Right, so why do idiotic hackers feel the need to "help" proprietary websites become more secure by hacking and defacing them? Seems like the slashdot crowd is being severely hypocritical.
I agree domain names are important because people type stuff into their browser bars. For example, when Dell first went online in France under www.dell.fr, someone bought a computer on their site within 15 minutes. Dell hadn't even begun thier public advertising campaign. Someone was just typing in Dell's French URL by chance and happened to buy a computer as well.
Hmmm.... I find it very ironic with respect to the recent software piracy thread that everyone is suddenly getting very protective of their work (or is it intellectual property in this case?)
Some of the arguments made for software piracy, that could be equally applied here were:
1) They're just virtual bits. How can you own bits? Information wants to be free.
2) I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so it doesn't really matter how I use/abuse it.
3) It costs too much, therefore I'll just take it for free.
So, it's really ironic that the same people who completely disregarded software author's rights are up in arms when their own homepages are at stake. Does intellectual property only exist if you make it, but not someone else?
Re:undurable goods? they're not free either
on
RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
You are making a bogus comparison. You are comparing a tangible, physical object, with a data stream. The data stream can be reproduced over and over again, without ever having to part with the original. *That* is what makes software fundamentally different than just about any other "good." Software isn't really a "good." It is in actuality a service, but is being sold as a good.
Swiss bank account number: easy to reproduce, not a tangible good, but definitely of some economic value. Paper money: once again, easy to reproduce (just image it is, for agument's sake), I still have my money if you copy mine, but "uh oh" my money isn't worth so much anymore.
To continue, food is free if it grows in your backyard. You pay for it if someone else grows it. It's a durable good but it has different monetary values depending on who has the ability to produce it.
Intel chips cost very little to fabricate. The silicon they're pretty on is worth $10, tops! Yet Intel (and AMD) sells them for $500+. Intel's doing something here, because otherwise I could just go to the beach and grab some sand.
Water: Free, right? But I'm sure you pay a water bill every month. Wouldn't it be benefit everyone (except the water company) if this were free? I mean, come on, it's not like we're about to run out of water! It's just kinda convenient when it comes out of pipes in our homes.
Electricity: We pay for electrons? That's not even a good! Someone's just transferring them from A to B, creating a charge. And we pay for this? Why? Come on, once one person has electricity, how hard is it to transfer? Come on over, bring a wire, I'll give you some of my juice.
Psychologists: They just talk to you for an hour, what kind of useful information to they disburse they couldn't tell 100 people at once, free of charge? Why can't you just pass on the advice to your buddies instead of having them pay $100/hour to have someone tell you to take it easy for a while?
And finally, software: We pay for bits of information? I thought only marketing departments payed for information. Hell, it's not like software is useful, what's it value?
Come to think of it, are you in college, did you go to college? What the fuck for? What they teach you for $20,000/year you could read at your Public Library. Oh wait, so you're saying there is some reason for you to learn all of this "free" information? Oh, you expect to get a job as a result. I see, I don't see any evidence of your education -- it doesn't look very durable. Oh, but you say it is valuable after all. I see, so you'd pay $80,000 for a piece of paper I could xerox at the local copy shop, but it's actually represent something more valuable and useful to you.
I'd wager to say that despite all of the dynamic content on heavy load sites (e.g. Yahoo, CNN), static content is still a major issue and bandwidth drain. Specifically, images are a real big performance drag.
While your server farm might be able to handle the bandwidth, the pipe inbetween you and the eventual downloader may not be so fat. For example, no matter what a site in the UK is running, it's going to seem slow here in the US. This is why many major web sites have contracted with Akamai to move static data (e.g. images) to sites around the world closer to users. Next time you visit Yahoo, you'll probably download images from an Akamai server closer to home, and it'll be really fast.
Point being, most big sites send out more data in static images than in dynamic HTML (Slashdot comment forums excluded).
