"(..) the only way not to support DRM is to vote with your money: don't buy the stuff."
Yes, if everybody would vote with their wallet, DRM would be dead on arrival and stay dead. Sadly that WILL NOT happen. Because:
Most people (say 90, 95%) don't know what it's about, don't experience negative effects first hand (or don't realize it), and/or just don't care.
The remainder 5-10% (like the Slashdot crowd) will not have enough influence to turn the heads of the other people around.
DRM protections will stay weak, and circumvented easily (example: DVD's). If DRM would be strong AND impact consumer's rights considerably, consumers would leave it on store shelves. So DRM will stay under the radar, lurking in the shadows.
Greedy executives will make sure it goes as far as the public can tolerate.
And since it's really a numbers game, I suspect the net effect of DRM 'protections' will be to keep some obscure works out of the public domain, somewhere in the future. Works that nobody cares enough about to do the work and remove DRM restrictions from it. Popular stuff WILL get hacked.
With this in mind, I don't understand why executives even bother to slap DRM on everything. But hey, it's their loss, not mine.
"What in the world will the poor people do with all the cellphone and $100 computers."
Stay current on what's happening in the rest of the world? Download (free) e-books? Study? Get the knowledge needed to improve their lives (and that of their children, neighbours, colleagues)?
Don't underestimate the positive effect of education.
"(..) low cost PC boxes and CRT monitors that are unsellable in the West are going to be a cheaper alternative in the short term."
That is probably a common misconception. Old/surplus PC's may be obtained virtually free in the West. But to use them in Africa, you'd have to refurbish them (used, or stuff that wasn't sold because there's some problem with it). Then transport across the globe: big, heavy boxes = expensive. Then operate: consuming lots of (unreliable) power, and dying like the flies (old + environmental conditions). Add these factors together, and it's not cheap at all. Maybe that's why a large percentage of refurbished PC's shipped to Africa, turn out to be useless and wind up in a landfill (possibly intentional)?
Wasn't that the whole point of a $100 laptop? Designed for the purpose, small (=cheap to transport), new (=not breaking down right away), and working even without reliable power.
"Let's call this what it is: an opportunity being taken by the Bush administration to go after a company they consider to be an enemy."
Well in that case, Google has nothing to worry about, since the Bush administration is heavily outnumbered!
Firefox just isn't very optimized yet
on
IE7 Leaked
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"But I guess that's the price for security and "standards compliance""
No, that's the price for using a largely un-optimized application. Compared with IE, Firefox is like the 'new kid on the block'. Around for some time now, but not as long as IE. And probably a lot less men-hours of development effort, compared to what must have been poured into IE over the years. Firefox has reached 'feature-complete stage', but it's not heavily optimized or in a 'mature' state, where there's only small improvements left to do.
Does it matter? Not much, Firefox is plenty useful NOW. And what would you rather waste: megabytes of your computer's memory (only till you close the app), or countless hours of your (human) time, cleaning out malware that leaked in? I'll take the 'waste memory' option anytime.
Simple: a virus wiped out the authors' harddrive. He did recover the 4- and 4.5-star gifs from an old backup, but couldn't figure out how to work the Gimp. After turning his office upside down, he found a copy of Photoshop, but it was to new a version to run on his 486SX. Oh, and then his boss called: "that BT article done yet?". Poor soul.
They can wiretap everyone else in the world but I don't want our government wiretapping us without the usual requisite warrants.
Thank you, my American friend. So you think your government should go through the courts before spying on US citizens, but anything goes when it involves citizens outside the US? It's similar double standards that keep Guantanamo Bay up and running. As a wise person once said:
"Don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself."
May I conclude from your comment that (in return) foreign governments should also go through their courts before wiretapping their own citizens, but it's okay for them to spy on US citizens? For example by wholesale tapping of satellite communications? (yeah I know that's probably being done anyway, just asking about the ethics here).
If you think not, then you'll probably agree that the only fair thing to do, is to apply the same standards in every case. That is, to have all wiretapping activity supervised by independent courts, regardless of whether the subject is a US citizen or foreigner, has a long beard, is into fetish movies, has a goldfish called Wanda or playing golf for a hobby, or not. With wiretapping being illegal, unless it involves individuals whose name popped up in the course of a legitimate investigation, and okay'ed by an independent court, and no more than is absolutely needed for that investigation.
