I don't know what mechanism you could use to redistribute wealth other than a government (of greedy rulers). Who else is going to "force the wealthy to give to the poor"? Robin Hood? Should we let the poor "extort" the money themselves?
You have pointed out plenty of ways that closed source software is better than open source software. Don't worry about programmers' jobs; I don't think that closed source software is going to go away.
There are only certain limited places where open source software will work. Open source software is software that is paid for by the efforts of the programmers that create it. If there isn't enough value in a program to reward programmer's time, then the program will not be viable.
That is not the same as what you are arguing. You say that open source software can never work, or is some sort of threat to all closed source software. That isn't true, it is just FUD from companies that don't even want you to consider open source code and keep on buying their closed source versions.
You are wondering why open source advocates often single out Microsoft. That is for the simple reason that Microsoft sells the really popular closed source programs; the programs that are popular enough to succeed as open source programs. Microsoft is the company with the most to lose from existing open source software, and Microsoft is fighting accordingly.
Microsoft mostly competes on the merits of its software, which I'll admit is pretty good, but it also competes unfairly and illegally. Their current campaign of FUD against open source software is one of those unfair competitions. As you know, there is a huge cost in simply trying a new program. It will take a few days to get it installed and set up, and a considerably longer time to learn enough to do a fair evaluation. Because it is so expensive to try software, people will not do it unless they think there is a big advantage in switching to it. Microsoft is trying to convince people that open source is an unsustainable market; if people believe that, they won't even try competing open source software. Open source enthusiasts are fighting to counteract the FUD (mostly coming from Microsoft) because we think open source is a viable model that is in many ways better than the closed source model.
Judge for yourself whether a closed source or open source program is better, but don't argue that an open source development model can never work or is somehow suspect. The only difference between open source and closed source software is why it is created: closed source to make a profit selling the software itself, open source to create a useful tool that can be used to make a profit.
As your message points out, it is hard to imagine making money by selling software that can be had for free. But, who says that the only reason to make software is to sell the software itself?
I work for a company that makes test equipment for the semi-conductor manufacturing industry. Our business is to sell hardware; the software is only there to run the hardware and analyze the results. It happens that in our case we use Windows; but that causes a great deal of difficulties. When something goes wrong, our customers expect us to make the machine work properly; if Windows causes the problem, we have to work around it because there is no way Microsoft will fix bugs in a timely fashion. If we were using an open-source OS, we might have a chance of fixing operating system errors rather than working around them. We would also be able to ship whatever version of the OS we want; the forced upgrade from Windows 95 to 2000 caused us a huge amount of work tracking down bugs.
It may be true that there is no way to make money selling open source software; but there are certainly ways to make money using open source software. I admire Microsoft for finding a way to make a lot of money selling software; but there is no law of nature that says you can't develop software cooperatively. If you are a programmer that works with a different company's product, access to the source code and permission to modify the source code is of great value. In fact, the value is so great that programmers are willing to "pay for" open source software by giving away bug fixes and feature enhancements for the software.
Don't simply accept Microsoft's arguments at face value. Only companies that want to make money by selling software (like Microsoft) can be hurt by open source software. Users of software can only be helped by open source software. As a user, pick the software that is the best for your purposes, and don't believe what Microsoft says about the viability of an open source development model. Open source software does not depend on altruistic programmers and companies giving away their time; it depends on programmers and companies recognizing the value of using open source tools to add value to the products that they actually sell.
I have to agree, and I think the EFF has a campaign to get some basic consumer fair use rights written into law.
In theory, we shouldn't need a law to force companies to do this. In a supposed free market, there would be a variety of devices available, and we would buy the one that allows use to exercise our fair use rights.
Unfortunately, by using the DMCA and patent laws, companies can conspire to ensure that devices that allow fair use will not exist. For example, find a DVD player that will allow you to record onto a VCR (without modification). You won't even find DVD players that will allow you to exercise your "fair use" of the fast-forward button when the studio doesn't want you too.
Since the media companies have proven that they have no respect for our fair use rights, we need legislation to ensure that it is possible for us to exercise those rights. Companies are right to be concerned about illegal copying, and should be able to prevent it; however, they shouldn't be able to exploit these mechanisms (both technological and legal) to prevent fair use.
If there is no way to prevent illegal copying without also preventing fair use, I think it is just too bad for the record companies. If the media companies go out of business (what the Dark One fears), well too bad. Entertainment existed before greedy companies got complete control over it, and will survive the fall of those companies.
I was surprised to discover that Valenti is also concerned about the music industry:
"The music industry now is suffering nine, ten, fifteen percent losses in revenue. When you compound that over the next three or four years, the music industry is dead. I don't see a future for it. After awhile, who's going to produce it?"
I think I can answer his question. I suspect that the same producers will still be available if the music industry dies; I doubt that all the producers will be killed.
I think the question he really wanted to ask was "who's going to PAY to produce it?" The answer right now is that the musicians themselves pay to produce; the record companies just front them the money. If the musicians become about as popular as Britney Spears, they can earn enough to pay back the production costs out of their royalties.
So the question really is, who is going to front the musicians production money when record companies can no longer make obscene profits from their control of music distribution?
There are some possible answers to that, which I'll illustrate from experiments done by one of my favorite groups, King Crimson. The band owns its own record label, and they make 10 times as much money per copy on the CD's on their own label, compared to the CD's that they license the Record companies to distribute. Even if the current music distribution system collapses along with Valenti's predicted collapse of record companies, then independent record companies can still use their distribution methods.
Although King Crimson is a popular enough band to be able to provide their own production money, only their new releases are sure to make back the money. They also have a scheme for paying the cost of producing CD's from old concert recordings. They ask their fans to front them the money by contributing to an account, from which they buy for the CD's that they want from the ones that are produced.
Musicians and producers will survive the death of the current music industry. More and more musicians are bypassing the current record companies because of how badly they are being ripped off. I am confident that music will still be produced because either the artists or their fans will be able to front the production costs. If the big multi-national record companies no longer monopolize the distribution and promotion systems, I think you will find that the artists themselves will be able to take over. After all, the current system is really only helping the small number of hugely popular acts that dominate MTV. All other acts are simply getting screwed by the current system, which charges them for all the costs, but gives them only a tiny percentage of the earnings.
From his comments about not actually wanting to ban VCR's, despite every indication to the contrary:
"Then we would go to the Congress and get a copyright royalty fee put on all blank videocassettes and that would go back to the creators [to compensate for videocassette piracy].
"I predicted great piracy. We now lose $3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy."
Well how nice, he never wanted to destroy the money-making prerecorded video cassette industry that he so astutely predicted, he only wanted to charge us for time-shifting TV shows and making our own home movies.
