Not legal for whom, precisely? It's explicitly legal where I live (Germany).
As far as I know it's legal in all EU countries - so it's quite nice to live here:) A co-worker of mine had a nice task at his previous company - they bought quite a few laptops once and didn't need Windows so he sold all the copies.
If I create some "encryption" software which outputs files in eg..pdf format (or some other adobe format) except slightly changed (eg. by simply putting some additional data on the first row of text in the document so that Acrobat Reader can still read it) and my (stupid) software works by detecting this change and then connects to a webserver and checking this data before opening it to ensure that one copy can only be open on one computer at a time. Can I then sue adobe for breaking my encryption when they release the next version of Acrobat because then they've created a tool for breaking it?
Hmmm, maybe I should start my own magazine "Warez Investigation" and work for it part-time. The magazine comes out once every century and contains a report of how much warez an individual can obtain and use during a whole century (and just to keep reader interest how quickly they've become abandonware). As a reporter I'd naturally have to do a lot of investigating...
I live in Finland but don't know much about the copyright issues here. However, what I do know is that a few things are really absurd:
You're allowed to import a certain number of pirated cds "for personal use" from abroad.
You're allowed to copy these pirated cds, but not ones that you've bought. (So this means that I can tell the RIAA equivalent that, hey since I'm not allowed to copy CDs that I buy here I'm forced to import pirated ones!)
For every sale of recordable media (CD-Rs, tapes, possibly harddrives too) a certain percentage goes to the RIAA equivalent and then "supposedly" to domestic artists to compensate for illegal copying. The latter one pisses me off the most since there are hardly any Finnish artists that i like - so regardless of whether my money goes to the RIAA or the "artists" it goes to somebody whom I owe nothing!
As fscking absurd as it is, if you did that you'd already be paying if you burnt your music on CD-Rs you bought here. The Finnish equivalent of RIAA gets a certain fee from each sale of a recordable media - CD-Rs, tapes, possibly even harddrives. Fortunately I don't know how big that percentage is - I'd probably go insane if I did... It really pisses me off since the money is supposed to go to Finnish artists (probably just the RIAA equivalent) to compensate for illegal copying of their works and I don't even listen to Finnish "artists" (yes the quotation marks imply what I think of 99.9% of Finnish music...)
They've already began hiring. I'm still quite hopeful though, the EU has in the past been quite harsh towards uncompetitive business practices (which has already been discussed numerous times on/.)
They're trying to get a win-win situation, you know. The customer gets the software and the source cheaper but with restricted rights which ensures that the company doesn't need to cover all costs (and make a profit) from that customer solely.
That is, their reason to refuse escrow as an option seems bogus to me
It's negotiating and bargaining. Both sides start by demanding more than they expect to get and then make concessions until they reach an agreement or realize that they won't reach one.
So that we can slashdot sites - you do know the procedure?
1. Notice article on slashdot
2. Middle-click (or equivalent) to load it in the background
3. Start posting
4.... (anything except reading the article)
5. Profit!
As far as I know, the patch addresses the following bugs with pages rendering incorrectly:
"avoid internet explorer" bug is fixed and now shows "avoid mozilla"
"avoid ms-office" fixed to "avoid Open Office.org"
"avoid windows" fixed to "avoid linux"
Sorry! I should've pressed "Preview" - I rephrased myself one time too many so it went wrong:
opportunity cost = profit from the choice you make - profit from the second best choice
This eliminates the point of opportunity cost (not the cost itself).
According to contemporary economic theory, profit only occurs where a monopoly exists. This is because in perfect competition price = marginal cost.However, this cost includes "opportunity costs" or the next best choice given up.
Interesting economic theory (of yours) - I've studied a lot of economics and never encountered that one before. First of all, putting opportunity cost into marginal cost, WTF? Opportunity cost is the difference between what you get and you could have gotten from a better choice (i.e. a more rewarding choice with the same risk level). Would you please explain how on earth you put that into marginal cost? And if price=marginal cost every company would go bankrupt sooner or later since marginal cost=the cost of producing one addtional unit of a product so if that is the price then there's nothing left to cover the fixed costs. In all theory I've encountered so far the price in perfect competition has been the lowest for which anyone is willing to sell it (i.e. so that it covers marginal costs, fixed costs and also gives a certain return to make it worth the risk) and this price is the same as highest that the "greediest" of customers buying the product are willing to pay. This eliminates opportunity cost as time goes by since at some point every manufacturer has realised how much this choice (of what to produce and sell) is worth.
