You can argue all you want about which model is better but that doesn't change the fact that if you copy something created by people expecting to get paid for it, you are stealing.
I think that you are somehow misapplying the word "steal" or at least using it in a way that it normally isn't.
A copy is just that--a copy. If you expend resources to make a copy of something, you've essentially done all the work in the creation of it. Someone may have done a lot more work to produce the original item, but you're not depriving them of the original item or the use of it, nor anyone else.
What you are doing, however, is ruining that item's marketability by eliminating its scarcity. You could argue that such a thing in itself is stealing, but if you made such an extension in a criminal sense and apply legal enforcement, you're essentially outlawing a lot of other things that don't make sense. For example, if you manufactured product A that is twice as efficient as product B and selling it for half the price, your actions are ruining the marketability of product B and destroying the projected value of the labor that was put into its creation. Should that be illegal?
We can't simply criminalize people for actions that lead to the decrease in a commodity's desired value. Most people who labor want to see the highest possible return, but that doesn't mean the extent of what's possible shouldn't be limited by natural market forces lest the imbalance prove to be a burden on the economy. Copyright is an example of market protectionism that gives certain individuals priveleges they don't have naturally. In many cases the necessity of these priveleges are grossly exaggerated (for example, the original term for Copyright in the United States was fewer than twenty years).
That doesn't mean all protectionism is unwarranted or harmful to the economy. There are, however, cases in which we might wish to re-evaluate current systems. For example, software copyright is furnished with the belief that a foundation is provided for the existence and growth of software itself. It is feared that without such protectionism the software industry might be too fragile to exist on its own and that the creation of new software in conjunction with the improvement of current software would cease to take place or at least be so sluggish as to handicap other endeavors which depend on it.
Certainly, the success and popularity of the GPL is aided by its legal viability by reliance on the potency of copyright law. But from the perspective of Free software, "stealing" would be the act of not copying it, and the movement would be little harmed without the existence of copyright as applied to software.
What Free software does is offer us the reassurance that even without protectionism, the production of software would not be threatened. As such, I invite you to consider perhaps that we might enjoy greater social and market freedoms without the coercion of software copyright while at the same time continuing to enjoy a prosperous level of software production.
Right, but data-heavy signals such as audio and video exhaust disc storage easily depending on the quality of the signal versus the level of compression. The enlarged capacity of the new discs enables for the creation of new formats. You can consider picture quality and audio quality to depend on the size of the disk, so this is a natural trait of the format.
Of course the quality can vary depending on the mastering techniques. A DVD can contain video quality far inferior to that of VHS if that is the content, but proper usage of DVD allows us to surpass VHS. Blu-ray and HD-DVD allow us to surpass DVD and (in theory) each other.
"For some reason"? It even says in the summary that the mod creator planned to use it for music and movies. The reasdons for adding an IDE drive are numerous and obvious, so I consider this wording to be a rather poor choice (especially for Slashdot, whose readership generally understands what disk storage is).
Art is about expression of the self, about sharing an emotional experience with someone else. Movies, music, paintings and poems express a broad range of emotions and often in a profound manner.
Considering that games usually always contain "movies", music, "paintings" (ie hand-drawn or modeled artwork), and sometimes even poetry, it's hard to understand your objection. Not only do I think that video games fit your own definition of art, but also that your definition of art is too limited to really define what art is.
I've explained this to a few people over time, and everyone seems to get the picture. What it usually boils down to is me telling the other people, "DRM gives companies control over your computer so that they can arbitrarily decide what you are and aren't allowed to do with it." People hate to hear this.
He may be right that NetBSD has its problems, but it's unfair to say that any software project doesn't. Also, I still believe NetBSD was/is a good project, and while BSD sometimes get the short end of the stick when it comes to reputation, we owe a lot to the work that went in to those systems. Times change...new systems come, and old systems go. NetBSD still has quite a way left to go before its done, but when it is I will remember it fondly.
