This question may seem trite, but it isn't. Please bear with me:
Let's say you guys were living in the Star Trek universe, where everyone has a replicator. A replicator will cough up a copy of anything you want (food, clothing, 1GHz Pentiums, etc.). So although people still work (because time is still a scarce resource), nobody bothers trying to sell the artifacts of their work, since it's rather pointless.
So: If you guys were living in the Star Trek universe, would you still do what you do? That is, if it were effectively impossible for you to sell the artifacts of your work because everyone could make copies of it, would you still do creative work, or would you do something else? (Remember, in Star Trek-land, you have a replicator, too, so you don't need to worry about getting basic needs met.)
(This is a relevant question because digital media today operates in exactly the same manner as Star Trek replicators.)
Slashdot and Jon Katz claim to be about people's rights then openly advocate that the rights of musicians to profit from their work be ignored and trodden upon.
I believe your thinking here is a little muddy. I believe few here would dispute that an artist has the right to dictate how their work may be disposed of. However, at the same time, we are free to hold opinions about the artist's particular choice of disposition. Any cursory reading of Slashdot will reveal megabytes of flames concerning the merits of BSD vs. GPL vs. MPL vs. SCSL, et al. And in a universe of infinite abundance (as is the digital universe), it's difficult to imagine an artist's wish to impose artificial scarcity being regarded as anything but foolish.
Slashdot and Slashdotters have proven themselves to be the biggest hypocrites alive with the way they can castigate companies for abusing the GPL (which exists solely because there are copyright laws) in one breathe [sic] then say it's OK to steal music that was expensive to create, produce, and market.
The acts of creation and distribution have always been orthogonal activities; they are unrelated. With the advent of digital media, this is even more true; distribution is virtually automatic. It took me about half an hour to create this post, and I think it has value. Yet, I am offering it to you for free (beer and speech, what a deal!). Does that make me a complete rube who doesn't understand the value of information? After all, I could have submitted this to WiReD and made a few bucks. Or is it just possible I'm motivated by factors outside traditional economic theory?
The argument, "It was expensive to produce, therefore I'm entitled to recover those costs," does not stand scrutiny. It's rather like trying to claim ownership to the oxygen produced by the plants on your property. After all, you spent a considerable amount of time and energy planting the garden and tending to it. Oxygen also has a good deal of independent value; you can't live without it. No one disputes that they're your plants growing on your property, and they flourish under your care. So shouldn't you be compensated for the oxygen your plants created?
You see how unsustainable this line of reasoning is?
The issue of how to compensate and reward artists for their work is extremely important. However, digital artifacts are infinitely copyable at zero cost, and this has never been a secret. Therefore, the market for digital artifacts does not exist, and we'll need to come up with new models for compensating artists, since sales of their artifacts (in digital form) can no longer meaningfully happen.
At the risk of killing my credibility, this issue to me seems identical to the issue of how to compensate the crew of the Starship Enterprise. After all, they have replicators everywhere, and can get anything they want or need at any time. So what models are used to compensate and reward the crew for good work?
If you can come up with a model that will work in the Star Trek universe, you'll have something that will work in the digital universe. Thinking caps on, everyone...
Over the years, my socio-economic views on software have moved closer to yours. This took me several years and some conceptual revelations. You clearly sussed out the implications of infinitely copyable bits well before anyone else.
However, to the untrained observer, you espouse your points of view with a harsh, impatient energy that many people find off-putting. You stand on the intellectual peak of Free Software, beckoning others to come join you, but when others ask you to point out the logical path you took to get there, you seem to respond, "Isn't it obvious??"
No, it isn't. Not to everyone, anyway. (I'm marginally clever, and I had to pick my own way up the mountain.) Have you considered, if not "softening" the energy of your views, at least conceptually decomposing the path to Free Software so that more people can grok how you got there, and how other people can get there, too?
Schwab
Re:shrinking talent pool (gratuitous cheap shot)
on
Microsoft Loses
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· Score: 2
If the stock price keeps dropping, how long until Microsoft starts hemorrhaging talent?
What talent?
Take a look at Windoze (any version). Take a look at Office and that fscking paperclip. Take a good long steamy gawk at Outlook. Do you really want people capable of such abominations working for your company?
Conversely, things have since gotten kind of shitty and tense between us, for reasons neither of us is airing.
This advice is unsolicited, and worth every cent you paid for it: Talk to her! Start airing the reasons. This is a lesson I'm still learning, and I assure you it's a valuable one. Unless you conceal a black secret, discussing your problems never makes the situation worse. Failing to discuss them almost always makes things worse, as the imagination gets more and more elaborate trying to fill in the gaps.
It's an avoidable mistake; I recommend avoiding it.
IHMO, this is the worst possible outcome to this case:
As part of the "settlement," the program's authors are prohibited from discussing its terms. Thus, we will never know what kind of armtwisting happened behind closed doors, and what kinds of lies the authors and their families were told to garner "cooperation."
Mattel now owns all rights to the program, which means they are legally entitled to withdraw its GPL status.
Any attempts by third parties to independently reverse engineer the block list can now, with some validity, be accused of making an infringing derivative work, which is prohibited under copyright law.
We, the users, are completely screwed. Again.
Basically, it looks like Mattel slam-dunked this one. Crap...
I'm sure DVD CCA has accomplices all over the world. One of the problems of television (centralized broadcast model) is that it's too easy to lean on one or two people whose first duty is to the bottom line -- not to "journalistic or editorial integrity" -- and arrange to get Undesireable Material to never air. CBS caved to Big Tobacco, so I see no reason why an Australian TV station should be more willing to stand up to the entertainment conglomerate.
