The GPL is anti-business because it seeks to undermine traditional business models (by reducing the cost of software to $0) while thwarting alternative business cases.
Sure there are plenty of/. pontificators who sit around on their couch proposing alternative business models, but 90% of those wouldn't pass the laugh test at a corporate board meeting.
- One story explaining how music/software piracy is actually good for society/the labels/the artists. - One story where someone posts the entire text of the article because the site got Slashdotted. - One story where someone posts a link to the Google cache of the article so readers can avoid registering with the NYT. - One story where/. readers bitch about how evil corporate America is not complying with their precious GPL license.
The big difference is that the people who are violating the GPL are distributing the GPL code in a product. When you redistribute or sell the code, you have a different set of obligations than a user. The GPL allows the end-user to do almost anything.
And yet people constantly claim that the GPL is not anti-business.
It also seems easy to do the math on the wrong equation. The price of something is only what someone will pay for it give/take deadweight loss. It could take $100bn to produce, but if the revenue is only $1mn then the value to the consumer is a total $1mn. On the other hand someone made tetris and made a lot of money from it because it cost so little to produce but the revenues were so high.
Revenue is only equal to value to consumer if you assume a system at equilibrium, given adequate marketing, no piracy, and a fair economic system.
I somehow managed to find out that I like heavy metal, despite not having any friends that like it. Actually I found out because a friend of mine had a bunch of old CDs that he didn't like anymore that I borrowed. Then I did go check out some more CDs at music stores, but as for recommendations, I got them off the Internet.
It's not like it's hard to find information about music on the net. You can find almost any genre on Internet radio. There's a hundred websites out there where people tell you about all the bands they like. Find someone who likes your favorite dance mix and see what else they listen to.
I'm not opposed to P2P in principle, but I don't like the way the Slashdot/GPL community always insists on the 100% anarchistic solution. I would be okay with P2P if it was monitored, closed source (so users couldn't easily defeat the anti-piracy measures), and supported digital watermarking.
No, I don't have time to go to CD stores and listen music anymore, but I did when I was a kid. Anyway, back then, P2P didn't exist, but I didn't have Internet access either. It's not like you can't find clips of most stuff online. In fact the obscure bands have even more incentive to put clips on their website.
I'm not opposed to P2P in general, but I am opposed to it in its current form. The Slashdot/GPL crowd always insist on the solution of maximum anarchy. I wouldn't be opposed to a P2P scheme where labels/indie artists can agree to let people share songs. It would have to be monitored for illegal use, it would need to support digital watermarking and it would have to be closed source so that users couldn't easily disable the anti-piracy features. Other P2P networks should be banned.
You know, I met a guy the other day, straight out of university, who told me that he never really liked music until he tried Kazaa, but now he likes it. P2P advocates would probably tout this as an example of the positive effect of file sharing, but I just think "how fucking lazy."
At least when I was a kid I was curious about music. I listened to my dad's records (and later CDs). I listened to the classic rock station on the radio, and later the indie station. Then I found out you could go to the local used CD store, grab 6 interesting-looking CDs off the rack and ask to listen to them. Plus I can't count how many recommendations I got off alt.music.*.
People who complain that it's impossible to find good music without using P2P are just fucking lazy (and deluded enough to believe that no one actually likes pop music). In fact these days it's easier than ever, when you consider how many online stores have free preview clips online.
If you're trying to disagree with something, I think you quoted the wrong part of my message. I only said that *dead* bodyparts can't be used to fool the scanner. I haven't read the latest issue of crypto-gram (have to be on the list to see it), but I take it from context that that's not what you meant.
Palm scanning only proves you have the hand of someone allowed to access a system. Retina scanning only proves you have the eyeball of someone allowed to access a system.
Well, the manufacturers of palm/retina scanners generally do include a feature that detects if the bodypart being scanned has a pulse. So you can't fool these scanners just by cutting off someone's hand or ripping out their eyeball. (Although it might be possible to manufacture fake contact lenses or glue-on fingerprints that would work.)