Game programming is what you might call a "sexy" field, and it's not the only one. It's not that there is anything special or different about coding games that makes it so difficult to get into--you just have to be good at it. Companies want to hire you because you have what it takes; it's not like you have to be "in" or anything.
The biggest problem is that a lot of people have delusions about what they need to do or what they can do--they are infatuated with the concept of creating games because they love to play them, but when it actually comes down really doing it, they don't like it much at all! After all, how many teenages do you know want to be game programmers? By contrast, how many teenagers do you know write C programs for their own enjoyment (or any other reason, for that matter)?
Another example of this would be playing an instrument (such as the guitar). Lots of people wished they play the guitar because they think it's a cool idea. However, do they truly love music so much that rather than do other things with their time they would sit down and practice?
The thing is, only people who have the desire to be real programmers will put in the effort.
I agree with you; I hope that we don't see this in the final version. I can understand that it might be useful for debugging and even documentation, but, being an installer, it should be made only to serve the purpose of installing--having features that don't contribute to that goal in the final version (sans debugging code) is careless.
there seems little else other than updated packages.
Doesn't this hold true for any distro release? At its heart, a distro is more or less an organized collection of packages. Actual development of the software is done by other people--for example, the linux kernel is developed independently from any distro release. This is unlike more traditional unices (such as BSD or Sun OS) in which new releases herald additions/changes to the core system. While distro maintainers frequently contribute to development (Debian, RedHat, Ubuntu--younameit), those are considered seperate projects from the distro itself (except when the projects are the foundation for the creation of the distro itself, such as Debian's package system and installer).
I used to try different distros a lot--jump around constantly. What I took away from that is that no matter where you go, you almost always get the same thing (with varying levels of up-to-dateness). After all, GNU is GNU is GNU (or are rose by any other name); a distro just takes that, wraps it up, and puts a lovely bow on top (sometimes no bow, like on Slackware).
The article describes a twofold problem: no readers, too few writers. On Wikipedia, the readers are the writers, so in this case these two problems are actually one problem. It's also a problem which Wikipedia has already been designed to solve--when readers want content, they push it onto the wiki. If the content isn't there, obviously the demand is not great enough to make it happen. Isn't that the way of wikipedia?
WIKI is for "what I know is." If it were "what we want you to know is", we'd be calling it WWWYTKIpedia. I think we should simply lay this topic to rest and move on to something reasonable, such as "if wikipedia isn't the right tool to help educate African people, what other tools are possible?"
Insightful? I think not. This is a well written humor article (and not very long, I might add). If this article is too "technical" for you, why don't you mosey on over to the BBC instead of sit here and complain?
I usually keep a win32 copy of openoffice.org handy; I work in a computer lab, and it's happened more than once that a student from a low budget home comes in with some kind of ODF file that they can't open. The school insists on only using Microsoft Office, so I install OO.org on demand for students who need it. Since I keep documents on my thumb drive, it helps me to access my own work as well.
Huh? Do you honestly think that if you take away the incentives to *get rich and famous* that there will be better movies and albums? Do you really believe that?
Yes, absolutely. It's a fatal mistake to assume that everything needs incentives like that in order to work. Music is natural for humans, and being a good musician has rewards far greater than wealth and fame; in fact, there once was a time when being a musician was not a very lucrative business, but you can't say that the art suffered at all. As a matter of fact, there are billions of people that adore older styles of music; most of the artists weren't that wealthy at all.
Were you not paying attention during the last 50 years as one centrally-managed economy after another failed?
What does that have to do with music and how much musicians get paid? You can't just make some sort of vague blanket statement about communism and expect us to learn anything except for the glaringly obvious fact that you're a United States citizen. It's like saying that because Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, you must denounce vegetarianism as a doomed practice because "where were you when nazism failed?"
Did you not notice that the products produced in those countries were orders of magnitude worse than those produced in free market economies - and losing ground with each passing decade?... Incentive breeds competition, which leads to dramatic product improvements and innovations. If you take away the incentive, everything stagnates.