If I have been in their shoes, I would have kept it a secret until the ad was already in rotation.
Sony, Sega and Nintendo are designing race cars. Microsoft is designing a mini-van with chrome hubcaps. Yuk.
I agree. However, have you checked on what percentage of new vehicle sales in the US are minivans (or rather, SUV-class vehicles)? Hint: It's depressingly high.
As much as I would like to dismiss this latest piece of tripe from Redmond, I would not be so quick to do so. Let us not forget that, just a scant five years ago, Microsoft swaggered into the Computer Game Developers Conference, turned up the reality distortion field up full strength, and introduced DirectX. "It'll be high-performance!" they said. "It'll save you from having to do custom driver support!" they said. "Your customer support costs will vanish!" they said. "Just compile one binary, and it'll work the same on all systems!" they said.
Now, you and I both know that Microsoft can't write tight, frugal, reliable, high-performance code to save the life of its grandmother. You'd think, of all people, game developers would be in the best position to know this, too.
They bought it. Hook, line, sinker, rod, and reel. And now we're stuck with it.
So watch them carefully. And, "Follow the money." (It's almost certain they're going to buy loyalty to this thing.)
I am as concerned as you about the ever-advancing march of closed-source graphics drivers. I currently make my living writing graphics drivers for BeOS and, even with a signed NDA, a lot of times it is like pulling the eye teeth of a moose on PCP to get any kind of documentation out of these guys (assuming they'll talk to you at all (HEY! NeoMagic!! You trying to get left out of the Internet Appliance market? Answer your email!!)).
However, I think this is a prime opportunity for the community to establish a guideline concerning hardware purchases: If there aren't Open Source drivers for it, don't buy it.
I'm currently parts shopping for a firewall. I've already decided that the motherboard is going to be based on the Intel 810 chipset. I could probably get a board based on a different chipset for cheaper. My decision was based not on price, but on the fact that Intel released complete programming docs for the I810. And they're good docs, not just a list of registers with terse descriptions. This made my job writing a BeOS driver for it a lot easier.
I wish to support this behavior with my dollars, so I'm getting an I810-based board. I would encourage others to consider such a philosophy. You may have to forego a few FPS in Quake[123], at least until the guilty vendors choose to see things differently. But by that time, the card will be cheaper, anyway, so you'll save a few bucks in the bargain:-).
A quarter of a billion dollars? Why is this guy trying to recreate NASA? You don't need Saturn-V-class vehicles to get the majority of payloads to orbit. What's more, it looks like his vehicle is disposible, which is an unnecessary waste. And that launch site looks ridiculously impractical; how are you going to get what might be an extremely delicate, sensitive payload to that island?
Check out the Rotary Rocket Company. They have a working prototype, the Roton, undergoing tests in California's Mojave desert.
Maximum payload capacity: 7000 lbs. Estimated cost per launch: $7M Price per pound: $1000 NASA's price per pound: ~$5000
Most payloads, especially telecomm satellites, are under 7000 pounds. Unlike Beal's proposed vehicle, the Roton is reusable and manned. It takes off and lands on its tail, like God and Robert Heinlein intended:-). And not only can they deliver your payload to orbit but, unlike Beal, they can bring it back! Never throw away another satellite!
Right now, all they need is investment capital. For half of what Beal has spent to date ($120M), they can complete the Roton and start delivering payloads to orbit. Unfortunately, Rotary Rocket has had difficulty securing investment capital. Unlike most.coms -- which typically get twice what Rotary Rocket needs -- they have an actual working prototype, and they will make money.
Erm... I know you can get.debs and.rpms containing GnuCash, but I'm unaware of the equivalent for Slackware. Slackware also doesn't appear to do dependency management (this package needs this other package, etc.), and GnuCash has a ton of dependencies.
I tried installing it from sources once. After diving three-deep in Perl module dependencies, I got frustrated and gave up.
Don't misunderstand; I'm not a Slackware basher. It's what's installed on my laptop and desktop, and I've used it for years. But I really appreciate letting the computer worry about what I have installed, and what depends on what.
In a lame attempt to bring this back on-topic, does anyone know how hard it would be to add a unified transaction entry method to GnuCash?
PHASAR was a home financial package for DOS systems, later ported to the Amiga (where I've been using it for the last several years). Sadly, it looks like PHASAR can't handle the Y2K transition, and I was hoping GnuCash would be able to replace it (thereby allowing me to fully decommission my Amiga).
Alas, in a sense, I've been "spoiled" by PHASAR, as it seems to operate on a different philosophy, and I couldn't warm up to the last release of GnuCash.
Here's the issue: As near as I can determine, in GnuCash, you set up different accounts (checking, credit cards, etc.). When you want to record a transaction, you open the appropriate account in a window, enter the transaction(s), and close it. Perfectly straightforward.
With PHASAR, however, all accounts are open simultaneously. You specify the account with every transaction you enter. This may seem like a lot more typing, but it isn't; PHASAR has auto-complete, so you can type the first letter or two of the account and it will fill in the rest.
Now it just so happens that I keep all my receipts, so I can enter them into the computer. With PHASAR, I can just key in the receipts as I find them. With GnuCash, I'd have to separate them into their relevant accounts first. This is a bummer; the computer should be doing the sorting for me. It is the primary thing that has kept me from moving to GnuCash.
If GnuCash got a "unified" transaction entry window, I'd convert (extra credit: reading old PHASAR data files). I have no idea how hard it would be to add such a thing; I haven't looked at the code. From what I can tell, it's an unholy mixture of C, Perl, and GUILE/Scheme. (If you're using a distro that isn't package-based, like Slackware, it's an absolute b*tch to install.)
