Personally, I don't like IDEs. They force you into another's way of programming, and encourage sloppy design by allowing the management of needless complexity. They make it easier for thoughtless programmers to maintain bad code, by postponing the day when the codebase collapses under its own weight.
By preference I use zsh, vi and make.Screen or multiple terminal windows (aterm by preference). Depending on the task and the requirements, GCC/gdb/ctags or perl/CPAN or boo+nmake+nunit. Throw in find grep and all the usual suspects in support. Tools with a command line interface preferred over ones without, commands that read from stdin and write to stdout by default perferred over others. Special exemption made for browsers and drawing programs.
If the structure of an application is too complex to manage under a unix command shell, that's a reflection on
the design of the app in my book. I don't expect that's going to be a widely held viewpoint around here. Never mind, it works for me:)
Point 3: You wouldn't have to sue them immediately when they start demanding royalties; just don't pay them. When and if they sue you, you can make your claim that the original software uses the functionality covered by the patent they are demanding royalties for. If you word it right, I think you bypass the invalidation claim.
Interesting, isn't it? The problem becomes one of making the other party sue. Or counter-sue, of course; the patent disqualifiaction clause is one-sided. MS don't lose a thing if they sue you.
I agree that this might not be enough to derail OSI validation. I just think it would take a braver coder than myself to invest any significant time and effort into a project licenced under these particular terms.
It does seem to have some interesting use cases. Suppose MS decide that a one of their patents is not covered by the licence after all, and start demanding royalties. If they set it up right, you'd have to sue them for breach of the licence agreement, and thereby invalidate the licence.
It would mean they could terminate the licence at any time, or at least force licencees to pay insupportable royalties.
Although I too am not a lawyer, so there my be good reasons why this would not work.
Right; because damned if human greed hasn't kept the price of those computer chips right up where they always have been, $60 per 1000 transistors [1], keeping all the profits for themselves. Corporate bastards.
Yup... and it works the same for software, too. That's why MS office doesn't have a 75% markup. Because no corporation would dream of charging near market rate just because their overheads were massively lower.
The point is, I suppose, that it can work both ways.
What is it about software that encourages such exploitative margins when hardware (as you point out) has dropped so fast?
And do you suppose these lads have applied for a patent? Reminds me of a colleague of mine in Dublin who once remarked "I may be thick, but I'm not stupid!"
But you would not. Every other moon in the solar system gives you a spirograph like thing. Earths moon produces a uniquely boring patern: more or less an elipse, just a bit wobbly.
Right. Which is why we get two tides a day, because it's only the Earth's rotation that makes the Moon appear to orbit us. I've got a feeling I should have known that from somewhere.
A gravitation force between Moon and Sun already stronger than between Moon and Earth. Doesn't it mean that Moon orbits Sun?
I think the idea is that, if you were to plot the Moon's motion around the Sun, you'd get a sort of Spirograph pattern as the Moon orbited the Earth, which was in turn orbiting the Sun. If it orbited in its own right, you'd expect a more or less perfect elipse.
But don't try the Spirograph thing unless you have a very big piece of paper. And lots of time on your hands.
I'm not. I'm fundamentally against the doctrine that ideas may be
subject to ownership.
I can see the value of copyright, at least if the duration of the
legal monopoly is brought back to something sensible. I can see
value in a patent system, although not in the systematic abuse of
the system, as reported all too frequently on this board.
I'm happy with the existence of trade secrets, NDAs and licencing
models.
But none of that adds up to ownership.
I don't support the concept of intellectual property - and somehow
I don't think you do either. For instance:
However, the movie industry is actively opposed to intellectual
property. When you buy a movie from them, they take your money, yet
behave as if both the money and the movie are still theirs. You see,
they don't believe in property. When you sell a piece of property, you
give up any and all claim to the property. The movie industry's idea of
a sale is more like an indefinite lease - you get to have a copy of the
content for as long as it suits the studio.
What you seem to be doing here is getting confused between the movie as
an absract legal entity (the intellectual properly) and the physical medium
which allows you watch the movie on a television set.
See, the studio here is absolutely asserting it's ownersip of the movie
as intellectual property. They are saying "all you buy when you buy a
CD is the physical disc. The copyright, and any other legal rights
remain ours, thank you very much. And as such, we reserve the right to add
additional conditions to your use of this property".
And, if you uncritically accept the concept of "itellectual property",
and all that that implies by analogy with meatspace properties, then
you'd have to conceed that they had a point.
You can't make a backup copy and aren't supposed to try.
You aren't allowed to post clips from the movie for critical review.
You can't make backgrounds from screenshots of good scenes.
You have to buy the soundtrack separately rather than recording it from the DVD.
Now what you're objecting to here is the restriction on what's known as "fair use" rights.
There's nothing
in the concept of intellectual property to support fair use at all. There's quite a bit in
copyright law, but that is not the same thing as intellectual property, any more than
patents are the same thing as a non-disclosure agreement.
So, while I agree with your basic point, I don't agree with "intellectual property",
and I don't think you do either.
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "I don't think it means what you think it means".
I hate patent abuse as much as the next guy, but this seems like it's just begging for abuse.
