called a 'copy'.
At one time, people actually did this! That was before the zero copying initiative, and of course before the move to SDs (Sayonara Discs) with their shelf life of two years or 300 plays, whichever comes first.
Which is why there are still recordings from 100 years ago, 1969, but there is no record of any visual or musical performance from ten years ago, 2059.
If it wasn't illegal to express such doubts, a person might well wonder whether we as a society really made the right decision in outlawing all forms of sound and video archiving...
*POW!*
*sound of doubt-expresser falling dead*
Another intellectual terrorist made safe for society by the copyright industry;)
If you run a trade show, do you have to allow criminals to get booths if they want them?
It's like some kind of twisted variation on the antitrust trial. "But of course we have to let them in, and give them space if they pay for it. How else do you expect them to threaten our customers?"
I'm pretty disappointed that this was allowed. Can we have a bit of perspective here? Is this show not private property?
True, which is why it's so interesting that the actual Coursey editorial was on the 'no way' side.
You should read what's being linked to sometimes- it's especially interesting when people act against type. Coursey publically rejecting this stuff is news of a sort: maybe he's not going to say a blessed thing Slashbots haven't known for years, but the fact that it's him saying it is VERY interesting.
And there may be people who wouldn't listen to a Slashbot in 1000 years who'll do a doubletake seeing Coursey, 'one of us', reject this stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
And LP 'lost' to CD.
The point would seem to be- have Linux, or open systems in general, positioned to be the DVD in the equation... and then let Windows go to hell and collapse from its own weight. Remember, Microsoft cannot afford to just let people keep using its products without continuing to upgrade and pay! They will shift people off older Windowses FOR you. Just intercept those people as they're unwillingly shifted off to something newer, and get 'em them...
This business of cloning the Windows look and feel is a bit silly because most people don't fully understand Windows either- they dig out a Dummies book, or get someone to help them.
Oooo O_O
How MESSY! ;D
Hey, I trust them better than I trust us. More power to 'em, and let's not try to implement that here OK?
I can only imagine the kind of searches and obstacles I will incur, showing up with a NEW photo ID, and one that is not a driver's license! Perhaps they'll just drag me off and shoot me for being too weird. How much more suspicious could you get?
Furthermore I'll be travelling with plastic tubs and a carry-on. I intend to have the tubs containing no metallic items at all, and where that's not possible, a manifest of exactly what is supposed to be in them. In addition, they'll be sealed with cable-ties and I will be travelling without any means of cutting the cable ties when I get to my destination- not even nail clippers.
I am sure this too is so suspicious they'll shoot me twice O_O
Have at 'em, John. Unfortunately, next month when I fly, I won't really have an option to stand on principle. Gotta get to my con, and so I will be compelled to get the photo ID and present it regardless of how reasonable that is, and I shall comply with any searches or interrogations they feel like hitting me with, to any extent.
It's nice that SOME people have the freedom to protest this sort of crap. I won't. I won't have the flexibility to have my travel totally disrupted for a matter of principle. So, I will depend on people like John who do have that flexibility.
On the Mac, for light-duty applications with extensive GUI widget use, the development tool REALbasic is like that. You can drag controls onto a window and build working 'mockup' applications without even writing code, even to the point that they will have tabbing between windows, drag and drop, etc... if you can program well using widgets and an object model you can knock out functional apps absurdly fast.
I'm of the mind that what needs to happen is Microsoft needs to be clubbed over the head until dead, because if not for them, LOTS of people would be making IDEs and tools like this. The way things stand, you have to have a product as great as REALbasic, AND you have to have it on an alternate platform like the Mac, in order to get anywhere with it. And since there's lots of gearheads programming Linux, they're not racing to develop this sort of thing... not their style or their culture...
(quoted, because the same kind of people seem to have at least one 'Troll' moderation on this guy- starting from 2 I can make it a bit more difficult for 'em to suppress this meme)
Slashdot has not been hijacked. Slashdot is, and has always been, open to astroturfing just as it is to genuine feedback. Nothing is stopping anyone from astroturfing Slashdot: they can do it on company time for all _I_ care, and welcome to it. We know Microsoft has people do this: they've been caught doing it before. It's not even some evil plot from Bill Gates: the company culture so strongly reinforces that type of behavior that it's like a negative value system- what would seem bad to you (astroturfing, putting up fake positive posts professing to be not Microsoft PR but real users and fellow slashdotters) would be seen as totally good and loyal and clever and virtuous, within Microsoft.