Linux evolves just like science evolves -- just like, ahem, computer science. Despite all the micro vs macro kernel arguments I don't think that microkernels ever "won". They never "won" the way quicksort won vs. bubblesort.
Computer scientists have demonstrated, not just on paper but in practice, that microkernel operating systems are faster, more reliable, and much more modifiable (or evolvable if you please) than monolithic kernels. I'd say that microkernels have won just as much as quicksort won.
However, you'll notice that the fastest quicksorts usually switch to the O(N^2) insertion sort about about N=15. It's simpler and turns out to run faster in practice. Hybrid solutions work for kernels as well, so I wouldn't completely discount microkernels. They're extermely effective _and_ elegant.
As for Unix, let's set the history straight. Unix was not designed with an incredible amount of foresight or elegance in mind. It was a hacked up version of Multics (a well designed system) designed to get running on PDP-11's asap (actual computer might be wrong).
Unix and X-Windows were both in essence weekend projects that have been patched to hell and live on up to this day. I find Linux in the same league as these two beasts. So, I don't judge any of them by their legacy or pervasive and well thought out designs, but instead solely on performance and extensibility. There is definitely room for fresh ideas in here.
The 3d GUI in Jurassic Park was shipping with SGI Indy's at the time. It wasn't made up for the movie, but was a real interface by SGI. I wonder what happened to it...
Eric Raymond makes a very good point in noting that the value in software is more in maintenance and support than the product itself. In light of this, there is perhaps an additional business model that supports this notion without requiring source code to be freely available.
Consider a software company that leases software. Business's pay to use the software on a yearly basis (for example). This gives the software company a steady stream of revenue based upon the number of people using their software. In return, the users get support, timely maintenance releases and future features.
To make this example more concrete, consider the accounting industry. They certainly can benefit from software that deals with the everchanging tax codes. Now, most accounting firms are small and it doesn't really make sense for them to collaborate on a software project when they have no programming expertise. They're accountants, not hackers. Also, due to their size, it's not feasible for them to hire programmers for this task.
Here, a software company fills a definite need. As experts in their domain, you can expect the software company to keep abreast of the frequent regulation changes in Washingtion, DC, and update their software accordingly. Accountants need to do accounting, not hacking away at some monstrous piece of software on a regular basis.
So, the accountants, in essence, pay to use the software as service (one that's updated regularly), not as a product. Here, the software company has no reason to release their code. What might happen? A competing software company might snatch it out from under them and take their revenue away. It is after all service based, but someone had to make the initial investment to get the ball rolling. The company benefits from closed source, and at the same time has enough revenue to properly maintain and support their software.
This, I think, is a viable alternative to the business models that Eric suggests. Unfortunately, not everybody who uses software is a webmaster capable of writing his own, nor is it the agenda of most companies to delve in writing software. They'd rather being doing what they're good at, and leaving the software to experts, namely a software company who steps in to fill the need.
Note, this is not the typical consumer software market, but these applications probably account for more software and certainly more revenue (SAP?).
So, in conclusion, there's money to be made from software as a service, and let's leave the coding to people who specialize in it, rather than laymen who just want to use the software.
BUT, I wish somebody would explain to me how closed source development could POSSIBLY result in better code. All OSS means is that you make the source available to others so they can improve it. And you don't have to incorporate their improvements if you don't want to. At the very worst, it will give the same results as closed source.
The prospect of free improvements to your code is very attractive. However, it's not necessarily a clear cut advantage:
1) If there's not enough interest in a project for a free version to be developed, then you're going to hire people to code it up. This is expensive, but the only way to get the software you want in a timely manner.
2) After funding the entire development, do you really want to give it all away? A competitor of yours may need the same software (or be in the same business) and find a zero-cost solution very attractive now that you've released for all to "improve".
What does this mean? Even if you're not selling the software (but especially if you are), you're out of the initial development costs only to be on even ground with your competitors. This is a very poor way for a company to remain competitive. This is why you'd want to keep the code to yourself -- you paid for it and you want to benefit from it.