This guy really takes the cake. He isn't happy with all the money that selling videocassettes made his association. He just whines about the 3.5 billion extra he thinks he should have been able to extract from people.
The prerecorded videocassette industry came after VCR's were introduced (of course). VCR's were invented to record, not just play. At about the time VCR's became popular, prerecorded movies where available on higher quality play-only media like laser disks; but people weren't buying Laser Disk players, people bought VCR's instead because they could also record with them. After a while, when a large-enough number of movies were available on tape, and the studios started charging a reasonable price for them, the market for videocassettes took off, despite some piracy.
I think that not only did the availability of VCR's create a huge market for videocassettes; it also made the sale of DVD's possible. When DVD players first came out, the pundits predicted that people wouldn't buy them because they couldn't record. Yet people did buy them because of the market for prerecorded copies of movies created by the existence of VCR's.
Is this guy really so stupid that he objects to devices that have made his association untold billions of dollars because some people are not paying? If VCR's couldn't record, not many people would have bought them, and the studios wouldn't have made any money at all.
People buy hardware because of the capabilities of the devices. Once enough hardware is out there, then there is a market for software. Software availability drives hardware sales too, of course. These markets are feedback loops that are sensitive to the characteristics of the hardware and quality and availability of the software. If you change the capabilities of the hardware, you are going to affect how many people buy the hardware, and therefore the market for software.
Record companies are going to be disappointed if they monkey with copy protecting CD's (without lowering the price). Movie companies are going to be disappointed if they force us into their preferred rental model where you pay for each viewing. Computer software companies are going to be sorry if they monkey with the computer hardware to prevent unauthorized execution of their software. All of these companies have an overinflated opinion of the value of their software, and are underestimating the backlash that will occur when they try to shove crippled hardware down our throats. They can only play us for suckers for so long. The huge price discrepancy between the cost of making an illegal copy and buying a legal one creates a vacuum that technology will fill. If the copies are more convenient than the originals, that will only add to the pressure. I wish the companies luck in cutting their own throats.
There are two purposes to getting a degree or certificate (what most people call getting an education). The first purpose is to learn something. If you paid attention in school and aren't hit on the head, you will always have that knowledge. The other purpose is to get credentials - to prove that you know something. Your credentials are wasted if they were not used to get a job, or something else of value.
I think a lot of people look at School solely as a way to obtain the credentials they think they need. That attitude isn't necessarily wrong, but I really think going to school ought to be about learning something you need to know, or are just interested in. You will probably always benefit from learning something, but the value of credentials is much more variable. Credentials for a job you don't want to do are not very valuable, no matter how much time and money you put into earning them.
I didn't necessarily mean to pick on these file formats, I just used them as an example of the trouble that obsolete programs and file formats can lead to.
WordPerfect is still a viable program and even Word will read the format, but that is only because there are still enough people using it. There aren't many still using WordStar, but from what I remember, the format was mostly ASCII, and my company did write a program that could read them. In both these cases, you are still able to mostly read these files now, but 20 or 100 years from now will be a different story.
I think open source is still necessary, even with open formats, because without access to the source code, you have to rely on documentation. I have never seen a specification that didn't have some leeway for interpretation, so the only way to be sure you can read everything in a file is to see the ultimate description of how to interpret a file format: source code. Look at the difference between browsers right now. Imagine how much worse it would be if the Internet used.DOC format rather than HTML.
It can never be the best choice to use a proprietary format for storing or presenting government information. If a person wants to trust their content to another company, that's fine; but my government had better not make decisions about what software I have to buy. If a government doesn't use at least an open data storage format, what are they going to do if the company stops supporting it or goes out of business? We might be interested in this content 100 years from now, I shudder to think of the situation we'd be in if a government adopted Wordstar format, or even WordPerfect.
When it comes to buying software for government use however, if a company sells a program to deal with a standard format, that's fine. As long as the government isn't locked into a particular choice, they should pick the best. But there must always be a second choice, and preferably one that allows widespread access to source code.
I have to agree with you about XP enabling companies to control your machine. Microsoft hasn't even tried to make things easier for the user.
For example, consider product activation. I had to reinstall my upgrade copy of XP. During reinstallation, I had to supply my Windows ME CD (before you laugh at me too much, I bought ME but used 98). Why the hell did I have to do that? Microsoft knows I can legally use XP - I've activated it, they already know enough about my computer to know it is just a reinstall! Activation is for Microsoft's benefit (of course), but they could at least use it to make reinstallation a little easier!
I was reading an article at InformIT.com yesterday about what "phone home" features in XP you could disable (I'd give a link but you need to register). There are some pretty scary things in there, especially to do with DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). Apparently there is an "enemies list" in the software that can prevent you from running programs if secure DRM contents are compromised. This means that XP has the power to prevent you from running any program that Microsoft doesn't approve of, now or in the future; and XP will automatically look for and apply new lists. I don't know how well this will work, but this sure is in the interest of companies, not users.
We are really seeing companies pushing every advantage they have and screwing the users at every opportunity. I see it already with DVD players. Companies have the right to protect their property from being copied (but only when such copying is illegal). But, companies have exploited their protection mechanisms to also disable the fast-forward button on any DVD player whenever they want, and introduce other customer-hostile features piggybacked on the copy protection.
At least my DVD player doesn't have upgradeable firmware, so the companies can't take away any more features. When it comes to Windows however, there is no guarantee that anything it does today will not be disabled tomorrow. Companies that want more of my money are in charge of the software on my machine, and recent history makes it hard to believe that they will change things for my benefit.
With OSS, the user can be in control. Companies can't play the same sort of games. Even with automatic updates, I can always modify the source code to disable the company's latest tricks, or simply revert to an earlier version. That advantage isn't quite enough to tempt me away from the easy path of using Windows, but Microsoft is one very short step from driving me away.
There is a difference between arguing about the theoretical quality of a format and the various implementations of the format. There is no real correlation between price and picture quality in current VCRs, and I suspect that has always been the case. Does anyone actually watch or test VCRs before buying them? Maybe your house had a poor quality expensive VHS and your friend's had an excellent quality cheap Beta. Perhaps you could have found examples where VHS was better than Beta.
My understanding (and recollection) of the situation was that, in general, Beta had slightly better picture quality, but VHS had longer recording times. It seems plausible that people would think that better recording times were more important than better picture quality; and that the "better" format did win.
At any rate BOTH of them suck in picture quality and better choices have been available for more than 10 years. Laser Disks have much better picture quality than VHS or Beta tapes, but nobody bought them. Super VHS is much better than VHS or Beta, but not many people were willing to pay more for it. I stopped renting VHS tapes more than 10 years ago due to the poor quality of the video (and especially sound); I was lucky enough to be able to rent laser disks instead. I should also point out that people are still renting tapes, even though DVDs are way better.
