Diamond prices are total b.s., diamond is not a commodity, [...]
I can believe that in a free market, you can't have monopolies on commodities. My point remains is that if there is real scarcity, such as geographic scarcity, then monopolies or oligopolies can and will develop, even in a free market.
There are a lot of other different sources of enegery, if oil wasn't so subsidized (by the government) and hence cheap, you would be using something else.
Huh? 'Round these parts, oil isn't subsidised, it's taxed. Quite heavily. Is it different where you live?
There is pretty much no way you can have a monopoly in a free market, [...]
Sure you can. Take the international diamond market, for example. DeBeers is a monopoly, because gem-quality diamonds can really only be obtained from one geographic location, and they have property rights over the location. OPEC is another example. People want a lot of oil, most of it is in the hands of a small number of producers, therefore an oligopoly develops.
Any time there is scarcity, a monopoly or oligopoly may develop. Free markets only remove scarcity when the scarcity is due to government interference. If the scarcity is due to corporations controlling the supply, then libertarianism won't help at all.
Given that a simple check of the file would reveal that it wasn't copyrighted material, why not invoice them for the time spent doing their job for them? Charge them at your consulting rates, minimum of two hours.
Re:proof of P=NP without supplying an algorithm
on
The End of Encryption?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I think I agree, though I'm having some trouble imagining what form such an "existence proof" could take, other than providing a P algorithm for some particular NP-Complete problem.
Well, it could be a contrapositive-type of proof. Show that if there is no algorithm in P which solves a certain NP-hard problem, then there is a P algorithm which solves a problem in EXPTIME or something like that. (It is known that P != EXPTIME.)
However, we are now pretty sure that the problem will never be settled. The reason is a rather nice theorem from last year that any proof that P != NP must be exponential in the size of the model used to construct the proof. So P is probably not equal to NP, but the proof is intractable.
Agreed... I've said it in another post... our founding fathers would be today most likely classified as libertarians - socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and fully for small government and more state's rights...
Also, many were pro-slavery. And when they wrote "we the people", they weren't referring to women, children, slaves or non-landowners.
It's almost impossible to correctly shoehorn people from the past into our modern pigeonholes. The "founding fathers" wouldn't care for a modern libertarian state (if such a thing can exist) any more than the current US system of government.
This is especially true when you consider the modern power of corporations, something that the founding fathers of the USA never envisaged. What would they have thought about this? Would they have praised free enterprise, or would they have been shocked that entities other than governments can exert forms of tyrrany over people? Would all of the "founding fathers" have had the same opinion on the matter?
We'll never know, and it's almost pointless to speculate. And it's beside the point anyway. What kind of nation the "founding fathers" wanted to live in is nowhere near as important as what kind of country "we the people" want to live in today. It's called "democracy".
First they came for the Telemarketers, but I was not a Telemarketer, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Spammers, but I'm not a Spammer, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Script Kiddies, but I'm not a Script Kiddie, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Pedophiles...
I don't know about you, but I'd hope that telemarketers, spammers, script kiddies and paedophiles all get basic human rights such as the right to due process.
Besides the overwhelming majority (possibly all) of the modellers, riggers, animators and particleFX artists in any industry don't use the PLE anyway, since you can't do much with it except learn.
All of the publicity made people come to it with the expectation that it was a screwball comedy, whereas it was actually satirical and ironic (in the true sense). People misinterpreted this as "not funny".
This is a classic example of how marketing can destroy a movie.
Moreover, if both countries are signatories to the Berne Convention, then both countries are required to recognise automatic copyright for at least life + 50 years, registration or no registration.
The only thing that registration buys you is an easier time proving your case in court.
That's kind of what they did this year. The trouble is that only one entry (which, incidentally, is the entry that made it furthest in the race proper) actually made it through the qualifying round.
You are confusing the point between exersizing your individual rights in a libertarian manner, and chosing a licence which promotes libertarian ideals.