One possible exception to this is the case where a company would like to establish an industry standard. History says you need be very open to do this, even though releasing all of your source code under public abusal licenses is not necessary... I'm losing my thread here, and nobody reads posts this deep in the threads anyway...
CD changes are mechanical. They're slow, and have many moving parts that can go wrong. You don't have this problem when playing MP3's, generally.
I've _never_ had a problem with my CD changer. What's more, if you don't play back to back CD's on the same changer, you won't notice a break between CD's while the changers switch discs. Yes, it's quite easy to queue up enough music to last a week, and easy to play random tracks when I'm in the mood.
Also, there's this very obvious, yet apparently new concept of RUNNING A CABLE TO YOUR REAL STEREO SO YOU CAN LISTEN TO YOUR MP3'S AT HIGH QUALITY! Why is this so incredibly difficult? I feel sorry for anyone who DOES put up with crappy computer speakers! Just run a cable! $6, Radio Shack. (Or more if you're one of those monster cable freaks)
I have this setup, sometimes it's very nice for playing games in surround sound. However, the signal quality from the combination MP3 encoding + sound card on my computer is absolute shit compared to the crystal clear signal from my CD players piped through my very nice digital mixer, then amp,... There's no comparison!!!
hough he makes some good points, I can't relate. I have a ton of CD's and I'm working on converting all of them to MP3's. I enjoy organizing my music into categories and playing music based on the category I'm interested in. I enjoy not switching CD's or only listening to part of a CD or a single song. I like the background music to my daily work and listening to 120 mp3's before switching to something else.
Well, how many do CD's do you have? Here's an idea. Buy yourself a 100 CD jukebox (or 2). They only cost a couple of hundred bucks. They can be controlled through your serial port. Then, you can place your entire CD collection in one of them, and play songs at will, controlled by your computer. The best part is they play on your real stereo, not your shitty computer speakers. No need to take a cut in quality by using MP3, and it doesn't even cost that much...
Sick! All of this free beer OS talk has spilled into free beer music talk in the form of MP3. The only redeeming quality (sic) about MP3's is that you can get them for free on the Internet.
Hmmm.... It's a great digital music format for transmitting and backing up your collection, but a quick survery of any college dorm will quickly show you that 99% of MP3's are illegit. If you had to pay to download MP3's they wouldn't be around. You'd buy high quality CD's anyway, because MP3 quality just doesn't cut it!!!
None of this bullshit about sampling music out there either. You have a radio, right? They play legit music all day long at no cost to you, right? Aside from that there are any number of websites that have samples of songs from any genre imaginable. It's not hard to hear the music you like. Unfortunately, it's not hard to rip off the music you like as well. A lot of good that does anyone.
At some point people start bitching back... music's just data, what's the big deal. Oh please! Music is much more than that, and genuinely difficult (to make good music). Support your artists and buy music if you really like it, or just don't listen to it. You don't help the artists or anyone when you rip, and besides MP3 quality sucks. Do yourself a favor.
maybe I'm just too tired right now, but I did not detect any heisenberg ref's in the threads I've read here on this topic. Trying to instrument a thread of execution is usually death for that thread. I despise the notion of "performance monitors". If you build it right, it will work, and any anomalies usually succumb to thoughtful analysis. Instrumenting a network at the level you guys are talking about can kill it, severely. Get ye a good sniffer, and learn to read it's utterances.
Intuitively it would seem that measuring threads in great detail would distort the measurement. However, performance registers on board CPUS (I'm thinking Intel at the moment) allow one to monitor certain aspects of threads with almost no overhead whatsoever. It's perfectly feasable and desirable to monitor code and a fine grained level.
There are many performance anomalies that can't necessarily be identified at the design level (for example pipeline flushing and cache problems). These detailed measurements can tell you much more about your program's behavior than the standard profiler can.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, so why do idiotic hackers feel the need to "help" proprietary websites become more secure by hacking and defacing them? Seems like the slashdot crowd is being severely hypocritical.