By the time VHS beat Beta, there were already better formats than either VHS or Beta, so I am not sure that there are any lessons to be learned other than the mass market doesn't care much about quality. The "best" product does win in the market place; it is just that the "quality" of the various choices does not have a very large weighting factor in the overall judgment.
Specifically, I am talking about the StretchDIBits() function. This function displays a specified rectangle from a source bitmap in a specified rectangle in a device context. If you take a 3x3 pixel bitmap and specify you want it displayed in a 300x300 area, Windows (and/or the device driver) scales up each source bitmap pixel to a rectangle in the device context. This function will also scale a larger bitmap to a smaller display area by eliminating extra rows and columns.
What I am saying is that the larger the bitmap, the faster it will display. It is slower to display a 3x3 bitmap in a 300x300 area than a 30x30 or 300x300 bitmap in the same area. This effect can be seen because the screen blanking/refresh is visibly slower for the smaller bitmaps. This effect is counter-intuitive. It is a trivial algorithm to scale up a bitmap to a larger display area, and you would think that this algorithm would run faster than actually transferring a larger number of bitmap pixels to the screen. In fact, code I have written to do my own scaling, then pass the larger bitmap to StretchDIBits() is faster than letting StretchDIBits() do it. I think this is a sign of driver programmers not being concerned about the speed of this basic 2d operation.
By the way, I have noticed that the support for bitmaps generally sucks in Windows. I spent months trying to determine why customers would complain that occasionally bitmaps would not be printed. I eventually learned that in some modes for some HP printer drivers, if a bitmap has fewer than about 900 points, the driver would not display the bitmap. I fixed this by detecting when the bitmap is "too small"; creating a new larger bitmap that is scaled up from the original, then displaying the scaled-up bitmap instead. I had no success in interesting either Microsoft or HP in this apparent driver bug. Since then I haven't even bothered to report the bugs I have found in Windows.
I don't completely agree with your logic. If the relation is a partial order, then there could be incomparable people, so it isn't always possible to determine who is "best". So we could charitably interpret the sig as "no one is the best", as this is at least possible.
On the other hand, I partly remember a philosophy course I took. One of the arguments for the existence of God is based on the definition: God is the thing that is better than everything else. If this is true, then the sig reduces to "you are not God". If there is a God (who is by definition better than everything else), then if you are not God, someone is better. If you believe in God, then the sig is true.
2d performance might be "ok", but it is getting worse with each generation of graphics card, not better.
My company measures data points on a regular 2d grid and displays the results on screen as a colour bitmap. There is a function in the Windows API that will scale a bitmap so that it will fill a specified area. For example, if you want to display a 3x3 bitmap in a 300x300 pixel area on the screen, the driver will expand each input point to a 100x100 area, and then draw it.
Now every time I get an "upgraded" computer and graphics card, this operation gets slower. It has gotten to the point where it is faster to display large bitmaps than smaller ones. It is faster to run code that expands the 3x3 bitmap to 300x300 and provide that to the API call than to let the driver do it. This is a pretty sad state of affairs, especially since my first job for the company in 1985 was to speed up this exact operation (we used a $3000 card that could do 800x600 in 256 colours with no 2d, let alone 3d, acceleration!)
This sorry state of affairs shows the danger of benchmarks. No one measures how fast 2d operations are anymore, so no company puts any development time into features that aren't typically measured. If 2d performance is important to you, you'd better do your own benchmarks, because there seems to be no correlation between 2d and 3d speeds.
Lowering the price to compensate for a lower value product is what happens in a free market. Fortunately, the media companies don't have to deal with a free market; they can be shielded by new laws instead.
Copy protection on DVD's is an example of where the media companies played somewhat fair. Laser Disks were not copy protected, but they were 2-3 times more expensive than DVD's. What you lost in not being able to make copies, you made up for in better quality and lower price. This is how a market is supposed to work.
Copy protection on CD's is an example of how the media companies would like it. Copy protected CD's are worse than normal CD's in every way. Besides not being able to copy them, you can't play them on your computer, and they are probably more susceptible to damage. Yet the record companies want to sell them for the same price as real CD's!
The widespread copying of digital media is only happening because the distribution and physical production of digital media is much cheaper and easier than it was for analogue media. The only way for a media company to consistently charge much more than the cost of production is to prevent competition. The recent changes to the copyright act will create an ironclad legal monopoly that will allow the media companies to do whatever they think will increase their revenue. If the law does not restrict what companies can put on the media they produce, and the law prevents a user from modifying the players or media they "own", then unskippable ads are an inevitable consequence. We will get no more a price break in compensation for the ads on a DVD than we did when they started showing ads in movie theatres.
My answer to your first question is, unfortunately, that the Canadian Ambassador is my representative in Washington. Although I'm sure he would be happy to hear my opinions, his vote doesn't count for much in Washington. I guess I should hire a lobbyist.
Because of the shear size of the US economy, companies tend produce products in accordance with US laws so that they can sell into the US market. It is also a good idea for foreigners to obey US laws if they ever want to set foot on US soil, since apparently you can be prosecuted for breaking US laws even if your actions are legal in your own country.
As foreigners, our opportunities to influence US laws are pretty much restricted to convincing Americans to act on our behalf. Americans that are bellyaching in/. should be attempting to influence their government; foreigners that are bellyaching in/. are doing what little they can.
As other posters have pointed out, the DMCA has been warped to suit a lot of other cases, and it may apply here too.
My cynical side says that if the DMCA won't work, console companies will get some other law passed to preserve their business model.
What is the DMCA for other than to protect the business model of copyright holders? In the days before cheap distribution and production of copyrighted materials, it was enough to prevent sales of copied materials, since selling the material was the only way to be able to afford the cost of production machinery. Now that it can cost less than 5% of the retail price of a CD to manufacture your own copy (assuming you even need to make a copy), hardware and software has to be designed to prevent you from doing that. Since existing laws generally allow you to modify devices you buy; and as experience has shown, access controls can be bypassed; a company that doesn't want to change how they are doing business must change the law.
Now I think it is much cheaper for a company to get the government to pass laws to save their business models than to change to a new business model. And you don't even have to be cynical enough to assume they will bribe politicians; all a lobbyist has to say is: "look at all the jobs that the business model creates". Politicians can be easily persuaded that they'll take the blame for any job losses, and change the law to cover their asses.
Mark my words; until the government starts taking consumers into account and not just producers, we'll continue to see laws like this. Think of all the recent laws passed to subsidize farmers or the tariffs added to steel and lumber. These laws help (American) producers at the expense of consumers. You may ask if it is worth it to pay more for everything made out of steel in order to save a few thousand steel jobs and make a few steel company CEOs even richer, but the government sure doesn't.