I'm not what you'd call a club maven, but of all the SOMA clubs I've been to, DNA Lounge was one of the nicest. I was there for Club Slick one year, and was very favorably impressed.
Frankly, I have very limited sympathy for the new area residents. There was a reason their precious, quaint SF loft was (relatively) affordable. They knew there was an all-hours club nearby when they bought the place; why are they suddenly acting all surprised?
I've had the same dream as JWZ, except with me, it was a coffee shop up in Marin. I lacked the money and business acumen to realize it. So I'm pleased to see JWZ pursuing the same goal: Preserving what he thinks is important.
Kindly produce proof that, upon exposure to a sexually explicit image, a child is irrevocably corrupted.
...What? I'm sorry, but proof is required. You are proposing to seriously screw over the civil rights of millions of people -- not just members of the community, but people around the world who will be cut off -- based on the seriously dubious idea that children and the community will be irrevocably harmed if we don't trash these rights.
You think the problem is so bad that I should give up my hard-won rights? Then I want proof, dammit. Scientific, independently verifiable proof. If you can't or won't produce it, then stop wasting our time.
Since I put that Web page up four years ago, I've learned something: One guy can't do it alone.
This seems obvious, but the popular political process in this country doesn't acknowledge it. The only political race that gets any attention at all is the Presidential race. But by him/herself, President can do nothing; the entrenched professional politicians will ignore him/her if she doesn't toe the party line (whatever it may be this week). The Lewinski "scandal" proved this beyond any further doubt.
The House and Senate (and the Committees populated by their membership) are where all the legislation gets proposed, drafted, debated and -- yes -- purchased by corporate interests. Thus, it seems to me that the more pressing issue facing American voters this year is not the Presidential race, but the election for your Representative and Senator.
We need smart, new people in Washington; the political equivalent of a computer hacker (the good kind). Know someone who's intelligent, of good character, and capable? Convince them to run for office. We need their sk1llz most desperately right now.
Sony has a link on their Web site for feedback. Though the Music Clip is officially a "computing" product, I sent the feedback to their consumer electronics division. A copy of what I sent appears below.
____________________________
My attention was called to your new product, the Sony MC-P10 VAIO Music Clip, by an article on Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/). It looks like a very nice device, one I would be interested in having.
However, upon reviewing the feature list, I found that the MC-P10 is "SDMI Compliant." As an informed and ethical computing professional of over 20 years experience, I will not allow SDMI anywhere inside my computer, my home, or in the homes of my friends and family. I know exactly what SDMI is and what it does. I neither need it nor want it and, frankly, would prefer to have the option of buying equipment that has not been handicapped in this way.
There is no law requiring you to install SDMI in your products. I therefore respectfully request that you offer versions of your products both with and without SDMI, and let the market decide which is superior. Until then, however, I and my colleagues will, sadly, have to forego what is otherwise a very fine product.
Except that, when it comes time to change over from libc5 to libc6/glibc2, you basically have to strip the entire machine, at which point you're better off reinstalling from scratch, which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place. RedHat/Debian at least give you half a chance at avoiding that.
I'm currently using Slackware 3.something, and need to upgrade, 'cause libc5 is getting left behind. Now, I could upgrade to Slackware 7 or Debian's upcoming 'potato' release. I must say I don't relish the idea of redoing every niggly little post-installation configuration change again. However, if I install Debian, it will be the last time I ever have to do it; upgrades will carry my configs forward transparently. I'm certain Slackware will require a full reinstall at some future point (I've done it twice before).
I like Slackware. I really like it. I like its simplicity, the fact that you have to learn how this stuff works (thereby affording you the opportunity of doing it right), their particular boot script arrangement... But I've made a zillion little personal changes here and there (my own sendmail.cf, the BACKSPACE key actually generates ^H like it's supposed to, #includes for 'ncurses' are in the place most source packages expect them, etc.) I don't remember everything I touched. I will have to do it again when I upgrade, but I don't want to do it again and again and again... It looks as if Debian will let me avoid that. Debian also does dependency tracking, which is unbelievably helpful. I dare you to try and build and install GnuCash from sources only ("Oh, you also need this Perl extension, which requires this Perl extension; oh, and you also need Guile...").
I'm not looking forward to Debian's boot script method (since I don't grok it yet), or using dselect on a regular basis (because it's so verbose), or the fact that I have no idea where the XF86Config file got dropped, and why it gets stomped every time dselect pulls down an XFree86 update. But I like the idea of Slackware's full-wipe-and-reinstall upgrades even less.
I haven't made the move quite yet. Opinions welcome.
Question: Some people say Microsoft has stifled competition with it's business practices. Other people say that consumers benefit from the reliability of their products. Which do you agree with more? [emphasis mine]
Oh, that's good! Give yourself a cookie for that one.
It's about time someone else floated this idea; namely, that existing business models cannot work in the digital universe, where everything can be infinitely copied. Just imagine what life would be like in a world with Star Trek-like replicators; how would you be able to sell anything?
So, there are two issues needing to be addressed:
What intellectual property laws will we need in a universe with infinite copyability,
What economic models do we create to replace the market-based economy, which we use to motivate people to do useful/necessary things?
In a world with replicators everywhere, trying to restrict copying isn't just impossible, it's childishly naïve. People would laugh at the attempt. However, even though control over copies isn't possible, control over reputation is. In fact, reputation becomes tremendously important. If you see (a copy of) something you like, and would like to have something similar made, you'd like to be able to get in touch with the original designer, reliably. You'd like to be assured that the person you're speaking to is the true holder of the reputation you're seeking, rather than a charlatan. So laws guarding against theft/dilution of reputation will be important and necessary.