BTW: very much agree with your point on losing civil liberties.
--This comment scanned for anti-US sentiments, flagged and logged indefinitely for unknown purposes.
I also have to wonder, without proper funding to fix these bugs, what good will it do? And if a list of bugs and exploits comes out on well used Open Source Software, without the means to fix them, and these lists are leaked, it could create havoc.
Think of it as an ongoing effort. Not 'lots of software checked, and at the end of it all, results published', but more 'software A checked, results reported to maintainers, software B checked, (..), new version of software A checked (again)' and so on until funding runs out.
And fixing bugs won't be much a problem I think. The libre software community has shown it knows how to handle bug reports just fine. Pinpointing bugs (especially ones you may not even know to exist, as opposed to finding the cause of a known problem) is the hard part. Once found, producing a patch is relatively easy. Heck, some fixes may be so easy/simple/obvious, that they come with the bug reports.
What makes me less happy, is that lots of taxpayers money is channeled into a one-shot effort. Instead of pouring $1.24m into screening libre software projects X, Y and Z, why not put that money into creating a libre version of a screening tool? Such that projects X, Y, Z, B, H and G can use it themselves? And can keep doing so after funding is cut. Would serve the public better, I think (and cheaper in the long run).
Exactly how much hair do you have that you spend 24 hours a day with the hairdryer on? I know this is Slashdot, but still...
Actually, this machine is meant to replace your hairdryer - and ignore the question whether you really need it. Just put your head near the exhaust fans and you'll get the idea...
I think the popular definition of "bug" tends to catch too many fish, in that it seems to include all the behaviors a computer has when the user "didn't expect that output," what a more technical person might call a "misfeature."
Personally, I make a distinction between 3 types of bugs:
Hardware failures: unreliable RAM, a CPU executing an instruction different from what its datasheet says, etc. Maybe caused by running things out of spec (badly designed motherboard, overclocking, power brownout), maybe because of hardware design or manufacturing errors.
User error: users doing things specifically forbidden by the manual (although I think software should be very tolerant in this respect), bad user interface design that helps users input the wrong info, logic errors in the design of programs, etc.
Everything in between that can be described as 'pure software': operating systems, common libraries, standard utilities found on those OS'es, etc.
I don't think it's even possible to ever get rid of the 'user error' type of bug (although well-designed user interfaces may prevent a lot of these). The same goes for hardware errors. Although you can buy systems that are fault-tolerant to a high degree.
The article is clearly about the 'pure software' type of bug. Personally I think it is very much possible (just hard) to eliminate this 100%. Because software by nature consists of definitions, like in mathematics. 1+1 equals 2 not because of some law of nature, but because mathematics define 1+1 to equal 2. The same goes for programming languages, CPU instruction sets, API's and so on. It's not cooking, but exact science: defined that way.
If I understand correctly, some 99% of what's generally called a bug is of the 'pure software' kind, which tells me the following: 1) modern hardware is doing just fine, and 2) current software development is in a lousy state. If formal methods and software verification became the norm, we could be left with that 1% hardware errors and users to deal with. A big step up from where we are today, IMHO.
you are going to completely get moded down here. Not because you may not be right, but because Linus is worshiped here like a god. Many people here follow him like sheep.
Well count me out then. The only thing I do for Linus, is backup some of his files every now and then. BTW: thanks for those Linus! Somehow your files are useful down here;-)
Why? Because it might turn wifes into 'computer-widows' ? (Just in case that term sounds unfamiliar: referring to a wife/girlfriend who feels like her man has left her, because he's sitting behind his machine all the time, not paying much attention to her anymore...)
A large part of gimmicks and interface nazism in today interfaces aims at the average or lower-than-average user (..) Is that a real problem?
You're hinting at it: whatever you're designing, targeting those 'dumb' users first, seems like a good start to me. Why? If you have a dumbed down interface and a skilled user, that user will ALWAYS find a way to replace/configure that interface to suit his/her needs. So: no problem, just a little tweaking work to be done by a power user. If OTOH you start with a complex interface and a 'dumb' user, that user is screwed/lost. Big or even unsolvable problem for that user.