Are we even talking about music anymore? There are some things which benefit from competition--art is not one of them. In fact, it hardly seems possible for art to be competitive--it's just art. When you place it in a competitive market, the larger effect seems to damage the art itself; just look at the entire broken music industry and how it's breaking our legal system. Which of us who loves music honestly would want to be a musician in this day in age? People are hauled into court for downloading and sharing music! I think it's high time we rethink things thoroughly, and you're not contributing to this process by crying wolf every time anything remotely remindes you of communism.
I've had a Palm Pilot for the past few years. It's stable, compatible, and is the best organization software I've ever used. Pocket PC's with Windows CE (or whatever it's called these days) tend to cost a bit more, and sure, I think the operating system is more robust and flexible, but this is a device where simplicity is a feature. Also keep in mind that PalmOS is fully programmable (you can download the development libraries after registration--available for linux), and there exists a wealth of apps for it. On wi-fi enabled units, you can get such things as browsers and ssh clients (more then enough to satisfy the geek in you). PalmOS is also compatible with lots of linux apps (eg evolution plugins)
Also, regardless of bells and whistles, it's a solid organizer--everything you need is right there in one package. In fact, you can get a cheap Zire without dropping more than $99, and you'll get all the organizing goodness of PalmOS (no features barred, same interface) as well as a generous 32mb or so of RAM (how many people do you know?). That cheap model won't have a fancy pants screen or play mp3's, but you bet your granny's knickers you'll be organized. Feel like spending a little more? Get a Tungsten E2--plenty of RAM, gorgeous screen, media playback, SD slot, and enough features spared to allow you to keep things simple and straightforwad and the price tag low (eg no wifi or bluetooth, but doesn't your cell phone do that? Or your laptop? Or...oh hell, just check your schedule).
Whatever you choose to buy, you won't regret it. To those who need them, a sturdy organizer is worth its weight in gold, and Palm knows how to make that work. They also how to please your geeky self.
Right, but this is the way I see it: A lot of people blindly convert commidities into cash. If you consider the resources and labor that go into the production of electronics, you'll notice something--it's different! Electronics are made from plastics and metals in factories, by factory workers. Could these facilities produce food? Maybe...probably very poorly. Could these workers convert to managing a different kind of production? Sure, but they'd be less efficient!
Furthermore, the facilities and workers for producing such laptops are in place, and they themselves cannot benefit 3rd world children in terms of food and water and health care. But can they contribute? Yes, they can, and that $100 going in exchange for the production of those laptops is not equivalent to $100 dollars worth of food! If things are balanced right, the value of the machines will be right and will not outweigh money spent on other items such as food.
Food and water are essential, but it's unfair to say that the laptops would not be beneficial just as well. More pressing needs may exist, but every little thing helpful counts.
Some people like to use caps lock on purpose; I do it myself sometimes when it is convenient. For example, I may create a password in caps lock to make it harder to guess by a human being (most people assume lower case). Also, in computer science using caps for certain things is a good habit.
What I would like to see is capslock with a timeout; if you push it, it goes on and stays on while you are typing, but after a second or two has passed without any keystrokes, it will go off by itself. That should save us a lot of headaches.
I can understand that the problem here is a breach of trust because most people believed that their searches were private, but I need some convincing as to whether or not this information deserves to be private.
I mean, honestly, if you give a query to anyone--say you go to your neighbor and ask them a few questions in private--what is to stop them from telling anyone else about the questions were you were asking them? In this case, you already understand the situation and know how things like that are going to go down; you wouldn't ask them if they had any midget porn because you know people are going to be talking. Also, what if someone went up to you and said, "I want to ask you something, but you have to promise not to tell anyone that I did." I don't know about you, but I would refuse outright because I don't keep secrets with strangers.
So long as people understood that searching was a public affair, no one would be complaining. I can understand that anonymity on the internet is DESIRED because we've been used to a high degree of it, but why is anonymity on the net necessary or even healthy for society? There is a fine line between what is private and what is public--too much of either leads to an unhealthy social situation. Sometimes I feel like people enjoy a little too much privacy, especially when the internet is concerned. What we are witnessing right now is a natural balancing act as society and technology grow and adapt to one another.