Which "next guy" would that be? Jeff Bezos?
How's this for a (new) patent abuse business model:
- Watch patent review wiki for interesting stuff
Nosey parkers ought to mind thier own business! I mean it's not as
if the patent system was set up to spread this sort of information
or anything...
- Steal good ideas that other people have
...some of them dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century (MS "IsNot" patent, anyone?)
- Instantly work on creating pre-dated "prior art" on websites, blog postings, etc
...because the existence of a web page with no hard copy support
and no prior existence on any electronic archive is bound to
be automatically accepted as incontrovertible evidence, after all...
- Use shill accounts to point out the "prior art"
... because there's going to be nobody else reviewing the patent, after all. Just the poor helpless proposer and a thousands and thousands of rapacious IP sharks. Of course, if those R&D companies with a vested interest in a fair patent system were to join the debate, some balance might be applied. But what are the chances of that happening...?
- Make some good cash off of other peoples' R&D
Always assuming that that patent is valid, which it may not be; that
review community is fundamentally crooked; that the patent office rubber
stamp the wiki recommendation, (which I suppose is plausible); and that
the flimsy electronic "evidence" survives even the most superficial
legal review.
That's quite a lot to take for granted. Luckily,
the patent office are not making assumptions either way, which is why this
is being conducted as a trial. To see if it works.
There are plenty more ways to abuse this, of course, those two just came
to mind quickly and are kind of amusing.
... and they don't read like a hysterical over-reaction in the slightest.
I know I'll get jumped on here
What, after such carefully considered analysis? You reckon?
The police believed that this man was an immediate lethal threat to the citizens around him.
I'm not ready to accept incompetance as a justification for the misapplication of lethal force.
That was unfortunately not the case, but accidents happen.
There's something about this case that lends the words "unfortunate" and "accident" something of a grotesque quality, don't you think? Three policement pinning Jean Charles de Menezes to the floor, another one shooting him in the head multiple times at point blank range; oops, sorry!
But, disregarding that for a moment, I'd have a lot more sympathy for your point of view if they hadn't immediately tried to cover everything up. The first reports were a tissue of lies from top to bottom; the video tapes from the station surveillance cameras promptly went missing; when the emerged, the officers involved were promptly spirited away overseas where they likely to blab to anyone.
So they didn't act as if it were an innocent mistake. A copper would call that, I think the term is "reasonable grounds for suspicion" at the very least. But when it's the police doing it -- oops, sorry!
This isn't the US where, (as television would have us believe) there is barely a litterbug or jaywalker arrested without both sides discharging firearms. This is Britain, where firearms related offences are still blessedly rare, and where the police are still largely unarmed. Those officers who are allowed to carry weapons are supposed to be highly trained; the elite of the force. That is why they are trusted to carry deadly weapons.
And if this is the best they can do, then they shouldn't be allowed to carry them at all.
It's not like the fucking gun misfired. They meant to kill this guy, and they got it done. I applaud their efficiency.
So they may have been the wrong man, but at least they got him good and dead, huh?. That's the important thing, right? Hey we can generalise this! The next time a terrorist blows something up, we can go and round up a hundred of our own citizens and execute them by way of reprisal. Just think how efficient we could make that process! They'll never dare strike at us in the face of such consequences. Maybe we could all shoot ourselves by way of a pre-emptive strike. Can't take any chances where WMDs might be involved.
Or is it important that the innocent dead all be foreign nationals? I guess it might be a pain having to round up a hundred brazillians every time Blair needs a distraction from his foreign policy..
No, if its all the same to you, I'll refrain from applauding police efficiency until they idetify the right individual and bring him in ahead of time, without lethal force.
Ok, Robin Hanson's home page is here, but it's still down. If I recall correctly, you have to click through to his personal page and then there's some betting markets related stuff. The PAM (Policy Analysis Market) stuff should be around there.
Thank you. The other link you sent me was very interesting.
Which is probably a fair trade off when the commodity is oranges or shares in SCO.
But not so when it's airlines and reinsurance companies?
I was thinking more of explosions and assasinations, myself. Interestingly, the Strategic Insights discussion suggests that terrorism and assasination were never intended to be the subject of trades, so maybe that isn't a problem.
And yes, with a $100 cap on any bet and only the pentagon allowed to offer bets, the market should be fairly safe from feedback into the real world.
Come to think of it, there's already markets in terrorism. See here and here. The latter paid out after September 11 happened.
The obvioious answer to that one is "well we don't need another one then, do we?" (Very interesting site BTW, thanks for the pointer). But really, if the CCC summary is an accurate reflection of the project intentions, then I can't see any real problems. Some diplomatic repercussions down the line, perhaps, but that's not necessarily a show-stopper.
On the other hand, I wonder how accurate the market would be as a predictor, given the proposed limiters. I'm not altogether sold on the "market as predictor" idea in the first place, but if it does work, I'd expect its accuracy to be a function of the "freeness" of the market; that the very fact that the market could feed back into the real world would be what would keep the prices in line with reality. By limiting the players, the size of the bets and by only allowing the pentagon to issue bets, the exercise seems more like a focus group with propaganda opportunities rather than a proper market.