So if that would mean Gnome primarily targets 'dummies', then I'm all for it. IMHO, there's nothing dumb about clearing the path for dummies to a Linux desktop. For power users, leave it to themselves to figure out how they want things. BTW: Who cares about these silly Gnome vs. KDE fights anyway? Just try 'm both, then pick what you like.
It is important to know how to accurately convey meaning, speak in a way that will not alienate your audience, and get your point across persuasively and effectively.
Agreed, and I keep being amazed how often the English language fails to do just that. Unlike in some other languages, in English there is a broad vocabulary, that allows you to express some things in, what, a 1000 different gradients or 'flavors', all saying the same, but with a subtle difference in meaning. Yet it has no distinct words to describe important differences like 'free as in GNU' vs. 'free as in no charge'. The best I can come up with that makes that distinction unambiguously, is 'libre' (not an English word), vs. 'gratis'. The latter is a perfectly normal Dutch word BTW., meaning exactly 'no money charged', and apparantly this is proper English, but I hardly see it used ever, do you?
Another example: in Dutch, you normally address elderly people, or people at formal meetings with 'U', which means 'you', in a respectful manner. You address friends and (maybe) family, and young people/kids with 'jij', which also means 'you', but in a more informal, friendly manner. Yet the wonderful English language only offers 'you', and makes no such distinction (someone know a good explanation of why this is?). Maybe it's for the better in some ways, but it feels weird for a language that can express so many subtle differences. Not to mention that such subtle differences often don't get picked up by people who don't speak English natively, or fluently. Which kills much British humour, or ruins English -> other-language manual translations.
That is what all good prescriptivists advocate
No, that is what they should advocate, as opposed to just saying 'this is the right way, and that is the wrong way to spell these words', as they often seem to do. Besides, who says that a language even needs to be concise, to-the-point, or unambiguous? There are times that people want to express themselves in vague or ambiguous terms, and it's wonderful that human languages offer ways to that. After all, human speak is not computer lingo or hard science, you know.
Who needs manpages anymore? Just ask on/., and some seasoned sysadmin will come to your rescue! (note: not claiming anything about the parent poster, looks genuine though)
Let's tax the ISP and, instead of giving this tax money to the big majors, create a fund for artists
IMHO it's a bad idea in general to tax internet connectivity (other than perhaps VAT, that is). I wondered once why hooking up to the 'net must cost anything at all. If you and your neighbour decide to exchange data (and arrange that yourself), why should you have to pay anyone for that?
The answer is: you don't. Between you and your neighbour, you'd have to pay for the connecting hardware. And similarly, you don't pay an ISP for data flowing in or out, you really pay them for setup and maintenance costs of the network equipment. The amount of data you move just may be a factor in deciding that cost.
Taxing ISP's to support artists, sort of attaches a flat-fee price tag to all music downloads (or even any download). Which is stupid. Shouldn't it be between you and the artist to decide what you pay for their music? Let us please keep governments (and ISP's) out of that equation.
Without P2P file sharing, it is costly to be popular. Become very popular, and face the need for heavy (costly) internet servers/bandwidth. P2P file sharing takes that pain away, you can be popular without bearing the distribution costs.
What I think would really benefit online music sales, would be a ubiqitous, easy to use, safe (and possibly anonymous) micro-payment system. Something that would allow any artist to hook up easily, and allow any casual downloader to hit a button, and throw a small amount of money their way.
I know there are some widely used systems (PayPal comes to mind), but each of those still have some important drawbacks. Small online payments that are easy to use for anyone simply aren't here yet.
Will air travel now require one to arrive at the airport 5 minutes earlier than usual, to provide a skin-swab sample before boarding the plane?
Yes, and photographing every woman that walks by up her skirt, only takes a second, and doesn't hurt a bit. So why not do that?
Just because it's easy to do something, is a silly reason to do it. And DNA testing is one area where it is good to be extra careful, since there's so much more than just identity or generic features that you can derive from DNA.
Fortunately government/law enforcement is held to higher standards, and needs to show a need before being allowed to do things. Or at least should, in civilized nations.
Now, I'm not an apologist for Stalinism, but socialism, in it's most basic form means "sharing."