I think the first thing that comes to mind is what people will start to think about Firefox. Sure, its userbase might be strengthened, but we are living in an age of browser spamming.
What do I mean by "browser spamming"? For example, let's say you install a popular piece of software like AOL. I have a laptop running Windows XP, and I also do not have any commercial antivirus of my own, so I installed AOL because my dad has an accoutn with them and from that I am able to get free McAfee service. AOL came bundled with "AOL browser." It's merely an IE frontend with a shinier interface and tabs. Also, try installing Realplayer for Windows--you can hardly load the damn thing without their little media browser coming up, loading all sorts of Real sponsored web pages. Is it possible for me to go anywhere or do anything without escaping some kind of little browser getting in my business?
Soon people will download Realplayer, an ad-supported shareware package, and they'll have Firefox. They'll begin to regard Firefox as the same sort of strings-attached freeware junk that Real is. Don't get me wrong--I think Realplayer is actually a very nice media player, but my beef against it is all the peripheral crap that comes with it and the intentionally-limited features.
It's important that people understand what Firefox truly is--Free software with a capital "F". They also need to understand that it comes from the Mozilla Foundation, not Real Networks.:-/
Just have them pick up a legitimate copy and not install it. Technically they've purchased a license to run whatever version of Microsoft Windows they have, and as far as I know this license is granted as such so that the machine might run it. If you already have Windows on the machine, don't bother installing anything more--just tuck your new copy away on the shelf and don't put it on any other computers. It's not like the "pirated" copy is any different than any other Windows system of its version except by product key and maybe a couple other unique identifiers, but if anyone calls you on it, say "I have a license to run this software!"
Slashdot Mirror
You can argue all you want about which model is better but that doesn't change the fact that if you copy something created by people expecting to get paid for it, you are stealing.
I think that you are somehow misapplying the word "steal" or at least using it in a way that it normally isn't.
A copy is just that--a copy. If you expend resources to make a copy of something, you've essentially done all the work in the creation of it. Someone may have done a lot more work to produce the original item, but you're not depriving them of the original item or the use of it, nor anyone else.
What you are doing, however, is ruining that item's marketability by eliminating its scarcity. You could argue that such a thing in itself is stealing, but if you made such an extension in a criminal sense and apply legal enforcement, you're essentially outlawing a lot of other things that don't make sense. For example, if you manufactured product A that is twice as efficient as product B and selling it for half the price, your actions are ruining the marketability of product B and destroying the projected value of the labor that was put into its creation. Should that be illegal?
We can't simply criminalize people for actions that lead to the decrease in a commodity's desired value. Most people who labor want to see the highest possible return, but that doesn't mean the extent of what's possible shouldn't be limited by natural market forces lest the imbalance prove to be a burden on the economy. Copyright is an example of market protectionism that gives certain individuals priveleges they don't have naturally. In many cases the necessity of these priveleges are grossly exaggerated (for example, the original term for Copyright in the United States was fewer than twenty years).
That doesn't mean all protectionism is unwarranted or harmful to the economy. There are, however, cases in which we might wish to re-evaluate current systems. For example, software copyright is furnished with the belief that a foundation is provided for the existence and growth of software itself. It is feared that without such protectionism the software industry might be too fragile to exist on its own and that the creation of new software in conjunction with the improvement of current software would cease to take place or at least be so sluggish as to handicap other endeavors which depend on it.
Certainly, the success and popularity of the GPL is aided by its legal viability by reliance on the potency of copyright law. But from the perspective of Free software, "stealing" would be the act of not copying it, and the movement would be little harmed without the existence of copyright as applied to software.
What Free software does is offer us the reassurance that even without protectionism, the production of software would not be threatened. As such, I invite you to consider perhaps that we might enjoy greater social and market freedoms without the coercion of software copyright while at the same time continuing to enjoy a prosperous level of software production.