And as far as fast food restaurants are concerned, looking at marginal costs is plain silly if you compare them to the fixed costs - rent, salaries etc.
Actually, MS is being used as a real world example of that in Michael Parkins "Economics" (an introductory book to the subject, read it a couple of years ago). Basically the point is that if there is no monopoly the price becomes that where the demand and supply curve meet. Since as long as there are manufacturers willing to sell a product for a lower price the number of people willing to buy it increases until the price is the lowest for which anyone is willing to sell it and at the same time the highest which even the least willing customers are willing to pay for it. (Yes this would be a lot easier to explaing with a drawing). However, since nobody else is offering a perfect substitute, MS can use its monopoly to set the price where the area under the supply curve is maximal (maximizes: price*copies sold). The difference between these prices is the thing! One more point: The price formation I described is of course _very_ hypothetical - there are always numerous assumptions in economics (all customers having access to all information, products being identical/able to replace each other perfectly etc.). It's been said that in a room with two economists there are three opinions...
hah! I didn't come to think of that when I thought about what the future holds for us if MS expands to other markets. I already realized that we'll all soon have to:
- accept EBLA (End Breather License Agreement) to breath MS-Air, accepted by inhaling
- accept EELA (End Eater License Agreement to eat MS-Food, accepted by chewing it
- accept EWLA (End Wearer License Agreement) to wear MS-Clothes, accepted by putting them on (and yes the only fashion will be clothes with license text all over them)
but now you just made me realize that there will be EPLA (End Penetrator License Agreement) as well, accepted by... (guess!!!)
no I really don't think IE is free - I've pointed out the exact opposite before on/.
so if you really think that every time a company makes an investment which turns out to be bad - it's the customers that have bought other products that have paid for it? Selling the x-box at a loss can be seen as an investment hoping for ROI through game sales. So until your great new discovery that the customers pay for bad investments every economist has so far been wrong when they've considered companies paying for them from their reserves (i.e. the shareholders are the once losing since the value of their investment reduces) - so because the game sales haven't made the investment profitable it simply means that microsoft is making a smaller profit than it otherwise would have.
First: I am (among other things) an mba student so I know accounting quite well (in europe).
The concept with taxes, profit and loss is basically very simple. If you make a profit, you pay taxes, if you make a loss you can deduct that from the next profit you make when you pay taxes. That is, if you make a profit: tax=percentage*(profit-previous losses).
I can't believe you got modded up - don't you understand anything about economics??? By your logic when a car manufacturer isn't making a loss and somebody buys a car "Model 2001" pays for somebody's "Model 2002" whose sales haven't covered its R&D costs yet. The case with the X-Box being sold at a loss and trying to get profit by selling games is no different from a company being forced to sell N cars before they've covered their R&D costs and start making a profit.
why has designing the UI for free less payoff than coding for free then? after all, i asked why coders do but usability experts don't? of course it's possible that some do but i just don't know of it, annd once once again: i'm not trying to be offensive, just curious i know very well the reasoning that if i work for myself and others benefit from it it's great - i've myself written a plugin for xmms precisely because i needed it myself (offtopic: my creation is a new improved version of a plugin using ibm's viavoice to control xmms by voice, the original lacked features i wanted and only worked with viavoice beta - so i made a new one, the sad part is of course that viavoice for linux was made unavailable from IBM's website before i got around to release my plugin - so it's waiting on my hd and hopefully viavoice will become available again, then i will release my plugin)
No,no,no!!! Beer contains female hormones - it's a scientific fact. In an experiment a group of men had to drink lots of beer and they began to behave more like women:
- they all became way too talkative
- nothing they said made any sense
- they got easily upset without any reason
- none of them could drive;)
Free Accounting & Lawnmowing Inc.;) isn't quite the same thing as contributing to open source. I can't copy your lawn and if I copied your accounting I'd break the law... (lame joke)
Still, what does this mean for the folks who made the Crossover plugin program?
If they get trouble because of this then their business plan really sucks - ie. it has been defined too narrowly (or from a too technical point of view). They should keep in mind that their business is not "allowing people to use Windows plugins in Linux" but "allowing people to view many kinds of web content in Linux". Customers don't buy the technology, they buy what they can do with it.
Interesting indeed. As far as I remember there is a new limit now - it used to be 1 GHz if I remember correctly and I don't remember the new one. Is it likely that instead of reaching any technical limit processor speeds would be limited by what the US government decides? Or wait, would Palladium - "we decide what you can run on your computer" - be the answer? Hopefully not.