Still, I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure. Pity really, since it was an interesting proposal. Much as I have mixed feelings about the idea, it would have been fascinating to watch it in action.
I couldn't link to that directly (URL doesn't work at the moment), but here's a good discussion of the market including the complaints.
Thanks, I'll look forward to reading that.
And I already mentioned how the market dealt with that.
Yes, you said that limiting the supply of options in the options market eliminated *most* of the illegal activities. Which is probably a fair trade off when the commodity is oranges or shares in SCO.
Plus, said violence is *still illegal*. So you haven't obtained a "legimate pretext" to buy and sell violence.
Sorry, I didn't explain that very well. By usng money to manipulat the market, it would be possible to create financial incentives to perform acts of violence. The sponsor would lose money on the deal, of course, but might regard the loss as acceptable is the violent act achieved the desired outcome. So while they wouldn't be buying violence, and therefore not legally liable, it might still be possible to spend money in order to achieve violence, giving the same functional outcome.
This was addressed in the original market. The amounts of money traded would be limited so there wouldn't be half a billion dollars riding on such events.
Interesting. I wonder how that would affect the performance of the market.Is the original proposal online anywhere? I have to say, I never saw it.
This form of moral hazard isn't restricted to just terrorism. For example, stock option markets have similal problems. If there's enough options riding on a company, then it becomes worth it to conduct unlawful activities
mmm... but as a rule you can't corner the market in kumquats by planting a bomb in Grand Central Station. In one case the violence is acting as an (unlawful) business method.In the other, it's the commodity being traded.
We're talking about giving corporate money a legitimate pretext to buy and sell violence. I can't help but worry that this would act to increase the overall supply.
When someone, be it random blogger, industry expert or Roger Ebert states that games "are not highbrow" entertainment or "are not art", people bring forward examples of games that reflect other mediums. "This game is art because it has a good story". I don't think this is the right approach.
mmm... interesting.
Anyone remember Watchmen?. Moore and Gibbons' series played a big part in rehabilitating comics from being regarded as a junk medium. The made a point of using every literary device they knew in the series. They wanted a graphic novel that had every hallmark of a "proper" novel. Along with Art Speigleman's Maus and Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, they changed the way that comics are regarded in the west.
A good story in a game is pointless if it renders the game non-interactive and artificially restricts action from the player.
On the other hand, Watchmen is as fine a superhero story as anyone is ever likely to read. They did it without abandoning the format or the conventions of the genre. So maybe we can find some similar fusion in the gaming world.
Is Tetris less brilliant because it has no message?
Is Gary Larson's The Far Side less than brilliant because it lacks plot development? Of course not. Nevertheless, it's possible to have a comic that works on many more levels than Larson's did - if only because of the restrictions of the one-panel format.
I believe games should be judged on their own merits...
That's fair enough...
... not compared to passive mediums (music, film, paintings whatever) that they at most only superficially resemble.
... but I don't think that is. Of course you can make cross genre comparisons. The "breaking the fourth wall" idea in comics harks back to Bertold Brecht and before that to Shakespere, and probably on back to the chorus in various greek plays. Comics also borrow a lot from cinema (Paul Gulacy springs to mind in particular). In computer games, MORGs like WoW have their roots in face to face roleplay, which hs obvuious referents in drama and equally valid ones in areas like improvisational jazz.
I think, ultimately, a computer game should aim to engage the player on all those levels. Which is to say it should have the involvement of Tetris, the depth of civ, the story of Planescape: Torment, the realism of Far Cry and in the process hit as many literary and dramatic benchmarks as it can.
Not becuase Tetris is a bad game - it isn't. But because we can take the medium so much further.
If you'll recall, a similar terrorism futures market was planned by DARPA; it fell victim to political pressure, got deep-sixed, and the proponent, John Poindexter, resigned in a cloud. But the truth is that the idea works well.
I don't think the problem was whether or not it would have worked. The trouble I see it is that a market would mean a lot of money riding on whether or not a terrorist act was committed. Which in turn creates a financial incentive for people to commit attrocities who wouldn't otherwise consider such actions. How many multinational corporations would you trust not to blow up someone else's building if there was half a billion dollars at stake?
By the same token, it's going to be tempting to try and pump the prices behind events that you want to have happen. See how high you can get the payoff for the assassination of Kim Jong-Il, for example. The upshot of that is that other governments it's going to like you're setting up an assassination market.
It's probably a nice idea as long as it doesn't feed back into the real world. I mean it doesn't much matter if the Hollywood market affects the likelihood of any given film being a hit. Maybe the results generate a little viral marketing, encourage a studio to splurge a little promoting a film, who cares? But terrorism? brrrr.....
I consider it a bit of a double standard to be criticizing Microsoft for "photocopying" on one hand and then unveiling a bunch of features that have been done before.
I think the reason that Microsoft gets a disproportionate kicking on this issue is that Microsoft shills are always banging on about how all innovation springs from Microsoft and Microsoft alone, and that's why it's so important that no one ever question their profit margins, because if it wasn't for MS bleeding their customers white, there'd be no innovation, None, Not ever again! In fact, you fanboy! Yes, you, hiding in the corner! You ought to get down on your hands and knees and worship the ground Bill Gates walks upon, because if it wasn't for Windows you'd still be counting on your fingers, and ONLY on your fingers, because if it wasn't for Windows, Toes Would Not Yet Be Invented! Because Only! Microsoft! Innovates!