Both systems have their advantages, but I'd say on the whole that Metric is better than Imperial.
The Imperial system seems to be better if you don't have to convert units. Because there are so many Imperial units, with essentially arbitrary scaling factors between them, you can often pick exactly the right intuitive units for the job. For example: inches, feet, yards, miles. And once you except that there are only arbitrary relationships between units, you can even use metric units like litres to measure bottles of coke!
The Metric system is definitely better if you ever have to convert between units. I'll bet you can convert centimetres to kilometres in your head, and I'll equally bet you don't know the conversion from inches to miles. Conversion between different types of units is also often nice in the metric system. For example, a litre of water weighs a kilogram.
On the whole, as a Canadian who is regularly forced to use one system or the other, I'd say the convenience of conversion outweighs the ability to pick an intuitive unit. If you need a geeky example why this is so: I often spend my time when riding my bike up long hills trying to figure out how many revolutions of my 27 inch bike wheel it takes to go a mile. I have to convert to metric units and back to even have a chance at doing the calculation in my head; especially if I want to calculate revolutions per second of my peddles into miles per hour.
I'd also like to point out that metric units can also be intuitive. Celsius temperatures make a lot more sense. Freezing and boiling points at 0 and 100 make a lot more intuitive sense than 32 and 212.
I'd like to repeat the plea to Americans to switch to SI. I wouldn't need two sets of wrenches, and I could free up a whole bunch of brain space filled with trivia like: there are 12 inches in a foot, 16 ounces in a pound (or is that 12 troy ounces?), and 128 ounces in a gallon (or is that 160 slightly smaller ounces in a Canadian gallon?). Since you Imperial unit users are accustomed to arbitrary conversion factors, I don't see why you can't just learn 2.2 pounds to the kilogram, 1.6 kilometers to the mile, 3.75 litres to the (American) gallon, and leave the rest of us in peace.
Why do you assume that companies have the right to collect the maximum possible profit? There are two sides to commerce: the producer and the consumer. The producer benefits from being paid; the consumer benefits because they get something they value.
If a producer can cover the actual cost of production, and make enough extra money to keep them from switching to some other business, they will produce. If a consumer can get more value out of something than it costs, they will buy it (or make it themselves). The actual price will end up somewhere between the cost of production and the value of consuming.
Note that this is a trade, and both sides get something of value for less than it cost them. I think it is legitimate to argue about who should get a bigger chunk of this benefit, companies or consumers. I don't believe that the company should be automatically entitled to maximize their share.
The extension of copyright terms tilted the benefits towards companies and away from consumers. Companies will now be able to charge future consumers more than they otherwise could, and consumers will therefore get less benefit than they otherwise could. The companies didn't have to pay (much) to get the laws changed, so they got a substantial financial benefit that they didn't do anything to earn. I'd say that there is a "Socialist States of America", but for companies, not citizens.
I am almost convinced by all the glowing reviews I have read. Unfortunately, Tivos are not available in Canada! I could probably order one from the US, but how would I get a local program listing? They might get more sales if they actually offer it for sale.
One other thing makes me hesitate. These things are upgradeable at the company's discretion. What recourse do I have if I buy one, and after an upgrade, the fast-forward button is disabled when a commercial is detected? I really don't want to buy a network-connected, upgradeable device without some sort of assurance that it can't be "upgraded" without my permission.
Re: Windows installation is easier?
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I would like to respond to your point that it is harder to install Linux than Windows. For most people, installing Windows is a complete no-brainer -- THE COMPANY THAT SOLD THEM THE COMPUTER INSTALLED IT FOR THEM!!!
I installed XP on my own computer, which was working fine with WIN98. It took me a week to find out my mouse driver was causing the keyboard driver to cause a BSOD on shutdown. Of course I asked Microsoft for help, but I ended up solving the problem myself. Every time I install a new piece of software or hardware, I expect to have to spend hours or days getting my computer working again. And my expectations are usually met.
The reason that Windows installations sometimes work better is that the companies selling equipment devote huge amounts of resources to making installation smooth, and still often don't get it right. And, when it doesn't go right - you are left guessing how to fix the problem with no help from Microsoft.
I am extremely annoyed that despite the fact that I could write an operating system, if something goes wrong with Windows, I am reduced to trying things at random like any other dumb user. Since there is no good technical documentation available, and no chance to debug the OS myself, Windows installations better go smoothly because there is no reasonable way to fix problems if it doesn't.
I was quite amusingly burned by IE-only Microsoft site. I was having problems getting IE to load a web page; it would just sit there for 20 minutes, then finally wake up. But, this would only happen in my account, not my wife's. So I decided to see if Microsoft's knowledge base could give me any clues. I fired up a copy of Netscape and tried to look it up, and found I couldn't use the site! How nice, I needed IE working to try to get information about how to get IE working.
p.s. Of course I got no help from the Microsoft site. I eventually figured out the problem myself.
One way to look at this situation is that BMG has simply switched to using a new format for releasing its music. This format is worse than CDs in every way: it probably sounds worse, it is probably less scratch-resistant, and it is only partly compatible with existing CD players. However, if BMG lowers the price to make up for the reduced value, I'll bet consumers would be willing to buy them.
My own situation: I own about 1500 CDs, I have never downloaded from the Net (too much trouble and my tastes are not at all mainstream), and I pretty much stopped buying CDs 3 years ago. Why? CDs are not worth what they cost. The price of CDs has been about the same for the last 10 years. Instead of CDs, I am now buying DVDs. Since 95% of the 400 or so DVDs I have bought cost less than $20 (mostly used); a SALE price of $15 for a CD does not seem like a very good value. Rather than spending my free time listening to new CDs, I am watching movies instead.
Now I hate copy protected media. Before DVDs, I was buying Laser Disks, which are not copy-protected. But, Laser Disks cost about $40-80, so I was willing to buy DVDs, even though they are copy-protected, because they cost half as much. I'll bet the same thing would apply if these new BMG disks cost half as much as CDs (and they release music I like); not that they'll do that.
I don't think the encoder part of this device is anything new. TIVOs (and the equivalent) already need to encode a show in order to record it onto a hard drive, and the many happy TIVO users must think the quality is adequate. Also, since it appears that more and more TV will be broadcast digitally (via satelite or cable) the encoding problem will ultimately be solved by the broadcaster.
Actually, it will probably be even worse for Joe Average user. All of these new devices have programmable firmware which the manufacturer can change at will any time the device "phones home" to get a program listing. Not only won't Joe be able to buy another "new VCR thingy", the VCR thingy he owns will no longer be able to do what it could at the time that he bought it!
We need a law to ensure that owners can choose when to update, or more important, when not to update their devices.