As for the second point -- economic models -- that one's a little tougher for "ephemeral" stuff, like music. Although copies are freely available, the creator's time is still a scarce resource. So the economy will revolve around competing for the artist's time rather than their artifacts. How would people know to approach a particular artist? Through their reputation.
One possible way this could be done today is to set up a Web site whereby artists/programmers put up their wares for open bidding. Let's say John Carmack decides he wants $50M for Quake-4. So he puts it up for bid: "Quake 4, by id Software. Price: USD$50,000,000". Visitors bid whatever they want for it: $10, $50, $100, etc. The bids are held in escrow for a certain time limit (established by the artist). When the sale price is reached, Carmack gets the $50M, and Quake 4 is released free to the world. (Quake 4 remains listed on the Web site, so people can throw "tips" in the jar.) If the requested sale price isn't reached, the code isn't released, and all bidders get their money back. The artist can resubmit for a different price if they wish.
This is just one possible idea (one I think is terribly interesting and worth exploring). Others doubtless exist.
I would like to point out that I guarentee that you are not going to find any non-degreed programmers working at leading edge technology companies in such a fashion.
First of all, the license fee is not $5000. In fact, we don't know what the license fee is, because DVD CCA refuses to disclose that information to parties they don't regard as "credible."
Second: Taking apart your lawfully obtained, personal property and figuring out how it works is perfectly lawful and ethical. Period. Shrinkwrap "licenses" are monsterously unethical and have no legal force. No amount of posturing or whining by wealthy media executives will change this.
Finally, I would urge you to read the Hoy Reply document, which contains as Exhibit B the full text of DVD CCA's contract. I think you'll agree that such terms as they demand are an anathema to the Open Source ethic.
Personally, I think the movie industry is still pissed that they couldn't co-opt us back in the early 1990's with all that "digital convergence" rubbish, so now they're trying to sue us into submission.
Anyway, here's a counter-editorial I've banged out. If anyone knows the address of the LA Times editor, I'd appreciate it.
Schwab
__________________________
Mr. Valenti's editorial on 30 January does raise one valid point: There is an assault on consumers. But it is not, as Valenti would have us believe, coming from so-called "hackers." It is coming from media conglomerates.
Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) is the latest way to obtain and enjoy movies in your home. By using computers to encode the movies digitally, the resulting picture and sound far surpass the quality of VHS tapes, at a mere fraction of the manufacturing costs. Because digital copies are always perfect, the movie industry believes that it must take steps prevent copying, lest corporate profits vanish entirely. To that end, they have designed CSS -- Contents Scrambling System -- an encryption system which prevents an owner from using their DVD disc unless they also own a player which can descramble the data.
Working with other computer experts, a 15-year-old gentleman in Norway, Jon Johansen, managed to figure out the CSS technology by analyzing a working player, and helped to create DeCSS, a program that would descramble a DVD on any computer. As reward for his efforts, he was arrested and his home invaded by Norwegian police, acting at the behest of the motion picture industry.
Mr. Valenti asserts that the sole purpose for DeCSS is to make unsanctioned copies of movies (which he describes using the colorful term, "piracy"). If Mr. Valenti truly believes this is DeCSS's only possible purpose, he should develop more imagination. Despite Microsoft's best efforts, they do not control 100% of the computer market; the primary motivation for DeCSS's development, therefore, was to allow DVD owners to play their discs on non-Microsoft operating systems.
However, by applying just a little imagination, other applications for DeCSS become apparent. One obvious application would be a "screen saver" which would take whatever DVD was in the computer, wrap the movie on to a 3D sphere, and bounce it around. Mr. Valenti could not reasonably argue such use of a DVD was illegal, or even unethical. Yet, without DeCSS (or its equivalent), DVD owners would find it impossible to do such things.
But because DeCSS could be used to copy movies, Mr. Valenti argues that DeCSS is a menace to film artists worldwide, who will no longer be able to profitably make movies. It is curious to note, however, that no actual artists (directors, actors, musicians, etc.) have come out against DeCSS; only wealthy executives.
Indeed, Mr. Valenti proceeds from a false premise; namely, that digital works must be copy-protected. If he'd studied history, he would see the software industry was seized with the same misconception 20 years ago. Copy protection was widespread. It was also ineffective. Moreover, it was highly fragile and unreliable, as legitimate owners frequently found their software refusing to run. Eventually, bowing to public pressure, the software industry largely eliminated copy protection, and has found sales and profits continuing to rise unabated.
Valenti likens DeCSS to a set of keys to a department store, allowing "thieves" [sic] to steal the inventory. There is not enough space to enumerate all the enormous flaws in this analogy, and so must confine ourselves to pointing out that Valenti's "thieves" would not take the inventory, but make copies of it, leaving the originals in place, intact (a fact which has profound implications, to be sure, but left unaddressed by the industry). His analogy to illicit drug use is particularly amusing, given Hollywood's own disreputable history with narcotics.
Mr. Valenti dismissively refers to "activist groups that have been seduced by the hackers' [sic] strange ideology." The organizations Valenti repudiates are, in large part, responsible for his ability to do business today. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU were instrumental in leading the US Supreme Court to unanimously strike down the Communications Decency Act as flagrantly unconstitutional. Had the CDA been allowed to stand, Mr. Valenti and the MPAA's members would have found it quite difficult to do business of any kind over the Internet.