You raise a good point; my father just purchased a broadband connection for his laptop from Sprint. Talk about "true" wireless internet...
Penny Arcade tells it like it is..
Right, but data-heavy signals such as audio and video exhaust disc storage easily depending on the quality of the signal versus the level of compression. The enlarged capacity of the new discs enables for the creation of new formats. You can consider picture quality and audio quality to depend on the size of the disk, so this is a natural trait of the format.
Of course the quality can vary depending on the mastering techniques. A DVD can contain video quality far inferior to that of VHS if that is the content, but proper usage of DVD allows us to surpass VHS. Blu-ray and HD-DVD allow us to surpass DVD and (in theory) each other.
"For some reason"? It even says in the summary that the mod creator planned to use it for music and movies. The reasdons for adding an IDE drive are numerous and obvious, so I consider this wording to be a rather poor choice (especially for Slashdot, whose readership generally understands what disk storage is).
Art is about expression of the self, about sharing an emotional experience with someone else. Movies, music, paintings and poems express a broad range of emotions and often in a profound manner.
Considering that games usually always contain "movies", music, "paintings" (ie hand-drawn or modeled artwork), and sometimes even poetry, it's hard to understand your objection. Not only do I think that video games fit your own definition of art, but also that your definition of art is too limited to really define what art is.
I've explained this to a few people over time, and everyone seems to get the picture. What it usually boils down to is me telling the other people, "DRM gives companies control over your computer so that they can arbitrarily decide what you are and aren't allowed to do with it." People hate to hear this.
He may be right that NetBSD has its problems, but it's unfair to say that any software project doesn't. Also, I still believe NetBSD was/is a good project, and while BSD sometimes get the short end of the stick when it comes to reputation, we owe a lot to the work that went in to those systems. Times change...new systems come, and old systems go. NetBSD still has quite a way left to go before its done, but when it is I will remember it fondly.
Game programming is what you might call a "sexy" field, and it's not the only one. It's not that there is anything special or different about coding games that makes it so difficult to get into--you just have to be good at it. Companies want to hire you because you have what it takes; it's not like you have to be "in" or anything.
The biggest problem is that a lot of people have delusions about what they need to do or what they can do--they are infatuated with the concept of creating games because they love to play them, but when it actually comes down really doing it, they don't like it much at all! After all, how many teenages do you know want to be game programmers? By contrast, how many teenagers do you know write C programs for their own enjoyment (or any other reason, for that matter)?
Another example of this would be playing an instrument (such as the guitar). Lots of people wished they play the guitar because they think it's a cool idea. However, do they truly love music so much that rather than do other things with their time they would sit down and practice?
The thing is, only people who have the desire to be real programmers will put in the effort.
This is where I make some snarky comment about water being wet or cows in Kansas.
I agree with you; I hope that we don't see this in the final version. I can understand that it might be useful for debugging and even documentation, but, being an installer, it should be made only to serve the purpose of installing--having features that don't contribute to that goal in the final version (sans debugging code) is careless.
Doesn't this hold true for any distro release? At its heart, a distro is more or less an organized collection of packages. Actual development of the software is done by other people--for example, the linux kernel is developed independently from any distro release. This is unlike more traditional unices (such as BSD or Sun OS) in which new releases herald additions/changes to the core system. While distro maintainers frequently contribute to development (Debian, RedHat, Ubuntu--younameit), those are considered seperate projects from the distro itself (except when the projects are the foundation for the creation of the distro itself, such as Debian's package system and installer).
I used to try different distros a lot--jump around constantly. What I took away from that is that no matter where you go, you almost always get the same thing (with varying levels of up-to-dateness). After all, GNU is GNU is GNU (or are rose by any other name); a distro just takes that, wraps it up, and puts a lovely bow on top (sometimes no bow, like on Slackware).