The licence which best promotes libertarian ideals is precisely that which gets the effect that you want without the initiation of force. The GPL does precisely that. So does the BSD licence. So does the QPL.
A Microsoft EULA isn't actually a licence, because accepting it requires that you voluntarily waive certain rights, such as the right to reverse engineer for compatibility. Open Source licences do not require voluntarily waiving any rights.
Let's say my project is 95% original and 5% GPLed code. By including that 5% of GPLed code, I am compelled to release the remaining bulk of code that I wrote under the GPL whether I want to or not.
No you are not. You are forced to release the whole work under the GPL. You can release the 95%, on its own, under any licence you like.
GPL is about controlling your work so it's only used the way you want it to be used [...]
And this is not libertarian... how, exactly?
In this scenerio, I am NOT free to distribute the code I wrote as I please, under whatever license I wish to use.
So as I see it, you are complaining that you are not free to distribute someone else's work under whatever terms you please. How is this not libertarian?
What you want is a library of code that you can use as you see fit. By all means go ahead and write some. Compete with GPL'd code in a free market. But don't whinge that GPL developers are not giving you a free ride, because libertarianism teaches that they don't owe you one.
If I'm writing a program and I need a function to do $FOO, why should I implement $FOO from scratch when there are several open-source packages that already do $FOO? I can take the already-written code, rip out the functions and/or classes I need and modify them slightly to meet my specific needs. This approach would take a fraction of the time it would take me to code and test a new implementation from scratch.
Many, many more people use a program than modify it.
However, to answer the question "Why should I...?", the answer is, clearly: Because you evidently don't want to accept the conditions under which $FOO was licensed to you. Either accept it, find a work-alike licensed under terms which you will accept or write your own and compete with the author of $FOO in a free market.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head. Nobody has initiated force against you. You want to incorporate someone else's code in your program because you find it convenient, not because you're forced to.
Re:How many licenses can fit on the head of a pin?
on
PHP Not Moving To The GPL
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· Score: 2, Informative
My point exactly. No one uses PHP, and all because of this license.
Please point out where I said that. I said it was a barrier.
This whole thing started because the latest MySQL client library was released under the GPL. This makes it illegal to distribute binaries of PHP with the new MySQL client compiled in. LOTS of people use PHP with MySQL. They may no longer be able to unless they compile from source.
Aside: In this case, it's arguably not PHP's fault, but rather MySQL's for changing the licence. Even so, "barrier" still seems like an appropriate word.
Slashdot Mirror
Which brings up another important point: A libertarian government in the USA wouldn't necessarily help if the rest of the world stays the way it is.
I can believe that in a free market, you can't have monopolies on commodities. My point remains is that if there is real scarcity, such as geographic scarcity, then monopolies or oligopolies can and will develop, even in a free market.
Huh? 'Round these parts, oil isn't subsidised, it's taxed. Quite heavily. Is it different where you live?
Sure you can. Take the international diamond market, for example. DeBeers is a monopoly, because gem-quality diamonds can really only be obtained from one geographic location, and they have property rights over the location. OPEC is another example. People want a lot of oil, most of it is in the hands of a small number of producers, therefore an oligopoly develops.
Any time there is scarcity, a monopoly or oligopoly may develop. Free markets only remove scarcity when the scarcity is due to government interference. If the scarcity is due to corporations controlling the supply, then libertarianism won't help at all.
As anyone who has read The Diamond Age knows, it's only recently in history that hypocrisy was elevated to the status of worst evil.
Given that a simple check of the file would reveal that it wasn't copyrighted material, why not invoice them for the time spent doing their job for them? Charge them at your consulting rates, minimum of two hours.
Well, it could be a contrapositive-type of proof. Show that if there is no algorithm in P which solves a certain NP-hard problem, then there is a P algorithm which solves a problem in EXPTIME or something like that. (It is known that P != EXPTIME.)
However, we are now pretty sure that the problem will never be settled. The reason is a rather nice theorem from last year that any proof that P != NP must be exponential in the size of the model used to construct the proof. So P is probably not equal to NP, but the proof is intractable.