Whereas by contrast, Apple just seem to go ahead and do stuff. People don't mind that so much.
... do excuse me, I seem to be in an odd mood tonight...
Here's a thought... what is the GPLv4 going to contain, if this goes
through? Perhaps a restriction that GPL'd software can only be run on
GPL'd operating systems? Or that all modifications have to be pushed
back into the public pool, even if they're totally irrelevant to anyone
else's needs, or even if there's no "distribution"?
"What if..." games are fun. "What if GPLv5 requires that I scarifice
my firstborn son and change my name to GNU/Nicholas?" I'd love to see
the first test of the licence in court.
Imagine having to take your copy of wordpress or drupal or
postnuke that you've customized, and having to guarantee that you'll make
all mods available for 3 years, even though you haven't distributed any
of it to anyone else; you've just fixed it up so it works the way YOU
want. Most people would be saying "screw that."
If...
If a GPL version implemented this feature.
If the licence text made no distinction between source and config data
If the copyright holders didn't just re-release under GPLv2 only
If the copyright holders were stupid enough to try and enforce that clause
If all of the above, then you'd have a point, certainly. But I need a few less
"ifs" before I start losing sleep over something.
As long as the source is made available if the product is being distributed,
I don't see what the problem is.
I suppose that depends on what you think the GPL is for.
I don't know that, but the FSF define
four freedoms
that the GPL is intended to protect. Making the source available satisfies
freedom 1, but neglects freedoms 0, 2 and 3.
With a locked down platform that needs signed binaries, a manufacturer can
prevent a user from modifing the program to better suit their needs (freedom 2)
or at least prevent them from running the modified program (freedom 0). And if it
won't run, there's no point in distributing the modified version (freedom 3)
So that's the big deal. You might not agree with the criteria they chose,
but it's unquestionably their choice to make, and based upon them,
there's no denying the consistency of their position.
Because there is a very effective work-around to the GPL, and you
can bet that it will be used if this goes through: devices will not be
sold, just "lent" to the customer; you sign up for a tivo-like service
and you're lent a receiver at no extra charge. Since the receiver never
becomes the property of the customer, there is no "distribution". With
hardwaqre getting cheaper and cheaper, this becomes a viable alternative.
That battle's already on the horizon, IMHO. That was pretty much the
argument used to get XBox mod chips ruled illegal over here. A lot of
companies want hardware released under the same terms as proprietory
software - you don't own it, you just buy the right to feed it electricity.
I don't think the terms of the GPL will affect developments in that direction
one iota.
To argue otherwise (that distribution DOES occur even though n property changes
ownership) would cause a HUGE problem for a lot of businesses right now.
Maybe. But you're still arguing based on your "what if..." scenario, right?
This isn't in the currently proposed text for GPLv3, so it's no more an issue
than my having to change my name by deed poll to "GNU/Nicholas".
In fact, I'd go so far as to predict that the GPLv3, and more restrictive
definitions of "redistribution" could ultimately result in the resurgence
of bsd at the expense of linux.
Well, assuming that the GPLv3 turns out as flawed as you fear, then
I suppose that's a plausible outcome. I can't say I'd be overjoyed, since
the BSD boys don't get much back in return for all their ha
Let's have something a little less confrontational for the subject line:)
No, I'm saying the same thing Linus said - that DRM is not going to go
away because we change a license - its going to go away only if consumers
reject it.
mmm... look, in case it wasn't apparent, I came in halfway through this
thread, and only then because I thought your points about mod chips and
homebrew hardware were flawed. I don't have any particular emotional
investment in the original point
Still, I wonder if it's safe to say that the GPL V3
won't
make DRM go away. I mean it's starting to lookl like V2 might make
proprietory software go away, at least in the long term. But let's say
that you're right, and that the GPL is never going to solve DRM. I still
don't think that makes GPL V3 "broken", since that presupposes that the
sole point of the licence was to make DRM go away, and I don't think anyone
has ever claimed that.
ultimately, DRM is a social
problem, not a licensing problem.
Possibly. But that doesn't mean the problem cannot be addressed
in licencing. Solutions do not have to arise from the same domain as
the problem they address, nor are we restricted to a single measure
for any given problem.
And yes, the ability for any Joe Sixpack to slap together a computer with only a
bit of knowledge was a very liberating thing... or have you forgotten that bef
ore the advent of personal computers, everything was centrally controlled off a
few machines, with access strictly limited.
Yes, yes, all very true. All you need now is to find someone who is actually
arguing otherwise and you'll have a devastating rebuttal. What I was saying
in this thread was that the average consumer is unlikely to build a
computer just so he can try out some free software. We have enough
trouble persuading people to do that on pre-built boxes which they already own.
If the only he can try out free software is by building his own box,
then the free software movement is in for some serious downsizing.
I think we can agree that this would be an undesireable outcome.
The battlefield isn't between developers and manufacturers -its totally
with the consumers.
