Why crowdfunding? Shuttleworth should just cancel his next trip to mars to raise the funds.
The point of this exercise was to show hardware makers that there is a crowd out there willing to pay lots of money for a non-Android/non-iOS/non-Windows OS, so they will get onboard and start offering Ubuntu Phone.
Not just the hardware makers... This also shows the potential buyers that there is a sustainable market, so it might be around more than a few weeks, unlike the HP Tablet, and a few really cool phones.
You are awfully free with other peoples money. Perhaps he wants to make sure it will show a profit, rather than carry a second loss making project for years...
It also was very helpful in showing them the correct price-point for the phone. It is different from anything else out there, so knowing how to price it was going to be a challenge. Now that they know what the market is willing to pay, they can build around that.
Also, I would not be surprised if Shuttleworth makes up the difference at the last minute and goes forward anyway.
This is a very good idea, and I wish more vendors would do it. However, I also wish the first vendor had done it with a more compelling product. Much as I want to support open source, I see no reason to spend $300 on this product.
My grandfather used to call it "Tripping over nickels to pinch pennies." Using Office to push an unpopular tablet, to someone who already owns a tablet, only promotes the Office alternatives.
Victims passing out in alleys in high crime areas with a Rolex on the wrist? Yes.
Victims leaving boxes of expensive electronics in the back seat at the mall over the hollidays? Yes.
Blame the criminal as well, but take precautions. For example, leaving the keys in your car or leaving your car running, is a crime in several staes. When it is stolen, you get a fine, and insurance may not pay out.
Its pretty easy to take away the anonymity of tor if you could hypothetically record all traffic to and from each computer in the network. You can then see Alice send the message to Carlos who then forwarded it to Bob. Luckily in the US no one is recording every encrypted message you send... oh shit.
Next time you are on TOR look and see where your exit node is. Surprisingly often is it Virginia... Hmm... Is my tinfoil hat on tight?
No need... Cheap server hosting with little tracking was plentiful. Now, not so much... You see, as they develop new methods, lots of people study and find ways to defeat those methods. So in a small ammount of time, there will be many hackers finding a way to shatter annonomity in TOR. The NSA could not have planned it better.
Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
He obviously does not believe that enough to actually release the product without DRM. So either he believes his service sucks, or he doesn't believe what he said.
Forget the fact that his "service" is still better than any of the competing app stores out there. He is focused on seervice and price, and you are focused on access control. His opnion is that access control (DRM) done will is not poor service. And, as much as I hate DRM, he is doing it very well. Unlike Google Play that gives me loads of problems.
Yeah, we'll see how much Gabe believes that when he releases Half-Life 3 without DRM.........
Much as I hate DRM, Gabe has worked very hard at keeping his DRM out of the way of paying customers. He has also worked very hard at building a platform for delivering content is a very easy and trouble free way. Not very RMS friendly, but VERY customer focused, and I can respect that. (Enough, actually that I have the Linux Steam client on my machine right now.)
I agree that you are looking at the wrong numbers. Who cares how many people are reading (pirating) it? You should only care about how many people are paying for it, and work to increase that number. One thing that comes to mind is special deals with advertisers that are keyed off the individual user name. Don't have a paid account? Don't get 15% off a widget... This could also be more advertising revenue.
For example, do you measure quantity? (Reality television) or Quality? (Blade Runner) Finding a widely a accepted benchmark might prove to be a challenge...
That and the fact that the slashdot audience is heavily skewed towards geeks, (or at least it was) And the best geeks are not only intelligent, but able to put things together in new and interesting combinations... So it would be more than average here. And less than average on a Jersey Shore forum.
I have seen a correlation as well. I have always had a knack for spatial relations, and some of the best IT folks I know do as well. I know it is anecdotal, but a large collection of anecdotal evidence is called data.:)
Slashdot Mirror
The point of this exercise was to show hardware makers that there is a crowd out there willing to pay lots of money for a non-Android/non-iOS/non-Windows OS, so they will get onboard and start offering Ubuntu Phone.
Not just the hardware makers... This also shows the potential buyers that there is a sustainable market, so it might be around more than a few weeks, unlike the HP Tablet, and a few really cool phones.
You are awfully free with other peoples money. Perhaps he wants to make sure it will show a profit, rather than carry a second loss making project for years...
It also was very helpful in showing them the correct price-point for the phone. It is different from anything else out there, so knowing how to price it was going to be a challenge. Now that they know what the market is willing to pay, they can build around that.