Besides, everybody knows Microsoft ARE geeks, so why wouldn't they be reading Slashdot?
You just have to learn to identify when they are doing their thing, that's all. Just because someone is a geek, or smart, doesn't mean they are honest. Some of the MS slashdotters are very open about where they're from. Because, WITHIN Microsoft, that is not as good as laying down some astroturf to compete harder, some of the MS slashdotters are taking nicks and astroturfing their little hearts out, probably to show their bosses in hopes of looking more Microsoftish to the boss. This is just the way the world works.
Get used to not believing everything you see, hear or read- even on Slashdot. ESPECIALLY on Slashdot. Half the time if you see a 'voice of reason', especially if it's pushing for things like leniency towards Microsoft, acceptance of non-YRO-friendly stuff and so on... it's probably a plant.
Yes, Virginia, people on Microsoft's payroll and people of Microsoft's corporate culture ARE still permitted to post things to Slashdot. Even if it's propaganda. Even if it's flat-out lies.
Welcome to freedom, hold on to your wallet :D
Or are you saying you can be certain they do not have submarine patents they can use against that situation, despite years of evidence that MS does appraise threats, and despite the fact MS is well stocked with crazed piranha lawyers?
Is it in fact a part of the U.S. Government?
If it is, what the HELL are they doing acting as Microsoft lobbyists?
If it isn't, then what is it really?
Oh, or did you mean 'most viable cheesy bloated desktop publisher to set everything in Comic Sans with 72 point Vivaldi headings and Zapf Dingbats strewn all over the place? Yeah, that's Word :D
Writers write. You may be thinking of graphics designers or desktop flyer and brochure publishers... particularly for the type of writing Piers does, it makes more sense than you'd think to go with a hardcore pure text editor.
1: nope, Marathon is 2.5d like Doom. This does mean you get to have 5D space (overlapping geometry) 2: "Frog blast the vent core!" :D
3: That's an understatement- Bungie's use of terminal text and the insane mindfsck plot twist have never been equalled
4: You think that's fun? Try two shotguns one in each hand. No, I'm not making that up :) now, if only you could have two fletchette guns... or two Spankers...
Some of that percussion clarity on 'Koala' is from Open Source (GPL) digital audio mastering software :D
You are right that his back catalogue makes up a sizeable portion of record company revenue.
The trouble is... take another example, John Fogerty with the Creedence back catalog. He got a hosing that was unusually bad even for the record industry. The tune 'Vanz Kant Danz' was originally 'Zanz Kant Danz' (but he steal yo money..), about Zaentz (sp?) the head of Fantasy records. You'd think he'd be raring to fight the music industry... but his experiences hurt him SO bad that he eventually had to let it go, give up and stop caring about it. He probably lost years off his life because of the rage and betrayal and the emotional toll of it all. It is just too high a price to pay, and he should be left alone if he doesn't want to fight.
How many of the favorite aging rockers have been hosed that badly and ended up just giving up and writing it off? You really can't fight forever. Eventually people have to turn the fight over to others, and rest, or they just plain burn out and die. I'm just glad some of their stories are on record...
You have to succeed on your own initiative before a major label will get behind you.
Period.
Ask Metallica- few bands ever worked harder to get in a position to get signed. They may have worked so hard that they've been paid royalties- Janis Ian has never been paid one cent in royalties over her entire career.
Which raises the question, if you have to succeed on your own initiative in order to get signed and do serious tonnage of shipped CDs, but you won't get paid even if you do, then what is the point? Is it really all about wanting to play star for a month or a year? Is that enough? How hosed will you be when the month or year is up and the record company is not 'behind' you (if indeed they ever were)?
....erm, nominee ;)
I've sold one, for two bucks in 'royalties'.
That's two bucks more in royalties than Janis Ian has ever been paid for her entire major label career, by her own account. "In 37 years as a recording artist, I've created 25+ albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money." I'm not even 37 years OLD, myself...
As if that's not enough, I can get CDs made pretty cheaply if I made 1000 or so, and can get them one at a time back from Ampcast for 7-10 bucks- and even at that, it's a better deal than BMG artists can get on their own CDs, should they wish to sell 'em at shows: "BMG has a strict policy for artists buying their own CDs to sell at concerts - $11 per CD."