I think we disagree at the word "totally". Yes the consumers have a
role to play in the fight against DRM, and yes, probably the dominant one.
But you seem to be suggesting that it's none of the developer's business
and that they should all just butt out and let the market decide.
And that's where I have a problem. I think if a developer wants to
licence his own software with a clause that precludes anyone running it on
a DRM system, then that's always going to be their privilege.
Well, you're posting on Slashdot, and you're apparently arguing to the free software contingent that DRM is not in fact worth their time to oppose, since any geek worth the price of a propellor beanie can build their own box in an hour or less. So it seemed reasonable to infer that you were suggesting the free software community just accept DRM and get on with their lives. Did I miss something?
If the consumer rejects it, it doesn't matter how much everyone else down the line thinks its the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Are you seriously proposing that DRM will fail because everyone will start building their own computers? Or just that our best strategy is to build our own hardware and hope that joe consumer will do likewise?
Because either way, I have to question your judgement.
Come on, there's no way it takes more than an hour to slap together a box, never mind a day.
If you know what you're doing, and you're reasonably confident, then quite possibly, yes. It's not exactly the general case though, is it?
If this takes you a day, you have serious problems.
Now, now. Be polite.
Windows loses big-time here in terms of ease as well as cost.
Did I write something that read like "Windows is better than Linux?" You're going to have to show me what that was. My point is that acceptance of DRM raises the barrier to entry for free software, and that this is a bad thing.
If Aunt Mildred can't in stall Linux, she certainly can't install Windows. But I'd bet if you gave her that bare box and an ubuntu disk in the dvd drive, she'd be able to click the shit out of the "install" icon and install linux.
Never used Ubuntu, but from what I hear, I expect you're probably right. And, if Mark Shuttleworth ever comes up with a PC that will self-assemble from hardware components on a single push of the button, then I expect Aunt Mildred will be able to do that, too.
But until that day comes, if she has to build her own box to run free software, then she's probably going to stick with a Dell, and just run whatever comes preloaded. So we can't really dismiss DRM concerns without going the wrong way down the usability curve.
And that's still presupposing that the DRM doesn't come built-in to the mobo and/or CPU.
Its not like asembling a computer is rocket science any more. 15 minutes and you have a working box.
It took me about a day the first time I tried it, and I'm not exactly non-technical. That's just assembly time, and doesn't include the month or so beforehand, reasearching the matter and trying to get a handle on what all the socket numbers meant, which CPUs worked with which mobos and what sort of memory I'd need. Even then, there's still learning curve involved, and it can be quite expensive. You don't really understand the importance of thermal paste until forget it one time and fry the CPU.
And of course, this all pre-supposes that the DRM isn't built into the mobo or the CPU. Which is far from a given, so far as I can tell.
At the end of the day though, we're trying to lower the barriers to entry here, not raise them. The hypothetical Great Aunt Mildred that we're always trying to get to install Linux has enough challenges clicking her way through an installer. Requiring her to build her own computer before she starts and we might as well not bother.
... the widespread illegality of which is not going to be an issue, because....?
I don't know what the legal status of mod chips is in Canada, but they're far from a universal solution. The DMCA makes them illegal in the States, here in the UK they were banned a couple of years back. I seem to recall Austrailia banning them as well, so I don't think you can dismiss the case quite that lightly.
And yes, you can also buy all the components needed to manufacture your own brand of laptop.
Sure. And if I buy a parcel of land with some iron ore and copper on it, and some running water, I can probably reinvent the entire industrial complex from scratch. All it takes is time and dedication.
But it's never going to be a widely adopted option, is it? Not even when it comes to making an mp3 player.
If the first requirement for a free software enthusiast is that he roll his own hardware, that's going to rule out all but the most dedicated and technically adept. It would mean the end of Free Software as a popular movement. That may not be a big deal to you personally, but that doesn't mean the issue isn't very important to a lot of other people.
Slashdot Mirror
By preference I use zsh, vi and make.Screen or multiple terminal windows (aterm by preference). Depending on the task and the requirements, GCC/gdb/ctags or perl/CPAN or boo+nmake+nunit. Throw in find grep and all the usual suspects in support. Tools with a command line interface preferred over ones without, commands that read from stdin and write to stdout by default perferred over others. Special exemption made for browsers and drawing programs.
If the structure of an application is too complex to manage under a unix command shell, that's a reflection on the design of the app in my book. I don't expect that's going to be a widely held viewpoint around here. Never mind, it works for me :)
Interesting, isn't it? The problem becomes one of making the other party sue. Or counter-sue, of course; the patent disqualifiaction clause is one-sided. MS don't lose a thing if they sue you.
I agree that this might not be enough to derail OSI validation. I just think it would take a braver coder than myself to invest any significant time and effort into a project licenced under these particular terms.
It would mean they could terminate the licence at any time, or at least force licencees to pay insupportable royalties.
Although I too am not a lawyer, so there my be good reasons why this would not work.
Yup... and it works the same for software, too. That's why MS office doesn't have a 75% markup. Because no corporation would dream of charging near market rate just because their overheads were massively lower.
The point is, I suppose, that it can work both ways.