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I don't know what mechanism you could use to redistribute wealth other than a government (of greedy rulers). Who else is going to "force the wealthy to give to the poor"? Robin Hood? Should we let the poor "extort" the money themselves?
You have pointed out plenty of ways that closed source software is better than open source software. Don't worry about programmers' jobs; I don't think that closed source software is going to go away.
There are only certain limited places where open source software will work. Open source software is software that is paid for by the efforts of the programmers that create it. If there isn't enough value in a program to reward programmer's time, then the program will not be viable.
That is not the same as what you are arguing. You say that open source software can never work, or is some sort of threat to all closed source software. That isn't true, it is just FUD from companies that don't even want you to consider open source code and keep on buying their closed source versions.
You are wondering why open source advocates often single out Microsoft. That is for the simple reason that Microsoft sells the really popular closed source programs; the programs that are popular enough to succeed as open source programs. Microsoft is the company with the most to lose from existing open source software, and Microsoft is fighting accordingly.
Microsoft mostly competes on the merits of its software, which I'll admit is pretty good, but it also competes unfairly and illegally. Their current campaign of FUD against open source software is one of those unfair competitions. As you know, there is a huge cost in simply trying a new program. It will take a few days to get it installed and set up, and a considerably longer time to learn enough to do a fair evaluation. Because it is so expensive to try software, people will not do it unless they think there is a big advantage in switching to it. Microsoft is trying to convince people that open source is an unsustainable market; if people believe that, they won't even try competing open source software. Open source enthusiasts are fighting to counteract the FUD (mostly coming from Microsoft) because we think open source is a viable model that is in many ways better than the closed source model.
Judge for yourself whether a closed source or open source program is better, but don't argue that an open source development model can never work or is somehow suspect. The only difference between open source and closed source software is why it is created: closed source to make a profit selling the software itself, open source to create a useful tool that can be used to make a profit.
As your message points out, it is hard to imagine making money by selling software that can be had for free. But, who says that the only reason to make software is to sell the software itself?
I work for a company that makes test equipment for the semi-conductor manufacturing industry. Our business is to sell hardware; the software is only there to run the hardware and analyze the results. It happens that in our case we use Windows; but that causes a great deal of difficulties. When something goes wrong, our customers expect us to make the machine work properly; if Windows causes the problem, we have to work around it because there is no way Microsoft will fix bugs in a timely fashion. If we were using an open-source OS, we might have a chance of fixing operating system errors rather than working around them. We would also be able to ship whatever version of the OS we want; the forced upgrade from Windows 95 to 2000 caused us a huge amount of work tracking down bugs.
It may be true that there is no way to make money selling open source software; but there are certainly ways to make money using open source software. I admire Microsoft for finding a way to make a lot of money selling software; but there is no law of nature that says you can't develop software cooperatively. If you are a programmer that works with a different company's product, access to the source code and permission to modify the source code is of great value. In fact, the value is so great that programmers are willing to "pay for" open source software by giving away bug fixes and feature enhancements for the software.
Don't simply accept Microsoft's arguments at face value. Only companies that want to make money by selling software (like Microsoft) can be hurt by open source software. Users of software can only be helped by open source software. As a user, pick the software that is the best for your purposes, and don't believe what Microsoft says about the viability of an open source development model. Open source software does not depend on altruistic programmers and companies giving away their time; it depends on programmers and companies recognizing the value of using open source tools to add value to the products that they actually sell.
I have to agree, and I think the EFF has a campaign to get some basic consumer fair use rights written into law.
In theory, we shouldn't need a law to force companies to do this. In a supposed free market, there would be a variety of devices available, and we would buy the one that allows use to exercise our fair use rights.
Unfortunately, by using the DMCA and patent laws, companies can conspire to ensure that devices that allow fair use will not exist. For example, find a DVD player that will allow you to record onto a VCR (without modification). You won't even find DVD players that will allow you to exercise your "fair use" of the fast-forward button when the studio doesn't want you too.
Since the media companies have proven that they have no respect for our fair use rights, we need legislation to ensure that it is possible for us to exercise those rights. Companies are right to be concerned about illegal copying, and should be able to prevent it; however, they shouldn't be able to exploit these mechanisms (both technological and legal) to prevent fair use.
If there is no way to prevent illegal copying without also preventing fair use, I think it is just too bad for the record companies. If the media companies go out of business (what the Dark One fears), well too bad. Entertainment existed before greedy companies got complete control over it, and will survive the fall of those companies.
I was surprised to discover that Valenti is also concerned about the music industry:
"The music industry now is suffering nine, ten, fifteen percent losses in revenue. When you compound that over the next three or four years, the music industry is dead. I don't see a future for it. After awhile, who's going to produce it?"
I think I can answer his question. I suspect that the same producers will still be available if the music industry dies; I doubt that all the producers will be killed.
I think the question he really wanted to ask was "who's going to PAY to produce it?" The answer right now is that the musicians themselves pay to produce; the record companies just front them the money. If the musicians become about as popular as Britney Spears, they can earn enough to pay back the production costs out of their royalties.
So the question really is, who is going to front the musicians production money when record companies can no longer make obscene profits from their control of music distribution?
There are some possible answers to that, which I'll illustrate from experiments done by one of my favorite groups, King Crimson. The band owns its own record label, and they make 10 times as much money per copy on the CD's on their own label, compared to the CD's that they license the Record companies to distribute. Even if the current music distribution system collapses along with Valenti's predicted collapse of record companies, then independent record companies can still use their distribution methods.
Although King Crimson is a popular enough band to be able to provide their own production money, only their new releases are sure to make back the money. They also have a scheme for paying the cost of producing CD's from old concert recordings. They ask their fans to front them the money by contributing to an account, from which they buy for the CD's that they want from the ones that are produced.
Musicians and producers will survive the death of the current music industry. More and more musicians are bypassing the current record companies because of how badly they are being ripped off. I am confident that music will still be produced because either the artists or their fans will be able to front the production costs. If the big multi-national record companies no longer monopolize the distribution and promotion systems, I think you will find that the artists themselves will be able to take over. After all, the current system is really only helping the small number of hugely popular acts that dominate MTV. All other acts are simply getting screwed by the current system, which charges them for all the costs, but gives them only a tiny percentage of the earnings.
From his comments about not actually wanting to ban VCR's, despite every indication to the contrary:
"Then we would go to the Congress and get a copyright royalty fee put on all blank videocassettes and that would go back to the creators [to compensate for videocassette piracy].
"I predicted great piracy. We now lose $3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy."
Well how nice, he never wanted to destroy the money-making prerecorded video cassette industry that he so astutely predicted, he only wanted to charge us for time-shifting TV shows and making our own home movies.