I'll stop when you start saying GNU/Linux. ;)
The article describes a twofold problem: no readers, too few writers. On Wikipedia, the readers are the writers, so in this case these two problems are actually one problem. It's also a problem which Wikipedia has already been designed to solve--when readers want content, they push it onto the wiki. If the content isn't there, obviously the demand is not great enough to make it happen. Isn't that the way of wikipedia?
WIKI is for "what I know is." If it were "what we want you to know is", we'd be calling it WWWYTKIpedia. I think we should simply lay this topic to rest and move on to something reasonable, such as "if wikipedia isn't the right tool to help educate African people, what other tools are possible?"
Insightful? I think not. This is a well written humor article (and not very long, I might add). If this article is too "technical" for you, why don't you mosey on over to the BBC instead of sit here and complain?
I usually keep a win32 copy of openoffice.org handy; I work in a computer lab, and it's happened more than once that a student from a low budget home comes in with some kind of ODF file that they can't open. The school insists on only using Microsoft Office, so I install OO.org on demand for students who need it. Since I keep documents on my thumb drive, it helps me to access my own work as well.
Huh? Do you honestly think that if you take away the incentives to *get rich and famous* that there will be better movies and albums? Do you really believe that?
Yes, absolutely. It's a fatal mistake to assume that everything needs incentives like that in order to work. Music is natural for humans, and being a good musician has rewards far greater than wealth and fame; in fact, there once was a time when being a musician was not a very lucrative business, but you can't say that the art suffered at all. As a matter of fact, there are billions of people that adore older styles of music; most of the artists weren't that wealthy at all.
Were you not paying attention during the last 50 years as one centrally-managed economy after another failed?
What does that have to do with music and how much musicians get paid? You can't just make some sort of vague blanket statement about communism and expect us to learn anything except for the glaringly obvious fact that you're a United States citizen. It's like saying that because Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, you must denounce vegetarianism as a doomed practice because "where were you when nazism failed?"
Did you not notice that the products produced in those countries were orders of magnitude worse than those produced in free market economies - and losing ground with each passing decade? ... Incentive breeds competition, which leads to dramatic product improvements and innovations. If you take away the incentive, everything stagnates.
Are we even talking about music anymore? There are some things which benefit from competition--art is not one of them. In fact, it hardly seems possible for art to be competitive--it's just art. When you place it in a competitive market, the larger effect seems to damage the art itself; just look at the entire broken music industry and how it's breaking our legal system. Which of us who loves music honestly would want to be a musician in this day in age? People are hauled into court for downloading and sharing music! I think it's high time we rethink things thoroughly, and you're not contributing to this process by crying wolf every time anything remotely remindes you of communism.
I've had a Palm Pilot for the past few years. It's stable, compatible, and is the best organization software I've ever used. Pocket PC's with Windows CE (or whatever it's called these days) tend to cost a bit more, and sure, I think the operating system is more robust and flexible, but this is a device where simplicity is a feature. Also keep in mind that PalmOS is fully programmable (you can download the development libraries after registration--available for linux), and there exists a wealth of apps for it. On wi-fi enabled units, you can get such things as browsers and ssh clients (more then enough to satisfy the geek in you). PalmOS is also compatible with lots of linux apps (eg evolution plugins)
Also, regardless of bells and whistles, it's a solid organizer--everything you need is right there in one package. In fact, you can get a cheap Zire without dropping more than $99, and you'll get all the organizing goodness of PalmOS (no features barred, same interface) as well as a generous 32mb or so of RAM (how many people do you know?). That cheap model won't have a fancy pants screen or play mp3's, but you bet your granny's knickers you'll be organized. Feel like spending a little more? Get a Tungsten E2--plenty of RAM, gorgeous screen, media playback, SD slot, and enough features spared to allow you to keep things simple and straightforwad and the price tag low (eg no wifi or bluetooth, but doesn't your cell phone do that? Or your laptop? Or...oh hell, just check your schedule).
Whatever you choose to buy, you won't regret it. To those who need them, a sturdy organizer is worth its weight in gold, and Palm knows how to make that work. They also how to please your geeky self.