Yeah, but pro-IP people may be overlooking something here: sharing in the socialist sense means dividing wealth (up to a point ofcourse), so that everybody has at least a minimum amount of goods, money, whatever. Very noble, but that means that rich people will be forced to part with some of their wealth, in order to supply poor people with that. Which, IMHO, is okay as long as differences remain and hard work still allows you to gather more wealth than lazy bastards. But my point: this type of sharing makes the richer people 'poorer'.
With software (both OSS and closed-source) on the other hand, this is no so. If somebody gives a copy of some program to a million others, he still has his own copy, nobody loses anything. So with this type of sharing, the 'rich' people can make everybody else rich too, at 0 cost to themselves. Why might pro-IP people hate this? Maybe because of the equalizing effect? Create a new tool, and bam, everybody else has it too. Makes it harder to stay on top of the hill. And while it's a view on the extreme end of the spectrum, it is not so wrong to say that it's even unethical not to share software, when it costs you nothing to do so.
And then there's the argument that OSS puts people out of work. Which is obvious bullshit. If 5000 programmers go out of a job when OSS makes it unnecessary to reinvent the wheel 5000 times, pro-IP people say: "look, OSS makes people lose their job!". Where in reality, this means 1 programmer could do the job previously done by 5000, which leaves 4999 people free to improve society (or make money for themselves) in other ways. Like create new products, services etc. that wouldn't be available otherwise. That's nobody's loss either, just a career change for some.
Maybe it's just the change that frightens pro-IP people most, having to change from legalities, EULA's and 'collecting taxes' to doing something new and actually useful.
The most un-open thinkg about open-source I'd have to say is GCC. It encourages you to use it extensions*. To me one of the core concepts of freedom is portability/being free from vendor lock-in... well GCC does not provide that.
To me, the 'open' in 'open platform', 'free (as in speech) software' has little, if anything, to do with having access to source code. Nor does it have much to do with having portable code/being free from vendor lock-in.
The 'open' to me is about being able to find out how it works, and (resulting from that) being able to replace it with something else. In that sense, an open source project may even rank low on the open scale... if there's no alternative in existence, nothing to replace it with if you wanted to, nobody left that understands the existing code.
But GCC sure is open in that sense. If you want to compile your pet project with something other than GCC, you can study GCC's source code and masses of documentation to find out how GCC turns your pet project from source into binary. And thus, it enables you to build something else that does the same job. I'll admit, that may be a huge effort. But you can also modify GCC to suit your needs (like, be compatible with other compilers/compliant with coding standards of your choice). Or your can modify your pet projects source code to not use GCC specifics. With enough effort, that makes GCC pretty much a replaceable component (and thus: open).
The access to source code requirement of free software licenses IMHO essentially serves to make this process of reverse engineering/modifying easy enough to make it practical. The 'open' doesn't come from the source being out there, but from the fact that because the source is out there, it's easy enough to look inside, see what it does, and construct something else to replace it. Microsoft's "embrace and extend" fails here because the extensions are often inaccessible in one way or another (undocumented, binary-only, licensing issues, whatever).
So your point is interesting, but just doesn't hold water.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, if everybody would vote with their wallet, DRM would be dead on arrival and stay dead. Sadly that WILL NOT happen. Because:
And since it's really a numbers game, I suspect the net effect of DRM 'protections' will be to keep some obscure works out of the public domain, somewhere in the future. Works that nobody cares enough about to do the work and remove DRM restrictions from it. Popular stuff WILL get hacked.
With this in mind, I don't understand why executives even bother to slap DRM on everything. But hey, it's their loss, not mine.Stay current on what's happening in the rest of the world? Download (free) e-books? Study? Get the knowledge needed to improve their lives (and that of their children, neighbours, colleagues)?
Don't underestimate the positive effect of education.That is probably a common misconception. Old/surplus PC's may be obtained virtually free in the West. But to use them in Africa, you'd have to refurbish them (used, or stuff that wasn't sold because there's some problem with it). Then transport across the globe: big, heavy boxes = expensive. Then operate: consuming lots of (unreliable) power, and dying like the flies (old + environmental conditions). Add these factors together, and it's not cheap at all. Maybe that's why a large percentage of refurbished PC's shipped to Africa, turn out to be useless and wind up in a landfill (possibly intentional)?