This guy really takes the cake. He isn't happy with all the money that selling videocassettes made his association. He just whines about the 3.5 billion extra he thinks he should have been able to extract from people.
The prerecorded videocassette industry came after VCR's were introduced (of course). VCR's were invented to record, not just play. At about the time VCR's became popular, prerecorded movies where available on higher quality play-only media like laser disks; but people weren't buying Laser Disk players, people bought VCR's instead because they could also record with them. After a while, when a large-enough number of movies were available on tape, and the studios started charging a reasonable price for them, the market for videocassettes took off, despite some piracy.
I think that not only did the availability of VCR's create a huge market for videocassettes; it also made the sale of DVD's possible. When DVD players first came out, the pundits predicted that people wouldn't buy them because they couldn't record. Yet people did buy them because of the market for prerecorded copies of movies created by the existence of VCR's.
Is this guy really so stupid that he objects to devices that have made his association untold billions of dollars because some people are not paying? If VCR's couldn't record, not many people would have bought them, and the studios wouldn't have made any money at all.
People buy hardware because of the capabilities of the devices. Once enough hardware is out there, then there is a market for software. Software availability drives hardware sales too, of course. These markets are feedback loops that are sensitive to the characteristics of the hardware and quality and availability of the software. If you change the capabilities of the hardware, you are going to affect how many people buy the hardware, and therefore the market for software.
Record companies are going to be disappointed if they monkey with copy protecting CD's (without lowering the price). Movie companies are going to be disappointed if they force us into their preferred rental model where you pay for each viewing. Computer software companies are going to be sorry if they monkey with the computer hardware to prevent unauthorized execution of their software. All of these companies have an overinflated opinion of the value of their software, and are underestimating the backlash that will occur when they try to shove crippled hardware down our throats. They can only play us for suckers for so long. The huge price discrepancy between the cost of making an illegal copy and buying a legal one creates a vacuum that technology will fill. If the copies are more convenient than the originals, that will only add to the pressure. I wish the companies luck in cutting their own throats.
There are two purposes to getting a degree or certificate (what most people call getting an education). The first purpose is to learn something. If you paid attention in school and aren't hit on the head, you will always have that knowledge. The other purpose is to get credentials - to prove that you know something. Your credentials are wasted if they were not used to get a job, or something else of value.
I think a lot of people look at School solely as a way to obtain the credentials they think they need. That attitude isn't necessarily wrong, but I really think going to school ought to be about learning something you need to know, or are just interested in. You will probably always benefit from learning something, but the value of credentials is much more variable. Credentials for a job you don't want to do are not very valuable, no matter how much time and money you put into earning them.
I didn't necessarily mean to pick on these file formats, I just used them as an example of the trouble that obsolete programs and file formats can lead to.
.DOC format rather than HTML.
WordPerfect is still a viable program and even Word will read the format, but that is only because there are still enough people using it. There aren't many still using WordStar, but from what I remember, the format was mostly ASCII, and my company did write a program that could read them. In both these cases, you are still able to mostly read these files now, but 20 or 100 years from now will be a different story.
I think open source is still necessary, even with open formats, because without access to the source code, you have to rely on documentation. I have never seen a specification that didn't have some leeway for interpretation, so the only way to be sure you can read everything in a file is to see the ultimate description of how to interpret a file format: source code. Look at the difference between browsers right now. Imagine how much worse it would be if the Internet used
It can never be the best choice to use a proprietary format for storing or presenting government information. If a person wants to trust their content to another company, that's fine; but my government had better not make decisions about what software I have to buy. If a government doesn't use at least an open data storage format, what are they going to do if the company stops supporting it or goes out of business? We might be interested in this content 100 years from now, I shudder to think of the situation we'd be in if a government adopted Wordstar format, or even WordPerfect.
When it comes to buying software for government use however, if a company sells a program to deal with a standard format, that's fine. As long as the government isn't locked into a particular choice, they should pick the best. But there must always be a second choice, and preferably one that allows widespread access to source code.
I have to agree with you about XP enabling companies to control your machine. Microsoft hasn't even tried to make things easier for the user.
For example, consider product activation. I had to reinstall my upgrade copy of XP. During reinstallation, I had to supply my Windows ME CD (before you laugh at me too much, I bought ME but used 98). Why the hell did I have to do that? Microsoft knows I can legally use XP - I've activated it, they already know enough about my computer to know it is just a reinstall! Activation is for Microsoft's benefit (of course), but they could at least use it to make reinstallation a little easier!
I was reading an article at InformIT.com yesterday about what "phone home" features in XP you could disable (I'd give a link but you need to register). There are some pretty scary things in there, especially to do with DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). Apparently there is an "enemies list" in the software that can prevent you from running programs if secure DRM contents are compromised. This means that XP has the power to prevent you from running any program that Microsoft doesn't approve of, now or in the future; and XP will automatically look for and apply new lists. I don't know how well this will work, but this sure is in the interest of companies, not users.
We are really seeing companies pushing every advantage they have and screwing the users at every opportunity. I see it already with DVD players. Companies have the right to protect their property from being copied (but only when such copying is illegal). But, companies have exploited their protection mechanisms to also disable the fast-forward button on any DVD player whenever they want, and introduce other customer-hostile features piggybacked on the copy protection.
At least my DVD player doesn't have upgradeable firmware, so the companies can't take away any more features. When it comes to Windows however, there is no guarantee that anything it does today will not be disabled tomorrow. Companies that want more of my money are in charge of the software on my machine, and recent history makes it hard to believe that they will change things for my benefit.
With OSS, the user can be in control. Companies can't play the same sort of games. Even with automatic updates, I can always modify the source code to disable the company's latest tricks, or simply revert to an earlier version. That advantage isn't quite enough to tempt me away from the easy path of using Windows, but Microsoft is one very short step from driving me away.
There is a difference between arguing about the theoretical quality of a format and the various implementations of the format. There is no real correlation between price and picture quality in current VCRs, and I suspect that has always been the case. Does anyone actually watch or test VCRs before buying them? Maybe your house had a poor quality expensive VHS and your friend's had an excellent quality cheap Beta. Perhaps you could have found examples where VHS was better than Beta.
My understanding (and recollection) of the situation was that, in general, Beta had slightly better picture quality, but VHS had longer recording times. It seems plausible that people would think that better recording times were more important than better picture quality; and that the "better" format did win.
At any rate BOTH of them suck in picture quality and better choices have been available for more than 10 years. Laser Disks have much better picture quality than VHS or Beta tapes, but nobody bought them. Super VHS is much better than VHS or Beta, but not many people were willing to pay more for it. I stopped renting VHS tapes more than 10 years ago due to the poor quality of the video (and especially sound); I was lucky enough to be able to rent laser disks instead. I should also point out that people are still renting tapes, even though DVDs are way better.