Slashdot Mirror
Not legal for whom, precisely? It's explicitly legal where I live (Germany). :) A co-worker of mine had a nice task at his previous company - they bought quite a few laptops once and didn't need Windows so he sold all the copies.
As far as I know it's legal in all EU countries - so it's quite nice to live here
If I create some "encryption" software which outputs files in eg. .pdf format (or some other adobe format) except slightly changed (eg. by simply putting some additional data on the first row of text in the document so that Acrobat Reader can still read it) and my (stupid) software works by detecting this change and then connects to a webserver and checking this data before opening it to ensure that one copy can only be open on one computer at a time. Can I then sue adobe for breaking my encryption when they release the next version of Acrobat because then they've created a tool for breaking it?
Hmmm, maybe I should start my own magazine "Warez Investigation" and work for it part-time. The magazine comes out once every century and contains a report of how much warez an individual can obtain and use during a whole century (and just to keep reader interest how quickly they've become abandonware). As a reporter I'd naturally have to do a lot of investigating...
I live in Finland but don't know much about the copyright issues here. However, what I do know is that a few things are really absurd:
You're allowed to import a certain number of pirated cds "for personal use" from abroad.
You're allowed to copy these pirated cds, but not ones that you've bought. (So this means that I can tell the RIAA equivalent that, hey since I'm not allowed to copy CDs that I buy here I'm forced to import pirated ones!)
For every sale of recordable media (CD-Rs, tapes, possibly harddrives too) a certain percentage goes to the RIAA equivalent and then "supposedly" to domestic artists to compensate for illegal copying. The latter one pisses me off the most since there are hardly any Finnish artists that i like - so regardless of whether my money goes to the RIAA or the "artists" it goes to somebody whom I owe nothing!
I think it's a matter of principle, not cost...
As fscking absurd as it is, if you did that you'd already be paying if you burnt your music on CD-Rs you bought here. The Finnish equivalent of RIAA gets a certain fee from each sale of a recordable media - CD-Rs, tapes, possibly even harddrives. Fortunately I don't know how big that percentage is - I'd probably go insane if I did... It really pisses me off since the money is supposed to go to Finnish artists (probably just the RIAA equivalent) to compensate for illegal copying of their works and I don't even listen to Finnish "artists" (yes the quotation marks imply what I think of 99.9% of Finnish music...)
They've already began hiring. I'm still quite hopeful though, the EU has in the past been quite harsh towards uncompetitive business practices (which has already been discussed numerous times on /.)
They're trying to get a win-win situation, you know. The customer gets the software and the source cheaper but with restricted rights which ensures that the company doesn't need to cover all costs (and make a profit) from that customer solely.
That is, their reason to refuse escrow as an option seems bogus to me
It's negotiating and bargaining. Both sides start by demanding more than they expect to get and then make concessions until they reach an agreement or realize that they won't reach one.
So that we can slashdot sites - you do know the procedure? ... (anything except reading the article)
1. Notice article on slashdot
2. Middle-click (or equivalent) to load it in the background
3. Start posting
4.
5. Profit!
As far as I know, the patch addresses the following bugs with pages rendering incorrectly:
"avoid internet explorer" bug is fixed and now shows "avoid mozilla"
"avoid ms-office" fixed to "avoid Open Office.org"
"avoid windows" fixed to "avoid linux"
This eliminates the point of opportunity cost (not the cost itself). In this case in your explanation.
Sorry! I should've pressed "Preview" - I rephrased myself one time too many so it went wrong:
opportunity cost = profit from the choice you make - profit from the second best choice
This eliminates the point of opportunity cost (not the cost itself).
According to contemporary economic theory, profit only occurs where a monopoly exists. This is because in perfect competition price = marginal cost.However, this cost includes "opportunity costs" or the next best choice given up.
Interesting economic theory (of yours) - I've studied a lot of economics and never encountered that one before. First of all, putting opportunity cost into marginal cost, WTF? Opportunity cost is the difference between what you get and you could have gotten from a better choice (i.e. a more rewarding choice with the same risk level). Would you please explain how on earth you put that into marginal cost? And if price=marginal cost every company would go bankrupt sooner or later since
marginal cost=the cost of producing one addtional unit of a product
so if that is the price then there's nothing left to cover the fixed costs. In all theory I've encountered so far the price in perfect competition has been the lowest for which anyone is willing to sell it (i.e. so that it covers marginal costs, fixed costs and also gives a certain return to make it worth the risk) and this price is the same as highest that the "greediest" of customers buying the product are willing to pay. This eliminates opportunity cost as time goes by since at some point every manufacturer has realised how much this choice (of what to produce and sell) is worth.
