Re:The solution is an iron fist
on
Kazaa Fights Back
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Sooner or later, the widespread distribution of near-perfect digital copies will destroy the market for commercial recordings
It's possible. And it's not necesseraly a bad thing. I know that this is an argument that's been made hundreds of times, but 99% of the music that riaa markets IS bad. What filesharing might do is take out the huge profits of the "music stars". This will eliminate the talentless bands that are simply created by producers in order to make money. In fact, it may eliminate music star as a profession entirely, and i'm not even sure that's bad. For example, in Russia there exists a music genre called "bard music". This genre has some of the most intelligent songs ever written - in fact, it's really just poetry that's sung instead of read. All the "bards" have a primary job, and do their writing in their free time, and yet they manage to produce an outstanding product. The same is true for many writers.
The point is that profitable != good quality, and if musicians write music for the sake of art, not profit, society will better from it. The musicians will still make money off their concerts and record sales (I still buy bard recordings, even though they're available for free at www.bards.ru). If they don't make quite AS MUCH money, then so be it.
1) Selling the code to the Russian government is equivilant to posting it on the net for anyone to see. This is exactly what is going to happen, since the Russian gov't doesn't exactly care about protecting Microsofts IP. In fact, it has very little respect to IP in general - I personally know a person who's fulltime job in russia was re-soldering motherboards to fit stolen American microchips (this was in the early 80's i believe).
2) In light of point 1, Microsoft has to be pretty confident in the security of Windows. For example, releasing IIS in this fashion would be simply disasterous. Microsoft must believe that there aren't that many security holes in the Windows core, and that the security flaws that ARE found won't cause too much damage.
3) Another possibility is that Microsoft has given up on trying to secure Windows themselves, so they want to try out the open source way - enthusiasts finding the bugs, and hopefully not exploiting them. Selling the code to Russia instead of simply releasing it would clear Microsoft of any liability - if they just released it, they could be sued for damages if the many security holes started to get exploited and cause serious economic damage. This way Microsoft could play dumb and say "we didn't release the code, it just got stolen from the people we sold it to."
The article says that very little formatting is preserved when converting to digital text. What about scientific forumlas (roots, subscripts/superscripts etc)? This could be an amazing tool for university students. My handwriting is horrid - i'd much rather look at beautifull typed text than at my ugly notes. It is much faster to type text then to write it. However, writing formulas is much slower on a computer than by hand. While you can already write the formulas on the tablet pc, without converting to digital text this is just a glorified binder with digital paper instead of real. If it converts the formulas properly though - THEN it's definitely something that I would like to have.
"Although we don't have history
Gold medal winning teams
heroes or criminals
world famous volcanoes
still what we've got's glorious!
'cause we've got
rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and.... water!"
-Arrogant Worms
Excellent point on the russian sci-fi. The Strugatzki brothers science fiction is quite possibly the best ever written. However, some of their books are too distinctly russian to be easily understood/enjoyed by a north american (see Monday starts on saturday). I would recommend their more philosophical works - "Hard to be a god", "Roadside Picnick", the trilogy "Prisoner of Power", "Beetle in the Anthill", "The Time Wanderers". All these have been translated into english, so I highly recommend them to any sci-fi fan. You will not be disappointed!
For newer good russian science fiction, try Henry Lion Oldie. This is a pseudonim for 2 ukranian authors that write some of the best science fiction i've ever read. Their historical science fiction "The hero must be alone" and the "Odesseus" books are simply brilliant. To see a sample of their writings go to Oldy Homepage - there are a few stories translated. This again is excellent scifi, better than most i've read.
Finally, i'm surprised that Neal Stephenson hasn't been mentioned more often. I immensly enjoyed the book "Snow Crash", and though it's not really science fiction, "Cryptonomicon". His essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line" is also a great read, and is avaiable on the net for free - In the beginning was the command line.
Slashdot Mirror
Sooner or later, the widespread distribution of near-perfect digital copies will destroy the market for commercial recordings
It's possible. And it's not necesseraly a bad thing. I know that this is an argument that's been made hundreds of times, but 99% of the music that riaa markets IS bad. What filesharing might do is take out the huge profits of the "music stars". This will eliminate the talentless bands that are simply created by producers in order to make money. In fact, it may eliminate music star as a profession entirely, and i'm not even sure that's bad. For example, in Russia there exists a music genre called "bard music". This genre has some of the most intelligent songs ever written - in fact, it's really just poetry that's sung instead of read. All the "bards" have a primary job, and do their writing in their free time, and yet they manage to produce an outstanding product. The same is true for many writers.
The point is that profitable != good quality, and if musicians write music for the sake of art, not profit, society will better from it. The musicians will still make money off their concerts and record sales (I still buy bard recordings, even though they're available for free at www.bards.ru). If they don't make quite AS MUCH money, then so be it.
A few points:
1) Selling the code to the Russian government is equivilant to posting it on the net for anyone to see. This is exactly what is going to happen, since the Russian gov't doesn't exactly care about protecting Microsofts IP. In fact, it has very little respect to IP in general - I personally know a person who's fulltime job in russia was re-soldering motherboards to fit stolen American microchips (this was in the early 80's i believe).
2) In light of point 1, Microsoft has to be pretty confident in the security of Windows. For example, releasing IIS in this fashion would be simply disasterous. Microsoft must believe that there aren't that many security holes in the Windows core, and that the security flaws that ARE found won't cause too much damage.
3) Another possibility is that Microsoft has given up on trying to secure Windows themselves, so they want to try out the open source way - enthusiasts finding the bugs, and hopefully not exploiting them. Selling the code to Russia instead of simply releasing it would clear Microsoft of any liability - if they just released it, they could be sued for damages if the many security holes started to get exploited and cause serious economic damage. This way Microsoft could play dumb and say "we didn't release the code, it just got stolen from the people we sold it to."
The article says that very little formatting is preserved when converting to digital text. What about scientific forumlas (roots, subscripts/superscripts etc)? This could be an amazing tool for university students. My handwriting is horrid - i'd much rather look at beautifull typed text than at my ugly notes. It is much faster to type text then to write it. However, writing formulas is much slower on a computer than by hand. While you can already write the formulas on the tablet pc, without converting to digital text this is just a glorified binder with digital paper instead of real. If it converts the formulas properly though - THEN it's definitely something that I would like to have.
US tensions? The US has got nothing on us!
"Although we don't have history
Gold medal winning teams
heroes or criminals
world famous volcanoes
still what we've got's glorious!
'cause we've got
rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees
and trees and rocks
and.... water!"
-Arrogant Worms
Excellent point on the russian sci-fi. The Strugatzki brothers science fiction is quite possibly the best ever written. However, some of their books are too distinctly russian to be easily understood/enjoyed by a north american (see Monday starts on saturday). I would recommend their more philosophical works - "Hard to be a god", "Roadside Picnick", the trilogy "Prisoner of Power", "Beetle in the Anthill", "The Time Wanderers". All these have been translated into english, so I highly recommend them to any sci-fi fan. You will not be disappointed!
For newer good russian science fiction, try Henry Lion Oldie. This is a pseudonim for 2 ukranian authors that write some of the best science fiction i've ever read. Their historical science fiction "The hero must be alone" and the "Odesseus" books are simply brilliant. To see a sample of their writings go to Oldy Homepage - there are a few stories translated. This again is excellent scifi, better than most i've read.
Finally, i'm surprised that Neal Stephenson hasn't been mentioned more often. I immensly enjoyed the book "Snow Crash", and though it's not really science fiction, "Cryptonomicon". His essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line" is also a great read, and is avaiable on the net for free - In the beginning was the command line.