Wasn't that the whole point of a $100 laptop? Designed for the purpose, small (=cheap to transport), new (=not breaking down right away), and working even without reliable power.
Well in that case, Google has nothing to worry about, since the Bush administration is heavily outnumbered!
No, that's the price for using a largely un-optimized application. Compared with IE, Firefox is like the 'new kid on the block'. Around for some time now, but not as long as IE. And probably a lot less men-hours of development effort, compared to what must have been poured into IE over the years. Firefox has reached 'feature-complete stage', but it's not heavily optimized or in a 'mature' state, where there's only small improvements left to do.
Does it matter? Not much, Firefox is plenty useful NOW. And what would you rather waste: megabytes of your computer's memory (only till you close the app), or countless hours of your (human) time, cleaning out malware that leaked in? I'll take the 'waste memory' option anytime.Simple: a virus wiped out the authors' harddrive. He did recover the 4- and 4.5-star gifs from an old backup, but couldn't figure out how to work the Gimp. After turning his office upside down, he found a copy of Photoshop, but it was to new a version to run on his 486SX. Oh, and then his boss called: "that BT article done yet?". Poor soul.
-- Cue other plausible reasons below:Hey, just FYI: naked people carry wallets too... sometimes.
-- Na-ked (adj.): Having no clothing on the body; nude.Special offer, just for you: buy a degree on the internet. Cheap and easy (and worthless...).
Scr?w that, who needs Chuck Norris when you've got a zillion penguin-powered pigeons working for you?
That's like ... ehm, brains, balls, numbers and air support on your side. Enough to strike fear in the mightiest of enemies, I'd say!
Wing span 9 inches / 65 pecks per second - how many seeds per forthnight is that?Thank you, my American friend. So you think your government should go through the courts before spying on US citizens, but anything goes when it involves citizens outside the US? It's similar double standards that keep Guantanamo Bay up and running. As a wise person once said:
"Don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself."
May I conclude from your comment that (in return) foreign governments should also go through their courts before wiretapping their own citizens, but it's okay for them to spy on US citizens? For example by wholesale tapping of satellite communications? (yeah I know that's probably being done anyway, just asking about the ethics here).
If you think not, then you'll probably agree that the only fair thing to do, is to apply the same standards in every case. That is, to have all wiretapping activity supervised by independent courts, regardless of whether the subject is a US citizen or foreigner, has a long beard, is into fetish movies, has a goldfish called Wanda or playing golf for a hobby, or not. With wiretapping being illegal, unless it involves individuals whose name popped up in the course of a legitimate investigation, and okay'ed by an independent court, and no more than is absolutely needed for that investigation.
BTW: very much agree with your point on losing civil liberties.
--This comment scanned for anti-US sentiments, flagged and logged indefinitely for unknown purposes.Think of it as an ongoing effort. Not 'lots of software checked, and at the end of it all, results published', but more 'software A checked, results reported to maintainers, software B checked, (..), new version of software A checked (again)' and so on until funding runs out.
And fixing bugs won't be much a problem I think. The libre software community has shown it knows how to handle bug reports just fine. Pinpointing bugs (especially ones you may not even know to exist, as opposed to finding the cause of a known problem) is the hard part. Once found, producing a patch is relatively easy. Heck, some fixes may be so easy/simple/obvious, that they come with the bug reports.
What makes me less happy, is that lots of taxpayers money is channeled into a one-shot effort. Instead of pouring $1.24m into screening libre software projects X, Y and Z, why not put that money into creating a libre version of a screening tool? Such that projects X, Y, Z, B, H and G can use it themselves? And can keep doing so after funding is cut. Would serve the public better, I think (and cheaper in the long run).
Ehmm, the only person contributing to Vista that actually delivers on time?
Actually, this machine is meant to replace your hairdryer - and ignore the question whether you really need it. Just put your head near the exhaust fans and you'll get the idea...
Also useful for baking bread or pizza's.Personally, I make a distinction between 3 types of bugs:
I don't think it's even possible to ever get rid of the 'user error' type of bug (although well-designed user interfaces may prevent a lot of these). The same goes for hardware errors. Although you can buy systems that are fault-tolerant to a high degree.