On the other hand, the basic weakness is that the biometric signature is still just a big password. You can "sniff" the signature by installing a fake reader. You can steal the signature off the harddrive of the domain controller. You can bypass the reader by splicing the wire. And your "password" is the same for every site.
Isn't this exactly the compulsary licensing the that EFF and company have been asking for? I thought people liked that...
"People" liked that? Heh! If you were paying attention, you'd notice that the vast majority of/. readers are opposed to any practical solution to the problem. The EFF proposal gets a bit of extra support just cuz it's the EFF and a lot of people are brainwashed. But there's nothing close to a majority. People here want results, not solutions!
Sure, that link states what the ElGamal algorithm is mathematically, but maybe the readers would be more interested in what ElGamal is practically. Basically, it's the hopelessly slow and clumsy people that was once used:
1. Before DSA was invented, and 2. When RSA was still patented.
Uh huh. So, run the numbers. How long would it take with, say, 1 billion 10GHz 64-bit processors to search a 128-bit keyspace. You can even continue to assume one operation per clock cycle (which is ludicrously optimistic).
I'd be much more worried about the one 128 bit QC.
(For example, the private key might be encrypted by a biometric signature or keycard or similar.
I have yet to see a biometric signature that would solve this problem. Generally speaking, in biometric identification, information about the fingerprint/retina is stored on the disk and then compared against the data that is read in. The biometric information is not used *AS* the encryption key. So a biometric signature is just like a really big password, except that if someone cracks your password you can change it, but you can't (easily) change your fingerprints.
It's funny... today I read yet another story about an OSS company closing up their source and going back to the tried and true. I can't get over how ridiculous it is for GPL fanatics to preach about the "failing business case" of the music industry when everything they touch turns to shit.
I'm not sure what legal right mp3.com has to the musicians' songs, but they do promise to pay you royalties if enough people download them. Perhaps they don't have the right to sell the archive unless the buyer honours the same contract. Or maybe they are willing to sell it, but not give it away for free.
Of course 8 months from now, we'll probably find out that pagecount estimation and Google-style page indexes are both patented by whatever company bought out Alta-vista, and MS will be the only ones not to get sued.:-)
I suspect that some "searches" on MSN don't actually return a search, but rather a pre-selected set of results.
Results 1-15 of about 98 containing "cats dogs" Results 31-45 of about 87 containing "cats dogs" Results 61-75 of about 80 containing "cats dogs" Results 76-90 of about 1219983 containing "cats dogs"
Methinks their "estimation" algorithm is just a bit off.
The FSF makes a large proportion of their money from selling CDs. This was even more true before the Internet became popular, and the only way to get the latest versions of the GNU tools was to subscribe to the CD update service.
If you go to the FSF page today, the fact that they offer CDs for sale is not exactly displayed prominently. If you dig a bit deeper you see that they do sell CDs, but they make no attempt to disguise the fact that this is basically a donation, not a sale.
Clearly, no one who read the article would call this guy a "hacker"... but he was referred to as such in the capsule summary. What'd you expect? You don't get a first post by reading the article.
RMS may not be not be against selling software in theory, but I'm pretty sure he's opposed to 99% of the ways people try to sell software in practice.
I guess it comes down to what I always complain about, which is geeks seeing everything in black and white terms. RMS may speak his mind, but I think this is a case where he has rationalized something. Call it what you will... I call it splitting hairs, lip service, rationalization, etc.
Okay, admittedly the OP was an arrogant SOB, but it still is 100 hours of work for like a.02% chance at $10,000. Not exactly a stellar deal unless you're pretty damn confident that you're better than the other 5,000 entrants. (in which case why *aren't* you making $70 and hour?)
Maybe you've heard this before, but the standard of proof in in a criminal case is reasonable doubt whereas the standard in a civil case is preponderance of the evidence. I'm not sure of the exact requirements to get a search warrant or an arrest warrant, but it's obviously less than to get a conviction. The point is, having illegal files in a shared folder is enough evidence to suggest that you are sharing them. If you have a credible alternate theory of how they got there, you can bring it up in court.
Slashdot Mirror
The GPL is anti-business because it seeks to undermine traditional business models (by reducing the cost of software to $0) while thwarting alternative business cases.