By the time VHS beat Beta, there were already better formats than either VHS or Beta, so I am not sure that there are any lessons to be learned other than the mass market doesn't care much about quality. The "best" product does win in the market place; it is just that the "quality" of the various choices does not have a very large weighting factor in the overall judgment.
Specifically, I am talking about the StretchDIBits() function. This function displays a specified rectangle from a source bitmap in a specified rectangle in a device context. If you take a 3x3 pixel bitmap and specify you want it displayed in a 300x300 area, Windows (and/or the device driver) scales up each source bitmap pixel to a rectangle in the device context. This function will also scale a larger bitmap to a smaller display area by eliminating extra rows and columns.
What I am saying is that the larger the bitmap, the faster it will display. It is slower to display a 3x3 bitmap in a 300x300 area than a 30x30 or 300x300 bitmap in the same area. This effect can be seen because the screen blanking/refresh is visibly slower for the smaller bitmaps. This effect is counter-intuitive. It is a trivial algorithm to scale up a bitmap to a larger display area, and you would think that this algorithm would run faster than actually transferring a larger number of bitmap pixels to the screen. In fact, code I have written to do my own scaling, then pass the larger bitmap to StretchDIBits() is faster than letting StretchDIBits() do it. I think this is a sign of driver programmers not being concerned about the speed of this basic 2d operation.
By the way, I have noticed that the support for bitmaps generally sucks in Windows. I spent months trying to determine why customers would complain that occasionally bitmaps would not be printed. I eventually learned that in some modes for some HP printer drivers, if a bitmap has fewer than about 900 points, the driver would not display the bitmap. I fixed this by detecting when the bitmap is "too small"; creating a new larger bitmap that is scaled up from the original, then displaying the scaled-up bitmap instead. I had no success in interesting either Microsoft or HP in this apparent driver bug. Since then I haven't even bothered to report the bugs I have found in Windows.
I don't completely agree with your logic. If the relation is a partial order, then there could be incomparable people, so it isn't always possible to determine who is "best". So we could charitably interpret the sig as "no one is the best", as this is at least possible.
On the other hand, I partly remember a philosophy course I took. One of the arguments for the existence of God is based on the definition: God is the thing that is better than everything else. If this is true, then the sig reduces to "you are not God". If there is a God (who is by definition better than everything else), then if you are not God, someone is better. If you believe in God, then the sig is true.
2d performance might be "ok", but it is getting worse with each generation of graphics card, not better.
My company measures data points on a regular 2d grid and displays the results on screen as a colour bitmap. There is a function in the Windows API that will scale a bitmap so that it will fill a specified area. For example, if you want to display a 3x3 bitmap in a 300x300 pixel area on the screen, the driver will expand each input point to a 100x100 area, and then draw it.
Now every time I get an "upgraded" computer and graphics card, this operation gets slower. It has gotten to the point where it is faster to display large bitmaps than smaller ones. It is faster to run code that expands the 3x3 bitmap to 300x300 and provide that to the API call than to let the driver do it. This is a pretty sad state of affairs, especially since my first job for the company in 1985 was to speed up this exact operation (we used a $3000 card that could do 800x600 in 256 colours with no 2d, let alone 3d, acceleration!)
This sorry state of affairs shows the danger of benchmarks. No one measures how fast 2d operations are anymore, so no company puts any development time into features that aren't typically measured. If 2d performance is important to you, you'd better do your own benchmarks, because there seems to be no correlation between 2d and 3d speeds.
Lowering the price to compensate for a lower value product is what happens in a free market. Fortunately, the media companies don't have to deal with a free market; they can be shielded by new laws instead.
Copy protection on DVD's is an example of where the media companies played somewhat fair. Laser Disks were not copy protected, but they were 2-3 times more expensive than DVD's. What you lost in not being able to make copies, you made up for in better quality and lower price. This is how a market is supposed to work.
Copy protection on CD's is an example of how the media companies would like it. Copy protected CD's are worse than normal CD's in every way. Besides not being able to copy them, you can't play them on your computer, and they are probably more susceptible to damage. Yet the record companies want to sell them for the same price as real CD's!
The widespread copying of digital media is only happening because the distribution and physical production of digital media is much cheaper and easier than it was for analogue media. The only way for a media company to consistently charge much more than the cost of production is to prevent competition. The recent changes to the copyright act will create an ironclad legal monopoly that will allow the media companies to do whatever they think will increase their revenue. If the law does not restrict what companies can put on the media they produce, and the law prevents a user from modifying the players or media they "own", then unskippable ads are an inevitable consequence. We will get no more a price break in compensation for the ads on a DVD than we did when they started showing ads in movie theatres.
My answer to your first question is, unfortunately, that the Canadian Ambassador is my representative in Washington. Although I'm sure he would be happy to hear my opinions, his vote doesn't count for much in Washington. I guess I should hire a lobbyist.
/. should be attempting to influence their government; foreigners that are bellyaching in /. are doing what little they can.
Because of the shear size of the US economy, companies tend produce products in accordance with US laws so that they can sell into the US market. It is also a good idea for foreigners to obey US laws if they ever want to set foot on US soil, since apparently you can be prosecuted for breaking US laws even if your actions are legal in your own country.
As foreigners, our opportunities to influence US laws are pretty much restricted to convincing Americans to act on our behalf. Americans that are bellyaching in
As other posters have pointed out, the DMCA has been warped to suit a lot of other cases, and it may apply here too.
My cynical side says that if the DMCA won't work, console companies will get some other law passed to preserve their business model.
What is the DMCA for other than to protect the business model of copyright holders? In the days before cheap distribution and production of copyrighted materials, it was enough to prevent sales of copied materials, since selling the material was the only way to be able to afford the cost of production machinery. Now that it can cost less than 5% of the retail price of a CD to manufacture your own copy (assuming you even need to make a copy), hardware and software has to be designed to prevent you from doing that. Since existing laws generally allow you to modify devices you buy; and as experience has shown, access controls can be bypassed; a company that doesn't want to change how they are doing business must change the law.
Now I think it is much cheaper for a company to get the government to pass laws to save their business models than to change to a new business model. And you don't even have to be cynical enough to assume they will bribe politicians; all a lobbyist has to say is: "look at all the jobs that the business model creates". Politicians can be easily persuaded that they'll take the blame for any job losses, and change the law to cover their asses.
Mark my words; until the government starts taking consumers into account and not just producers, we'll continue to see laws like this. Think of all the recent laws passed to subsidize farmers or the tariffs added to steel and lumber. These laws help (American) producers at the expense of consumers. You may ask if it is worth it to pay more for everything made out of steel in order to save a few thousand steel jobs and make a few steel company CEOs even richer, but the government sure doesn't.