While Mr. Valenti's article is visceral and entertaining, it is, like most of the products published by the MPAA's members, of little concrete substance, and requires suspension of disbelief. In short, Valenti's editorial belies a grave misunderstanding of digital media and, frankly, we think he's been sold a bill of goods by someone looking to make a quick buck off a weak and misguided copy protection scheme.
This is a damn fine effort. The photographs clearly don't do it justice. Real wood has a visual and tactile quality that beats the hell out of plastic.
The only thing I might change would be the buttons; the grey plastic clashes. I'd make carved wood buttons as well, possibly out of maple (for contrast).
Slashdot Mirror
This question may seem trite, but it isn't. Please bear with me:
Let's say you guys were living in the Star Trek universe, where everyone has a replicator. A replicator will cough up a copy of anything you want (food, clothing, 1GHz Pentiums, etc.). So although people still work (because time is still a scarce resource), nobody bothers trying to sell the artifacts of their work, since it's rather pointless.
So: If you guys were living in the Star Trek universe, would you still do what you do? That is, if it were effectively impossible for you to sell the artifacts of your work because everyone could make copies of it, would you still do creative work, or would you do something else? (Remember, in Star Trek-land, you have a replicator, too, so you don't need to worry about getting basic needs met.)
(This is a relevant question because digital media today operates in exactly the same manner as Star Trek replicators.)
Schwab
I believe your thinking here is a little muddy. I believe few here would dispute that an artist has the right to dictate how their work may be disposed of. However, at the same time, we are free to hold opinions about the artist's particular choice of disposition. Any cursory reading of Slashdot will reveal megabytes of flames concerning the merits of BSD vs. GPL vs. MPL vs. SCSL, et al. And in a universe of infinite abundance (as is the digital universe), it's difficult to imagine an artist's wish to impose artificial scarcity being regarded as anything but foolish.
The acts of creation and distribution have always been orthogonal activities; they are unrelated. With the advent of digital media, this is even more true; distribution is virtually automatic. It took me about half an hour to create this post, and I think it has value. Yet, I am offering it to you for free (beer and speech, what a deal!). Does that make me a complete rube who doesn't understand the value of information? After all, I could have submitted this to WiReD and made a few bucks. Or is it just possible I'm motivated by factors outside traditional economic theory?
The argument, "It was expensive to produce, therefore I'm entitled to recover those costs," does not stand scrutiny. It's rather like trying to claim ownership to the oxygen produced by the plants on your property. After all, you spent a considerable amount of time and energy planting the garden and tending to it. Oxygen also has a good deal of independent value; you can't live without it. No one disputes that they're your plants growing on your property, and they flourish under your care. So shouldn't you be compensated for the oxygen your plants created?
You see how unsustainable this line of reasoning is?
The issue of how to compensate and reward artists for their work is extremely important. However, digital artifacts are infinitely copyable at zero cost, and this has never been a secret. Therefore, the market for digital artifacts does not exist, and we'll need to come up with new models for compensating artists, since sales of their artifacts (in digital form) can no longer meaningfully happen.
At the risk of killing my credibility, this issue to me seems identical to the issue of how to compensate the crew of the Starship Enterprise. After all, they have replicators everywhere, and can get anything they want or need at any time. So what models are used to compensate and reward the crew for good work?
If you can come up with a model that will work in the Star Trek universe, you'll have something that will work in the digital universe. Thinking caps on, everyone...
Schwab
Hokay, here goes:
Over the years, my socio-economic views on software have moved closer to yours. This took me several years and some conceptual revelations. You clearly sussed out the implications of infinitely copyable bits well before anyone else.
However, to the untrained observer, you espouse your points of view with a harsh, impatient energy that many people find off-putting. You stand on the intellectual peak of Free Software, beckoning others to come join you, but when others ask you to point out the logical path you took to get there, you seem to respond, "Isn't it obvious??"
No, it isn't. Not to everyone, anyway. (I'm marginally clever, and I had to pick my own way up the mountain.) Have you considered, if not "softening" the energy of your views, at least conceptually decomposing the path to Free Software so that more people can grok how you got there, and how other people can get there, too?
Schwab
What talent?
Take a look at Windoze (any version). Take a look at Office and that fscking paperclip. Take a good long steamy gawk at Outlook. Do you really want people capable of such abominations working for your company?
Schwab
This advice is unsolicited, and worth every cent you paid for it: Talk to her! Start airing the reasons. This is a lesson I'm still learning, and I assure you it's a valuable one. Unless you conceal a black secret, discussing your problems never makes the situation worse. Failing to discuss them almost always makes things worse, as the imagination gets more and more elaborate trying to fill in the gaps.
It's an avoidable mistake; I recommend avoiding it.
Schwab
IHMO, this is the worst possible outcome to this case:
Basically, it looks like Mattel slam-dunked this one. Crap...
Schwab
I'm sure DVD CCA has accomplices all over the world. One of the problems of television (centralized broadcast model) is that it's too easy to lean on one or two people whose first duty is to the bottom line -- not to "journalistic or editorial integrity" -- and arrange to get Undesireable Material to never air. CBS caved to Big Tobacco, so I see no reason why an Australian TV station should be more willing to stand up to the entertainment conglomerate.
If I have been in their shoes, I would have kept it a secret until the ad was already in rotation.
Schwab
I agree. However, have you checked on what percentage of new vehicle sales in the US are minivans (or rather, SUV-class vehicles)? Hint: It's depressingly high.
Schwab
As much as I would like to dismiss this latest piece of tripe from Redmond, I would not be so quick to do so. Let us not forget that, just a scant five years ago, Microsoft swaggered into the Computer Game Developers Conference, turned up the reality distortion field up full strength, and introduced DirectX. "It'll be high-performance!" they said. "It'll save you from having to do custom driver support!" they said. "Your customer support costs will vanish!" they said. "Just compile one binary, and it'll work the same on all systems!" they said.