Also, I would not be surprised if Shuttleworth makes up the difference at the last minute and goes forward anyway.
This is a very good idea, and I wish more vendors would do it. However, I also wish the first vendor had done it with a more compelling product. Much as I want to support open source, I see no reason to spend $300 on this product.
You give me a blow job. And 10 levels later you get 10000000000 blowjobs! Sign up now!
I do respect what they did. But I am not sad to see them going...
My grandfather used to call it "Tripping over nickels to pinch pennies." Using Office to push an unpopular tablet, to someone who already owns a tablet, only promotes the Office alternatives.
Sales Tax in Texas applies to most forms of computer consulting. And it is complex enough that almost everyone just charges it all the time...
Yep. The saving of all of your data transmitted over the internet, or on a cell phone. Lots of saving going on.
Check out Retroshare. It does exactly this. http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/
A quick article about it. http://www.linuxadvocates.com/2013/06/retroshare-for-paranoid-in-you.html
Victims passing out in alleys in high crime areas with a Rolex on the wrist? Yes.
Victims leaving boxes of expensive electronics in the back seat at the mall over the hollidays? Yes.
Blame the criminal as well, but take precautions. For example, leaving the keys in your car or leaving your car running, is a crime in several staes. When it is stolen, you get a fine, and insurance may not pay out.
Its pretty easy to take away the anonymity of tor if you could hypothetically record all traffic to and from each computer in the network. You can then see Alice send the message to Carlos who then forwarded it to Bob. Luckily in the US no one is recording every encrypted message you send... oh shit.
Next time you are on TOR look and see where your exit node is. Surprisingly often is it Virginia... Hmm... Is my tinfoil hat on tight?
Maybe it's time to bring back computers with the OS stored in ROM, so that is is reset to a clean state every time the computer is restarted.
But how do you safely burn the rom every 4th Tuesday?
No need... Cheap server hosting with little tracking was plentiful. Now, not so much... You see, as they develop new methods, lots of people study and find ways to defeat those methods. So in a small ammount of time, there will be many hackers finding a way to shatter annonomity in TOR. The NSA could not have planned it better.
Here is what Gabe said:
Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
He obviously does not believe that enough to actually release the product without DRM. So either he believes his service sucks, or he doesn't believe what he said.
Forget the fact that his "service" is still better than any of the competing app stores out there. He is focused on seervice and price, and you are focused on access control. His opnion is that access control (DRM) done will is not poor service. And, as much as I hate DRM, he is doing it very well. Unlike Google Play that gives me loads of problems.
Much as I hate DRM, Gabe has worked very hard at keeping his DRM out of the way of paying customers.
Aside from the issue of completely shitting on First Sale in a way that defeats the concept in the US and has been ruled illegal elsewhere?
Only if you look at it as a sale, rather than a service. With DRM, it is never really a sale.
Yeah, we'll see how much Gabe believes that when he releases Half-Life 3 without DRM.........
Much as I hate DRM, Gabe has worked very hard at keeping his DRM out of the way of paying customers. He has also worked very hard at building a platform for delivering content is a very easy and trouble free way. Not very RMS friendly, but VERY customer focused, and I can respect that. (Enough, actually that I have the Linux Steam client on my machine right now.)
I agree that you are looking at the wrong numbers. Who cares how many people are reading (pirating) it? You should only care about how many people are paying for it, and work to increase that number. One thing that comes to mind is special deals with advertisers that are keyed off the individual user name. Don't have a paid account? Don't get 15% off a widget... This could also be more advertising revenue.
It's like (motor vehicle) driving skills. Everybody thinks they're above average.
And if you take a survey are an F1 drivers meeting, they may be correct.
how is creativity not measurable?
For example, do you measure quantity? (Reality television) or Quality? (Blade Runner) Finding a widely a accepted benchmark might prove to be a challenge...
That and the fact that the slashdot audience is heavily skewed towards geeks, (or at least it was) And the best geeks are not only intelligent, but able to put things together in new and interesting combinations... So it would be more than average here. And less than average on a Jersey Shore forum.
I have seen a correlation as well. I have always had a knack for spatial relations, and some of the best IT folks I know do as well. I know it is anecdotal, but a large collection of anecdotal evidence is called data. :)
Not the entire language, but translating NSA into a few dozen languages is doable.
And yet... http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/15/0220245/nsa-spying-hurts-californias-business More people do care, and it is costing people money.
My point is that with the new admission that all cell phone carriers are plugged directly into the NSA, a hell of a lot of people suddenly do care!