Both systems have their advantages, but I'd say on the whole that Metric is better than Imperial.
The Imperial system seems to be better if you don't have to convert units. Because there are so many Imperial units, with essentially arbitrary scaling factors between them, you can often pick exactly the right intuitive units for the job. For example: inches, feet, yards, miles. And once you except that there are only arbitrary relationships between units, you can even use metric units like litres to measure bottles of coke!
The Metric system is definitely better if you ever have to convert between units. I'll bet you can convert centimetres to kilometres in your head, and I'll equally bet you don't know the conversion from inches to miles. Conversion between different types of units is also often nice in the metric system. For example, a litre of water weighs a kilogram.
On the whole, as a Canadian who is regularly forced to use one system or the other, I'd say the convenience of conversion outweighs the ability to pick an intuitive unit. If you need a geeky example why this is so: I often spend my time when riding my bike up long hills trying to figure out how many revolutions of my 27 inch bike wheel it takes to go a mile. I have to convert to metric units and back to even have a chance at doing the calculation in my head; especially if I want to calculate revolutions per second of my peddles into miles per hour.
I'd also like to point out that metric units can also be intuitive. Celsius temperatures make a lot more sense. Freezing and boiling points at 0 and 100 make a lot more intuitive sense than 32 and 212.
I'd like to repeat the plea to Americans to switch to SI. I wouldn't need two sets of wrenches, and I could free up a whole bunch of brain space filled with trivia like: there are 12 inches in a foot, 16 ounces in a pound (or is that 12 troy ounces?), and 128 ounces in a gallon (or is that 160 slightly smaller ounces in a Canadian gallon?). Since you Imperial unit users are accustomed to arbitrary conversion factors, I don't see why you can't just learn 2.2 pounds to the kilogram, 1.6 kilometers to the mile, 3.75 litres to the (American) gallon, and leave the rest of us in peace.
Why do you assume that companies have the right to collect the maximum possible profit? There are two sides to commerce: the producer and the consumer. The producer benefits from being paid; the consumer benefits because they get something they value.
If a producer can cover the actual cost of production, and make enough extra money to keep them from switching to some other business, they will produce. If a consumer can get more value out of something than it costs, they will buy it (or make it themselves). The actual price will end up somewhere between the cost of production and the value of consuming.
Note that this is a trade, and both sides get something of value for less than it cost them. I think it is legitimate to argue about who should get a bigger chunk of this benefit, companies or consumers. I don't believe that the company should be automatically entitled to maximize their share.
The extension of copyright terms tilted the benefits towards companies and away from consumers. Companies will now be able to charge future consumers more than they otherwise could, and consumers will therefore get less benefit than they otherwise could. The companies didn't have to pay (much) to get the laws changed, so they got a substantial financial benefit that they didn't do anything to earn. I'd say that there is a "Socialist States of America", but for companies, not citizens.
I am almost convinced by all the glowing reviews I have read. Unfortunately, Tivos are not available in Canada! I could probably order one from the US, but how would I get a local program listing? They might get more sales if they actually offer it for sale.
One other thing makes me hesitate. These things are upgradeable at the company's discretion. What recourse do I have if I buy one, and after an upgrade, the fast-forward button is disabled when a commercial is detected? I really don't want to buy a network-connected, upgradeable device without some sort of assurance that it can't be "upgraded" without my permission.
I would like to respond to your point that it is harder to install Linux than Windows. For most people, installing Windows is a complete no-brainer -- THE COMPANY THAT SOLD THEM THE COMPUTER INSTALLED IT FOR THEM!!!
I installed XP on my own computer, which was working fine with WIN98. It took me a week to find out my mouse driver was causing the keyboard driver to cause a BSOD on shutdown. Of course I asked Microsoft for help, but I ended up solving the problem myself. Every time I install a new piece of software or hardware, I expect to have to spend hours or days getting my computer working again. And my expectations are usually met.
The reason that Windows installations sometimes work better is that the companies selling equipment devote huge amounts of resources to making installation smooth, and still often don't get it right. And, when it doesn't go right - you are left guessing how to fix the problem with no help from Microsoft.
I am extremely annoyed that despite the fact that I could write an operating system, if something goes wrong with Windows, I am reduced to trying things at random like any other dumb user. Since there is no good technical documentation available, and no chance to debug the OS myself, Windows installations better go smoothly because there is no reasonable way to fix problems if it doesn't.
I was quite amusingly burned by IE-only Microsoft site. I was having problems getting IE to load a web page; it would just sit there for 20 minutes, then finally wake up. But, this would only happen in my account, not my wife's. So I decided to see if Microsoft's knowledge base could give me any clues. I fired up a copy of Netscape and tried to look it up, and found I couldn't use the site! How nice, I needed IE working to try to get information about how to get IE working.
p.s. Of course I got no help from the Microsoft site. I eventually figured out the problem myself.
One way to look at this situation is that BMG has simply switched to using a new format for releasing its music. This format is worse than CDs in every way: it probably sounds worse, it is probably less scratch-resistant, and it is only partly compatible with existing CD players. However, if BMG lowers the price to make up for the reduced value, I'll bet consumers would be willing to buy them.
My own situation: I own about 1500 CDs, I have never downloaded from the Net (too much trouble and my tastes are not at all mainstream), and I pretty much stopped buying CDs 3 years ago. Why? CDs are not worth what they cost. The price of CDs has been about the same for the last 10 years. Instead of CDs, I am now buying DVDs. Since 95% of the 400 or so DVDs I have bought cost less than $20 (mostly used); a SALE price of $15 for a CD does not seem like a very good value. Rather than spending my free time listening to new CDs, I am watching movies instead.
Now I hate copy protected media. Before DVDs, I was buying Laser Disks, which are not copy-protected. But, Laser Disks cost about $40-80, so I was willing to buy DVDs, even though they are copy-protected, because they cost half as much. I'll bet the same thing would apply if these new BMG disks cost half as much as CDs (and they release music I like); not that they'll do that.
I don't think the encoder part of this device is anything new. TIVOs (and the equivalent) already need to encode a show in order to record it onto a hard drive, and the many happy TIVO users must think the quality is adequate. Also, since it appears that more and more TV will be broadcast digitally (via satelite or cable) the encoding problem will ultimately be solved by the broadcaster.
Actually, it will probably be even worse for Joe Average user. All of these new devices have programmable firmware which the manufacturer can change at will any time the device "phones home" to get a program listing. Not only won't Joe be able to buy another "new VCR thingy", the VCR thingy he owns will no longer be able to do what it could at the time that he bought it!
We need a law to ensure that owners can choose when to update, or more important, when not to update their devices.