"If you want to convince anybody that copying movies and music is bad, you might start with explaining why the amount of people stealing music and movies is so much higher than people who steal ungaurded physical objects."
People go to jail for stealing physical objects (or at least do community service, i.e. Ryder). The average end-user pirate faces no penalty at all. Only when people are making money from piracy does law enforcement bother to get involved. The RIAA can't even successfully get info about pirates from ISPs. BTW, determining morality based on some observed behavior is not a very good basis for a code of ethics.
Security is a mechanism to prevent criminal activity. Poor security doesn't excuse the criminal activity. The interesting part is, you're making a case for palladium/drm by saying they need better security since no one can be trusted.
"They are dependant on the marketing and business schemes and not the quality of their product."
Yeah, I'm sure all the programmers that work for MS are just some losers that couldn't get a job from anyone else, and could care less about the quality of the code they write.
"Standards determined not by a governing body but by a corporate manifesto for dominance?"
I think Linus would not want the government setting the standards for a computing environment. Can you imagine what a nightmare that mess would be? Probably make MS's solution look good.
I think they could shut down distributions that contain the offending code, much the same way they shut down napster. You'd probably have to remove the offending code from the distro before you could resume distribution.
Go into any college lab, and you'll see some 286 running Win3.1 hooked up to some piece of test equipment running software written by some student that nobody wants to touch because it still works.
"Linux and the various other nixes don't require the large amount raw manpower for maintenance that Windows requires, at least, not after things shake down. Therefore, a whole industry is threatened."
This is one of the stupidest comments I've ever seen. I work at a company that uses Solaris, Linux, and Windows, and there's no way our sys admin spends more time with windows than either solaris or linux. All 3 OS require tech support. Get off your high horse and get back to reality.
"If you look at any flavor of UNIX, they haven't changed much in how they work or how you interface to them."
Has the NT API really changed that much? Doubtful. Linux, on the other hand, has changed drastically over the years, allowing it to gain market share as it becomes easier for the end user to maintain. The Windows interface has changed drastically from 3.1 to 95, but not that much since. As far as licensing goes, sure you'll pay a fee, but it's nothing compared with your other costs. The software we run for instance, is licensed for millions of dollars, and you get very few seats for that money. Other costs such as IT staff etc. probably outweigh the licensing costs. I'd choose Linux vs. Windows in response to other issues than licensing
Why don't you (the poster) start up the site? Once you do, you'll realize that there is a good deal of work involved plus a minimum of a business level DSL connection. However, if you charge bands a royalty for cds sold through the site, it might turn out to be a good business venture that provides an alternative to RIAA sponsored music.
X-box is sold at a loss to hook people so they buy their games, not for anticompetitive reasons. IE was bundled with the OS, therefore it's part of the $100 you pay when you buy windows. Plus they can argue they make up for it in selling server software.
"The Law exists to protect the rich from the poor."
If that's true, then why do rich people pay a higher income tax not just in amount, but in percentage? There are a lot more poor people in the US than rich people, and you don't get a vote for every dollar you're worth.
I think it's more likely that he's defending a working legal system against a bunch of people who don't understand the law and expect the govt. to put MS out of business.
"By the Constitution, it is most definately for the Supreme Court to decide. And as a registered voter and Citizen of the United States of America, it is my right and duty to decide what Congress should be doing. This is a democratic republic, or at least pretends to be so."
The supreme court can only strkie down a law that is unconstitutional, not make laws. The constitution says copyrights of a limited term are allowed. Congress gets to decide, not you, me, or the supreme court. Of course the NJ supreme court seems to think they can ignore the law and make up their own laws.
"I am not asking them to change thier actions due to criminals. I do think they should realign thier buiseness models to keep a large protion of thier customers happy. Even if many of those customer are also copyright violators. Copyright violation is not a criminal act, hence copyright violators are not criminals.
The problem is, you're NOT asking, your using govt. to TELL them how to run their business.
The whole point of the post is that some times you can't find someone willing to support open source software. This being the case, it is cheaper to buy closed source software with support, in general, since hiring someone to figure out the OSS and maintain it is very expensive.
Antitrust laws are against the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the US guarantees, and should be purged from our legal system. Breaking up MS is a perfect example of the federal govt. infringing on individual freedoms. How would you like it if the federal govt. started passing laws about who you could marry or be friends with, etc. This is the level of freedom that you are suggesting taking away from MS executives and employees. Makes what Ashcroft is doing look like nothing in comparison.
A corporation is simply a group of individuals cooperating towards some business goal. To limit the rights of this group of individuals is ridiculous and wrong, despite what US law says and what US courts have said. What if I treated your family like a corporation and said you have individual rights, but you, your wife, and your kids together don't have any rights. To say something like that doesn't even make sense. Corporations are not some abtract concept, but groups of real people which should have the same freedoms individuals have.