This article is even more damning than the Courtney Love article. My jaw is just dropping, and I was far from uninformed to start with... and I never knew how well off I was as a starving indie with no sales. Funny how I'm owed more royalties than a multiple Grammy winner...
Not that any corporation would EVER LIE about how much money it REALLY has! Gee, that would be dishonest :D
I'm with you on the panic and all, but you're in for some very big surprises. To you, they will be pleasant surprises. To others, maybe not-so.
Maybe you can do something comparable- sit on the beach and throw rocks into a lake. For every three rocks you throw, when they splash into the lake, say that rocks fall down.
The fourth time, claim that rocks fall up :D
If there isn't anything good about Microsoft, or cancer, or nuclear war, or Enron, or WorldCom, etc etc, then it is honest to say nothing good about them, and to make up good stuff isn't 'balanced', it's just stupid. Might as well say rocks fall up.
Next time you develop repetitive stress injuries from typing pro-Microsoft posts on Slashdot, how about you balance out the advice to slow down and save your wrists, with the counterpoint view, that you should type twice as much until your hands are permanently destroyed and you can no longer use them? Then, not only would you be representing all viewpoints (even the stupid ones), but you wouldn't be posting anymore and we'd all be happier ;)
Sorry, got a little carried away there. ow, my wrists! ;)
The BSD licenses are the lawful good, because they are for the good of cooperation, but they like working within controlled situations too, and they coexist well with the proprietary. Hell, they help it out, happily. TCP/IP stack? With our blessing, go out and get 'em tiger. ;)
Public Domain would be true neutral- making no demands in any direction and having no agenda whatsoever.
You can't look at the terms of these licenses for their 'alignments'- you have to look at their agendas and the situations they want to work with. Unless your take on a chaotic good person is someone who sits there twitching a lot ;) order and organization are tools, and chaos is using localized order to further general chaos.
The GPL is down with the chaotic good ;) you simply can't further as much happy, productive chaos any other way :D
Or something.
Don't ask me, it's not like _I_ make a point of giving them a fair shake with their new proposals. I feel I understand their motives and behavior patterns well enough by now, and that I know what to expect from them.
After all, these are the people who came up with a twist on 'open source' that, far from being unencumbered, is just as viral as the GPL but carries an opposite payload- namely, legally binding admissions that could be used against undesired software projects for the life of the programmer.
I love the removing lots of useful programs and trying to charge $99 for them. So cute. What a slime :D he's not changed a bit! I wonder if Wal-Mart will figure out they're being conned. Imagine the word on the street being 'oh, you should try Linux- wait, but for God's sake not Wal-Mart Linux! Don't do that, do this instead...'
No, it means capitalism lost :)
It's my culture, so naturally I use it..."
*sound of plug being pulled*
*sound of jump into future to 2069*
Culture? What's a 'culture'? Oh, you mean those things people used to have back when they had the amazing and unthinkable technology to *gasp* play one tape and record it onto another, thereby making what's called a 'copy'.
At one time, people actually did this! That was before the zero copying initiative, and of course before the move to SDs (Sayonara Discs) with their shelf life of two years or 300 plays, whichever comes first.
Which is why there are still recordings from 100 years ago, 1969, but there is no record of any visual or musical performance from ten years ago, 2059.
If it wasn't illegal to express such doubts, a person might well wonder whether we as a society really made the right decision in outlawing all forms of sound and video archiving...
*POW!*
*sound of doubt-expresser falling dead*
Another intellectual terrorist made safe for society by the copyright industry ;)
It's like some kind of twisted variation on the antitrust trial. "But of course we have to let them in, and give them space if they pay for it. How else do you expect them to threaten our customers?"
I'm pretty disappointed that this was allowed. Can we have a bit of perspective here? Is this show not private property?
You should read what's being linked to sometimes- it's especially interesting when people act against type. Coursey publically rejecting this stuff is news of a sort: maybe he's not going to say a blessed thing Slashbots haven't known for years, but the fact that it's him saying it is VERY interesting.
And there may be people who wouldn't listen to a Slashbot in 1000 years who'll do a doubletake seeing Coursey, 'one of us', reject this stuff.