/. pontificators who sit around on their couch proposing alternative business models, but 90% of those wouldn't pass the laugh test at a corporate board meeting.
Sure there are plenty of
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- One story explaining how music/software piracy is actually good for society/the labels/the artists. /. readers bitch about how evil corporate America is not complying with their precious GPL license.
- One story where someone posts the entire text of the article because the site got Slashdotted.
- One story where someone posts a link to the Google cache of the article so readers can avoid registering with the NYT.
- One story where
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The big difference is that the people who are violating the GPL are distributing the GPL code in a product. When you redistribute or sell the code, you have a different set of obligations than a user. The GPL allows the end-user to do almost anything.
And yet people constantly claim that the GPL is not anti-business.
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It also seems easy to do the math on the wrong equation. The price of something is only what someone will pay for it give/take deadweight loss. It could take $100bn to produce, but if the revenue is only $1mn then the value to the consumer is a total $1mn. On the other hand someone made tetris and made a lot of money from it because it cost so little to produce but the revenues were so high.
Revenue is only equal to value to consumer if you assume a system at equilibrium, given adequate marketing, no piracy, and a fair economic system.
-a
I somehow managed to find out that I like heavy metal, despite not having any friends that like it. Actually I found out because a friend of mine had a bunch of old CDs that he didn't like anymore that I borrowed. Then I did go check out some more CDs at music stores, but as for recommendations, I got them off the Internet.
It's not like it's hard to find information about music on the net. You can find almost any genre on Internet radio. There's a hundred websites out there where people tell you about all the bands they like. Find someone who likes your favorite dance mix and see what else they listen to.
I'm not opposed to P2P in principle, but I don't like the way the Slashdot/GPL community always insists on the 100% anarchistic solution. I would be okay with P2P if it was monitored, closed source (so users couldn't easily defeat the anti-piracy measures), and supported digital watermarking.
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No, I don't have time to go to CD stores and listen music anymore, but I did when I was a kid. Anyway, back then, P2P didn't exist, but I didn't have Internet access either. It's not like you can't find clips of most stuff online. In fact the obscure bands have even more incentive to put clips on their website.
I'm not opposed to P2P in general, but I am opposed to it in its current form. The Slashdot/GPL crowd always insist on the solution of maximum anarchy. I wouldn't be opposed to a P2P scheme where labels/indie artists can agree to let people share songs. It would have to be monitored for illegal use, it would need to support digital watermarking and it would have to be closed source so that users couldn't easily disable the anti-piracy features. Other P2P networks should be banned.
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You know, I met a guy the other day, straight out of university, who told me that he never really liked music until he tried Kazaa, but now he likes it. P2P advocates would probably tout this as an example of the positive effect of file sharing, but I just think "how fucking lazy."
At least when I was a kid I was curious about music. I listened to my dad's records (and later CDs). I listened to the classic rock station on the radio, and later the indie station. Then I found out you could go to the local used CD store, grab 6 interesting-looking CDs off the rack and ask to listen to them. Plus I can't count how many recommendations I got off alt.music.*.
People who complain that it's impossible to find good music without using P2P are just fucking lazy (and deluded enough to believe that no one actually likes pop music). In fact these days it's easier than ever, when you consider how many online stores have free preview clips online.
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Yeah, that's pretty much what I was saying.
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If you're trying to disagree with something, I think you quoted the wrong part of my message. I only said that *dead* bodyparts can't be used to fool the scanner. I haven't read the latest issue of crypto-gram (have to be on the list to see it), but I take it from context that that's not what you meant.
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Palm scanning only proves you have the hand of someone allowed to access a system. Retina scanning only proves you have the eyeball of someone allowed to access a system.
Well, the manufacturers of palm/retina scanners generally do include a feature that detects if the bodypart being scanned has a pulse. So you can't fool these scanners just by cutting off someone's hand or ripping out their eyeball. (Although it might be possible to manufacture fake contact lenses or glue-on fingerprints that would work.)