Now, you and I both know that Microsoft can't write tight, frugal, reliable, high-performance code to save the life of its grandmother. You'd think, of all people, game developers would be in the best position to know this, too.
They bought it. Hook, line, sinker, rod, and reel. And now we're stuck with it.
So watch them carefully. And, "Follow the money." (It's almost certain they're going to buy loyalty to this thing.)
Schwab
I am as concerned as you about the ever-advancing march of closed-source graphics drivers. I currently make my living writing graphics drivers for BeOS and, even with a signed NDA, a lot of times it is like pulling the eye teeth of a moose on PCP to get any kind of documentation out of these guys (assuming they'll talk to you at all (HEY! NeoMagic!! You trying to get left out of the Internet Appliance market? Answer your email!! )).
However, I think this is a prime opportunity for the community to establish a guideline concerning hardware purchases: If there aren't Open Source drivers for it, don't buy it.
I'm currently parts shopping for a firewall. I've already decided that the motherboard is going to be based on the Intel 810 chipset. I could probably get a board based on a different chipset for cheaper. My decision was based not on price, but on the fact that Intel released complete programming docs for the I810. And they're good docs, not just a list of registers with terse descriptions. This made my job writing a BeOS driver for it a lot easier.
I wish to support this behavior with my dollars, so I'm getting an I810-based board. I would encourage others to consider such a philosophy. You may have to forego a few FPS in Quake[123], at least until the guilty vendors choose to see things differently. But by that time, the card will be cheaper, anyway, so you'll save a few bucks in the bargain :-).
Schwab
Please do not flood NVidia's email box with requests to hurry up; that won't help. They know. They're on it.
A very quick note politely wishing them well in maintaining their Open Source XFree releases might not be out of place...
Schwab
A quarter of a billion dollars? Why is this guy trying to recreate NASA? You don't need Saturn-V-class vehicles to get the majority of payloads to orbit. What's more, it looks like his vehicle is disposible, which is an unnecessary waste. And that launch site looks ridiculously impractical; how are you going to get what might be an extremely delicate, sensitive payload to that island?
Check out the Rotary Rocket Company. They have a working prototype, the Roton, undergoing tests in California's Mojave desert.
Maximum payload capacity: 7000 lbs.
Estimated cost per launch: $7M
Price per pound: $1000
NASA's price per pound: ~$5000
Most payloads, especially telecomm satellites, are under 7000 pounds. Unlike Beal's proposed vehicle, the Roton is reusable and manned. It takes off and lands on its tail, like God and Robert Heinlein intended :-). And not only can they deliver your payload to orbit but, unlike Beal, they can bring it back! Never throw away another satellite!
Right now, all they need is investment capital. For half of what Beal has spent to date ($120M), they can complete the Roton and start delivering payloads to orbit. Unfortunately, Rotary Rocket has had difficulty securing investment capital. Unlike most .coms -- which typically get twice what Rotary Rocket needs -- they have an actual working prototype, and they will make money.
Schwab
Erm... I know you can get .debs and .rpms containing GnuCash, but I'm unaware of the equivalent for Slackware. Slackware also doesn't appear to do dependency management (this package needs this other package, etc.), and GnuCash has a ton of dependencies.
I tried installing it from sources once. After diving three-deep in Perl module dependencies, I got frustrated and gave up.
Don't misunderstand; I'm not a Slackware basher. It's what's installed on my laptop and desktop, and I've used it for years. But I really appreciate letting the computer worry about what I have installed, and what depends on what.
In a lame attempt to bring this back on-topic, does anyone know how hard it would be to add a unified transaction entry method to GnuCash?
Schwab
"...versus what?" I hear you cry.
PHASAR was a home financial package for DOS systems, later ported to the Amiga (where I've been using it for the last several years). Sadly, it looks like PHASAR can't handle the Y2K transition, and I was hoping GnuCash would be able to replace it (thereby allowing me to fully decommission my Amiga).
Alas, in a sense, I've been "spoiled" by PHASAR, as it seems to operate on a different philosophy, and I couldn't warm up to the last release of GnuCash.
Here's the issue: As near as I can determine, in GnuCash, you set up different accounts (checking, credit cards, etc.). When you want to record a transaction, you open the appropriate account in a window, enter the transaction(s), and close it. Perfectly straightforward.
With PHASAR, however, all accounts are open simultaneously. You specify the account with every transaction you enter. This may seem like a lot more typing, but it isn't; PHASAR has auto-complete, so you can type the first letter or two of the account and it will fill in the rest.
Now it just so happens that I keep all my receipts, so I can enter them into the computer. With PHASAR, I can just key in the receipts as I find them. With GnuCash, I'd have to separate them into their relevant accounts first. This is a bummer; the computer should be doing the sorting for me. It is the primary thing that has kept me from moving to GnuCash.
If GnuCash got a "unified" transaction entry window, I'd convert (extra credit: reading old PHASAR data files). I have no idea how hard it would be to add such a thing; I haven't looked at the code. From what I can tell, it's an unholy mixture of C, Perl, and GUILE/Scheme. (If you're using a distro that isn't package-based, like Slackware, it's an absolute b*tch to install.)
Comments welcome.
Schwab
I'm not what you'd call a club maven, but of all the SOMA clubs I've been to, DNA Lounge was one of the nicest. I was there for Club Slick one year, and was very favorably impressed.
