Q: How do you kill a circus troupe? A: Go for the juggler!
You: "I realise that's supposed to be a joke, but in reality, you wouldn't be able to kill a whole circus troupe just by going for the juggler."
Unless you've got really braindead friends it should be possible for them to explain to you that the main point of my post is that "free-as-in-beer" is simply not a good description for the concept of free-as-in-no-cost.
Me to friend not well-versed in libre: "No, that's free as in beer." Friend: "Beer isn't free." Me: "Well, no. But when it is, it's free-as-in-beer." Friend: "Er, right. Suddenly everything becomes clear-as-in-mud." Me: "Actually it recently got a bit more complicated..."
Free-as-in-speech beer is all well and good, but I'd really like to see some of this free-as-in-beer beer that everyone talks about.
That or they will transcode everything into an OSS and patent friendly format that VLC can play without running into any patent issues.
Either way there are no guarantees that this will help OSS in any way or help VLC with its patent issues.
If someone with the infrastructure of Google were to start a precedent for using patent-free codecs in order to make your metadata searchable, that would indeed have a very positive impact for the development of patent-free codecs and therefore OSS.
Until the law is actually changed, it's not illegal for me to download copyrighted material (which of course, I'm just doing because I can't get my ripping software to work on the CD I legally own).
Prove I own a copy? Ah, I sold it, but I also deleted the copy I downloaded.
You want to prove I didn't delete it? That's a little bit more expensive than catching me with a CD in my jacket sleeve at the shop door.
Google still has a lot of public awareness ground to cover IMO... when I give out my gmail address, some people ask me "so you work for the government?"
I'm guessing the same people would probably think that a hotmail address means you work for the devil.
No, what Google might want ("needs" is a little strong) to do is to tie your GMail/Google ID to a Jabber server, then develop a Jabber client as one of their beautiful web applications (leaving those who would prefer to use GAIM free to do so).
if only 1% of their messages will get through, they have to send 100x as many messages
Is it not arguable that the reason 1 in 100 messages are getting through is that 1 in 100 people are not taking adequate measures to stop them? If they send 100 times as many, they won't get a larger audience, they'll just send 100 times as many of the same message to the same audience.
Plus, is increasing your output from a billion to a hundred billion quite so trivial as you suggest, if each machine you're sending from costs $n to have pwnd on your behalf?
I've never understood the US War On Some Drugs, because it seems to me that Americans of all people understand the economics of supply and demand.
It's a bit different with copyright infringement, because first world countries would rather get rich off ideas in perpetuity than have to do manual labour.
Which itself is unsustainable. There's a proverb, I think from India, which says, "If I be a queen and you be a queen, who will pound the butter?"
Mod parent up. If we do not infringe copyright, the music industry is stealing from us in a much more direct fashion than all this "would there, wouldn't there be lost sales" crap.
We're not talking about web search we're talking about being a marketplace.
You're not talking about web search, which is why I say you're missing the point.
Cheaper to type "ebay"? Whatever. My browser has a Google search box built into it. It's my starting point. If I want to achieve something on the internet, I type it into the Google search box, whether I want to find out about it, buy it, talk to it, have sex with it, whatever.
Of course sellers won't move their marketplaces from eBay; they'll just duplicate them to get maximum coverage. They'll start to build up a good reputation in the Google marketplace (inventory etc., are literally neither here nor there), and somewhere down the line, they'll start getting more custom through Google than they get through eBay, as more and more shoppers find the Google marketplace better-placed in their search results.
Google would have better luck opening its own stock exchange to trade Pokemon futures and equity interests in lemonade stands than going head to head against eBay
You vastly underestimate Google. If you own the web search, all else follows.
It was not that Deep Blue was better at chess than him.
This claim is still unfounded, though. Kasparov didn't even give Big Blue a chance to demonstrate its superiority at chess. People might argue the what-ifs of various positions but the fact remains that if Kasparov hadn't bottled it, he still might have lost through inferior chess-playing ability.
Did you know that you have had the privilege of conversing with the best chess player in the world? It's just that often when I sit down to play a game with somebody, I lose my nerve. Other people interpret this as their superior ability, but really, I'm losing those games all by myself.
Step 1: Use knowledge about the future to make enormous amounts of money Step 2: Use money to fund invention of time machine Step 3: Use time machine to gain knowledge about the future. (Not necessarily in this order)
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. And would your far-from-technophile wife run Debian if she didn't have you as a knowledgebase?
Q: How do you kill a circus troupe?
A: Go for the juggler!
You: "I realise that's supposed to be a joke, but in reality, you wouldn't be able to kill a whole circus troupe just by going for the juggler."
Unless you've got really braindead friends it should be possible for them to explain to you that the main point of my post is that "free-as-in-beer" is simply not a good description for the concept of free-as-in-no-cost.