I agree domain names are important because people type stuff into their browser bars. For example, when Dell first went online in France under www.dell.fr, someone bought a computer on their site within 15 minutes. Dell hadn't even begun thier public advertising campaign. Someone was just typing in Dell's French URL by chance and happened to buy a computer as well.
Hmmm.... I find it very ironic with respect to the recent software piracy thread that everyone is suddenly getting very protective of their work (or is it intellectual property in this case?)
Some of the arguments made for software piracy, that could be equally applied here were:
1) They're just virtual bits. How can you own bits? Information wants to be free.
2) I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so it doesn't really matter how I use/abuse it.
3) It costs too much, therefore I'll just take it for free.
So, it's really ironic that the same people who completely disregarded software author's rights are up in arms when their own homepages are at stake. Does intellectual property only exist if you make it, but not someone else?
You are making a bogus comparison. You are comparing a tangible, physical object, with a data stream. The data stream can be reproduced over and over again, without ever having to part with the original. *That* is what makes software fundamentally different than just about any other "good." Software isn't really a "good." It is in actuality a service, but is being sold as a good.
Swiss bank account number: easy to reproduce, not a tangible good, but definitely of some economic value.
Paper money: once again, easy to reproduce (just image it is, for agument's sake), I still have my money if you copy mine, but "uh oh" my money isn't worth so much anymore.
To continue, food is free if it grows in your backyard. You pay for it if someone else grows it. It's a durable good but it has different monetary values depending on who has the ability to produce it.
Intel chips cost very little to fabricate. The silicon they're pretty on is worth $10, tops! Yet Intel (and AMD) sells them for $500+. Intel's doing something here, because otherwise I could just go to the beach and grab some sand.
Water: Free, right? But I'm sure you pay a water bill every month. Wouldn't it be benefit everyone (except the water company) if this were free? I mean, come on, it's not like we're about to run out of water! It's just kinda convenient when it comes out of pipes in our homes.
Electricity: We pay for electrons? That's not even a good! Someone's just transferring them from A to B, creating a charge. And we pay for this? Why? Come on, once one person has electricity, how hard is it to transfer? Come on over, bring a wire, I'll give you some of my juice.
Psychologists: They just talk to you for an hour, what kind of useful information to they disburse they couldn't tell 100 people at once, free of charge? Why can't you just pass on the advice to your buddies instead of having them pay $100/hour to have someone tell you to take it easy for a while?
And finally, software: We pay for bits of information? I thought only marketing departments payed for information. Hell, it's not like software is useful, what's it value?
Come to think of it, are you in college, did you go to college? What the fuck for? What they teach you for $20,000/year you could read at your Public Library. Oh wait, so you're saying there is some reason for you to learn all of this "free" information? Oh, you expect to get a job as a result. I see, I don't see any evidence of your education -- it doesn't look very durable. Oh, but you say it is valuable after all. I see, so you'd pay $80,000 for a piece of paper I could xerox at the local copy shop, but it's actually represent something more valuable and useful to you.
Ok, I'll leave it at that.
I'd wager to say that despite all of the dynamic content on heavy load sites (e.g. Yahoo, CNN), static content is still a major issue and bandwidth drain. Specifically, images are a real big performance drag.
While your server farm might be able to handle the bandwidth, the pipe inbetween you and the eventual downloader may not be so fat. For example, no matter what a site in the UK is running, it's going to seem slow here in the US. This is why many major web sites have contracted with Akamai to move static data (e.g. images) to sites around the world closer to users. Next time you visit Yahoo, you'll probably download images from an Akamai server closer to home, and it'll be really fast.
Point being, most big sites send out more data in static images than in dynamic HTML (Slashdot comment forums excluded).