What is it about software that encourages such exploitative margins when hardware (as you point out) has dropped so fast?
And do you suppose these lads have applied for a patent? Reminds me of a colleague of mine in Dublin who once remarked "I may be thick, but I'm not stupid!"
Right. Which is why we get two tides a day, because it's only the Earth's rotation that makes the Moon appear to orbit us. I've got a feeling I should have known that from somewhere.
Thanks for the correction.
I think the idea is that, if you were to plot the Moon's motion around the Sun, you'd get a sort of Spirograph pattern as the Moon orbited the Earth, which was in turn orbiting the Sun. If it orbited in its own right, you'd expect a more or less perfect elipse.
But don't try the Spirograph thing unless you have a very big piece of paper. And lots of time on your hands.
I'm not. I'm fundamentally against the doctrine that ideas may be subject to ownership.
I can see the value of copyright, at least if the duration of the legal monopoly is brought back to something sensible. I can see value in a patent system, although not in the systematic abuse of the system, as reported all too frequently on this board. I'm happy with the existence of trade secrets, NDAs and licencing models.
But none of that adds up to ownership.
I don't support the concept of intellectual property - and somehow I don't think you do either. For instance:
What you seem to be doing here is getting confused between the movie as an absract legal entity (the intellectual properly) and the physical medium which allows you watch the movie on a television set.
See, the studio here is absolutely asserting it's ownersip of the movie as intellectual property. They are saying "all you buy when you buy a CD is the physical disc. The copyright, and any other legal rights remain ours, thank you very much. And as such, we reserve the right to add additional conditions to your use of this property".
And, if you uncritically accept the concept of "itellectual property", and all that that implies by analogy with meatspace properties, then you'd have to conceed that they had a point.
Now what you're objecting to here is the restriction on what's known as "fair use" rights. There's nothing in the concept of intellectual property to support fair use at all. There's quite a bit in copyright law, but that is not the same thing as intellectual property, any more than patents are the same thing as a non-disclosure agreement.
So, while I agree with your basic point, I don't agree with "intellectual property", and I don't think you do either.
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "I don't think it means what you think it means".
Which "next guy" would that be? Jeff Bezos?
Nosey parkers ought to mind thier own business! I mean it's not as if the patent system was set up to spread this sort of information or anything...
Always assuming that that patent is valid, which it may not be; that review community is fundamentally crooked; that the patent office rubber stamp the wiki recommendation, (which I suppose is plausible); and that the flimsy electronic "evidence" survives even the most superficial legal review.
That's quite a lot to take for granted. Luckily, the patent office are not making assumptions either way, which is why this is being conducted as a trial. To see if it works.
What, after such carefully considered analysis? You reckon?
I'm not ready to accept incompetance as a justification for the misapplication of lethal force.
There's something about this case that lends the words "unfortunate" and "accident" something of a grotesque quality, don't you think? Three policement pinning Jean Charles de Menezes to the floor, another one shooting him in the head multiple times at point blank range; oops, sorry!
But, disregarding that for a moment, I'd have a lot more sympathy for your point of view if they hadn't immediately tried to cover everything up. The first reports were a tissue of lies from top to bottom; the video tapes from the station surveillance cameras promptly went missing; when the emerged, the officers involved were promptly spirited away overseas where they likely to blab to anyone.
So they didn't act as if it were an innocent mistake. A copper would call that, I think the term is "reasonable grounds for suspicion" at the very least. But when it's the police doing it -- oops, sorry!
This isn't the US where, (as television would have us believe) there is barely a litterbug or jaywalker arrested without both sides discharging firearms. This is Britain, where firearms related offences are still blessedly rare, and where the police are still largely unarmed. Those officers who are allowed to carry weapons are supposed to be highly trained; the elite of the force. That is why they are trusted to carry deadly weapons.
And if this is the best they can do, then they shouldn't be allowed to carry them at all.
So they may have been the wrong man, but at least they got him good and dead, huh?. That's the important thing, right? Hey we can generalise this! The next time a terrorist blows something up, we can go and round up a hundred of our own citizens and execute them by way of reprisal. Just think how efficient we could make that process! They'll never dare strike at us in the face of such consequences. Maybe we could all shoot ourselves by way of a pre-emptive strike. Can't take any chances where WMDs might be involved.
Or is it important that the innocent dead all be foreign nationals? I guess it might be a pain having to round up a hundred brazillians every time Blair needs a distraction from his foreign policy..
No, if its all the same to you, I'll refrain from applauding police efficiency until they idetify the right individual and bring him in ahead of time, without lethal force.
Thank you. The other link you sent me was very interesting.
I was thinking more of explosions and assasinations, myself. Interestingly, the Strategic Insights discussion suggests that terrorism and assasination were never intended to be the subject of trades, so maybe that isn't a problem.And yes, with a $100 cap on any bet and only the pentagon allowed to offer bets, the market should be fairly safe from feedback into the real world.
The obvioious answer to that one is "well we don't need another one then, do we?" (Very interesting site BTW, thanks for the pointer). But really, if the CCC summary is an accurate reflection of the project intentions, then I can't see any real problems. Some diplomatic repercussions down the line, perhaps, but that's not necessarily a show-stopper.