The article is clearly about the 'pure software' type of bug. Personally I think it is very much possible (just hard) to eliminate this 100%. Because software by nature consists of definitions, like in mathematics. 1+1 equals 2 not because of some law of nature, but because mathematics define 1+1 to equal 2. The same goes for programming languages, CPU instruction sets, API's and so on. It's not cooking, but exact science: defined that way.
If I understand correctly, some 99% of what's generally called a bug is of the 'pure software' kind, which tells me the following: 1) modern hardware is doing just fine, and 2) current software development is in a lousy state. If formal methods and software verification became the norm, we could be left with that 1% hardware errors and users to deal with. A big step up from where we are today, IMHO.Well count me out then. The only thing I do for Linus, is backup some of his files every now and then. BTW: thanks for those Linus! Somehow your files are useful down here ;-)
WidowPC ?
Why? Because it might turn wifes into 'computer-widows' ? (Just in case that term sounds unfamiliar: referring to a wife/girlfriend who feels like her man has left her, because he's sitting behind his machine all the time, not paying much attention to her anymore...)You're hinting at it: whatever you're designing, targeting those 'dumb' users first, seems like a good start to me. Why? If you have a dumbed down interface and a skilled user, that user will ALWAYS find a way to replace/configure that interface to suit his/her needs. So: no problem, just a little tweaking work to be done by a power user. If OTOH you start with a complex interface and a 'dumb' user, that user is screwed/lost. Big or even unsolvable problem for that user.
So if that would mean Gnome primarily targets 'dummies', then I'm all for it. IMHO, there's nothing dumb about clearing the path for dummies to a Linux desktop. For power users, leave it to themselves to figure out how they want things. BTW: Who cares about these silly Gnome vs. KDE fights anyway? Just try 'm both, then pick what you like.You mean UFO's landed here in prehistoric times, and they planted chicken on our planet, to help McDonalds feed the human race? How silly!
--sig provided by Unintelligent Design (TM) Inc.Agreed, and I keep being amazed how often the English language fails to do just that. Unlike in some other languages, in English there is a broad vocabulary, that allows you to express some things in, what, a 1000 different gradients or 'flavors', all saying the same, but with a subtle difference in meaning. Yet it has no distinct words to describe important differences like 'free as in GNU' vs. 'free as in no charge'. The best I can come up with that makes that distinction unambiguously, is 'libre' (not an English word), vs. 'gratis'. The latter is a perfectly normal Dutch word BTW., meaning exactly 'no money charged', and apparantly this is proper English, but I hardly see it used ever, do you?
Another example: in Dutch, you normally address elderly people, or people at formal meetings with 'U', which means 'you', in a respectful manner. You address friends and (maybe) family, and young people/kids with 'jij', which also means 'you', but in a more informal, friendly manner. Yet the wonderful English language only offers 'you', and makes no such distinction (someone know a good explanation of why this is?). Maybe it's for the better in some ways, but it feels weird for a language that can express so many subtle differences. Not to mention that such subtle differences often don't get picked up by people who don't speak English natively, or fluently. Which kills much British humour, or ruins English -> other-language manual translations.
That is what all good prescriptivists advocate
No, that is what they should advocate, as opposed to just saying 'this is the right way, and that is the wrong way to spell these words', as they often seem to do. Besides, who says that a language even needs to be concise, to-the-point, or unambiguous? There are times that people want to express themselves in vague or ambiguous terms, and it's wonderful that human languages offer ways to that. After all, human speak is not computer lingo or hard science, you know.
Just my 2 EurocentsWho needs manpages anymore? Just ask on /., and some seasoned sysadmin will come to your rescue! (note: not claiming anything about the parent poster, looks genuine though)
--This comment also served to you by ApacheIMHO it's a bad idea in general to tax internet connectivity (other than perhaps VAT, that is). I wondered once why hooking up to the 'net must cost anything at all. If you and your neighbour decide to exchange data (and arrange that yourself), why should you have to pay anyone for that?
The answer is: you don't. Between you and your neighbour, you'd have to pay for the connecting hardware. And similarly, you don't pay an ISP for data flowing in or out, you really pay them for setup and maintenance costs of the network equipment. The amount of data you move just may be a factor in deciding that cost.