Most amusing, but where does (3) come from? Somebody has to clean the hall, you know!
Yup. Not that it isn't already confusing enough:
Me to friend not well-versed in libre: "No, that's free as in beer."
Friend: "Beer isn't free."
Me: "Well, no. But when it is, it's free-as-in-beer."
Friend: "Er, right. Suddenly everything becomes clear-as-in-mud."
Me: "Actually it recently got a bit more complicated..."
Free-as-in-speech beer is all well and good, but I'd really like to see some of this free-as-in-beer beer that everyone talks about.
1986 called, they want their joke back.
That or they will transcode everything into an OSS and patent friendly format that VLC can play without running into any patent issues.
Either way there are no guarantees that this will help OSS in any way or help VLC with its patent issues.
If someone with the infrastructure of Google were to start a precedent for using patent-free codecs in order to make your metadata searchable, that would indeed have a very positive impact for the development of patent-free codecs and therefore OSS.
You occasionally discharge real emails as though they were missiles?
Until the law is actually changed, it's not illegal for me to download copyrighted material (which of course, I'm just doing because I can't get my ripping software to work on the CD I legally own).
Prove I own a copy? Ah, I sold it, but I also deleted the copy I downloaded.
You want to prove I didn't delete it? That's a little bit more expensive than catching me with a CD in my jacket sleeve at the shop door.
Google still has a lot of public awareness ground to cover IMO... when I give out my gmail address, some people ask me "so you work for the government?"
I'm guessing the same people would probably think that a hotmail address means you work for the devil.
No, what Google might want ("needs" is a little strong) to do is to tie your GMail/Google ID to a Jabber server, then develop a Jabber client as one of their beautiful web applications (leaving those who would prefer to use GAIM free to do so).
You actually think this person is female? You must be new here.
if only 1% of their messages will get through, they have to send 100x as many messages
Is it not arguable that the reason 1 in 100 messages are getting through is that 1 in 100 people are not taking adequate measures to stop them? If they send 100 times as many, they won't get a larger audience, they'll just send 100 times as many of the same message to the same audience.
Plus, is increasing your output from a billion to a hundred billion quite so trivial as you suggest, if each machine you're sending from costs $n to have pwnd on your behalf?
There are already enough roads. Building more just encourages people to drive.
Please mod parent up insightful!
I've never understood the US War On Some Drugs, because it seems to me that Americans of all people understand the economics of supply and demand.
It's a bit different with copyright infringement, because first world countries would rather get rich off ideas in perpetuity than have to do manual labour.
Which itself is unsustainable. There's a proverb, I think from India, which says, "If I be a queen and you be a queen, who will pound the butter?"
Mod parent up. If we do not infringe copyright, the music industry is stealing from us in a much more direct fashion than all this "would there, wouldn't there be lost sales" crap.
Except you're much more likely to get caught shoplifting a CD.
And even if OS X were released under the GPL, what would be the point? We're still all going to die.
Grow up, learn to see that your point is only one of many.
We're not talking about web search we're talking about being a marketplace.
You're not talking about web search, which is why I say you're missing the point.
Cheaper to type "ebay"? Whatever. My browser has a Google search box built into it. It's my starting point. If I want to achieve something on the internet, I type it into the Google search box, whether I want to find out about it, buy it, talk to it, have sex with it, whatever.
Of course sellers won't move their marketplaces from eBay; they'll just duplicate them to get maximum coverage. They'll start to build up a good reputation in the Google marketplace (inventory etc., are literally neither here nor there), and somewhere down the line, they'll start getting more custom through Google than they get through eBay, as more and more shoppers find the Google marketplace better-placed in their search results.
Google would have better luck opening its own stock exchange to trade Pokemon futures and equity interests in lemonade stands than going head to head against eBay
You vastly underestimate Google. If you own the web search, all else follows.
You chose to pay with your credit card. They chose to use a bank account in which you had the minimum balance?
How did they get details of your bank account, permission to withdraw funds from it, etc.?
Any two you like, as long as neither of them are non-DRM'd.
That should be "replies" ;)
It was not that Deep Blue was better at chess than him.
This claim is still unfounded, though. Kasparov didn't even give Big Blue a chance to demonstrate its superiority at chess. People might argue the what-ifs of various positions but the fact remains that if Kasparov hadn't bottled it, he still might have lost through inferior chess-playing ability.
Did you know that you have had the privilege of conversing with the best chess player in the world? It's just that often when I sit down to play a game with somebody, I lose my nerve. Other people interpret this as their superior ability, but really, I'm losing those games all by myself.
Step 1: Use knowledge about the future to make enormous amounts of money
Step 2: Use money to fund invention of time machine
Step 3: Use time machine to gain knowledge about the future.
(Not necessarily in this order)
Step 0: Profit!