A corporation is simply a group of people cooperating towards some end. These people should have the same freedoms businesses composed of one person should have. Normally you don't see companies in criminal court, except for bs legislation. Note executives at Enron, etc. are appearing as individuals in criminal courts for fraud, etc.
"It is also illegal to violate the Constitution. I don't consider longer terms for copyright than the UK leased Hong Kong to be a limited time."
That's for Congress to decide. Not you or the Supreme Court.
"In most jurisdictions, this is a civil not criminal matter. So the copyright holders can sue you for copyright infringement, but I do not stand for have my fair use rights torn away. If your buiseness model cannot handle the new state of affairs, then find a new buiseness model."There is no law that says the music industry has to make it easy for you to copy their material. If you can copy it for yourself, however, you are not violating the law. No business should have to change their business model due to actions of criminals. That's like saying Walmart should lower their prices to the point where it isn't worth finding a rock and throwing it through their window to break in and steal stuff.
Thius is the person you should be flaming. Not the music industry. He and others like him are the reason why cds are becoming copy-protected. Blame him, not the music industry. We wouldn't have locks if there weren't thieves, and we wouldn't have copy protection if there weren't pirates.
Umm. The Supreme Court had nothing to do about the MS case. As for Bush v. Gore, they stepped in to prevent the Florida supreme court from overstepping their bounds. The Florida court made up their own rules rather than following the rules already enacted by the legislature. The same thing happened recently in NJ, where the NJ supreme court allowed the Democrats to substitute a candidate at the last minute (who later won), despite the explicit laws on the books.
You can't just pick and choose your channels according to the new govt. regulations. You are only able to get premium channels like HBO, without the most expensive set of other channels. No other system would even make sense for the govt. to force on cable providers unless the govt. started regulating the price per channel as well.
Everything you talk about already exists. For every major label, there are at least 10 independent labels, plus bands can burn their own cds now. Most people don't buy their stuff because they prefer the 20 songs that pop radio plays over and over. No one even listens to college radio, which is free. Why would you expect them to pay money for music they haven't heard, or even bother to go looking for good music when they have those 20 songs on the radio to choose from? I'm not trying to bash your ideas. I wish more people would explore other avenues too. Most people just don't care, unfortuneately
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So you're saying if I think Nike charges too much for their sneakers, I can just go and take a pair without paying?
"If you want to convince anybody that copying movies and music is bad, you might start with explaining why the amount of people stealing music and movies is so much higher than people who steal ungaurded physical objects."
People go to jail for stealing physical objects (or at least do community service, i.e. Ryder). The average end-user pirate faces no penalty at all. Only when people are making money from piracy does law enforcement bother to get involved. The RIAA can't even successfully get info about pirates from ISPs. BTW, determining morality based on some observed behavior is not a very good basis for a code of ethics.
Security is a mechanism to prevent criminal activity. Poor security doesn't excuse the criminal activity. The interesting part is, you're making a case for palladium/drm by saying they need better security since no one can be trusted.
"They are dependant on the marketing and business schemes and not the quality of their product."
Yeah, I'm sure all the programmers that work for MS are just some losers that couldn't get a job from anyone else, and could care less about the quality of the code they write.
"Standards determined not by a governing body but by a corporate manifesto for dominance?"
I think Linus would not want the government setting the standards for a computing environment. Can you imagine what a nightmare that mess would be? Probably make MS's solution look good.
I think they could shut down distributions that contain the offending code, much the same way they shut down napster. You'd probably have to remove the offending code from the distro before you could resume distribution.
Go into any college lab, and you'll see some 286 running Win3.1 hooked up to some piece of test equipment running software written by some student that nobody wants to touch because it still works.
"Linux and the various other nixes don't require the large amount raw manpower for maintenance that Windows requires, at least, not after things shake down. Therefore, a whole industry is threatened."
This is one of the stupidest comments I've ever seen. I work at a company that uses Solaris, Linux, and Windows, and there's no way our sys admin spends more time with windows than either solaris or linux. All 3 OS require tech support. Get off your high horse and get back to reality.
"If you look at any flavor of UNIX, they haven't changed much in how they work or how you interface to them."
Has the NT API really changed that much? Doubtful. Linux, on the other hand, has changed drastically over the years, allowing it to gain market share as it becomes easier for the end user to maintain. The Windows interface has changed drastically from 3.1 to 95, but not that much since. As far as licensing goes, sure you'll pay a fee, but it's nothing compared with your other costs. The software we run for instance, is licensed for millions of dollars, and you get very few seats for that money. Other costs such as IT staff etc. probably outweigh the licensing costs. I'd choose Linux vs. Windows in response to other issues than licensing
What you describe already exists on the radio at a lot of college radio stations, minus the visual web browser crap. And it is free, as in free beer.