Also, many were pro-slavery. And when they wrote "we the people", they weren't referring to women, children, slaves or non-landowners.
It's almost impossible to correctly shoehorn people from the past into our modern pigeonholes. The "founding fathers" wouldn't care for a modern libertarian state (if such a thing can exist) any more than the current US system of government.
This is especially true when you consider the modern power of corporations, something that the founding fathers of the USA never envisaged. What would they have thought about this? Would they have praised free enterprise, or would they have been shocked that entities other than governments can exert forms of tyrrany over people? Would all of the "founding fathers" have had the same opinion on the matter?
We'll never know, and it's almost pointless to speculate. And it's beside the point anyway. What kind of nation the "founding fathers" wanted to live in is nowhere near as important as what kind of country "we the people" want to live in today. It's called "democracy".
s/none/almost none/
Quite. Most christian nations' free-to-air television is much less repressed than that of the United States.
The poster didn't forget those. None of them support RenderMan.
Since the 10th of December 1948. Hope this helps.
I don't know about you, but I'd hope that telemarketers, spammers, script kiddies and paedophiles all get basic human rights such as the right to due process.
Not in the slashdot sense of the term, no.
Besides the overwhelming majority (possibly all) of the modellers, riggers, animators and particleFX artists in any industry don't use the PLE anyway, since you can't do much with it except learn.
Odd that this is in the "developers" section? You can't actually develop anything for Alias PLE, because it doesn't have the OpenMaya API.
Basically, it was mis-marketed.
All of the publicity made people come to it with the expectation that it was a screwball comedy, whereas it was actually satirical and ironic (in the true sense). People misinterpreted this as "not funny".
This is a classic example of how marketing can destroy a movie.
That's really a job for the vet, you know. And please put that knife down while I'm talking to you.
Moreover, if both countries are signatories to the Berne Convention, then both countries are required to recognise automatic copyright for at least life + 50 years, registration or no registration.
The only thing that registration buys you is an easier time proving your case in court.
That's kind of what they did this year. The trouble is that only one entry (which, incidentally, is the entry that made it furthest in the race proper) actually made it through the qualifying round.
The licence which best promotes libertarian ideals is precisely that which gets the effect that you want without the initiation of force. The GPL does precisely that. So does the BSD licence. So does the QPL.
A Microsoft EULA isn't actually a licence, because accepting it requires that you voluntarily waive certain rights, such as the right to reverse engineer for compatibility. Open Source licences do not require voluntarily waiving any rights.
No you are not. You are forced to release the whole work under the GPL. You can release the 95%, on its own, under any licence you like.
And this is not libertarian... how, exactly?
So as I see it, you are complaining that you are not free to distribute someone else's work under whatever terms you please. How is this not libertarian?
What you want is a library of code that you can use as you see fit. By all means go ahead and write some. Compete with GPL'd code in a free market. But don't whinge that GPL developers are not giving you a free ride, because libertarianism teaches that they don't owe you one.
Many, many more people use a program than modify it.
However, to answer the question "Why should I...?", the answer is, clearly: Because you evidently don't want to accept the conditions under which $FOO was licensed to you. Either accept it, find a work-alike licensed under terms which you will accept or write your own and compete with the author of $FOO in a free market.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head. Nobody has initiated force against you. You want to incorporate someone else's code in your program because you find it convenient, not because you're forced to.
Please point out where I said that. I said it was a barrier.
This whole thing started because the latest MySQL client library was released under the GPL. This makes it illegal to distribute binaries of PHP with the new MySQL client compiled in. LOTS of people use PHP with MySQL. They may no longer be able to unless they compile from source.
Aside: In this case, it's arguably not PHP's fault, but rather MySQL's for changing the licence. Even so, "barrier" still seems like an appropriate word.
If you believe that, by all means go ahead and yell "Fire!" in that crowded theatre.