Frankly, I have very limited sympathy for the new area residents. There was a reason their precious, quaint SF loft was (relatively) affordable. They knew there was an all-hours club nearby when they bought the place; why are they suddenly acting all surprised?
I've had the same dream as JWZ, except with me, it was a coffee shop up in Marin. I lacked the money and business acumen to realize it. So I'm pleased to see JWZ pursuing the same goal: Preserving what he thinks is important.
Schwab
Kindly produce proof that, upon exposure to a sexually explicit image, a child is irrevocably corrupted.
...What? I'm sorry, but proof is required. You are proposing to seriously screw over the civil rights of millions of people -- not just members of the community, but people around the world who will be cut off -- based on the seriously dubious idea that children and the community will be irrevocably harmed if we don't trash these rights.
You think the problem is so bad that I should give up my hard-won rights? Then I want proof, dammit. Scientific, independently verifiable proof. If you can't or won't produce it, then stop wasting our time.
Schwab
First off, have a good laugh at this.
Since I put that Web page up four years ago, I've learned something: One guy can't do it alone.
This seems obvious, but the popular political process in this country doesn't acknowledge it. The only political race that gets any attention at all is the Presidential race. But by him/herself, President can do nothing; the entrenched professional politicians will ignore him/her if she doesn't toe the party line (whatever it may be this week). The Lewinski "scandal" proved this beyond any further doubt.
The House and Senate (and the Committees populated by their membership) are where all the legislation gets proposed, drafted, debated and -- yes -- purchased by corporate interests. Thus, it seems to me that the more pressing issue facing American voters this year is not the Presidential race, but the election for your Representative and Senator.
We need smart, new people in Washington; the political equivalent of a computer hacker (the good kind). Know someone who's intelligent, of good character, and capable? Convince them to run for office. We need their sk1llz most desperately right now.
On a rant,
Schwab
Sony has a link on their Web site for feedback. Though the Music Clip is officially a "computing" product, I sent the feedback to their consumer electronics division. A copy of what I sent appears below.
____________________________
My attention was called to your new product, the Sony MC-P10 VAIO Music Clip, by an article on Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/). It looks like a very nice device, one I would be interested in having.
However, upon reviewing the feature list, I found that the MC-P10 is "SDMI Compliant." As an informed and ethical computing professional of over 20 years experience, I will not allow SDMI anywhere inside my computer, my home, or in the homes of my friends and family. I know exactly what SDMI is and what it does. I neither need it nor want it and, frankly, would prefer to have the option of buying equipment that has not been handicapped in this way.
There is no law requiring you to install SDMI in your products. I therefore respectfully request that you offer versions of your products both with and without SDMI, and let the market decide which is superior. Until then, however, I and my colleagues will, sadly, have to forego what is otherwise a very fine product.
Thank you for your time.
Schwab
Except that, when it comes time to change over from libc5 to libc6/glibc2, you basically have to strip the entire machine, at which point you're better off reinstalling from scratch, which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place. RedHat/Debian at least give you half a chance at avoiding that.
I'm currently using Slackware 3.something, and need to upgrade, 'cause libc5 is getting left behind. Now, I could upgrade to Slackware 7 or Debian's upcoming 'potato' release. I must say I don't relish the idea of redoing every niggly little post-installation configuration change again. However, if I install Debian, it will be the last time I ever have to do it; upgrades will carry my configs forward transparently. I'm certain Slackware will require a full reinstall at some future point (I've done it twice before).
I like Slackware. I really like it. I like its simplicity, the fact that you have to learn how this stuff works (thereby affording you the opportunity of doing it right), their particular boot script arrangement... But I've made a zillion little personal changes here and there (my own sendmail.cf, the BACKSPACE key actually generates ^H like it's supposed to, #includes for 'ncurses' are in the place most source packages expect them, etc.) I don't remember everything I touched. I will have to do it again when I upgrade, but I don't want to do it again and again and again... It looks as if Debian will let me avoid that. Debian also does dependency tracking, which is unbelievably helpful. I dare you to try and build and install GnuCash from sources only ("Oh, you also need this Perl extension, which requires this Perl extension; oh, and you also need Guile...").
I'm not looking forward to Debian's boot script method (since I don't grok it yet), or using dselect on a regular basis (because it's so verbose), or the fact that I have no idea where the XF86Config file got dropped, and why it gets stomped every time dselect pulls down an XFree86 update. But I like the idea of Slackware's full-wipe-and-reinstall upgrades even less.
I haven't made the move quite yet. Opinions welcome.
Schwab
Oh, that's good! Give yourself a cookie for that one.
Schwab
It's about time someone else floated this idea; namely, that existing business models cannot work in the digital universe, where everything can be infinitely copied. Just imagine what life would be like in a world with Star Trek-like replicators; how would you be able to sell anything?
So, there are two issues needing to be addressed:
In a world with replicators everywhere, trying to restrict copying isn't just impossible, it's childishly naïve. People would laugh at the attempt. However, even though control over copies isn't possible, control over reputation is. In fact, reputation becomes tremendously important. If you see (a copy of) something you like, and would like to have something similar made, you'd like to be able to get in touch with the original designer, reliably. You'd like to be assured that the person you're speaking to is the true holder of the reputation you're seeking, rather than a charlatan. So laws guarding against theft/dilution of reputation will be important and necessary.
As for the second point -- economic models -- that one's a little tougher for "ephemeral" stuff, like music. Although copies are freely available, the creator's time is still a scarce resource. So the economy will revolve around competing for the artist's time rather than their artifacts. How would people know to approach a particular artist? Through their reputation.