On the other hand, I wonder how accurate the market would be as a predictor, given the proposed limiters. I'm not altogether sold on the "market as predictor" idea in the first place, but if it does work, I'd expect its accuracy to be a function of the "freeness" of the market; that the very fact that the market could feed back into the real world would be what would keep the prices in line with reality. By limiting the players, the size of the bets and by only allowing the pentagon to issue bets, the exercise seems more like a focus group with propaganda opportunities rather than a proper market.
Still, I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure. Pity really, since it was an interesting proposal. Much as I have mixed feelings about the idea, it would have been fascinating to watch it in action.
Thanks, I'll look forward to reading that.
Yes, you said that limiting the supply of options in the options market eliminated *most* of the illegal activities. Which is probably a fair trade off when the commodity is oranges or shares in SCO.
Sorry, I didn't explain that very well. By usng money to manipulat the market, it would be possible to create financial incentives to perform acts of violence. The sponsor would lose money on the deal, of course, but might regard the loss as acceptable is the violent act achieved the desired outcome. So while they wouldn't be buying violence, and therefore not legally liable, it might still be possible to spend money in order to achieve violence, giving the same functional outcome.
mmm... but as a rule you can't corner the market in kumquats by planting a bomb in Grand Central Station. In one case the violence is acting as an (unlawful) business method.In the other, it's the commodity being traded.
We're talking about giving corporate money a legitimate pretext to buy and sell violence. I can't help but worry that this would act to increase the overall supply.
mmm... interesting.
Anyone remember Watchmen?. Moore and Gibbons' series played a big part in rehabilitating comics from being regarded as a junk medium. The made a point of using every literary device they knew in the series. They wanted a graphic novel that had every hallmark of a "proper" novel. Along with Art Speigleman's Maus and Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, they changed the way that comics are regarded in the west.
On the other hand, Watchmen is as fine a superhero story as anyone is ever likely to read. They did it without abandoning the format or the conventions of the genre. So maybe we can find some similar fusion in the gaming world.
Is Gary Larson's The Far Side less than brilliant because it lacks plot development? Of course not. Nevertheless, it's possible to have a comic that works on many more levels than Larson's did - if only because of the restrictions of the one-panel format.
That's fair enough...
I think, ultimately, a computer game should aim to engage the player on all those levels. Which is to say it should have the involvement of Tetris, the depth of civ, the story of Planescape: Torment, the realism of Far Cry and in the process hit as many literary and dramatic benchmarks as it can.
Not becuase Tetris is a bad game - it isn't. But because we can take the medium so much further.
I don't think the problem was whether or not it would have worked. The trouble I see it is that a market would mean a lot of money riding on whether or not a terrorist act was committed. Which in turn creates a financial incentive for people to commit attrocities who wouldn't otherwise consider such actions. How many multinational corporations would you trust not to blow up someone else's building if there was half a billion dollars at stake?
By the same token, it's going to be tempting to try and pump the prices behind events that you want to have happen. See how high you can get the payoff for the assassination of Kim Jong-Il, for example. The upshot of that is that other governments it's going to like you're setting up an assassination market.
It's probably a nice idea as long as it doesn't feed back into the real world. I mean it doesn't much matter if the Hollywood market affects the likelihood of any given film being a hit. Maybe the results generate a little viral marketing, encourage a studio to splurge a little promoting a film, who cares? But terrorism? brrrr.....
I think the reason that Microsoft gets a disproportionate kicking on this issue is that Microsoft shills are always banging on about how all innovation springs from Microsoft and Microsoft alone, and that's why it's so important that no one ever question their profit margins, because if it wasn't for MS bleeding their customers white, there'd be no innovation, None, Not ever again! In fact, you fanboy! Yes, you, hiding in the corner! You ought to get down on your hands and knees and worship the ground Bill Gates walks upon, because if it wasn't for Windows you'd still be counting on your fingers, and ONLY on your fingers, because if it wasn't for Windows, Toes Would Not Yet Be Invented! Because Only! Microsoft! Innovates!
Whereas by contrast, Apple just seem to go ahead and do stuff. People don't mind that so much.
Bah! That's nothing! I can build a PC just as good as a Mac Pro and do it for $14.93 less!
You know, I don't think this is going to turn out to be as paradoxical as you might have hoped.
"What if..." games are fun. "What if GPLv5 requires that I scarifice my firstborn son and change my name to GNU/Nicholas?" I'd love to see the first test of the licence in court.
If all of the above, then you'd have a point, certainly. But I need a few less "ifs" before I start losing sleep over something.
I suppose that depends on what you think the GPL is for. I don't know that, but the FSF define four freedoms that the GPL is intended to protect. Making the source available satisfies freedom 1, but neglects freedoms 0, 2 and 3.
With a locked down platform that needs signed binaries, a manufacturer can prevent a user from modifing the program to better suit their needs (freedom 2) or at least prevent them from running the modified program (freedom 0). And if it won't run, there's no point in distributing the modified version (freedom 3)
So that's the big deal. You might not agree with the criteria they chose, but it's unquestionably their choice to make, and based upon them, there's no denying the consistency of their position.