Taxing ISP's to support artists, sort of attaches a flat-fee price tag to all music downloads (or even any download). Which is stupid. Shouldn't it be between you and the artist to decide what you pay for their music? Let us please keep governments (and ISP's) out of that equation.
Without P2P file sharing, it is costly to be popular. Become very popular, and face the need for heavy (costly) internet servers/bandwidth. P2P file sharing takes that pain away, you can be popular without bearing the distribution costs.
What I think would really benefit online music sales, would be a ubiqitous, easy to use, safe (and possibly anonymous) micro-payment system. Something that would allow any artist to hook up easily, and allow any casual downloader to hit a button, and throw a small amount of money their way.I know there are some widely used systems (PayPal comes to mind), but each of those still have some important drawbacks. Small online payments that are easy to use for anyone simply aren't here yet.
Yes, and photographing every woman that walks by up her skirt, only takes a second, and doesn't hurt a bit. So why not do that?
Just because it's easy to do something, is a silly reason to do it. And DNA testing is one area where it is good to be extra careful, since there's so much more than just identity or generic features that you can derive from DNA.
Fortunately government/law enforcement is held to higher standards, and needs to show a need before being allowed to do things. Or at least should, in civilized nations.Conclusion: many connections suck the Dark out of a Darknet.
#define HAVE_nanosleep#define HAVE_personality
Yeah, but pro-IP people may be overlooking something here: sharing in the socialist sense means dividing wealth (up to a point ofcourse), so that everybody has at least a minimum amount of goods, money, whatever. Very noble, but that means that rich people will be forced to part with some of their wealth, in order to supply poor people with that. Which, IMHO, is okay as long as differences remain and hard work still allows you to gather more wealth than lazy bastards. But my point: this type of sharing makes the richer people 'poorer'.
With software (both OSS and closed-source) on the other hand, this is no so. If somebody gives a copy of some program to a million others, he still has his own copy, nobody loses anything. So with this type of sharing, the 'rich' people can make everybody else rich too, at 0 cost to themselves. Why might pro-IP people hate this? Maybe because of the equalizing effect? Create a new tool, and bam, everybody else has it too. Makes it harder to stay on top of the hill. And while it's a view on the extreme end of the spectrum, it is not so wrong to say that it's even unethical not to share software, when it costs you nothing to do so.
And then there's the argument that OSS puts people out of work. Which is obvious bullshit. If 5000 programmers go out of a job when OSS makes it unnecessary to reinvent the wheel 5000 times, pro-IP people say: "look, OSS makes people lose their job!". Where in reality, this means 1 programmer could do the job previously done by 5000, which leaves 4999 people free to improve society (or make money for themselves) in other ways. Like create new products, services etc. that wouldn't be available otherwise. That's nobody's loss either, just a career change for some.
Maybe it's just the change that frightens pro-IP people most, having to change from legalities, EULA's and 'collecting taxes' to doing something new and actually useful.To me, the 'open' in 'open platform', 'free (as in speech) software' has little, if anything, to do with having access to source code. Nor does it have much to do with having portable code/being free from vendor lock-in.
The 'open' to me is about being able to find out how it works, and (resulting from that) being able to replace it with something else. In that sense, an open source project may even rank low on the open scale... if there's no alternative in existence, nothing to replace it with if you wanted to, nobody left that understands the existing code.
But GCC sure is open in that sense. If you want to compile your pet project with something other than GCC, you can study GCC's source code and masses of documentation to find out how GCC turns your pet project from source into binary. And thus, it enables you to build something else that does the same job. I'll admit, that may be a huge effort. But you can also modify GCC to suit your needs (like, be compatible with other compilers/compliant with coding standards of your choice). Or your can modify your pet projects source code to not use GCC specifics. With enough effort, that makes GCC pretty much a replaceable component (and thus: open).
The access to source code requirement of free software licenses IMHO essentially serves to make this process of reverse engineering/modifying easy enough to make it practical. The 'open' doesn't come from the source being out there, but from the fact that because the source is out there, it's easy enough to look inside, see what it does, and construct something else to replace it. Microsoft's "embrace and extend" fails here because the extensions are often inaccessible in one way or another (undocumented, binary-only, licensing issues, whatever).
So your point is interesting, but just doesn't hold water.