And as far as fast food restaurants are concerned, looking at marginal costs is plain silly if you compare them to the fixed costs - rent, salaries etc.
Actually, MS is being used as a real world example of that in Michael Parkins "Economics" (an introductory book to the subject, read it a couple of years ago). Basically the point is that if there is no monopoly the price becomes that where the demand and supply curve meet. Since as long as there are manufacturers willing to sell a product for a lower price the number of people willing to buy it increases until the price is the lowest for which anyone is willing to sell it and at the same time the highest which even the least willing customers are willing to pay for it. (Yes this would be a lot easier to explaing with a drawing). However, since nobody else is offering a perfect substitute, MS can use its monopoly to set the price where the area under the supply curve is maximal (maximizes: price*copies sold). The difference between these prices is the thing!
One more point: The price formation I described is of course _very_ hypothetical - there are always numerous assumptions in economics (all customers having access to all information, products being identical/able to replace each other perfectly etc.). It's been said that in a room with two economists there are three opinions...
hah! I didn't come to think of that when I thought about what the future holds for us if MS expands to other markets. I already realized that we'll all soon have to:
- accept EBLA (End Breather License Agreement) to breath MS-Air, accepted by inhaling
- accept EELA (End Eater License Agreement to eat MS-Food, accepted by chewing it
- accept EWLA (End Wearer License Agreement) to wear MS-Clothes, accepted by putting them on (and yes the only fashion will be clothes with license text all over them)
but now you just made me realize that there will be EPLA (End Penetrator License Agreement) as well, accepted by... (guess!!!)
no I really don't think IE is free - I've pointed out the exact opposite before on /.
so if you really think that every time a company makes an investment which turns out to be bad - it's the customers that have bought other products that have paid for it? Selling the x-box at a loss can be seen as an investment hoping for ROI through game sales. So until your great new discovery that the customers pay for bad investments every economist has so far been wrong when they've considered companies paying for them from their reserves (i.e. the shareholders are the once losing since the value of their investment reduces) - so because the game sales haven't made the investment profitable it simply means that microsoft is making a smaller profit than it otherwise would have.
First: I am (among other things) an mba student so I know accounting quite well (in europe).
The concept with taxes, profit and loss is basically very simple. If you make a profit, you pay taxes, if you make a loss you can deduct that from the next profit you make when you pay taxes. That is, if you make a profit:
tax=percentage*(profit-previous losses).
I can't believe you got modded up - don't you understand anything about economics??? By your logic when a car manufacturer isn't making a loss and somebody buys a car "Model 2001" pays for somebody's "Model 2002" whose sales haven't covered its R&D costs yet. The case with the X-Box being sold at a loss and trying to get profit by selling games is no different from a company being forced to sell N cars before they've covered their R&D costs and start making a profit.
why has designing the UI for free less payoff than coding for free then? after all, i asked why coders do but usability experts don't? of course it's possible that some do but i just don't know of it, annd once once again: i'm not trying to be offensive, just curious
i know very well the reasoning that if i work for myself and others benefit from it it's great - i've myself written a plugin for xmms precisely because i needed it myself
(offtopic: my creation is a new improved version of a plugin using ibm's viavoice to control xmms by voice, the original lacked features i wanted and only worked with viavoice beta - so i made a new one, the sad part is of course that viavoice for linux was made unavailable from IBM's website before i got around to release my plugin - so it's waiting on my hd and hopefully viavoice will become available again, then i will release my plugin)
No,no,no!!! Beer contains female hormones - it's a scientific fact. In an experiment a group of men had to drink lots of beer and they began to behave more like women: - they all became way too talkative - nothing they said made any sense - they got easily upset without any reason - none of them could drive ;)
Free Accounting & Lawnmowing Inc. ;) isn't quite the same thing as contributing to open source. I can't copy your lawn and if I copied your accounting I'd break the law... (lame joke)
You mean www.mplayerhq.hu?
Still, what does this mean for the folks who made the Crossover plugin program?
If they get trouble because of this then their business plan really sucks - ie. it has been defined too narrowly (or from a too technical point of view). They should keep in mind that their business is not "allowing people to use Windows plugins in Linux" but "allowing people to view many kinds of web content in Linux". Customers don't buy the technology, they buy what they can do with it.
Interesting indeed. As far as I remember there is a new limit now - it used to be 1 GHz if I remember correctly and I don't remember the new one. Is it likely that instead of reaching any technical limit processor speeds would be limited by what the US government decides? Or wait, would Palladium - "we decide what you can run on your computer" - be the answer? Hopefully not.