Why don't you (the poster) start up the site? Once you do, you'll realize that there is a good deal of work involved plus a minimum of a business level DSL connection. However, if you charge bands a royalty for cds sold through the site, it might turn out to be a good business venture that provides an alternative to RIAA sponsored music.
X-box is sold at a loss to hook people so they buy their games, not for anticompetitive reasons. IE was bundled with the OS, therefore it's part of the $100 you pay when you buy windows. Plus they can argue they make up for it in selling server software.
"The Law exists to protect the rich from the poor."
If that's true, then why do rich people pay a higher income tax not just in amount, but in percentage? There are a lot more poor people in the US than rich people, and you don't get a vote for every dollar you're worth.
I think it's more likely that he's defending a working legal system against a bunch of people who don't understand the law and expect the govt. to put MS out of business.
"By the Constitution, it is most definately for the Supreme Court to decide. And as a registered voter and Citizen of the United States of America, it is my right and duty to decide what Congress should be doing. This is a democratic republic, or at least pretends to be so."
The supreme court can only strkie down a law that is unconstitutional, not make laws. The constitution says copyrights of a limited term are allowed. Congress gets to decide, not you, me, or the supreme court. Of course the NJ supreme court seems to think they can ignore the law and make up their own laws.
"I am not asking them to change thier actions due to criminals. I do think they should realign thier buiseness models to keep a large protion of thier customers happy. Even if many of those customer are also copyright violators. Copyright violation is not a criminal act, hence copyright violators are not criminals.
The problem is, you're NOT asking, your using govt. to TELL them how to run their business.
Sorry to confuse you with reason.
The whole point of the post is that some times you can't find someone willing to support open source software. This being the case, it is cheaper to buy closed source software with support, in general, since hiring someone to figure out the OSS and maintain it is very expensive.
Antitrust laws are against the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the US guarantees, and should be purged from our legal system. Breaking up MS is a perfect example of the federal govt. infringing on individual freedoms. How would you like it if the federal govt. started passing laws about who you could marry or be friends with, etc. This is the level of freedom that you are suggesting taking away from MS executives and employees. Makes what Ashcroft is doing look like nothing in comparison.
A corporation is simply a group of individuals cooperating towards some business goal. To limit the rights of this group of individuals is ridiculous and wrong, despite what US law says and what US courts have said. What if I treated your family like a corporation and said you have individual rights, but you, your wife, and your kids together don't have any rights. To say something like that doesn't even make sense. Corporations are not some abtract concept, but groups of real people which should have the same freedoms individuals have.
A corporation is simply a group of people cooperating towards some end. These people should have the same freedoms businesses composed of one person should have. Normally you don't see companies in criminal court, except for bs legislation. Note executives at Enron, etc. are appearing as individuals in criminal courts for fraud, etc.
"It is also illegal to violate the Constitution. I don't consider longer terms for copyright than the UK leased Hong Kong to be a limited time."
That's for Congress to decide. Not you or the Supreme Court.
"In most jurisdictions, this is a civil not criminal matter. So the copyright holders can sue you for copyright infringement, but I do not stand for have my fair use rights torn away. If your buiseness model cannot handle the new state of affairs, then find a new buiseness model."There is no law that says the music industry has to make it easy for you to copy their material. If you can copy it for yourself, however, you are not violating the law. No business should have to change their business model due to actions of criminals. That's like saying Walmart should lower their prices to the point where it isn't worth finding a rock and throwing it through their window to break in and steal stuff.
Thius is the person you should be flaming. Not the music industry. He and others like him are the reason why cds are becoming copy-protected. Blame him, not the music industry. We wouldn't have locks if there weren't thieves, and we wouldn't have copy protection if there weren't pirates.
Umm. The Supreme Court had nothing to do about the MS case. As for Bush v. Gore, they stepped in to prevent the Florida supreme court from overstepping their bounds. The Florida court made up their own rules rather than following the rules already enacted by the legislature. The same thing happened recently in NJ, where the NJ supreme court allowed the Democrats to substitute a candidate at the last minute (who later won), despite the explicit laws on the books.
You can't just pick and choose your channels according to the new govt. regulations. You are only able to get premium channels like HBO, without the most expensive set of other channels. No other system would even make sense for the govt. to force on cable providers unless the govt. started regulating the price per channel as well.
Everything you talk about already exists. For every major label, there are at least 10 independent labels, plus bands can burn their own cds now. Most people don't buy their stuff because they prefer the 20 songs that pop radio plays over and over. No one even listens to college radio, which is free. Why would you expect them to pay money for music they haven't heard, or even bother to go looking for good music when they have those 20 songs on the radio to choose from? I'm not trying to bash your ideas. I wish more people would explore other avenues too. Most people just don't care, unfortuneately