Linux evolves just like science evolves -- just like, ahem, computer science. Despite all the micro vs macro kernel arguments I don't think that microkernels ever "won". They never "won" the way quicksort won vs. bubblesort.
Computer scientists have demonstrated, not just on paper but in practice, that microkernel operating systems are faster, more reliable, and much more modifiable (or evolvable if you please) than monolithic kernels. I'd say that microkernels have won just as much as quicksort won.
However, you'll notice that the fastest quicksorts usually switch to the O(N^2) insertion sort about about N=15. It's simpler and turns out to run faster in practice. Hybrid solutions work for kernels as well, so I wouldn't completely discount microkernels. They're extermely effective _and_ elegant.
As for Unix, let's set the history straight. Unix was not designed with an incredible amount of foresight or elegance in mind. It was a hacked up version of Multics (a well designed system) designed to get running on PDP-11's asap (actual computer might be wrong).
Unix and X-Windows were both in essence weekend projects that have been patched to hell and live on up to this day. I find Linux in the same league as these two beasts. So, I don't judge any of them by their legacy or pervasive and well thought out designs, but instead solely on performance and extensibility. There is definitely room for fresh ideas in here.
The 3d GUI in Jurassic Park was shipping with SGI Indy's at the time. It wasn't made up for the movie, but was a real interface by SGI. I wonder what happened to it...
Eric Raymond makes a very good point in noting that the value in software is more in maintenance and support than the product itself. In light of this, there is perhaps an additional business model that supports this notion without requiring source code to be freely available.
Consider a software company that leases software. Business's pay to use the software on a yearly basis (for example). This gives the software company a steady stream of revenue based upon the number of people using their software. In return, the users get support, timely maintenance releases and future features.
To make this example more concrete, consider the accounting industry. They certainly can benefit from software that deals with the everchanging tax codes. Now, most accounting firms are small and it doesn't really make sense for them to collaborate on a software project when they have no programming expertise. They're accountants, not hackers. Also, due to their size, it's not feasible for them to hire programmers for this task.
Here, a software company fills a definite need. As experts in their domain, you can expect the software company to keep abreast of the frequent regulation changes in Washingtion, DC, and update their software accordingly. Accountants need to do accounting, not hacking away at some monstrous piece of software on a regular basis.
So, the accountants, in essence, pay to use the software as service (one that's updated regularly), not as a product. Here, the software company has no reason to release their code. What might happen? A competing software company might snatch it out from under them and take their revenue away. It is after all service based, but someone had to make the initial investment to get the ball rolling. The company benefits from closed source, and at the same time has enough revenue to properly maintain and support their software.
This, I think, is a viable alternative to the business models that Eric suggests. Unfortunately, not everybody who uses software is a webmaster capable of writing his own, nor is it the agenda of most companies to delve in writing software. They'd rather being doing what they're good at, and leaving the software to experts, namely a software company who steps in to fill the need.
Note, this is not the typical consumer software market, but these applications probably account for more software and certainly more revenue (SAP?).
So, in conclusion, there's money to be made from software as a service, and let's leave the coding to people who specialize in it, rather than laymen who just want to use the software.
BUT, I wish somebody would explain to me how closed source development could POSSIBLY result in better code. All OSS means is that you make the source available to others so they can improve it. And you don't have to incorporate their improvements if you don't want to. At the very worst, it will give the same results as closed source.
The prospect of free improvements to your code is very attractive. However, it's not necessarily a clear cut advantage:
1) If there's not enough interest in a project for a free version to be developed, then you're going to hire people to code it up. This is expensive, but the only way to get the software you want in a timely manner.
2) After funding the entire development, do you really want to give it all away? A competitor of yours may need the same software (or be in the same business) and find a zero-cost solution very attractive now that you've released for all to "improve".
What does this mean? Even if you're not selling the software (but especially if you are), you're out of the initial development costs only to be on even ground with your competitors. This is a very poor way for a company to remain competitive. This is why you'd want to keep the code to yourself -- you paid for it and you want to benefit from it.