Right, but this is the way I see it: A lot of people blindly convert commidities into cash. If you consider the resources and labor that go into the production of electronics, you'll notice something--it's different! Electronics are made from plastics and metals in factories, by factory workers. Could these facilities produce food? Maybe...probably very poorly. Could these workers convert to managing a different kind of production? Sure, but they'd be less efficient!
Furthermore, the facilities and workers for producing such laptops are in place, and they themselves cannot benefit 3rd world children in terms of food and water and health care. But can they contribute? Yes, they can, and that $100 going in exchange for the production of those laptops is not equivalent to $100 dollars worth of food! If things are balanced right, the value of the machines will be right and will not outweigh money spent on other items such as food.
Food and water are essential, but it's unfair to say that the laptops would not be beneficial just as well. More pressing needs may exist, but every little thing helpful counts.
Some people like to use caps lock on purpose; I do it myself sometimes when it is convenient. For example, I may create a password in caps lock to make it harder to guess by a human being (most people assume lower case). Also, in computer science using caps for certain things is a good habit.
What I would like to see is capslock with a timeout; if you push it, it goes on and stays on while you are typing, but after a second or two has passed without any keystrokes, it will go off by itself. That should save us a lot of headaches.
I can understand that the problem here is a breach of trust because most people believed that their searches were private, but I need some convincing as to whether or not this information deserves to be private.
I mean, honestly, if you give a query to anyone--say you go to your neighbor and ask them a few questions in private--what is to stop them from telling anyone else about the questions were you were asking them? In this case, you already understand the situation and know how things like that are going to go down; you wouldn't ask them if they had any midget porn because you know people are going to be talking. Also, what if someone went up to you and said, "I want to ask you something, but you have to promise not to tell anyone that I did." I don't know about you, but I would refuse outright because I don't keep secrets with strangers.
So long as people understood that searching was a public affair, no one would be complaining. I can understand that anonymity on the internet is DESIRED because we've been used to a high degree of it, but why is anonymity on the net necessary or even healthy for society? There is a fine line between what is private and what is public--too much of either leads to an unhealthy social situation. Sometimes I feel like people enjoy a little too much privacy, especially when the internet is concerned. What we are witnessing right now is a natural balancing act as society and technology grow and adapt to one another.
This is one of the most clever things I've read in a long time. Bravo!
Challenge them to find a better product.
I think the first thing that comes to mind is what people will start to think about Firefox. Sure, its userbase might be strengthened, but we are living in an age of browser spamming.
What do I mean by "browser spamming"? For example, let's say you install a popular piece of software like AOL. I have a laptop running Windows XP, and I also do not have any commercial antivirus of my own, so I installed AOL because my dad has an accoutn with them and from that I am able to get free McAfee service. AOL came bundled with "AOL browser." It's merely an IE frontend with a shinier interface and tabs. Also, try installing Realplayer for Windows--you can hardly load the damn thing without their little media browser coming up, loading all sorts of Real sponsored web pages. Is it possible for me to go anywhere or do anything without escaping some kind of little browser getting in my business?
Soon people will download Realplayer, an ad-supported shareware package, and they'll have Firefox. They'll begin to regard Firefox as the same sort of strings-attached freeware junk that Real is. Don't get me wrong--I think Realplayer is actually a very nice media player, but my beef against it is all the peripheral crap that comes with it and the intentionally-limited features.
It's important that people understand what Firefox truly is--Free software with a capital "F". They also need to understand that it comes from the Mozilla Foundation, not Real Networks. :-/
Just have them pick up a legitimate copy and not install it. Technically they've purchased a license to run whatever version of Microsoft Windows they have, and as far as I know this license is granted as such so that the machine might run it. If you already have Windows on the machine, don't bother installing anything more--just tuck your new copy away on the shelf and don't put it on any other computers. It's not like the "pirated" copy is any different than any other Windows system of its version except by product key and maybe a couple other unique identifiers, but if anyone calls you on it, say "I have a license to run this software!"