On the other hand, the basic weakness is that the biometric signature is still just a big password. You can "sniff" the signature by installing a fake reader. You can steal the signature off the harddrive of the domain controller. You can bypass the reader by splicing the wire. And your "password" is the same for every site.
Bottom line: I would sooner trust a token card.
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Isn't this exactly the compulsary licensing the that EFF and company have been asking for? I thought people liked that...
"People" liked that? Heh! If you were paying attention, you'd notice that the vast majority of
-a
Sure, that link states what the ElGamal algorithm is mathematically, but maybe the readers would be more interested in what ElGamal is practically. Basically, it's the hopelessly slow and clumsy people that was once used:
1. Before DSA was invented, and
2. When RSA was still patented.
-a
Uh huh. So, run the numbers. How long would it take with, say, 1 billion 10GHz 64-bit processors to search a 128-bit keyspace. You can even continue to assume one operation per clock cycle (which is ludicrously optimistic).
I'd be much more worried about the one 128 bit QC.
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(For example, the private key might be encrypted by a biometric signature or keycard or similar.
I have yet to see a biometric signature that would solve this problem. Generally speaking, in biometric identification, information about the fingerprint/retina is stored on the disk and then compared against the data that is read in. The biometric information is not used *AS* the encryption key. So a biometric signature is just like a really big password, except that if someone cracks your password you can change it, but you can't (easily) change your fingerprints.
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It's funny... today I read yet another story about an OSS company closing up their source and going back to the tried and true. I can't get over how ridiculous it is for GPL fanatics to preach about the "failing business case" of the music industry when everything they touch turns to shit.
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I thought Daedalus was the evil guy from The Mighty Hercules.
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I'm not sure what legal right mp3.com has to the musicians' songs, but they do promise to pay you royalties if enough people download them. Perhaps they don't have the right to sell the archive unless the buyer honours the same contract. Or maybe they are willing to sell it, but not give it away for free.
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Of course 8 months from now, we'll probably find out that pagecount estimation and Google-style page indexes are both patented by whatever company bought out Alta-vista, and MS will be the only ones not to get sued. :-)
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I suspect that some "searches" on MSN don't actually return a search, but rather a pre-selected set of results.
Results 1-15 of about 98 containing "cats dogs"
Results 31-45 of about 87 containing "cats dogs"
Results 61-75 of about 80 containing "cats dogs"
Results 76-90 of about 1219983 containing "cats dogs"
Methinks their "estimation" algorithm is just a bit off.
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The FSF makes a large proportion of their money from selling CDs. This was even more true before the Internet became popular, and the only way to get the latest versions of the GNU tools was to subscribe to the CD update service.
If you go to the FSF page today, the fact that they offer CDs for sale is not exactly displayed prominently. If you dig a bit deeper you see that they do sell CDs, but they make no attempt to disguise the fact that this is basically a donation, not a sale.
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Clearly, no one who read the article would call this guy a "hacker"... but he was referred to as such in the capsule summary. What'd you expect? You don't get a first post by reading the article.
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RMS may not be not be against selling software in theory, but I'm pretty sure he's opposed to 99% of the ways people try to sell software in practice.
I guess it comes down to what I always complain about, which is geeks seeing everything in black and white terms. RMS may speak his mind, but I think this is a case where he has rationalized something. Call it what you will... I call it splitting hairs, lip service, rationalization, etc.
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Maybe you should have another read of what RMS wrote. Remember free as in speech, not as in beer?
Yeah, as if RMS really believes that! Ever heard of lip service?
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Okay, admittedly the OP was an arrogant SOB, but it still is 100 hours of work for like a .02% chance at $10,000. Not exactly a stellar deal unless you're pretty damn confident that you're better than the other 5,000 entrants. (in which case why *aren't* you making $70 and hour?)
-a
Maybe you've heard this before, but the standard of proof in in a criminal case is reasonable doubt whereas the standard in a civil case is preponderance of the evidence. I'm not sure of the exact requirements to get a search warrant or an arrest warrant, but it's obviously less than to get a conviction. The point is, having illegal files in a shared folder is enough evidence to suggest that you are sharing them. If you have a credible alternate theory of how they got there, you can bring it up in court.
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