One possible way this could be done today is to set up a Web site whereby artists/programmers put up their wares for open bidding. Let's say John Carmack decides he wants $50M for Quake-4. So he puts it up for bid: "Quake 4, by id Software. Price: USD$50,000,000". Visitors bid whatever they want for it: $10, $50, $100, etc. The bids are held in escrow for a certain time limit (established by the artist). When the sale price is reached, Carmack gets the $50M, and Quake 4 is released free to the world. (Quake 4 remains listed on the Web site, so people can throw "tips" in the jar.) If the requested sale price isn't reached, the code isn't released, and all bidders get their money back. The artist can resubmit for a different price if they wish.
This is just one possible idea (one I think is terribly interesting and worth exploring). Others doubtless exist.
Start exploring, people...
Schwab
I am living proof that you're wrong.
Schwab
Device Driver Engineer
Be, Incorporated
First of all, the license fee is not $5000. In fact, we don't know what the license fee is, because DVD CCA refuses to disclose that information to parties they don't regard as "credible."
Second: Taking apart your lawfully obtained, personal property and figuring out how it works is perfectly lawful and ethical. Period. Shrinkwrap "licenses" are monsterously unethical and have no legal force. No amount of posturing or whining by wealthy media executives will change this.
Finally, I would urge you to read the Hoy Reply document, which contains as Exhibit B the full text of DVD CCA's contract. I think you'll agree that such terms as they demand are an anathema to the Open Source ethic.
Schwab
Personally, I think the movie industry is still pissed that they couldn't co-opt us back in the early 1990's with all that "digital convergence" rubbish, so now they're trying to sue us into submission.
Anyway, here's a counter-editorial I've banged out. If anyone knows the address of the LA Times editor, I'd appreciate it.
Schwab
__________________________
Mr. Valenti's editorial on 30 January does raise one valid point: There is an assault on consumers. But it is not, as Valenti would have us believe, coming from so-called "hackers." It is coming from media conglomerates.
Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) is the latest way to obtain and enjoy movies in your home. By using computers to encode the movies digitally, the resulting picture and sound far surpass the quality of VHS tapes, at a mere fraction of the manufacturing costs. Because digital copies are always perfect, the movie industry believes that it must take steps prevent copying, lest corporate profits vanish entirely. To that end, they have designed CSS -- Contents Scrambling System -- an encryption system which prevents an owner from using their DVD disc unless they also own a player which can descramble the data.
Working with other computer experts, a 15-year-old gentleman in Norway, Jon Johansen, managed to figure out the CSS technology by analyzing a working player, and helped to create DeCSS, a program that would descramble a DVD on any computer. As reward for his efforts, he was arrested and his home invaded by Norwegian police, acting at the behest of the motion picture industry.
Mr. Valenti asserts that the sole purpose for DeCSS is to make unsanctioned copies of movies (which he describes using the colorful term, "piracy"). If Mr. Valenti truly believes this is DeCSS's only possible purpose, he should develop more imagination. Despite Microsoft's best efforts, they do not control 100% of the computer market; the primary motivation for DeCSS's development, therefore, was to allow DVD owners to play their discs on non-Microsoft operating systems.
However, by applying just a little imagination, other applications for DeCSS become apparent. One obvious application would be a "screen saver" which would take whatever DVD was in the computer, wrap the movie on to a 3D sphere, and bounce it around. Mr. Valenti could not reasonably argue such use of a DVD was illegal, or even unethical. Yet, without DeCSS (or its equivalent), DVD owners would find it impossible to do such things.
But because DeCSS could be used to copy movies, Mr. Valenti argues that DeCSS is a menace to film artists worldwide, who will no longer be able to profitably make movies. It is curious to note, however, that no actual artists (directors, actors, musicians, etc.) have come out against DeCSS; only wealthy executives.
Indeed, Mr. Valenti proceeds from a false premise; namely, that digital works must be copy-protected. If he'd studied history, he would see the software industry was seized with the same misconception 20 years ago. Copy protection was widespread. It was also ineffective. Moreover, it was highly fragile and unreliable, as legitimate owners frequently found their software refusing to run. Eventually, bowing to public pressure, the software industry largely eliminated copy protection, and has found sales and profits continuing to rise unabated.
Valenti likens DeCSS to a set of keys to a department store, allowing "thieves" [sic] to steal the inventory. There is not enough space to enumerate all the enormous flaws in this analogy, and so must confine ourselves to pointing out that Valenti's "thieves" would not take the inventory, but make copies of it, leaving the originals in place, intact (a fact which has profound implications, to be sure, but left unaddressed by the industry). His analogy to illicit drug use is particularly amusing, given Hollywood's own disreputable history with narcotics.
Mr. Valenti dismissively refers to "activist groups that have been seduced by the hackers' [sic] strange ideology." The organizations Valenti repudiates are, in large part, responsible for his ability to do business today. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU were instrumental in leading the US Supreme Court to unanimously strike down the Communications Decency Act as flagrantly unconstitutional. Had the CDA been allowed to stand, Mr. Valenti and the MPAA's members would have found it quite difficult to do business of any kind over the Internet.
While Mr. Valenti's article is visceral and entertaining, it is, like most of the products published by the MPAA's members, of little concrete substance, and requires suspension of disbelief. In short, Valenti's editorial belies a grave misunderstanding of digital media and, frankly, we think he's been sold a bill of goods by someone looking to make a quick buck off a weak and misguided copy protection scheme.
This is a damn fine effort. The photographs clearly don't do it justice. Real wood has a visual and tactile quality that beats the hell out of plastic.
The only thing I might change would be the buttons; the grey plastic clashes. I'd make carved wood buttons as well, possibly out of maple (for contrast).
Schwab