That battle's already on the horizon, IMHO. That was pretty much the argument used to get XBox mod chips ruled illegal over here. A lot of companies want hardware released under the same terms as proprietory software - you don't own it, you just buy the right to feed it electricity. I don't think the terms of the GPL will affect developments in that direction one iota.
Maybe. But you're still arguing based on your "what if ..." scenario, right?
This isn't in the currently proposed text for GPLv3, so it's no more an issue
than my having to change my name by deed poll to "GNU/Nicholas".
Well, assuming that the GPLv3 turns out as flawed as you fear, then I suppose that's a plausible outcome. I can't say I'd be overjoyed, since the BSD boys don't get much back in return for all their ha
mmm... look, in case it wasn't apparent, I came in halfway through this thread, and only then because I thought your points about mod chips and homebrew hardware were flawed. I don't have any particular emotional investment in the original point
Still, I wonder if it's safe to say that the GPL V3 won't make DRM go away. I mean it's starting to lookl like V2 might make proprietory software go away, at least in the long term. But let's say that you're right, and that the GPL is never going to solve DRM. I still don't think that makes GPL V3 "broken", since that presupposes that the sole point of the licence was to make DRM go away, and I don't think anyone has ever claimed that.
Possibly. But that doesn't mean the problem cannot be addressed in licencing. Solutions do not have to arise from the same domain as the problem they address, nor are we restricted to a single measure for any given problem.
Yes, yes, all very true. All you need now is to find someone who is actually arguing otherwise and you'll have a devastating rebuttal. What I was saying in this thread was that the average consumer is unlikely to build a computer just so he can try out some free software. We have enough trouble persuading people to do that on pre-built boxes which they already own. If the only he can try out free software is by building his own box, then the free software movement is in for some serious downsizing.
I think we can agree that this would be an undesireable outcome.
I think we disagree at the word "totally". Yes the consumers have a role to play in the fight against DRM, and yes, probably the dominant one. But you seem to be suggesting that it's none of the developer's business and that they should all just butt out and let the market decide.
And that's where I have a problem. I think if a developer wants to licence his own software with a clause that precludes anyone running it on a DRM system, then that's always going to be their privilege.
Well, you're posting on Slashdot, and you're apparently arguing to the free software contingent that DRM is not in fact worth their time to oppose, since any geek worth the price of a propellor beanie can build their own box in an hour or less. So it seemed reasonable to infer that you were suggesting the free software community just accept DRM and get on with their lives. Did I miss something?
Are you seriously proposing that DRM will fail because everyone will start building their own computers? Or just that our best strategy is to build our own hardware and hope that joe consumer will do likewise?
Because either way, I have to question your judgement.
If you know what you're doing, and you're reasonably confident, then quite possibly, yes. It's not exactly the general case though, is it?
Now, now. Be polite.
Did I write something that read like "Windows is better than Linux?" You're going to have to show me what that was. My point is that acceptance of DRM raises the barrier to entry for free software, and that this is a bad thing.
Never used Ubuntu, but from what I hear, I expect you're probably right. And, if Mark Shuttleworth ever comes up with a PC that will self-assemble from hardware components on a single push of the button, then I expect Aunt Mildred will be able to do that, too.
But until that day comes, if she has to build her own box to run free software, then she's probably going to stick with a Dell, and just run whatever comes preloaded. So we can't really dismiss DRM concerns without going the wrong way down the usability curve.
And that's still presupposing that the DRM doesn't come built-in to the mobo and/or CPU.
It took me about a day the first time I tried it, and I'm not exactly non-technical. That's just assembly time, and doesn't include the month or so beforehand, reasearching the matter and trying to get a handle on what all the socket numbers meant, which CPUs worked with which mobos and what sort of memory I'd need. Even then, there's still learning curve involved, and it can be quite expensive. You don't really understand the importance of thermal paste until forget it one time and fry the CPU.
And of course, this all pre-supposes that the DRM isn't built into the mobo or the CPU. Which is far from a given, so far as I can tell.
At the end of the day though, we're trying to lower the barriers to entry here, not raise them. The hypothetical Great Aunt Mildred that we're always trying to get to install Linux has enough challenges clicking her way through an installer. Requiring her to build her own computer before she starts and we might as well not bother.
I don't know what the legal status of mod chips is in Canada, but they're far from a universal solution. The DMCA makes them illegal in the States, here in the UK they were banned a couple of years back. I seem to recall Austrailia banning them as well, so I don't think you can dismiss the case quite that lightly.
Sure. And if I buy a parcel of land with some iron ore and copper on it, and some running water, I can probably reinvent the entire industrial complex from scratch. All it takes is time and dedication.
But it's never going to be a widely adopted option, is it? Not even when it comes to making an mp3 player.
If the first requirement for a free software enthusiast is that he roll his own hardware, that's going to rule out all but the most dedicated and technically adept. It would mean the end of Free Software as a popular movement. That may not be a big deal to you personally, but that doesn't mean the issue isn't very important to a lot of other people.
Don't you mean BACON/Shakespear?
Sorry, couldn't resist :)
With that out of the way, I thought that was nicely put. I was an applications and systems coder, and that was exactly my experience.