One possible exception to this is the case where a company would like to establish an industry standard. History says you need be very open to do this, even though releasing all of your source code under public abusal licenses is not necessary... I'm losing my thread here, and nobody reads posts this deep in the threads anyway...
CD changes are mechanical. They're slow, and have many moving parts that can go wrong. You don't have this problem when playing MP3's, generally.
... There's no comparison!!!
I've _never_ had a problem with my CD changer. What's more, if you don't play back to back CD's on the same changer, you won't notice a break between CD's while the changers switch discs. Yes, it's quite easy to queue up enough music to last a week, and easy to play random tracks when I'm in the mood.
Also, there's this very obvious, yet apparently new concept of RUNNING A CABLE TO YOUR REAL STEREO SO YOU CAN LISTEN TO YOUR MP3'S AT HIGH QUALITY! Why is this so incredibly difficult? I feel sorry for anyone who DOES put up with crappy computer speakers! Just run a cable! $6, Radio Shack. (Or more if you're one of those monster cable freaks)
I have this setup, sometimes it's very nice for playing games in surround sound. However, the signal quality from the combination MP3 encoding + sound card on my computer is absolute shit compared to the crystal clear signal from my CD players piped through my very nice digital mixer, then amp,
hough he makes some good points, I can't relate. I have a ton of CD's and I'm working on converting all of them to MP3's. I enjoy organizing my music into categories and playing music based on the category I'm interested in. I enjoy not switching
CD's or only listening to part of a CD or a single song. I like the background music to my daily work and listening to 120 mp3's before switching to something else.
Well, how many do CD's do you have? Here's an idea. Buy yourself a 100 CD jukebox (or 2). They only cost a couple of hundred bucks. They can be controlled through your serial port. Then, you can place your entire CD collection in one of them, and play songs at will, controlled by your computer. The best part is they play on your real stereo, not your shitty computer speakers. No need to take a cut in quality by using MP3, and it doesn't even cost that much...
Sick! All of this free beer OS talk has spilled into free beer music talk in the form of MP3. The only redeeming quality (sic) about MP3's is that you can get them for free on the Internet.
Hmmm.... It's a great digital music format for transmitting and backing up your collection, but a quick survery of any college dorm will quickly show you that 99% of MP3's are illegit. If you had to pay to download MP3's they wouldn't be around. You'd buy high quality CD's anyway, because MP3 quality just doesn't cut it!!!
None of this bullshit about sampling music out there either. You have a radio, right? They play legit music all day long at no cost to you, right? Aside from that there are any number of websites that have samples of songs from any genre imaginable. It's not hard to hear the music you like. Unfortunately, it's not hard to rip off the music you like as well. A lot of good that does anyone.
At some point people start bitching back... music's just data, what's the big deal. Oh please! Music is much more than that, and genuinely difficult (to make good music). Support your artists and buy music if you really like it, or just don't listen to it. You don't help the artists or anyone when you rip, and besides MP3 quality sucks. Do yourself a favor.
maybe I'm just too tired right now, but I did not detect any heisenberg ref's in the threads I've read here on this topic. Trying to instrument a thread of execution is usually death for that thread. I despise the notion of "performance monitors". If you build it right, it will work, and any anomalies usually succumb to thoughtful analysis. Instrumenting a network at the level you guys are talking about can kill it, severely. Get ye a good sniffer, and learn to read it's utterances.
Intuitively it would seem that measuring threads in great detail would distort the measurement. However, performance registers on board CPUS (I'm thinking Intel at the moment) allow one to monitor certain aspects of threads with almost no overhead whatsoever. It's perfectly feasable and desirable to monitor code and a fine grained level.
There are many performance anomalies that can't necessarily be identified at the design level (for example pipeline flushing and cache problems). These detailed measurements can tell you much more about your program's behavior than the standard profiler can.